9-16-18 “Glorious Diversity”

9-16-18  “Glorious Diversity”

   So our reading today takes place in the years following the great flood story. Many, if not most, ancient civilizations had their own myths and legends related to a great flood that covered the entire earth - the causes, characters, and heroes in those stories vary from culture to culture. But what that tells us is that, regardless of how we understand or what we believe about the story, 

a massive flood of some kind surely did in fact take place that impacted ancient civilizations in different ways.

   And this story, as it has been carried forward in Judeo-Christian contexts, is a story of how God, after destroying all of creation with a flood, sent this one surviving family to repopulate the earth - that they were to “be fertile, multiply, and fill the earth.” So the family of Noah got down to business, as it were, and soon we read about the descendants of this second, first family. 

And we learn that Noah’s grandson Cush fathered a man named Nimrod, who is described in Genesis 10 as both a great hunter and the first great warrior. And it tells us that Nimrod became the builder of and ruler over five great cities, one of which is Babel, in the valley of Shinar. And as Nimrod and his people built and settled Babel, they lost site of God’s mission, “to be fertile, multiply, and fill the earth.” Instead, they declared, 

 “Come, let’s build for ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the sky, and let’s make a name for ourselves so that we won’t be dispersed over all the earth.”

   So, rather than fulfilling the mission that God had called them to, they decided to make a name for themselves, and build a great city and great tower, so that they wouldn’t be dispersed all over the earth. Now, a tower can be viewed in various ways. A tower might be considered a monument - like the Washington Monument in our nation’s capital - in this case a monument to them and to their newfound technology of brick and mortar. A tower could serve as a rallying point that identifies or defines a community in a specific place, like the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Or a tower could serve a security purpose, as a lookout post that enabled them to see if other nations were advancing on them, so that they might be prepared for war. Nowhere, as is commonly suggested in this passage, does it say that they in any way were seeking to build a tower to heaven in order to be like God. This was all about doing their own thing, about hubris, and not the God thing that they were called to.

   Now, as you can imagine, many theologians and biblical scholars have written about this story. There are as many opinions about this piece as there 

are writers who tackle the subject. Let me offer this perspective to you through the lens of Creation Spirituality that we’re exploring in this series. We have talked in earlier weeks about the fact that Creation Spirituality holds that God is both immanent and transcendent, that it, God is both here and everywhere at once. God didn’t just create and walk away - God is no absentee landlord - but God is present here. 

And it also holds that in creating all that is, God declared it, and us, good and very good. That is, God’s plan for creation, God’s desire for creation is good as God is good. And that creation is a diverse creation. From the multitude of flora and fauna we see in the natural world, we know that God values diversity in all of creation. And the fact that scripture tells us that we are made in the image of God, and that we as humans are also very diverse, indicates that God loves and images us as diverse as well. In fact, one of the key principles of Creation Spirituality is that diversity is the nature of Creation. It is the DNA of creation.

   So, when the people of Babel, under the leadership of Nimrod, decide to build a city and a tower and to remain right where they are, they are in fact, rejecting God’s desired diversity in the world. They are seeking to halt the expansion where it is. They are attempting to stop their growth right there. They are hoping to “make a name for themselves” rather than honoring the name and the will of the God.

   But while we honor and celebrate diversity, we are told that we are one; that in God we are one people. Some might wonder, how can we be one and be diverse? How can we celebrate diversity and yet claim to be one? Let’s look at that. Being one does not mean being the same, right? I mean, not all people are the same. Not all men are unwilling to ask for directions when they’re lost. Not all blonds are dingy airheads, nor do all blonds have more fun, as the old hair color ads used to suggest. Not all tall people are good basketball players, not all short people make good jockeys. Peoples and groups of peoples, regardless of how they are categorized, are not monolithic blocs or automatons who just think, move, or act with a hive mentality. That’s one of the dangers we expose when our thinking moves into “us versus them” territory. 

   Yet, as the song says, “we are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord.” Our closing song today talks of “One love! One heart! Let’s get together and feel all right.” Theologian Steve Goodier, in talking about oneness and diversity, poses the question of how are we to find peace with others, peace with ourselves, when both the ideas of “oneness” and “diversity” are at the core of division for some people?

   “Where is true peace to be found?” he asks. Then he offers that, “Archbishop Desmond Tutu might say it can be found in the African concept of ‘ubuntu.’

   “Tutu says, "Ubuntu is a concept that we have in our Bantu languages at home. Ubuntu is the essence of being a person. It means that we are people through other people. We cannot be fully human alone. 

We are made for interdependence, we are made for family. When you have ubuntu, you embrace others. You are generous, compassionate.”

   “He also says that if the world had more ubuntu, there would be no war. The powerful would help the weak. That is where peace is to be found.

   “A story from World War II shines a spotlight on ubuntu. In 1942, the American consul ordered citizens home from the Persian Gulf, for fear they might get caught in the spreading conflict. Travel was difficult, 

and some civilians secured passage on the troop ship Mauritania. Passengers included thousands of Allied soldiers, 500 German prisoners of war and 25 civilian women and children.

   “The ship traveled slowly and cautiously, constantly in danger from hostile submarines patrolling the ocean depths. It was Christmas Eve and they had traveled for a full two months. They had only made it as far as the coastal waters of New Zealand and all on board were homesick, anxious and frightened. 

   “Someone came up with the idea of asking the captain for permission to sing Christmas carols for the German prisoners, who were surely as homesick and lonely as the passengers. Permission was granted and a small choral group made its way to the quarters where the unsuspecting prisoners were held. They decided to sing ‘Silent Night’ first, as it was written in Germany by Joseph Mohr and was equally well known by the prisoners.

   “Within seconds of beginning the carol,” Goodier continues, “a deafening clatter shook the floor. Hundreds of German soldiers sprang up and crowded 

the tiny windows in order to better see and hear the choristers. Tears streamed unashamedly down their faces. At that moment, everyone on both sides of the wall experienced the universal truth – that at the core of our being, all people everywhere are one. They experienced ubuntu. Hope and love broke down the barriers between warring nations and, for that moment at least, all were one family.”

[Note - 2018 is the 200th anniversary of the song, “Silent Night,” and our Advent Worship will celebrate that this year.]

  And as Goodier concludes, “We are meant to be one. And only after we realize that amazing truth can we find what we need – true peace.” 

   The overwhelming lesson of this story of the tower 

is that it reveals in a graphic fashion humanity’s sinful nature and why we act the way we do. They rejected God's will. It is obvious from the garden onward that God's intention for humankind was to scatter and have dominion over the earth.

  But Noah's descendants rejected that plan, and determined they would stay together. That decision was unanimous, but it was an empty unanimity. Here at the start of the story we see in humankind a solidarity we can only imagine in our current world! It’s a very prosaic lesson in the fact that a group can be unified in the wrong direction and around the wrong goals. Nazi leadership in WWII were unified. Osama bin Laden’s terrorist group Al Qaeda were unified. Simple unity is not enough.

   The people of Babel were filled with a humanistic pride. Humanism is defined in all sorts of ways these days, but in the sense that humanism makes human beings the measure of all things and self-sufficient, then the folks who built the tower were filled with a proud humanism. This tower was a monument to their illusion that they could do without God. Josephus, the ancient Jewish historian, says Nimrod built the tower to defy God and escape any further flood. 

The whole project was human-centered from the start; verse 3 makes a point of the fact that they did not use natural building materials but manmade bricks instead. Even their technology was moving away from God.

   Theologian Helmut Thielicke puts his finger on the heart of the story when he says “the people had displaced God from the center of their lives, and thus unbalanced, the spiritual centrifugal forces flung them into the darkness of the world. When they put God out of their lives, life, like some old unbalanced [washing machine], began whirling faster and faster, thumping and shaking and flinging itself to pieces into the darkness.”

   God’s desire for the world, then and now, is a celebration of diversity. And diversity within the world, within creation, is reflected both in the diversity found within Christianity, as well as the diversity found in the many streams of religion and faith found in the Deep Ecumenism of the sacred faiths around the world. 

   Creation Spirituality unleashes vitality, creativity and a sense of playfulness. It is generous, mutually affirming of diversity, and non-competitive. Unlike fall and redemption spiritualities, it doesn’t set up competitive dualisms between male/female, heterosexual/homosexual, white/black, Christian/non-Christian, us and them. It’s egalitarian and pluralistic, rejoicing in the manyness of beings that interconnect in a rich cosmic community. It allows us to lay aside our defenses, our needs to control, dominate and destroy the other. It is the spirituality that is needed for an ecologically sensitive, peacemaking, and just world community. It’s a spirituality that is needed to celebrate the One love, one heart of God that celebrates, not the babel of a divisive unity, but the beautiful diversity of God’s creation. Amen.

9-9-18 "Sacred Creative Vocation"

   And so it is here, with these words, “I’m here, send me,” or in other translations, “Here I am, Lord, send me,” that the lectionary reading ends. And so many pastors, probably myself included, have used this passage to elicit that sense of call within all of us in order to recruit people to serve as VBS volunteers, Sunday school teachers, or what have you. And that’s all well and good - serving is it’s an important part of our discipleship journey. 

   But when we stop the reading there, we don’t get the full context of what’s happening; we don’t see the complete picture of what the prophet tells us is going on here. We see Isaiah answering God’s call, but a call to do what?  As one commentary put it, “The church tradition that selected the lectionary lost its nerve when it came to the contents of the prophet’s commission, what he was told to say and do.” So, rather than stopping where we stopped earlier, with the end of the lectionary reading, let’s continue to hear exactly what the prophet was told. Continuing then, after we hear Isaiah’s response, “I’m here, send me,” the passage continues in verse 9,

9 God said, “Go and say to this people:

Listen intently, but don’t understand;

    look carefully, but don’t comprehend.

10 

Make the minds of this people dull.

    Make their ears deaf and their eyes blind,

    so they can’t see with their eyes

    or hear with their ears,

    or understand with their minds,

    and turn, and be healed.”

11 I said, “How long, Lord?”

And God said, “Until cities lie ruined with no one living in them, until there are houses without people and the land is left devastated.” 12 The Lord will send the people far away, and the land will be completely abandoned. 13 Even if one-tenth remain there, they will be burned again, like a terebinth or an oak, which when it is cut down leaves a stump. Its stump is a holy seed.

   So the prophet Isaiah is to go the people and tell them what is about to happen to them, but in a way that will prevent them from changing their ways and repenting. Hmm. That seems problematic for us doesn’t it? Let’s step back for a moment.

   Remember the movie a “Christmas Story,” where the main character Ralphie wishes more than anything for a Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas? What does his mother repeatedly warn him about regarding that BB gun? “You’ll shoot your eye out!” Well, Ralphie does get the BB gun for Christmas. He goes outside, shoots it, and a ricocheting BB hits him in the eye, breaking his glasses. He nearly does shoot his eye out, despite the warnings he’s received. That’s similar to what we encounter in this passage from Isaiah.

   The people have been warned, and warned, and warned by God through many other prophets before Isaiah, that if they didn’t change their evil ways, if they didn’t repent and turn back to being the people of God, then something bad was going to happen, that is, “they were going to shoot their eye out!” It’s not at all unlike a parent telling their child, “if you don’t stop doing that, you’re going to get hurt.” You can only tell them so many times, you can only protect them so far, before they have to face the consequences of their actions, right? That’s where these “people of unclean lips,” as Isaiah refers to them, are when we hear about them in this passage. God is going to let the chips fall where they may, then pick up the pieces afterwards, not unlike when the people of Israel protested so mightily during the Exodus under Moses, that God kept them in the wilderness for 40 years, until nobody from the generation that left Egypt remained to go into the Promised Land, including Moses himself. 

   Sometimes, serving God, is not easy work. Sometimes, the things we’re asked to do, the way we’re asked to be, as a disciple of Jesus Christ, is difficult. Sometimes, the conflicts we face in trying to live Christ-like lives in an increasingly post-Christian world are challenging, and we may want to ask, as did Isaiah, “How long, O Lord?”

   Last week I shared with you the fourfold path of Creation Spirituality: the Via Positiva, the Via Negative, the Via Creativa, and the Via Transformativa. And hopefully you remember that that means, as the structure of our worship service as laid out in the worship folder shows us, that we begin in the positive way, with awe and praise of God, then move into a time of acknowledging and letting go of the negatives. 

Then, as creatures made in the image of the Creator God, we move towards exploring how we are called to be co-creators with God so that finally, the world and its people might be transformed. That is the path of our worship - that is the path of our calling in life - that is the path of our reading today. And one of the core principles of Creation Spirituality is that everyone of us is a prophet, and that our prophetic work is to interfere with all forms of injustice and that which interrupts authentic life. That is, as Marcia McFee phrased it,  “made in the image of the Creator, every one of us carries within us the capacity to be a mystic, to be creative, to be visionary, and to be an agent for positive change.”

   It is our responsibility, as disciples, as the called, as the modern-day prophets of God, to respond "here I am, send me" and to cultivate our capacity to benefit the earth and all it’s creatures. And in doing so we should ask ourselves, “What are we creating in this world that will cause positive ripples into the future?”

BREAK

   So, the music we’ve sung and heard so far today begins to touch on what and how it is that we’re called to be as the people of God, as disciples of Jesus Christ. 

Let’s sing again, just the refrain from “Here I Am, Lord.”

 “Here I am, Lord. Is it I, Lord? 

I have heard you calling in the night. 

I will go, Lord, if you lead me. 

I will hold your people in my heart.”

   And then Jenny brought us “We Are Called.” 

And we’ve sung this song before. It’s in our Faith We Sing Songbook. Verse one says,

“Come! Live in the light! 

Shine with the joy and the love of the Lord! 

We are called to be light for the kingdom, 

to live in the freedom of the city of God! 

We are called to act with justice, 

we are called to love tenderly, 

we are called to serve one another, 

to walk humbly with God.” 

  

  Those words are taken from another prophet, Micah. And that verse sounds so joyful, so hope filled, doesn’t it? Let’s look at and sing together verse 2 of that song:

“Come! Open your heart! 

Show your mercy to all those in fear! 

We are called to be hope for the hopeless 

so all hatred and blindness will be no more! 

We are called to act with justice, 

we are called to love tenderly, 

we are called to serve one another, 

to walk humbly with God.”

   Our call as prophets of God become more specific in this verse. “Open you heart!” it commands us. 

“Show mercy,” be “hope for the hopeless so all hatred and blindness will be no more!” That’s what we sign on to when we sing, “Here I am, Lord.” That’s what we agree to when we pray together, “They kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” The lyrics in our music speak to our beliefs, our theology, our calling.

   The depression era singer-songwriter Woody Guthrie’s most famous song is one we’ll sing at the end of our worship time today. As Nick Spitzer of NPR reported about Guthrie:

   “Growing up in small-town Oklahoma, Guthrie heard church hymns, outlaw ballads, blues, fiddle tunes and popular music. The Guthries had been fairly prosperous — Woody's father was a small-time politician and businessman — but the family unraveled in the topsy-turvy oil economy of the '20s and '30s. The Guthrie family relocated to Texas after Woody's mother was committed to a mental institution for a mysterious nervous condition. That's when Woody took to the road…”

   “A man happier on the road than at home, he'd walked, hitched and ridden the rails all over the country. 

He went first to the Gulf Coast, then west to California, where he joined the half-million so-called Okies and Arkies — Dust Bowl refugees migrating in search of better lives. Although Guthrie purposefully threw himself into these travels partly to escape family troubles and his disintegrating first marriage, what he saw and experienced as he criss-crossed the country contributed to his emergence as a social commentator.

   “He was irritated by Irving Berlin's "God Bless America," sung by Kate Smith, which seemed to be endlessly playing on the radio in the late 1930s. So irritated, in fact, that he wrote a song as a retort, at first sarcastically calling it "God Blessed America for Me" before renaming it "This Land Is Your Land." 

Guthrie's original words to the song included this verse:

There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me.

The sign was painted, said 'Private Property.'

But on the backside, it didn't say nothing. 

This land was made for you and me.

   “Guthrie's folk-singing son, Arlo Guthrie, and [folk singer] Pete Seeger have both made a point of singing the more radical verses to "This Land Is Your Land," also reviving another verse that Guthrie wrote but never officially recorded. This verse was scribbled on a sheet of loose-leaf paper now in the possession of daughter Nora's Woody Guthrie Archives.

One bright sunny morning in the shadow of the steeple,

by the relief office I saw my people. 

As they stood hungry, 

I stood there wondering if God blessed America for me.

   These two verses are not usually attached to the more sanitized versions of the song we learn in elementary school, but they reflect some of the questions and ideas that are posed in the hymns we’ve looked at already. Where is God in the midst of suffering? Where are the people of God in the midst of suffering? How do we as a so-called Christian nation, allow our own people, as well as the people of the world, to go hungry when there is more than enough for everyone? How do we enact policies, or support leaders who enact policies, that allow a few to grow obscenely wealthy while others sleep on the streets or barely get by? Those are among the questions with which we are faced when we hear God’s call in our lives as well, and that are reflected in these prophetic songs in our hymnals.  

   Just a few pages after “We Are Called,” in the Faith We Sing Songbook, is a two-page spread of three songs that speaks to this very same idea. I invite you to grab one of these songbooks from the pew and open to page 2180, where you’ll find the song “Why Stand So Far Away, My God?” Let’s sing this first verse:

“Why stand so far away, my God? 

Why hide in time of need? 

The proud, unbridled, chase the poor, 

and curse you in their greed.” 

   Think about those lines. The songwriter suggests, in the midst of all that is going on, that it appears as though God is far away, that God is hiding. That is what we often think is the case. I daresay, that is often what some hope is the case. The song continues,

“Why do you hide when, full of lies, 

they murder and betray? 

They wait to pounce upon the weak, 

as lions stalk their pray.”

“The weak are crushed and fall to earth; 

the wicked strut and preen. 

Why in these cruel, chaotic times 

cannot your face be seen?”

   That’s a haunting question, isn’t it? “Why, in these cruel, chaotic times, cannot your face be seen?” 

For the church, it’s a damning question. 

“In ages past you heard the voice 

of those the proud oppress. 

Remember those who suffer now, 

who cry in deep distress.”

   Liberation theology speaks of God’s “preferential option for the poor.” That doesn’t suggest that God loves the poor more than God loves those who are not poor, but rather, that God recognizes their situation, their lot in life, and understands that their need is greater. In Luke chapter 4, Jesus basically announces his mission statement when he says he came to bring good news to the poor. God hears the voices of those whom the proud oppress.

Let’s sing the fifth and final verse together:

“Arise, O God, and lift your hand; 

bring justice to the poor. 

Come, help us stop the flow of blood! 

Let terror reign no more.!”

   “Come help US stop the flow of blood!” Notice, we don’t sing for God to stop the flow of blood, we implore God to help US do that! That is OUR calling. When we implore God to lift God’s hand, it is OUR hand that is to be lifted - we are God’s hands in this world.

“Here I am, Lord. Is it I, Lord? 

I have heard you calling in the night. 

I will go, Lord, if you lead me. 

I will hold your people in my heart.”

   Across the page from this song, asking rhetorically why God stands so far away, is a song that tells us exactly where God is. 

“Here am I, where underneath the bridges 

in our winter cities homeless people sleep. 

Here am I, where in decaying houses 

little children shiver, crying at the cold. Where are you?”

“Here am I, with people in the lineup, 

anxious for a handout, aching for a job. 

Here am I, when pensioners and strikers 

sing and march together, wanting something new. 

Where are you?”

   Pensioners and strikers - the workers, the laborers, sing and march together - organizing and protesting - wanting something new. This hearkens back to the previous song on the opposite page about how the weak are crushed while the wicked strut and preen. God is with them as they march and protest for better, safer working conditions or for a living wage that lifts them and their families out of poverty. When our leaders suggest that labor organizing should be outlawed, that protest should be banned, they’re saying that their ideas and ideals can’t hold up to the scrutiny of being questioned - that they don’t stand up before the will of God. 

Let’s sing together, the final verse of this song:

“Here am I, where two or three are gathered, 

ready to be altered, sharing wine and bread. 

Here am I, where those who hear the preaching 

change their way of living,

 find the way to life. Where are you?”

   The immanent God, the God who is here with us, in us, among us, is not only out there among the poor, the oppressed, the least, the last, the lost, but also is here.  God is here among those of us who gather in Christ’s name, ready to be altered - ready to be transformed by God’s word preached and God’s call heard - and ready to change their way of living and in doing so finding new life.

   Tucked into those two pages in the Faith We Sing, between the two songs we looked at, is a little song from the Taize’ worship community. The words are from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian church, adapted into song in the 9th century. 

“Ubi caritas - live in charity and steadfast love, 

live in charity, God will dwell in you.”

   

   When I hear these words, when I sing these hymns, I begin to consider the words of Woody Guthrie as being inspired words, as though it were God speaking to us in his song. “This land is your land, this land is my land,” could be heard as God’s call in the Creation stories to care for the land, to tend to the gardens that God created and provided for all of us. The fourth verse of the song goes,

When the sun comes shining, (and you can spell that 

S-U-N or S-O-N) then I was strolling

In the wheat fields waving and dust clouds rolling

The voice was chanting as the fog was lifting

This land was made for you and me

   Each one of us is called as a prophet of God, in this land, in this time. And the message from God that we are called to deliver is not that of Isaiah, not one of doom and gloom, but is the message of the Good News of Jesus Christ! But more than merely proclaiming the Good News, we are called to live it, to be it, to model it, to create a positive force for good that will ripple into the future. As the song said, we are called to:

“Come! Open your heart! 

Show your mercy to all those in fear! 

We are called to be hope for the hopeless 

so all hatred and blindness will be no more! 

We are called to act with justice, 

we are called to love tenderly, 

we are called to serve one another, 

to walk humbly with God.”

Let us begin again that walk today! Amen.

9-2-18 - “Paths of Life”

9-2-18  - “Paths of Life”

   The back and forth in this psalm reflects, if you think about it, the back and forth nature of life itself. In this song of praise we have the psalmist sharing the “before and after” of some event in his life. He begins by praising God because the “enemies” he mentions in the opening verse are not prevailing at that moment, and he pauses to recall what has happened and, at the end, to commit to giving thanks “forever” - regardless of what the next season might bring. 

   And this psalm presents the full gamut of emotions that we might bring to God: rejoicing, crying for help, thanksgiving, anger, weeping, joy, pride, hiding, dismay, supplication, praise, mourning, and dancing for joy. And they move back and forth between celebration and desperation, danger and help. The psalm never stays for long in any of them, reflecting the ambiguity (the seasons) of life.

   Catherine Kelsey points out that, “…hope arises in the repeated movement from difficulty to thanks. The psalm text moves from trouble to relief and to thanks no less than four times. The sheer repetition of the pattern fosters hope that this time too, God will respond.”

   Two weeks ago I had the honor of officiating at the funeral of George Culp here in this space. And that morning I shared a remembrance of George built around a passage of scripture that, while I nearly always use it as part of a funeral service, I had never actually preached on it before: Ecclesiastes chapter 3. And you know this passage even if the citation doesn’t sound familiar: “To everything there is a season, a time to every purpose under heaven.” And as I pointed out in that remembrance, we often follow those words in our heads with the lyrics, “Turn, turn, turn,” as the rock band The Byrds did when they took this passage of scripture and turned into a top hit in 1965.

To everything (turn, turn, turn)

There is a season (turn, turn, turn)

And a time to every purpose, under heaven

A time to be born, a time to die

A time to plant, a time to reap

A time to kill, a time to heal

A time to laugh, a time to weep

So, as I read and studied this psalm, both this passage and this song also repeatedly came to mind for me as well. 

   One commentator I read suggested that, “Psalm 30 is like a good novel: things get bad, things get worse, things resolve. The psalmist was flying high, full of his or her own importance, and then crashed. However, it was not a crash and burn, because there was still hope - in God.”

   And he goes on to point out that “The psalm is filled with the ebb and flow of the life of faith, as contemporary as it can be.,” and concludes by reminding us that, “The psalmist has the same choice that we and our audiences do: trust or despair.” (From William F. Brosend, “Feasting on the Word”)

To everything there is a season

And a time to every purpose, under heaven

A time to build up, a time to break down

A time to dance, a time to mourn

A time to cast away stones, a time to gather stones together.

   And so, even in the midst of the difficult seasons of his life, the psalmist still chooses to lift his prayers and praises to God. And he does so because he realizes that his hope comes from God. There are several things that, as we read through this psalm we can all relate to in our lives and that also reminds us of who and how God is with us. And here’s how that fits in to this theme of Creation Spirituality that we’re exploring and experiencing in this series. One of the principles, you’ll remember, that we talked about previously is that in order to grow stronger in our faith we have to practice our faith, right? So whether that’s prayer, fasting, scripture reading, yoga, or however it is we intentionally try to connect with God, we have to practice. Creation Spirituality says that that work, that practice, is a four-fold journey that is done with intentionality.

   The first part of that journey is know as the Via Positiva - the Positive Way, and it begins with our expressing our awe, our delight, our amazement with and in God and God’s creation. 

   Second, then, is the Via Negative, where we address and confess the uncertainty, the darkness, the suffering that we experience and that we see in the world, and we let go of that to God.

   The third part is the Via Creativa, the Creative Way. 

It is in this part of the journey that we experience new birth, we celebrate and experience our role as co-creators with God, and experience true passion in our faith journey.

   And then finally, we experience healing, justice, and celebration in the Via Transformativa - the Way of Transformation.

   And if you look at the structure, the organization of our worship services in this series by looking at the major headings - the “Paths” laid our in the worship folder - you’ll see the four-fold journey modeled in our worship order.  But unlike our worship order, rather than being a linear path where we graduate from one into the next and so on, in the paths of life and faith we weave our way through the ways of this four-fold journey. Imagine it as a spiral that we dance as opposed to a ladder that we climb. As the psalmist describes it on the other side of his most recent struggle, and as Ecclesiastes frames it, there are times of good and of bad, of life and of death; there are seasons to and in our lives through which we go back and forth continuously. And as people of faith, we know that our hope for successfully navigating these seasons of life comes from trusting in God’s presence with us, God’s immanence - that God is here, that God is with us in all things. Just because we sometimes endure suffering that occurs in the midst of illness, loss, disasters, or human-directed violence, that does not mean that God is absent.

   Theologian John B. Rogers shares, “Here is the God to whom each life is precious and who initiates the relationship that makes possible this prayer.” 

And he says that we are able to know God’s presence through the gift of prayer, writing, “To worship such a God is to realize that prayer itself is God’s gift - that in electing to be God with and for us, and not without us,  God enables us, encourages us, teaches us to pray. This theology refutes the notion of prayer as essentially a technique born of human desire or necessity, whereby we enlist a useful god to meet our needs and satisfy our wants.”

   And to paraphrase Rogers, he suggests that God wants to be in relationship with us (we talked about that in the Creation stories 2 weeks ago), God wants our prayers, whether, as he says, “faith is for us a joyful confidence, a constant struggle, an earnest but elusive hope, a shallow superstition, a distant memory, or something we had but lost, or never had.”

   This is a God who wants us, who desires to be with us, who created us in order to be in relationship with us - created us in the divine image for just that reason. But as Rogers cautions, there is a judgment from God. And while I don’t often preach God’s judgment - at least not in the way some are used to hearing it or would like to hear it - I don’t deny that there is judgment. I just don’t believe it takes the form of eternal damnation. I like how Rogers frames it: 

   “God’s desire for humanity must not cause us to dismiss God’s judgment as of little account, nor does the psalm do so. The psalm describes judgment neither as God’s lashing out at us nor as God’s angry denunciation of us, but as God’s reluctantly letting us go our own way and attain our goal - only to realize that God is not part of it. The psalmist is not cast off or abandoned but allowed to learn that self-centeredness and self-sovereignty are self-defeating. Often it is the case that, in God’s economy, we are punished not so much for our sins as by our sins.”

   Perhaps you’ve heard it said that in those times when God seemed far away or absent, it wasn’t God who had turned away, but it was us. God desires relationship - but relationship is a two-way street. God will not force relationship, but God invites it. And God is open to relationship regardless of what season of life we find ourselves in.  As Rogers said of today’s psalm, “God’s judgment is infinitely more searching than we know, yet God’s grace keeps pace and ultimately outreaches judgment, turning weeping into joy and mourning into dancing.”

   And so the psalmist, realizing this offers praise to God, during the good times and the bad, during the easy seasons and the difficult seasons. God desires relationship - as the psalmist says, God desires our praise. But let’s clarify that a little bit. Why does God need our praise? When we think of it that way - as though God were human - it makes God seem kind of needy, as though God was lacking in self-esteem. About that John Rollefson offers, 

   “Israel’s prophets (particularly Amos, Hosea, Jeremiah, Isaiah) were always careful to point out the need for ‘right worship’ that emphasized doing justice rather than cultic sacrifice. This is the kind of praise sought by [God] - a praise that reflected Israel’s covenant loyalty not in slavish [servitude] but in righteous behavior. The questions nags, however, and I suspect a more satisfying answer to the question of why God needs the dust’s praise goes back to YHWH’s desire for relationship, suggested in the creation stories of Genesis 1 and 2 and the creation of humankind in divine image.”

   God desires our prayer, it’s the gift of communication that God has given us directly to God. It’s hard, I daresay impossible, to be in relationship with anyone whom you never talk to - with whom you never spend time. The same can be said of our relationship with God.

“But I come to church every week!” we might offer. 

   And that’s great! But did you know that surveys of Christians have shown that 2/3 of regular church attenders do not expect to encounter God when they come to church. That’s the expectation that they bring with them - the expectation that they will not experience the presence of God in church. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. Well, God is here. God is listening. Do these low-expectation people just showing up waiting to have God handed to them on a silver platter? Just being at church doesn’t automatically create a connection or relationship with God anymore than going to a Bruce Springsteen concert creates a relationship with Bruce. It takes two. It takes time. It takes talk. 

   Yet still, sometimes we shy away from relationship, shy away from God. Verse 5 might shed some light on one reason for that for many people - we have difficulty accepting God’s forgiveness. The psalmist reminds us though, that “Divine ‘anger is but for a moment’; divine ‘favor is for a lifetime.” If we are still feeling judged, distant, or estranged from God, the issue is within us, not from God, according the psalmist. God forgives; the issue is whether we are willing to accept divine forgiveness. When we are unwilling to accept the forgiveness that God freely offers, then in effect we are saying that we are unwilling to commit to changing our behavior, unwilling to change our self-image, unwilling to acknowledge we need help (or even to recognize there might be a problem!), and unwilling to be dependent for forgiveness on the One who we do not control. Because if we’re honest, God can be pretty unwieldy, and we do like to have control.

   The spiritual journey can be understood as a dance, moving in and out of four mystical paths, each with their own gifts: awe and wonder; letting go; creativity; compassion and justice. And God is the Lord of the Dance. These "cycles of life,” or as the writer of Ecclesiastes called them, these “seasons,” are born out of the seasons of the planet and remind us that there is a time for everything and that fluctuations of the spirit are part of being human. The questions for us, though, are these: can we accept the Holy invitation to move fully into all the rhythms of life, trusting that God goes with us? Can we make time every day to enter into relationship, to strengthen relationship, with the God who desires to be a part of our lives - regardless of the season we find ourselves in? To everything, there is a season, turn, turn, turn, and a time for every purpose under heaven.

   I want to conclude with a story that theologian William F. Brosend shares, “of a non-denominational pastor who was ill and had to be hospitalized while on vacation and was in the ICU. A friend happened to know a priest in the town and asked him to come visit. After the usual pastoral pleasantries, the priest said, “I brought oil for anointing, and the Eucharist.”

  “Oh no, that’s all right,” the pastor said. “If you could just pray for me that would be fine.” They looked at each other for a moment, and then the pastor said, “No, no, that’s not what I meant at all. I want everything you have!”

   The psalmist reminds us that God has so much to offer us, so much to give to us, if we will but just reach out and say, “Yes, God, I want everything you have!” Amen.