Rosedale United Church

Shook Foil and Best Brooding  -   Karen Bowles

I was watching the latest Disney movie with my youngest, a movie called UP – and I was pleasantly surprised – I don’t know whether I am becoming more shallow as the years go by or whether Disney has all of a sudden become deep –but the germ of this sermon is courtesy of Walt.

The movie’s tag line – ‘is Adventure – it’s out there!’ With hand pointing out to the world and the adventure – It is about a couple who when they are young become friends over their love for adventure – and not just any adventure but finding the mysterious bird at Paradise Falls.  The marry and spend a life together – and somehow they never find a way to get to Paradise Falls – bills need paying – accidents happen – work needs doing – and eventually she dies – and he is left heartbroken that they were never able to realize their shared dream – and then he meets the young boy scout who wishes to earn his ‘assisting a senior’ badge – and this boy misses his father – he misses the curb where he and his father used to sit to count cars – he would count blue and his father red – in this movie the boy says:  “ I know this sounds boring but I miss that curb.”

I miss that curb.

The world is charged with the grandeur of God – It will flame out like shining from shook foil – what a line – and what a reading we heard from Tim – we hear much about the beauty of nature – it’s complexity that we seem to be ever unravelling – learning new things with each new ‘uncovering’ – discoveries of how things work – how things are made – how things exist and co-exist – how inextricably interwoven it all is. 

Waking up on a beautiful morning – no matter what the season – watching the Discovery channel and being blown away by the breach of a whale or the time lapse photography of the bloom of any flower – discovering life at the bottom of the oceans where no life should exist, these vast vents on the ocean floor where no lights ever penetrates – we learn more all the time about this place, this planet, this home.  And what of the universe, what of all that out there – Lying on a beach watching the shooting stars in August or glimpsing the northern lights – or knowing that in x million years this planet will literally become too hot for life – when the sun moves slightly closer to this place that sustains us.  The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

One of my pleasures is to read mystery novels – it is when I need to rest from tomes, from thinking from my too often place where as my mother used to say ‘the world is too much with you.”  I have read all of Agatha and all of Ngaio Marsh and all of Arthur Conan Doyle – mysteries with class I call them – my own escape – and I came in my reading a line from Sherlock Holmes -

“One’s ideas must be as broad as Nature if they are to interpret Nature.”  Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle   A study in Scarlet p 62.  One’s ideas must be as broad as Nature if they are to interpret, if they are to understand Nature.  We hear that in God’s grandeur – we hear that in the song of the scientists, singing to us of that which they have uncovered of this nature – of how it all fits together – of how the smallest bacteria affects life and systems – of how the smallest building blocks of life get smaller and more intricate the more we learn.  We sense the amazement of the gift of our lives, of the gift of this planet that makes life possible.

And yet there is more – there is the curb that the Boy Scout sat on.

I am going to ask you this morning to do something a little different – I am doing this with the comfort I have in this place – and with this people – that I have learned over the last few years – I am asking you to trust me – as I have learned to trust you – when I first came to this place, this wonderful place, this sanctuary that I grow ever more fond of, we had a Seder supper – I organized it along with other members of this community – notably among them Janet Zenwirt – and we put in long hours to make the supper happen – after the supper was over – it was actually held at Rosedale Presbyterian – there was no room here that night at the inn – rental income, I think, was the reason – after the supper – and after the liturgical 4 glasses of wine – spelled out I swear in the liturgy of the Seder – I was girding my loins – to clean up and do the enormous amount of dishes (and wine glasses) when out of the ether came a community of men and women who were singing and washing and drying and putting away – I was amazed – one of them I think it was Judy Brown – who said – ‘welcome to community’ – I went home that night literally amazed and humbled by the community I had become a part of – church came alive for me that night – a learning and a welcome learning experience.

But more than that – my heart opened a wee bit – I am not alone – I do not have to be competent and efficient and able to do all things alone – there are others with whom to share each load – there was more room for me to breathe and there were others to journey with – to breathe with – to share with – to rely on –

I went home that night amazed at such a community – there is no other word for it – and thankful- gratitude and amazement.

The gospel reading from today’s lectionary reads in part with Pontius Pilate questioning Jesus – Are you the king of the Jews?  And Jesus responds:  “You are right in saying I am a king.  In fact, for this reason I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.  Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”  What it omits is the next line which is obviously part of this passage.  Pilate responds with another question:  “what is truth?”  But those who put the lectionary together, taking pieces here and there, omit this question.  Why?  Too long we have done selective reading of this wonderful book.  There is naught to be afraid of – there is naught to be afraid of in asking and in searching and in studying the words that make us think and ask and study.   In fact if we are afraid of doing so we will miss truth.  What is truth?  All of Jesus life and ministry testifies to this – it is not found in the placing of an intermediary between you and your own search – it is not in neatly packaged answers that obviate the need for questioning or soul searching or growth or struggle – it is in listening for voices that resonate – it is in identifying and learning from those whose light shines brightly – It is in moving beyond power and helplessness to acceptance born of growth not resignation.

For this reason I came into the world to testify to the truth.  For this reason each of us came into the world to testify to the truth. Jesus says.  What is truth? Pilate counters.

Is truth faith? Luther said “We are justified ie saved by faith alone” – but what is faith?  It is kind of a strange word – conjures up a mental image of a cat having a stuffed mouse pulled just out of its way, each time it pounces – seems so much like something just beyond our reach – something mysterious – for the elect few – something that requires trust without thought or ecstatic experience.  It is none of these – it is a commitment to growth.  It is finding the lesson in each of life’s moments joyful and otherwise – born of struggle or born of circumstance. 

My mother used to say “no use crying over spilt milk.”  This was the case literally when we spilled milk when we were young and as we grew older it was with respect to disappointments, stupid decisions, missed opportunities.  At the time it was comforting but, with apologies to mom, it was in some sense wrong.  It is useful to crying over spilt milk – to soul search over stupid decisions, or over bad judgement, or over misplaced or hurtful actions or words and sometimes over spilt milk.  Not to dwell or to beat oneself up but to literally cry and out of tears to learn.  Not because you are saving up points in religious parlance for salvation – but because you are allowing room for growth for, I think I have the term right – self actualization – becoming less fragmented – more whole.  Justification, salvation by faith alone – It is not that we will not be saved that we will not share in the kingdom – but that we will not, if we do not grow and do not search and do not learn – but that we will not, even know that we are part of the kingdom – understanding that, holding that in the palm of your hand will lead you to realize you are held too – and will lead to endless amazement and lots of laughter.

And there sits commitment – for want of a better word – faith

 Found between amazement and struggle – struggle as so many do to put food on a table – to put one foot in front of the other – struggle to accept the finitude of our lives and of all lives – struggle to find a job – make a friend – fight of loneliness or hate or despair – God we are complicated creatures – what is faith – we find it between amazement and struggle – we find eventually acceptance – not in resignation but in realization – birthed somewhere between amazement and struggle.

And here is where I would like to ask you to try something different –I would like to lead you in a meditation.

Bring your attention to your breath – whatever you are holding put down – become comfortable in your seat – hold your hands lightly in your lap close your eyes and relax – let your shoulders relax – we carry so much tension – much of which we are not even aware we carry – bring your attention to simply breathing in and out – – simply concentrate on breathing out and breathing in – it can be easy – it can be difficult at first – notice whether it is easy or difficult and simply breathe – don’t force it – just notice where it is easy or not – and breathe – take this into silence  – keep your attention on your breathe – tread lightly there – and breathe in and breathe out  - for those of you who this is unfamiliar to – try trusting the moment – and then the next moment – simply breathe – when you feel your attention wandering notice the thought going through your head and simply acknowledge it and bring your attention back to your breath.  In this silence, sit for a time.  There is a joy in permitting yourself the time to sit and breathe.    Breathe in and breathe out – allow thoughts to pass through like clouds across the sky – acknowledge them as they pass and let them float by – breathe and notice this moment simply breathing and the next – nothing extraordinary – but that breathe in itself – that ordinary breath – is at the same time extraordinary – there is the gift – and there begins amazement.  And out of that place of simply breathing

Hear now Psalm 131 again – O my soul, rely on the Living One now and forever.

‘For now my thoughts are empty – no lofty thoughts for me.  I have no care for great affairs or marvels beyond my reach.  Enough for me to deep my soul in the peace of simplicity – tranquil as a child at rest embraced on its mothers knee.  In quietude O keep my heart as content as a child at rest, to be at peace in your embrace like a little one upon Your breast.  O my soul, rely on the Living One now and forever.’

And in this place of breath and quiet – hear these words:  let them flow over you – without judgement or anticipation -

“With my last breath I want to sing my heart’s song grateful and grace-full: my spirit exulting in the Gift of my life.

With my last breath I want to sing my life’s praise, the hymn of a soul given to amazement.”  Kathleen Deignan CND from the CD The Gift and the song ‘Amazement.’

And when you are ready open your eyes. 

The gift of each moment – the amazement held in the ordinary and in the extraordinary – sitting on the curb counting coloured cars with a friend, a child, a stranger – contemplating the wonder of the universe – there is trust – and there is truth and there is wonderfully and thankfully, faith. 

Amen.