October 11, 2009
The Wisdom of Thanksgiving
A poem, a prayer, an invitation in this time to listen for the wisdom of this celebration of Thanksgiving – a time to listen – to set aside the busy preparations for this day for this time of teaching. Listen to this poem aptly entitled “Listening to Autumn.”
Autumn is slipping through summer’s branches
and I am listening.
I am listening to the trees taking off their lush green garments.
I am listening to the leaves turning, turning, ever turning.
I am listening to the burning bush of autumn.
I am listening to the falling of this season.
I am listening to the song of transformation
To the wisdom of the season
To the losses and the grieving
To the turning loose and letting go
I am listening to the surrender of autumn
I am listening to the music of the forest’s undergrowth
To the crunching of leaves beneath my feet,
To the miracle of crumbling leaves becoming earth again.
I am listening to the beauty and fragility of aging.
I am listening to days growing shorter
To the air turning crisp and cool
To the slow waning of the light
To the stars that shine in cold dark nights.
I am listening to the growing harvest moon.
I am listening to happy harvest cries,
To hearts overflowing with thanksgiving
To tables laden with gifts from the earth
To baskets overflowing with fruit,
I am listening to the bountiful gift of autumn.
I am listening to a call for inner growth,
To my need to let go of material possessions
To my need to reach out for invisible gifts.
I am listening to a call for transformation.
I am listening to the death of old ways
I am listening to the life force turning inward.
I am listening to the renewal of the earth.
I am listening to summer handing over autumn
I am listening to the poetry of autumn.
Macrina Wiederkehr
In the midst of all this harvesting how appropriate that we should pause from our labours to celebrate a festival of gratitude: this Thanksgiving time. The mood of autumn is the ebb and flow of life. Autumn stands as an epiphany to the truth that all things are passing and even in the passing there is a beauty.
Look at our table here today – Penny and Marjorie have done beautiful work here. Looking at such a table I am taken back to the our garden on the farm and the smell of dirt – the joy of pulling carrots and digging potatoes out of the dark earth – We who live in the city miss much of the pleasure of reaping what we have sown but even we see the abundance at the road side stands and in our supermarkets and on our table here today.
What a season – as George Elliot said
“Delicious Autumn – my very soul is wedded to it and if I were a bird
I would fly about the earth seeking successive autumns. “
A time of gratitude. I read the obituary yesterday of Douglas Campbell, the actor, described in the headline as a ‘gloriously forthright honest full blooded trouper.’ In it Campbell’s wife says that acting the part of Lear or William Blake “was about the deepest feelings and the coming to realize at the end …that the human race is made for joy.” The human race is made for joy. And one of those joys is gathering to celebrate the food that sustains, holding up those who harvest it and those who prepare it for table. This is one of the wisdoms of Thanksgiving.
Yet this time of thanksgiving is also a time that should arouse in us a profound awe. Awe of that which we so often take for granted – the intricate perfect webs that allow for the acorn to become the oak, the seed to become the plant, the eye of the potato that forms perfect new potatoes, the water cycle that we drew in science class in grade school, the sun that just the right distance away warms the earth and allows all of life to exist. The seeming magic of chlorophyll that in its absence gives us the oranges and reds and yellows of turning leaves. The incredible sight of the birds and ducks wheeling and soaring overhead in the thousands each and every year as they make their long journeys south. The ability of the frog to slow its heart down and over winter at the bottom of lakes and ponds dug into the mud. And what of our earth – I would defy anyone not to be awed by the planet spinning through space as it circles in its orbit around the sun – with an atmosphere just right to allow us to breathe – with enough gravity to keep us from flying off – and us sitting here on a beautiful Sunday morning worshipping.
And out of this awe comes the responsibility we as the top of the food chain have to bring all our ingenuity and resources to bear to protect this fragile beautiful planet from us. There is a piece in Saturday’s globe that speaks to this very subject. Most of the Holland Marsh is planted with carrots and onions that are grown, harvested and shipped by freight train and airplane to far off places. If we could see our way clear to buy locally grown produce – to support even through legislation and grants to farmers the burgeoning 100 Mile Diet then we could reduce our carbon footprint dramatically and feed much of southern Ontario, at the same time reducing the need for imported produce. Our need to, as the new Creed says – live with respect in Creation – borne out of the awe engendered by contemplating Creation- this is another of the wisdoms of Thanksgiving.
The front of the bulletin shows us the picture of the camels in the eye of the needle and quotes from Mark – Jesus words – “All things are possible with God.” Whatever your conception of God is – this season where the earth pours forth her abundance- where the very things by which we continue to live are provided – should at the very least elicit a joy and a gratitude and a wonder – and should at the very best give us pause to stand in gratitude if we are wallowing in places that denying the gift of our lives and to fall on our knees in gratitude if we are too sure of our places as masters of the universe. This is another of the wisdoms of Thanksgiving – forcing us to recognize that all things indeed are possible because of Creation. The pagan cultures and native spirituality understand this awe and this wonder – we do well to rekindle that awe in this time of Thanksgiving.
And so we come to today’s gospel –Even those who are not conversant with the stories of the bible have heard this one. A rich young man comes to Jesus, falls on his knees and says: Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Keep the laws says Jesus. I do, says the young man. And then we hear Jesus looked at him and loved him. And said – one thing you lack – give up everything you have to the poor and come and follow me.
And the young man turns away sadly because he had great wealth. And Jesus says “It is easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven.”
And the disciples are amazed –And Jesus responds with, to use Churchill’s words, “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” He says “With man this is impossible but not with God; all things are possible with God.”
The response from the pulpit and in the pew to this passage has been to explain it away, or to feel vaguely uneasy about getting the keys to the kingdom when we die – or, for some, I am sure to give everything they have away and devote themselves to self less service. Or, even in some, to feel rejected by the church and by God for having ‘done good’ materially.
Explanations over the centuries have included the existence of a gate in Jerusalem called the Eye of the Needle through which a camel could not pass unless it stooped and first had all its baggage first removed.
After dark, when the main gates were shut, travellers or merchants would have to use this smaller gate, through which the camel could only enter unencumbered and crawling on its knees! This has obviously been considered great sermon material and many have preached a good fiery message on the parallels of coming to God on our knees without all our baggage.
Variations on this theme include that of ancient inns having small entrances to thwart thieves, or the story of an old mountain pass known as the “eye of the needle”, so narrow that merchants would have to dismount from their camels and were thus easier prey for robbers lying in wait.
Another solution comes from the possibility of a Greek misprint. The suggestion is that the Greek word kamilos (’camel’) should really be kamêlos, meaning ‘cable, rope’. Hence it is easier to thread a needle with a rope rather than a strand of cotton than for a rich man to enter the kingdom.
There are even cartoons that take stabs at the rich man and the lengths they will go to keep all that they have ‘and heaven too.’
And there are political cartoons that speak eloquently with this metaphor about the difficulty of getting bills through an elected body.
And there are optical illusions and simply funny light pictures depicting the camel in the eye of the needle.
I would like to give another perspective – some history – some exegesis and some teaching. What did Jesus mean when he said that rich men would have a difficult time getting into heaven? And what did he mean when he followed it up with the statement about God.
It is the year 50 or thereabouts in the common era. It is the time between the crucifixion of Jesus in 30 CE and the destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem by the Romans in the year 70 CE. It is a time of great flowering of different sects within Judaism. Each was convinced of its own authenticity. New scriptures were being written – there was still no Jewish orthodoxy or established written in stone set of writings. But there was a Temple – and everyone agreed that the temple was central to the faith. The Pharisees attended worship, the Essenes saw the temple as having been corrupted but looked forward to a time when all the wicked would be vanquished and a new Temple built. The Christians believed that the messiah had come in this Jesus of Nazareth and while they waited for him to return to inaugurate the Kingdom of God they too worshipped as a group in the Temple each day.
Then comes the year 70 and the destruction of the Temple. It is said that when the Romans breached the inner courts of the Temple – the holy of holies – that had been built by Herod the Great – they found 6,000 ready to fight to the death in defence of the Temple. Then the building caught fire. The people surrendered and the Temple was destroyed and would not be rebuilt. Out of that time only 2 of the Jewish sects survived. One was Rabbinic Judaism – a faith of the Book – instead of the Temple – and the other was Christianity – and they were remarkably similar in their teaching, their tone and their mission.
Jesus was a Jew. The texts he read, the stories he heard, the sayings he quoted were the same as those read and heard and quoted by other Jews of his day. When we pull his words and teaching out of that context we do a great harm to the meaning, to the message, to the teachings of Jesus. The needle metaphor comes up time and again in Jewish commentary on the Torah. We hear “the Holy One said, open a door as big as a needle’s eye and I will open a door through which may enter tents and camels.” Rich camels included.
Elsewhere in the midrash we hear “A needle’s eye is not too narrow for two friends, but the world is not wide enough for two enemies.” Jesus did not operate in a vacuum – but he did, in his teaching, provide his own commentary on the received wisdom.
Jesus, as he did so much, turned the received wisdom on its head. Jews of the time were taught that wealth and prosperity were a sign of God’s blessing. There was a direct connection between one’s stature and the favour of Yahweh. So the incredulity of the disciples at the words of Jesus is more along the lines that, “if the rich, who must be seen as righteous by God by dint of their evident blessing, can’t be saved, who can be?” And Jesus teaches again and here is crux of this passage – that it is not whether you have scads of belongings or have amassed great wealth – it is not whether you are as poor as the proverbial church mouse but whether you can take to heart Jesus next words: “With man this is impossible but not with God; all things are possible with God.”
You are not in control – you are not the master of the universe – when you realize this and begin to live inside this mystery, doing the work of honest self reflection, then you may realize you are not alone and that indeed all things are possible with God.
Confucius said “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’ There is a story told of an older contemporary of Jesus – the Rabbi Hillel – who died in the year Jesus was crucified – he was approached by a pagan who promised to convert to Judaism if the rabbit could teach him the entire Torah standing on one leg: Hillel replied “what is hateful to yourself, do not to your fellow man. That is the whole of the Torah and the remainder is but commentary. Go learn it.” Revelation under Rabbinic Judaism became a fluid thing – open to interpretation. Because the word of God was infinite, a text proved its divine origin by being productive of fresh meaning. Thus we have the commentaries on the Torah – the Midrash.
Jesus gave only two commandments: Love God with all your heart and all your soul and Love your neighbour as yourself. That, to borrow from Hillel, is the whole of the Christian Bible – and the rest is up for discussion and discourse and contemplation and explication and perspective applying always seen through the eye of the needle – these 2 commandments of Jesus.
The history of Christianity shows an initial fluidity that would turn unbearably rigid – Christianity would become by the time of the crusades – a religion that broke its own golden rule – the need to be right and the fear of being wrong trumped. This slavish devotion to literalism and exclusivity – to reading texts out of context and selectively – would for many make it irrelevant – a religion that did not require engaging of the intellect – a religion that seemed to deny to others participation in divine revelation or even access to their own divinity – their own connection with God – their own wisdom.
One of the reasons that the words of Jesus still echo down the centuries is that they alarm and surprise and send us off balance – they conjure up bizarre almost comical pictures of the plank in one’s eye and the camel squeezing into a needle. Is this about the denial of salvation of one group? No. Man-made rules and doctrines about sin and salvation and heaven and hell and who or what God is and our presumption that we can in any words speak for God – are tired and obstruse and distinctly dishonest. When we get the closest we can get to God, whether through meditation or prayer or through extreme need both in times of joy and in sorrow – when we get close to the knowledge that all things are possible with God, there are no words. When we speak of God eventually we will be silent – if we are honest. We will be silent in that place where we encounter God in deepest intimacy. Jesus is attempting to draw our attention to the man in the mirror to ourselves – he is asking us to look and see – to see what we do to one another by having more than we need or by hoarding or by making $$ off the backs of those not being paid a living wage – or by degrading the earth and those on it – by degrading ourselves with behaviour that moves us to empty cacophony instead of awesome richly filled silence. Jesus is attempting to in the most graphic manner possible to show us something of his connection to and awareness of the presence of the capital P Presence – God, Brahmin, Yahweh, Allah. And even more wonderful, he is holding out the availability of that awareness of that Presence to each of us.
I read that the desire to cultivate a sense of the transcendent may be the defining human characteristic. But I would take this further and say that the defining human characteristic is not only the desire but the ability to become aware of God – of the transcendent. But this is not easy – religion – seeking – finding meaning – connection – is hard work. But like the bringing in of the harvest – it is necessary and full of the possibility of giving thanks.
I am listening to a call for inner growth,
To my need to let go of material possessions
To my need to reach out for invisible gifts.
I am listening to a call for transformation.
I am listening to the death of old ways
I am listening to the life force turning inward.
I am listening to the renewal of the earth.
I am listening to summer handing over autumn
I am listening to the poetry of autumn.
And that too is the wisdom of Thanksgiving
Amen