Confessions of an Ordinary Christian
Ecclesiastes 3, 9-14
Corinthians 12: 14-26
Let us pray together. God, please, may the words of my mind and my mouth find meaning and some resonance in the lives of this assembled group to thy useful purpose. Amen
The scripture tells us, “It is precisely the parts of the body that seem to be the weakest which are the indispensable ones and the least honorable that we clothe with greatest care.”
Unlike Moses who came down from the mountain with his face veiled to conceal his glory, I am more than a bit surprised and awed to find myself here. Mike told us in a sermon last August about Kierkegaard’s story of domestic Christians who were compared to a flock of fat geese who dreamed of flying, but never flew, until they were ultimately consumed. In my practice of Christianity, I may dream of doing good, reaching out, lifting others up, but often, like the geese, I simply fold the unused wings of compassion and love around myself and, growing more complacent, leave good works to others.
Corinthians, a glorious, helpful book in many ways, has discouraging (at least by today’s standards) instructions about women. One passage, a man friend reminded me of when I first became an Elder, many years ago. It’s 14:34 “let your women keep silent in the churches; for they are not permitted to speak,” Whoops!
When I was perhaps 13, one of the fun weekend things we did was roller skating on Sunday evenings in the gym on the 2nd floor of what is now called the Historic First Presbyterian Church in Phoenix, our Youth Group was large but undistinguished as I remember it. Dr. de la Porte was Pastor and we were all assembled for prayer in the evening. I sat near the side of the room, holding hands with my boyfriend during prayers, as I recall. The question must have been built up to, but came as a surprise over our closed eyes and bowed heads—“Which of you is willing to dedicate your lives to God?” Without a thought, my hand went up. And I have been living with that question and my response, which has guided and still eluded me, through lack of dedication or understanding, ever since.
Further, in my professional life as well as when necessary in private, the creative words of others have always been easier to choose and to speak than my own. After a career interpreting literature to high school English classes, and, later dealing with schedules and discipline in the Vice Principal’s office, I have found, today, that many of those words have come from my husband’s mother, Peggy Pond Church, as some of you may already know. Many of the poetic thoughts you will hear this morning are hers.
In the old days, my righteous indignation often led me to outrageous statements, and once, in a dispute about an academic transfer, to a really scary hatred. Prayers for my opponent’s destruction were, at the very least, unhelpful. It helped then, to reconcile some of these feelings, to read “Stand Thou“
Stand thou in the garden.
Stand.
The voice said, Stand…
I stood and questioned why?
:
Must I stand still,
Fenced in
Ringed round,
In one small patch of ground
While time flies by
And fish and squirrels fly
And horses can have wings, and angels, too
…
The voice said,
Stand
And see thou do His will.
His—not my own?
And must I try to stand as still as stone
And turn my thought
And all my senses in,
Not hear, not see,
Not be a bird—
Just be?
The difference between being and doing is a distinction we must all balance to be creative. I remember arguing with Julia: One cannot simple be, one must also do!
As another poet said,
“the world is too much with us/
getting and spending/we lay waste our powers.
On the other hand, for me in the old days, and still sometimes now….
“In the morning, when I wake/my animal wakes up, too. Sometimes I hear it roar/or howl/in its own dream./Its muscles twitch/and frighten me with power.”
Something about age has softened that animal energy and power, and prayer and prayerful hope is easier now. Still, I have always admired, and tried to be, one of those who is able to “speak truth to power.” Whether that is a good Christian thing may be debatable, but as a trait, the ability to challenge authority, at least to question the value of what “everybody thinks” is modeled, I hope, on the 12-year-old Christ’s visit to the elders and his later purging the temple of the money lenders.
Still, as Peggy reminds us:
How easy it is to say,
If earth were purged of all my enemies
Then I would worship God in my own way
And be at peace.”
See, evil is so ranged on every hand
That I must stand
A lamb among ferocious lions of fate,
Nations that fight each other, men who hate,
Doom, that towers cloudlike on the helpless sky.
…
Alas I know
The world is but the mirror of my heart,
God made it one,
But I divide it daily, bid the sun
Shine upon those I love, bid evil rain
On those I dare not love.…
I come before God’s throne
The father of all men, and cry for peace,
Yet will my brother’s death before my own.
It isn’t just humankind, of course. Last summer I paused often to watch the hummingbirds in our back yard. There was usually plenty of food, most days, 4 or 5 little creatures might be feeding from one source. Then, in early July, a couple of rufus birds arrived. They, especially the male, could not share—that feeder was his! There was still plenty of nectar, but it wasn’t shared. For a time, the sugar water soured because it wasn’t eaten fast enough. It looked like the bully had won. But, gradually, a detante seemed to be reached, more sharing meant more birds back at the feeder. A little understanding, and some adjustment, seemed to go a long way.
In this church there have been many opportunities to practice love and sharing and speaking and patience. The opportunity that makes me happiest in memory was commemorated in 2004 in a poem by our daughter, Julia, called “To the Grandmothers of the Garden” The poem was written in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the place that some, even in this church, believed we had created in order to displace our responsibility for our children:
Established
As a place
Where children
Could grow freely
As flowers in a garden, this child’s garden
Was planted
In once fallow earth
By visionary mothers
Who sowed the first seeds
In rows
And patterns
Following methods
Of master gardeners
And considering
The local climate.
As tender shoots
Emerged
From newly tilled soil,
The creative wisdom
Of these first gardeners
Grew into
A flourishing oasis:
Arrangements of color
And dimension,
In
Blooms
Which
Came
Naturally
And in
their proper
Time.
The mothers who chartered
This child’s garden
Whose own children
Were the first buds
In its soil,
Are grandmothers now,
Whose grandchildren play
In the shade of saplings
Planted
25 years ago.
Their garden thrives
In this place
Where children
Are still welcomed
Loved
And allowed to grow
Freely
As delicate
White and pink
Sprays,
Hardy, fragrant
Buds,
Or simple,
Graceful
Blossoms,
In harmonious color
Various
Dimension
And with a natural
Succession
Of blooms.
To the grandmothers of this garden,
We display the fruits of your labor
And offer your reward:
A bouquet of happy children,
The flowers
Of your
Garden.
Today, it seems that even our uncertain world is full of beauty; particularly in this place we have all chosen to live, and in spite of the rufus warriors among us, there is, usually, in one’s life, peace and sharing and joy.
As a domestic Christian, my life has been generally, if not totally, faithful and full of blessings. Among my friends there is a new thing, now, to worry about and over.
It’s called “Aging”
When they were little
I was striding strong on my road,
Like the pioneer woman in the statue,
Dragging my young by their hands
Whose legs were not long enough yet to keep up.
Now it is I whose step is beginning to falter.
The distance between us is longer.
My children, my children’s children,
Almost out of sight now on a far horizon,
Turn and call back.
It grows harder to understand them clearly.
I feel myself fall behind time that rushes past me.
So, I go back to Corinthians to remind all of us domestic, ordinary, Christians: “much more those members of the body which seem to be more feeble are necessary. God has so composed the body, giving abundant honor to that member which lacked. Now you are Christ’s body and individually members of it.”
Amen.
Benediction
As we go forth today let us remember that, perhaps there are no Ordinary Christians, if one part of the body of Christ suffers, all suffer; if one flourishes, all rejoice. Look about you and into you. Be what you can be as a part of the body to bring joy into the world you share with us all.
Amen
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