November 20, 2016
Sunday of the Fulfillment
Jeremiah 23:1-6, Psalm 46, Colossians 1:11-20, Luke 23:33, 34b-43
Because Psalm 46 frames my reflections
I invite you to listen to it again with the ear of your heart:
God is our refuge and strength,
a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear,
though the earth should change,
though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea;
though its waters roar and foam,
though the mountains tremble with its tumult.
There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy habitation of the Most High.
God is in the midst of the city;
it shall not be moved;
God will help it when the morning dawns.
The nations are in an uproar,
the kingdoms totter;
he utters his voice, the earth melts.
The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.
Come, behold the works of the Lord;
see what desolations he has brought on the earth.
He makes wars cease to the end of the earth;
he breaks the bow, and shatters the spear;
he burns the shields with fire.
“Be still, and know that I am God!
I am exalted among the nations,
I am exalted in the earth.”
The Lord of hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our refuge.
Yes, it seems the earth has changed;
the mountains shake and tremble, the waters roar and foam.
There was an earthquake in New Zealand a week ago.
You know that is not what I am referring to.
The earthquake is political and societal.
The stuff that has smoldered below the surface for a long, long time has burst forth like a volcano…racism, sexism, privilege, fear, anger.
There are deep divisions in the United States of America. We are no longer the United States.
The chaos and tumult of the rest of the world is ours as well.
Before and since the elections all of us have experienced this tumult in one way or another.
We are in the middle of a storm.
What do we do??
Do we run and hide?
I confess that the morning after the elections I thought of Rip Van Winkel and said to my husband,
“Why don’t we hibernate for four years. But then we might not recognize the world when we wake up!”
In October Dave and I had a wonderful two week vacation in Nova Scotia…Post election, Canada never looked better!
How tempting it is to find a safe cove and moor our boat there until the storm passes over.
What do we do??
Do we pray and hope for deliverance?
Today is traditionally known as Christ the King Sunday.
A very, very simplistic understanding of this feast day is that God is sovereign, God is on the throne, everything will work out in the end.
Are we going to be like the sailors in the story of Jonah who find themselves in a great storm, pray for deliverance and then throw Jonah overboard?
The question is, I believe, not what we do but, first of all, who we are.
In our Old Testament reading Jeremiah proclaims the judgement of God:
“woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!”
Woe to those leaders who scatter the flock rather than seek its welfare.
What an indictment of leaders who put their own interests and their own well-being first!
Thankfully, there is also restoration:
“I will gather the remnant of my flock…and I will bring them back to their fold and they shall be fruitful and multiply.”
Every human being, regardless of skin color, economic status, nationality, sex, religion, ability or disability, gathered in a place where they can thrive and be fully human.
We are to be people who give our lives so that all have a safe pasture in which to dwell, all are safe in the storm.
Today’s gospel reading is full of chaos, the storm is whirling at a place called the Skull:
Jesus is being tortured to death.
The Skull is a place of foul language, foul smells and foul activity.
It is hell on earth.
In this chaos, in this storm, Jesus is silent.
When we listen carefully we will hear a voice of wisdom. It comes from one of the criminals flanking Jesus:
We have indeed been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds….But this man has done nothing wrong.
This person, also being tortured to death, sees things as they truly are.
He does not give in to the foulness of the moment but speaks piercing truth.
Our sentence is just, this man did nothing wrong.
His petition is not to be saved but to be remembered by Jesus.
Jesus finally ends his silence and speaks;
Truly, I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.
I will not forget you.
You are with me. I am with you.
When do we keep silent? When do we speak?
Are we aware of when we are speak out of our ego?
Are we aware of when we speak to advance our own selfish interests?
Instead we must tap into the deeper wisdom that heals and sets free.
Are we adding to the noise and chaos or are we illuminating a way through the storm?
In Colossians Paul proclaims, “In Christ all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.”
We move from the human Jesus to the cosmic Christ.
Jesus, whose death seems so chaotic and meaningless, is now the One who manifests the fullness, the abundance, the overflowing generosity of God.
The storm at the Place of the Skull does not have the final word.
The life and death of Jesus is a gateway to a fulness so extravagant that it fills the emptiness to bursting.
Death is followed by resurrection.
Because Jesus’s life on this earth was integrated, because he was fully conscious Jesus is the enlightened one.
His death is not the end but the beginning of living in the fullness.
Today is “Sunday of the Fulfillment”.
Jesus became the One in whom all the fullness of God is pleased to dwell.
It is also who we become as we follow the path of Jesus, as we put on the mind of Christ.
The fullness of God making its home in us.
We become beacons in the midst of the storm that we are now in.
In this week’s email I received an essay written by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, the author of Women who Run with the Wolves:
One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these—to be fierce and to show mercy towards others; both are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity. (www.grahameb.com/pinkola_estes.htm)
Stand up and show your soul!!
Finally, let’s return to Psalm 46.
This Psalm acknowledges the storm and gives us hints in how to care for our souls in the midst of the storm.
There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
Jerusalem is not a city on a river.
It is not like London on the Thames or Paris on the Seine or Milwaukee on the Milwaukee or Madison on Yahara and its connecting lakes.
Jerusalem is a parched city; its water source is underground. Today water is pumped from an coastal aquifer
The water is for all: Jew, Christian, Muslim, all the inhabitants of the city.
In 2011 excavators digging for a new railway station deep under the surface of central Jerusalem discovered what geologists say is the largest underground river ever found in Israel.
Its canyons and waterfalls have been there for millions of years.
There is a river who streams make glad the city of God.
How do we care for our souls?
We drink from the underground stream, from within, where God dwells.
Clarissa Pinkola Estes calls this underground stream Rio Abajo Rio, the river beneath the river.
This river within is not touched by the chaos. It is always flowing.
If we don’t drink from this river we become parched, we become dehydrated.
We become less than we are created to be.
The Psalmist tells us more:
Be still and know that I am God.
In the stillness, Jim Finley tells us, we awaken to the already present nature of the oneness with God that we seek (Christian Meditation, p. 8)
Be still and know I am God.
The inward journey is needed to stabilize us in the storm, in the tumult.
As we take this inward journey, being still, we learn to be truly present in the storms of life.
God becomes our refuge and strength…not an outer protection but an inner presence.
Learning to be still is a lifelong process….
We don’t learn to be still in one sitting.
It takes time and diligence.
As we learn to be still we discover the stillness goes deeper and deeper and deeper. It becomes richer and richer. It becomes our home.
It transforms us and that transformation can transform the chaos.
Listen again to Clarissa Pinkola Estes:
Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it. If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do….
In my uttermost bones I know something, as you do. It is that there can be no despair when you remember why you came to Earth, who you serve, and who sent you here. The good words we say and the good deeds we do are not ours. They are the words and deeds of the One who brought us here. (www.grahameb.com/pinkola_estes.htm)
Be still and know that I am God.
Be still and know
Be still
Be
(silence)