Genesis 1:1 - 2:4 "Creation Care: A Celtic Perspective"

Genesis 1:1–2:4

         Whether you are most comfortable embracing Celtic Christianity, or if you are grounded in the theology of Martin Luther, or if you are still seeking a spiritual path within a Jesus framework, you can be assured that we all share a common beginning found in the Book of Genesis in our Bible.  Listen….

Eons ago before time was time, God began to create—all you see, all you don’t see…..Before it was anything else, earth was a soup of nothingness ….a bottomless emptiness….. an inky blackness.  As far as the eye of God could see, darkness covered everything, blacker than a hundred midnights deep in the woods of Maine.

         God’s Spirit brooded like a bird above the dark and watery abyss…like a mighty eagle or a wild goose, like a mother hen guarding her nest.  It was the same Spirit that fluttered down as a dove at Jesus’ baptism.  It was the same Spirit that drove Jesus into the wilderness for 40 days to figure out just how to do what God had called him to do, that is, to make God’s sacred dream for the world come true.  It was the same Spirit that blew out windows, created little eddies of dust and debris, and went on to surround the apostles, causing a spontaneous and joyous surrender in that upper room in Jerusalem at Pentecost.  It was the same Spirit that, from the beginning, has breathed itself into each and every human heart – even yours, even mine.  God’s Spirit. Holy Spirit…..

         Then God smiled, and the darkness rolled up on one side, and the light stood shining on the other. When that light materialized out of the deepest night, and order emerged from chaos, love and blessedness prevailed, and God said, “That’s good!”

         We all want to know where we came from.  We all want to hear the stories of our beginnings, stories that shape who we are today and offer guidance on who we should be in the future.  These stories are where we find our roots and our wings. 

         The tale I just paraphrased is the start of one of two creation stories in our Holy Scriptures. They are told without using scientific jargon because there was no scientific jargon when they were first told and eventually written down.  These stories that found their way into Genesis were in a setting and language that would have been familiar to the first ancient listeners.  Just imagine them sitting around a campfire in the cool of the evening asking life’s most persistent questions.  Who am I?  Where did I come from?

         These early listeners would have intuitively understood that their story, our story, this tale of the beginning stood in stark contrast to other creation tales bandied about in ancient days.  One might even say that, as UCC pastor Kathryn Matthews writes, their story, our story is “a counter-cultural protest of the people of Israel against the creation story of their Babylonian captors. While their oppressors saw the origins of the universe as violent and bloody, the Israelites told their children a different story, a story rooted in goodness and blessing.”  

         Lutheran pastor Kathryn Schifferdecker puts it this way.  Their story, our story “does not describe the world of ancient Near Eastern creation myths, where the gods have to defeat the sea or the sea dragon in order to create the earth. There is only one God in Genesis, and that God is the Creator of everything, including the sea monsters themselves. There is no chaos-monster in Genesis 1 that must be defeated.”  

         Ours is not the story of a cosmic clash between good and evil that characterizes so many creation stories.  In stark contrast, it is the story of what goodness and love can do.  And so, throughout that first ancient narrative, we are reminded that the earth and all that is in it is good – and blessed by God.  Before original sin, then, there was original blessing.

         Our story is a beautiful theological poem - mythology at its best - because it offers in imaginative language a reflection on the world and the nature of its creatures (including us).  It is a poetic ode to the God whose love lies at the heart of all creation, making that creation nothing other than good.

         Contrary to what the flat earthers and religious fundamentalists say who insist that all of this magnificent creation occurred in six 24-hour days about 6000 years ago, this passage was never meant to be taken as literal fact.  Its truth lies far deeper and is far more complex.  

         But let’s continue this story, our story…. 

 God separated the water under the sky from the water above sky.   “Water-beneath-Heaven, gather into one place; Land, appear!” And there it was.  God named the land Earth and the pooled water Ocean. And God smiled and said, “That’s good.’

         God spoke: “Earth, green up!”  Then the green grass sprouted, and the little red flowers blossomed, the pine tree pointed her finger to the sky, and the oak spread out his arms.  And God said, “That’s good.”

         God spoke: “Lights! Come on! And God set the sun blazing in the heavens. And the light that was left from making the sun God gathered up in a shining ball and flung against the darkness, sprinkling the night with the moon and stars. And God said, “That’s good.

         God spoke: “Swarm, Ocean, with fish and all sea life!  Birds, fly through the sky over Earth!”  Fishes and fowls and beasts and birds swam the rivers and the seas, roamed the forests and the woods, and filled the air with their wings. And God said: That's good!

         God spoke: “I will make human beings in my sacred image, full to the brim with goodness and light. They will reflect my love for this world and be responsible for the fish in the sea, the birds in the air, the cattle, and, yes, even for the Earth itself.”  

         Imagine:  God Almighty who lit the sun and fixed it in the sky, who flung the stars to the most far corner of the night, who shaped the earth gently: This great God formed us – male and female - in that holy image. Then into us God blew the breath of life, and we became living souls. 

And God blessed us and gave us one command: “Be responsible.  Be responsible for the fish in the sea and the birds in the air, for every living thing that moves on the face of the Earth.  Be responsible.” And God said one more time, “That’s good.”

         Be responsible:  Those are powerful words that will continue to haunt us down through the ages when we realize that we are answerable not only to God, but to one another, to our children, to all the generations yet to come.  Be responsible as God is responsible.  Love the world as God loved the world.

         I think the ancient Celts who lived principally in Britain and Ireland understood that command to be responsible for creation.  

You see, their theology was founded on a respect for and love of the natural world.  These ancient Western Celts were animists.  That is, for them, God was found in the world around them and was manifested by everything in it.  

However, unlike so many ancient animists, they did not fear the wildness of creation.  Rather they were fascinated by it and embraced the natural world. For the ancient Celts, everything was sacred and worthy of a blessing.  

They did not at first accept orthodox Christianity which emerged out of urban Rome.  However, when they did, they did so on their terms, retaining that reverence for the natural world, for all of creation, and weaving it seamlessly into their Christian faith.  

Though some of Jesus’ parables may not directly touch our experience, the ancient Celts would have related easily to them – lost sheep, vineyards, fig trees.  All of these images were aspects of God’s amazing creation for which, down through the ages, we are responsible to love and sustain and bless.  

 But what about us today?  I fear that we have done a pretty effective job of abdicating our responsibility for creation care in the name of unbridled economic growth, religious fundamentalism, and political expediency.  

Call it what you will – global warming, climate change, climate dis-regulation. We are in the midst of a crisis, and we humans are the root cause.  We consume more than we care.  We take more than we share.  We feel entitled to far more than our due.  

What will happen to our grandchildren - and their children - if we do not take our responsibility seriously today? What will happen if we fail to see that we are part of a sacred web that includes all of creation, something the ancient Celts intuitively understood.  What will happen if we have forgotten that God said it was all good?

         What will Maine be like when we no longer have maple trees to tap for syrup in the spring?  What will Maine be like when most of our children will contract Lyme disease at some point in their lifetime – but that will be the least of their tick-borne disease worries?  What will Maine be like when the Southwest becomes a desert wasteland?  Will we welcome the great migration northeastward to our towns and villages and neighborhoods where there is still water?

         We may argue with enormous intensity about whether the earth was created in six days or a billion years, but, when we do, we miss most important point in this creation story.  As Kathryn Matthews blogged: “We were created, by whatever process and whatever length it took, by a gracious Creator, in love and goodness, and we are called to care for this earth, this good creation, not to dominate or abuse it. We are responsible for its care.”  

         My prayer is that we will wake up and face the world that we have made.  However, prayer is not enough, and so that prayer is coupled with a challenge to you.  It is simple.  It is this:  Understand and act upon your God-given responsibility not only for what has happened to creation, but also for what will happen in the years to come.

         Care for your own little spot in the world. Know your carbon footprint and be prepared to offset it by planting trees and moving away from fossil fuels.  Leverage your privilege.  You may not feel affluent, but you are. Leverage your privilege through what you choose to buy – where it is from, how it is packaged - and, for those lucky enough to have money left over, in what you choose to invest. Vote for politicians who are wise enough to embrace creation care.

         We may not have all the answers, but surely we can affirm that we are on this precious planet together, committed to God’s command uttered in the very first chapter of the Book of Genesis:  Be responsible.  

         Our younger son once asked me about his relationship with his then serious girlfriend (now his wife and our wonderful daughter-in-law).  “When do you move,” he queried, “from things being about “me” to being about “us”?”  

That is a good question about serious personal relationships but also a good question when it comes to our relationship with the earth and its creatures, when it comes to defining our responsibility. When do we embrace all of creation as the ancient Celts did?  When do we acknowledge that we too are part of a sacred web, that we are part of the warp and woof of a marvelous tapestry that God began weaving at the very beginning of time? When do we understand that all of life is worthy of a blessing?  When, as our son asked, does it move from being about “me” to being about “us”?

         

            

 

 

 

Homily on Maple Trees

         I usually base my Sunday sermons on the assigned Bible readings.  However, on this first Sunday of Spring, here we are outdoors on Maine Maple Sunday at Jo’s Sugarbush.  The odor of syrup-in-the-making is wafting about, and we are surrounded by trees. 

How could I talk about the Prodigal Son as I would have if we were worshipping in the sanctuary – except to wonder whether the younger wayward brother might have wistfully recalled Springtime on the family farm as he tried to scavenge bean pods among the swine in a distant country.

How could I talk about the Prodigal Son - except to wonder whether the older hardworking brother might have been better off putting down his hoe for a time and simply soaking in the change of season, appreciating the natural world around him, breathing deeply the newness of Spring and the clean slate it brings the world.  If he had, perhaps he might have uncovered a new understand of his place in it and a different perspective on his relationship with his brother.

         Those first signs of spring – birds returning, crocuses sprouting - do that for us – for me at least.  They remind me of new life and a new start.  

However, though I did see about 30 robins in our side yard the other day, but nary a crocus, I look less to the birds and early blooms for insights into Spring and my life and more to the trees, to which I am partial. 

         We have a lot of trees on our 33 acre farm.  Joe cuts our firewood – ash, oak, birch. Birds nest in them, and they provide shade on hot summer days.

          Trees are amazing.  Did you know that trees communicate with each other through a network of root connections? Many biologists believe they can communicate their needs, and even send one another nutrients via a network of fungus buried in the soil. They seem to “talk” to each other, sending warning signals about environmental change and transferring their nutrients to neighboring plants before they die. The forest is a cooperative system.  

It all makes me wonder whether we as humans are meant to be the same, a cooperative system - not just to survive, but to thrive – as a forest can.  Would we thrive if we shared rather than hoarded?  If we created and expanded our own networks in order to care for one another in these trying times?  

We can learn a lot from the trees around us  That is why I love them, but I am particularly partial to maple trees. You see, like the Hartwell’s, Joe and I tap some our maple trees.

         I love that maples freely offer us some of their lifeblood each spring. I love to look up into their branches – now bare but soon to be filled with leaves.  I love to run my hands down their nubbly gray bark and imagine their roots holding firm under the ground.  

         If I would take the time when Joe and I are collecting sap – and unfortunately I rarely do – I would think about the life cycle of the maple tree.  I would ponder what I might learn from this marvelous creation.

         I would imagine one of those butterfly-shaped seed pods fluttering to the earth and becoming buried in the soil and muck.  I would imagine the seed finding enough warmth to germinate and one day pushing its way out of the darkness of the humus and rotted leaves. 

I would imagine the seedling becoming a fragile sapling and somehow surviving blustery spring winds and the frosty gales of a Maine winter.  I would imagine that sapling over time bending more easily into the wind and, over the years, developing a strong trunk, its growth rings expanding as its branches continued to reach toward the sky.  I would imagine its leaves providing a canopy of shade and a protective home for birds and squirrels in the summer.  I would imagine the very first tap hammered gently into the trunk one future spring, and the sap flowing generously. 

It is mind-blowing to me that such a fragile seed could one day become a strong and sturdy tree, offering so many gifts to the world, playing out that yearly cycle of re-creation over and over again.  It is such a hopeful symbol for us humans, perhaps one to hold especially close as we near the end of Lent and anticipate Holy Week where death and life intersect in a new way.  

That  repetitive life cycle of a maple makes me ever more assured that we too – you and I - have the capability to constantly re-create – even resurrect - ourselves, with the Spirit’s help.   And so I ask myself:  Might we too, like the maple tree, learn to live lives of possibility with the expectation that the inevitable change we encounter means growth?  I know full well that the answer is yes.

Might we too have it in us to survive the wintry chill of disappointment and difficulty, intuitively trusting that warmer, sunnier days lie ahead, days when we would offer shelter to all who need it as the maple tree offers shade? Again - yes.

 Might we too someday offer some of our lifeblood (whatever that might be) to whomever needs it with the same unquestioning generosity that a maple tree offers its sap in the spring? Oh, yes.  I hope so.

So much to learn about human possibility from trees, especially the maple tree!  And so I challenge you in the weeks ahead to notice the trees.  Take note when the maple trees leaf out – and later when the apple blossoms bloom. And remember the ways that trees care for each other and thrive because they are interconnected.

I challenge you also to have some fun and pretend that you are a tree.  Spread your arms and imagine that they are branches bursting with lilac flowers. Wave them in the wind, noting that they bend and sway, but when healthy do not break.  

Let your body be a firm trunk, feel the blessed earth beneath your feet, connecting you to the ground, connecting you to our faithful God who nurtures us always and roots us in hope for the future as we send out tendrils of comfort and love to those around us.  

Revelation 21:1-6 "Hope"

         It begins in a garden and ends in a city. It begins in Eden and ends in the New Jerusalem.  It begins with Genesis and ends with Revelation.  Our Bible, our root of our religious heritage, that is.

         Most of us are pretty familiar with the beginning, with the garden part and its sacred stories.  For those of us who went to Sunday School, there we first encountered the marvelous myth of Adam and Eve, the serpent, and the apple.  

That is where we also first heard the other creation story in the Book of Genesis.  In our mind’s eye, we imagine the leafy canopy of trees, all measure of colorful blooming plants, and seemingly infinite numbers of creatures great and small.  We remember the water flowing in abundance: cool rushing streams and quiet clear pools. Nourishing life-giving water.  And above all, we remember that the Holy One, the Creator, proclaimed in no uncertain terms that it was all good. 

         When it comes to the Bible’s beginning, the garden part, we are well-versed.  However, most of us know far less about the end, about the city part.  The Book of Revelation whose climactic image is that of the New Jerusalem is somehow elusive, perhaps because we either we take this apocalyptic piece of prose too seriously, putting our own stamp of literalism on it, or we do not take it seriously enough and toss it aside as so much claptrap with little relevance to us who pride ourselves in our progressivism.   

         Either way, we tend to focus on the more dramatic middle chapters of the book.  We zero in on the Armageddon images and the horrors that accompany them – the dragons and wild beasts, the smoke, the fires, the lightening, the earthquakes, and all those puzzling numbers. 

         If we take Revelation literally, we probably have books like “Left Behind” and “The Late Great Planet Earth” on the nightstand next to our bed. We may even have convinced ourselves that the author of Revelation surely had us – you and me - in mind when he wrote his apocalypse nearly 2000 years ago. 

Yet, as theologian Bart Ehrman (himself once a Christian literalist) wrote, “In every generation since the book [of Revelation] was written, Christians have argued that its vivid description of catastrophic events would happen in their own day. So far, none of them have been right.”

         And even if we do not take this Biblical book literally, we still look to its middle chapters, like our fundamentalist counterparts.  However, instead of matching its images with current events, we “pooh pooh” it all, bothering neither to delve into its historical context nor to search for more promising reasons for its inclusion in our Bible.  

If truth be known, too many of us  disregard the Book of Revelation as the dubious work of man named John who was probably tripping on some hallucinogenic substance as he sat on his solitary island beach and wrote this apocalypse, an erstwhile Timothy Leary. 

         This morning, however, I challenge you to put aside all those pre-judgments and look with new eyes at this Book of Revelation.  First, let’s understand why it was written, and, second, let’s ponder whether the verses I just read, which come so close to the end of the book, say something worth remembering.

         Like all books in our Bible, Revelation was penned at a specific time in history and was written to a particular group of people.  The book is attributed to John, but we really do not know the author’s name. However, we do know that he wrote to a community of Christians who were suffering and feared for their lives.  

         Revelation is a letter of support and encouragement in the literary style of an apocalypse to people enduring tremendous, heart-breaking hardship, people so thirsty for hope.  In spite of all the crazy and otherworldly images, this book was designed to comfort as it related the dreams and visions of its author, an author who himself was also victimized because he was an exiled prisoner.  For the next few moments then, let’s entertain the possibility that John (or whoever wrote this book), as one blogger maintains, wrote it as a “document that describes the attempts of a community to deal with unspeakable loss.” (Magdalene’s Musings”)

         The community that first heard this letter, this Book of Revelation, lived in a world rife with persecution directed at them.  Life had changed on a dime and was spinning out of control.  Nothing was the same anymore. John’s listeners were desperately afraid – for themselves, their families, and their communities.  

         It was like the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor.  It was like the hours after 9/11. It was like seeing the recent bold headline that Russia was invading Ukraine and wondering how NATO would respond. It was like just this past week when the CDC announced that the COVID death count in this country had surpassed a million people.  It was like this morning when you read about the 18 year old boy responsible for a mas hooting directed at black Americans in Buffalo.

It was the kind of world that made you ask all those questions you never in your wildest dreams thought you would ever ask.  What do we do now?  How can we be safe?  How can I protect my family, my children?  I am so tired of this pandemic….Would Putin ever use nuclear weapons?  Wil Congress ever pass adequate – if any – gun control?

         As the author of the blog “Magdalene’s Musings” writes:  “For the early Christian community, which we must remember was also, largely, a Jewish community, there was at least a twofold trauma: first, Roman armies had destroyed both the Temple and Jerusalem in the year 70 CE. And second, in the aftermath of that destruction, followers of Jesus had been singled out for persecution.”

         The Book of Revelation was written at a time of tremendous loss. The annihilation of the Temple was like death itself. It was the symbolic destruction of more than 500 years of sacred ritual.  A way of life was gone forever.  A holy site that had been central to generations of Jews as well as to Jesus was a pile of rubble.

         And the losses spread relentlessly, like tentacles reaching into each home, every life. Parents, children, spouses, friends… everyone was touched by death. Everyone was touched by loss. Entire communities struggled with how to face another day of persecution, another day of uncertainty, another day of impending disaster. 

The early followers of Jesus were living in a frightening world, one that caused them to ask all sorts of questions they’d never faced before. What do we do now? My family, my community, those I love… are we safe?  And where in heaven’s name is God? 

Who can blame this little Christian community for its crisis of faith? The author of Revelation wrote his apocalypse in response to that historical reality, a reality devoid of hope.

         With that in mind, listen to John’s words again, this time in “The Message” translation:

“I saw Heaven and earth new-created. Gone the first Heaven, gone the first earth, gone the sea.  I saw Holy Jerusalem, new-created, descending resplendent out of Heaven….

I heard a voice thunder from the Throne: “Look! Look! God has moved into the neighborhood, making his home with men and women! They’re his people, he’s their God. He’ll wipe every tear from their eyes. Death is gone for good—tears gone, crying gone, pain gone—all the first order of things gone.” The Enthroned continued, “Look! I’m making everything new. …Then he said, “It’s happened. I’m A to Z. I’m the Beginning, I’m the Conclusion.  From the Water-of-Life Well I give freely to the thirsty…..

         After all, (he might have continued), I am the garden with its quiet pools and rushing streams.  I am the city with the water of life.  

What would it have meant to first hear those words? What does it mean today to realize that the same message of hope that began our Holy Scriptures also concludes it, closing a loop, completing a sacred web?

Revelation is a powerful message of hope for us today because, when you come right down to it, we are not all that far removed from John. Like him, we are all prisoners because we all live in some sort of fear and insecurity.  We are all exiled in one form or another. 

Like him and the community to whom he wrote, we thirst, we thirst for hope in a broken world. We may not have lost someone we love to COVID.  We may not fear for our teenaged sons because they are black, but in one way or another, we are all victims, thirsty victims. So much of the time recently, in one way or another, we all are just trying to survive in circumstances beyond our control. And if you do not feel like a victim now (not to suggest a downer), but someday you will.

And so John’s words are as much for us as they were for the struggling Christian community to whom he wrote.  And if you only remember only one thing from this sermon, remember that John’s purpose in writing is to restore and renew and heal and to quench an unbearable thirst for hope in a sometimes cynical and jaded and often confusing, fearful, and imperfect world. It is as if we have been invited into the author’s vividly imaginative and creative brain to catch a glimpse of God’s dream for us and for the world that once long ago the Holy One called good.  

         And what do we find? Well, I can tell you this.  We will not come face to face with that sacred dream by being beamed up to heaven in some glorious rapture.  Nope - we do not need to sit on some desert mesa and wait for the end times!  

         John tells us instead that God is descending to earth, moving into the neighborhood (as The Message translation puts it), making a holy home with us, right now, ready to wipe away our tears and embrace us in our pain.  As a blogger I read noted: “When we are oppressed by a sense that our losses are too much for us, Revelation beckons us to that place where we can find that we are already part of a new heaven and a new earth.” (Magdalene’s Musings)

         John tells us that God is not starting over again.  God is not about destroying.  God is about restoring, renewing, resurrecting, healing.  How hopeful is that! 

We should not be surprised really.  After all, God has a long history of using the world and all that is in it to make new things happen.  There were the Hebrew slaves that ended up a chosen people.  There was Jesus’ crucifixion that ended up in resurrection, and for us who are Christians, we trust that, in the aftermath of Easter, all the sacred promises of the past as well as our hopes for the future have already begun to take shape. Deep in our hearts, at least a part of us trusts that God is taking all our shattered pieces and making us whole again.  How hopeful is that!

         Oh, we are not a bunch of Pollyanna’s, holding hands and singing Kum Ba Yah.  We know all too well that we do not live yet in the New Jerusalem.  No - we live where life is cheap, and the innocent often suffer. We live in Poland as Ukrainian refugees.  We live in Portapique, Nova Scotia, trying to comprehend how the worst mass shooting ever in Canada could have happened in our little town.  We live in a nation where more than 100,000 people died of drug overdoses last year. 

         But still, we hear John the exiled prisoner whisper…“Look! Look! God has moved into the neighborhood, making his home with men and women! They’re his people, he’s their God…, “Look! I’m making everything new. … “It’s happened. I’m A to Z. I’m the Beginning, I’m the Conclusion.  From the Water-of-Life well I give freely to the thirsty…..

Such words of hope – enough to keep in our own hearts – with some left over to share.  Isn’t that what we as Christians do with the hope we find tucked away in our hearts?  Share it?

As Methodist pastor David Haley remarked, “Having seen John’s vision of the world God will bring, of the new world God is struggling to bring, is it too much to ask that we work for it as best we can, by seeking justice and peace? Where, in emulation and anticipation of our God, we dry the tears from human eyes, in the name of Jesus Christ?” 

Is it too much to ask that we share the waters of life and abundance with others who thirst for hope? Is it too much to ask that we follow the Risen Christ, the Living Water, and walk with him who proclaims the resurrecting power of God?

It begins in a garden and ends in a city.  It begins with quiet pools and rushing streams and ends with the endlessly deep well of the water of life.  It begins with creation and ends with re-creation.  It begins with hope and ends with the same.

John 20:1-18 "Brief Easter Reflection in the Midst of COVID"

         Easter sermons are traditionally, what?  A chance for the pastor to gently chastise the folks who only show up in church then and on Christmas Eve?  An opportunity for the pastor to preach a bit longer and show off his or her more abstractly academic theological leanings to a captive audience?

         Not today, folks!  First of all, I have no idea who might have been sitting in these hard wooden pews this morning were it not for COVID 19 forcing us to not only be socially distant from one another but, in compliance with Gov. Mills most recent executive order, to shelter in place.  However, I am not the chastising type of pastor anyway.  

Second, I do not have a captive audience because you can turn off this youtube video whenever you want – and we all know that is a lot more convenient and less guilt-invoking than closing our eyes and possibly falling asleep in church.  However, I don’t intend to preach a longer than usual sermon today anyway:  Brevity above all this morning.

         I simply want to point out two things about the version of the Easter story that you just heard.

         First, in contrast to the other Gospel accounts, Mary Magdalene did not discover the empty tomb at dawn, at sunrise, at that “in between” time of first light.  In John’s account, Mary made her way to the rock tomb in the garden when it was still dark.  There was no warm sun.  There was no sparkling dew on the grass.  There was only night.  There was only darkness.  There was only hopelessness.  There was only despair.  

         And that is an important observation for us today – when our world too is dark, when our lives are like night, when we feel hopelessness begin to close in around us, and despair to envelope us as COVID19 continues to spread, and ventilators and hospital beds become more scarce, and death tolls rise.

         Yet, as Mary discovered, God continues to work in the dark.  In some ways, God does God’s best work in the dark.  God brought the Hebrew slaves out of Egypt in the dark.  God walks with us in the valley of the shadow (or darkness) of death.  And, of course, on today of all days, God orchestrated the resurrection.  God achieved in the dark the essence of a holy dream for the world – where life wins, where hope wins, where love wins.  Remember that in the days to come.

         Second, I think it is so ironic that Jesus tells Mary not to touch him.  It is the original social distancing!  And yet, in the end, touch is not what matters most.  Jesus calls her name: “Mary”.  She recognizes him, and the love between them explodes across all the social distance that separates them.  

         And so for us today, remember that handshakes are friendly, to be sure.  Hugs are nice.  However, saying one another’s name, recognizing each other as individuals with our own unique fears and needs, saying one another’s name using words of love acted upon in new ways will connect and interconnect us until a strong and sacred web is formed.  Remember that too in the days to come.

         And so this year, as we shelter in place and wonder if we are doing all we can to protect ourselves and our families from this virus, maybe our Easter message is simply this: 

First, watch for God in the darkness because Jesus who embodies God’s dream has been set loose in the world and will break through any darkness in which we find ourselves.  The Risen One will light our way, particularly now, particularly this year.  COVID19 will not win because we are not alone.

And second, even though we cannot touch, all is not lost.  We remain connected the world over because we continue – in great high hope - to say each other’s names in the darkness and to act with love.  

         Maybe that is what resurrection really means this particularly crazy Easter morning.  I certainly hope so.

Leviticus 19:1-2, 9-18 "Spiritual Affective Disorder: Gleaning"

Leviticus 19:1-2, 9-18

         When I went to Sunday School, the classroom goal for the year was always the same.  It was every Sunday School teacher’s dream to have each child memorize all the books of the Bible.  

Since each year we started at the beginning, most of us over time had a fairly good grasp on the Old Testament books, particularly the ones near the start of the Bible – and a not-so-good grasp on the New Testament, especially anything that came after the Gospels.  And our tenuous grip on the opening New Testament narratives was most likely the result of the rhyme that annually circulated the halls of the church education wing: “Matthew, Mark, Luke, John.  Saddle the horse, and I’ll jump on.”

         However, over time we all knew that Genesis came first with its admittedly hard-to-believe as we grew older but still interesting tales about Eve sprouting from one of Adam’s ribs, Eve with her penchant for ripe red apples and fascinating ability to talk to snakes, about Noah and the animals in the Ark bobbing on the waves for 40 days and 40 nights before ending up perched precariously on the summit of Mt. Ararat, and Abraham nearly sacrificing his son, Isaac, on a makeshift altar in the woods before a ram entangled in the nearby bushes miraculously appeared to save the day.  A Biblical deus ex machina, perfected later by ancient Greek playwrights. 

Then there was the drama of Exodus with the Burning Bush and Moses standing In his bare feet on holy ground, the parting of the Red Sea with the triumphant drowning of all the Egyptians on their chariots along with their horses, and then Moses smashing the stone tablets as he descended from Mt. Sinai when he witnessed in horror the Hebrews dancing sensually, their sweat glistening in the firelight, dancing  around a Golden Calf in the valley below (at least, that is how Cecil B. DiMille portrayed the scene in the movie).  

But after Genesis and Exodus, well, then came the three boring books, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy – finally followed by action once again with the story of Joshua besieging the city of Jericho until the walls came a tumblin’ down – and so on and so on.

Leviticus, then, was the first of the three often skipped over dull books. It was the one that encompassed all sorts of laws, most of which make no sense to us today and some that we would not even want to talk about in polite church company, but laws nonetheless that the Hebrew people were to abide by as they settled the Promised Land.  

And so we find in this tedious Book of Leviticus what to do about animal sacrifice, oozing sores, moldy walls, gashed flesh, and any sort of bodily emission you can think of.  There are also instructions about diseases, women’s health, and sexual mores.  

According to this rulebook, trimming one’s beard was prohibited, as were sporting tattoos and wearing clothing made of two kinds of fabric.  Even more difficult to stomach – no pun intended – was that eating shrimp and lobster was outlawed, and, worst of all, no bacon.

And those were the easy laws!  If you were less than holy because of the animals you sacrificed or the tattoo you got when your mother was looking the other way, if you were impure in those instances, you could clean up after yourself, so to speak.   

However, tucked in amongst all of these offbeat and, to us at least, ridiculous regulations governing what we eat and what we wear, are the verses that we read this morning, all of which could be grouped together under the more acceptable umbrella of “neighborliness.”  These are the more difficult laws to abide by.

In these verses, we find laws that echo the Ten Commandments, such as do not steal and do not use God’s name in vain.  And we find the words that Jesus fell back on – either directly or indirectly - time and again in his own preaching:  Love your neighbor as yourself.  

Those laws are the tough ones because they challenge us to live in the likeness of God.  They demand that we live as God dreamt from the beginning that we would live. They call us to be good and holy because God is good and holy.

Old Testament scholar Tyler Mayfield summarizes these Hebrew Bible verses this way:  “Broadly speaking, the regulations provided in Leviticus 19 relate to ethical matters such as the proper treatment of others, how we respect and honor various peoples.”  He goes on to elaborate, “The laws deal with one’s relationship to these diverse groups, cutting across economic, familial, and ability lines…..

The word typically translated as ‘neighbor’ does not carry an explicitly geographic association. It is not necessarily the one whom you live beside or across from or on the same street. It is not necessarily the people on your side of town or even those within your city.”  

Your neighbor, then, is any fellow traveler you encounter – either directly or indirectly – on your way through life.  It is the homeless man with his sign saying that anything would help.  It is the refugee fleeing famine, the immigrant seeking a better life, and the asylum seeker mother and her children leaving terror behind.  It is the one who cannot worship with us and enjoy our fellowship afterwards because we are not suitably handicapped accessible. Those people are all our neighbors.

I find it fascinating that these short sound bite injunctions that punctuate this passage are bookended at the beginning by the demand to “be holy” and at the end by the commandment to “love your neighbor.”  It is as if the author is constructing a bridge between being holy and loving one’s neighbor.  

The author seems to be saying read between the lines - literally.  And when you do, you will discover that there is a linkage between holiness and love of neighbor, a linkage that is expressed and lived out by the verses in between:  Do not deceive.  Do not defraud.  Do not hold back wages.  

Do not discriminate against or make life difficult for the blind, the deaf, the disabled.  Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge.  Do not do anything that endangers your neighbor’s life.  Do not pervert justice.  

Is it any wonder, then, that these verses are part of what is called in Leviticus, the “Holiness Code”?  As Old Testament scholar Cameron Howard notes in her commentary, “In the Holiness Code, holiness extends from the sanctuary (that is, the synagogue or, in our case, the four walls of this church building) ‘to the land and its occupants’…Holiness is a mark of distinction…Achieving holiness requires ethical behavior, not only ritual precision. “

She continues to write, “The practices described in this passage name the kinds of everyday injustices that not only many of us have experienced, but also that many of us have committed. There are perhaps dozens of times every day that we have the opportunity to look out for our neighbor, but we look out only for ourselves: we do not leave some of our income for the poor, we deal in falsehoods to save or make a little more money, we bear grudges against family and friends. These are the actions that should make us blush. Yet we often become so comfortable with our sins that we hardly even notice them.”

She concludes by saying, “Leviticus’ concern with impurity and holiness remains relevant today, even to the twenty-first-century Christian reader. The book brings to each of us the question: what in your life is impeding your encounter with God?”

Or to use the language we have been using throughout this worship series:  What is increasing the likelihood that you will experience Spiritual Affective Disorder, so that you feel like you are living I the winter blahs of semi-darkness?  And what intentional spiritual practice might you embrace that will turn the lights on once again in your life?

Of all the ways to be holy as God is holy, to be neighborly as God dreams for us to be, I think the very first one stated is an excellent place for us to begin:

“When you harvest your land, don’t harvest right up to the edges of your field or gather the gleanings from the harvest. Don’t strip your vineyard bare or go back and pick up the fallen grapes. Leave them for the poor and the foreigner.

For the farmer - or even backyard gardener - among us, these verses might make perfect sense.  

 Leave the snow peas and the eggplants, the zucchini and summer squash that grow near the perimeters of your vegetable gardens intact and refrain from freezing them for your own use in the coming winter.  Do not pick up the drops from your apple tree in the autumn and make applesauce for yourself.  

Why? Because, in Leviticus, the purpose of leaving produce in the field was to give poor people an opportunity to gather food for themselves and their families. For us, that might mean planting a row or two to give to the Food Pantry – or canning some applesauce to give away as well.

However, for those of us who are not farmers – or even summer gardeners - how might this idea of gleaning, that is, of gathering food for those who need it out of the abundance that we live with every day, be applicable to our own lives?  What if we began by embracing the blessing of our abundance and recognizing the excess we have?  What if we were to intentionally, as the adage goes, “live simply such that others may simply live”?  

What might that look like?  For Sharon Beckwith, the founder of Daisy’s Children who will be speaking to us at the end of our worship, it meant starting a non-profit to feed hungry children in Honduras.  For you, it might be a much smaller task.  

As worship consultant Marcia McFee suggested, “What awareness can we bring to the food we buy, cook, and throw away as part of our spiritual mandate to care for the human family? (Could it be) cooking more than enough and sharing with someone who needs it, buying extra at the grocery store to donate to the food bank, or getting involved in a gleaning network's efforts?”

         Therein lies is my final challenge to you this week as we wrap up our worship series on Spiritual Affective Disorder.  Do something around the excess of food in your life.  Practice  some 21^st century “but I do not have a garden and besides it is winter anyway” opportunity for gleaning.  Again - what might that look like?  Perhaps it would be something as simple as cooking extra to share with someone who might need a little help – financially or emotionally. 

Take those chocolate chips left over from baking Christmas cookies and put together a batch for a friend. Bake a casserole with those extra noodles and cans of tuna in your cupboard for a neighbor who is having a hard time.  Buy an extra jar of spaghetti sauce, and a box of pasta, and a couple of extra cans of soup and fruit and vegetables, and leave them on the Missions table in the Vestry to donate to our Food Pantry.  

Take a collection box that will be available after worship and support Daisy’s Children – our Lenten mission project – and by doing so help food insecure children be fed.  

Doing those things is being neighborly as Jesus challenges us to be.  Doing those things is being holy as these verses in the Book of Leviticus call us to be.  After all, as Presbyterian pastor Diane Christopher reminds us, the question is this:  “What does holiness look like?  It is loving God, but it is also loving our neighbor. Being holy is about how we treat other people. That is what Leviticus 19 is all about. It is about living together in a community.”

Psalm 119:1-8 "Spiritual Affective Disorder: Movement"

         Our Bible is full of references to movement – from walking to running to even dancing.  When the newly freed Hebrew slaves safely crossed the Red Sea, leaving the Egyptians who pursued them drowning in the waves, Miriam, a prophetess as well as Aaron’s sister, took to the heights above the shoreline with a bunch of the women following her.  There she pulled out a tambourine, and they all danced in joyful celebration of their freedom.  

Likewise, a young King David once stripped to his skivvies and danced triumphantly down the main drag in Jerusalem as he brought the Ark of the Covenant home.  He was clearly celebrating though his wife looked on from a nearby second story window, much chagrined and embarrassed by his antics.

         In the letters attributed to the Apostle Paul, the author writes several times about running the good race and going the distance.  And in the Book of Hebrews, the very last book to become part of our Bible, we are encouraged to “run with perseverance the race marked out for us,  fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.”

         And did you know that the first followers of Jesus did not refer to their newfound lives as being Christian?  Rather, they understood themselves to simply be women and men on the Way, Jesus’ Way, on the path down which they would walk together as a community. 

The Gospels are replete with movement as well.  The Good Samaritan walks on the road to Jericho.  The Prodigal Son walks to the security of his ancestral home.  Jesus and his twelve closest disciples walk from village to village and town to town to heal the sick, raise the dead, and preach the Good News of God.

         And, of course, this excerpt from Psalm 119 that we read this morning begins with the image of walking.  “Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord!”  Topping out at 176 verses, Psalm 119 is the longest of the 150 psalms included in our Bible.  Perhaps for us, in our fast moving sound bite culture, this extraordinarily long psalm is more bedtime reading than anything else.  However, ancient readers, as Old Testament scholar Joel LeMon explains, “would have found this psalm utterly compelling because it makes bold claims about how to live a happy life and have a healthy heart.”

         Psalm 119 is what scholars dub an acrostic psalm.  It utilizes a style of writing found in a couple of other psalms and in sections of the Old Testament book of Lamentations.  As LeMon goes on to say, “In these poems, each verse typically begins with a successive letter in the Hebrew alphabet. Thus, the first verse would begin with aleph and the second with beth, and so on, until the poet reached the end of the alphabet.  Psalm 119 is a singularly complex alphabetic acrostic in that every line in an entire stanza begins with the same letter. So not just one verse, but eight verses start with the letter aleph -- the next eight with beth, and so on, all the way through the Hebrew alphabet.”

         Psalm 119 then would have been a terrific way to learn both the Hebrew alphabet and the importance of the Law of God, the Torah. Here in this psalm then, becoming educated about the significance of the  Law and all the good that comes from keeping it and mastering the written language by which to study the law were intertwined.  Kind of like catching two birds with one stone.

         As Biblical scholar Jason Byassee noted:  “The psalm is expansive, exhaustive, and exhausting, and it’s making a point. God’s law is delightful. Really.”  It is like a manual for living.  You cannot be happy, the Psalmist seems to say, if you do not consult the manual  - the rules - every now and then.  

         But really!  Rules, rules, rules!  The thought of excessive rule-making is enough to make you cringe.  Whether it be too much environmental regulation or a requirement that our children be vaccinated before they enter public school, laws have the potential to constrain us and curtail our freedom.  And it is true.  Some laws make no sense – and I do not mean that as a politically charged statement about either environmental regulation or Question 1 on the March ballot.

There was once a young girl who watched her mother numerous times prepare a beef roast for Sunday dinner.  Just before putting the roast into the oven, the mother would cut off the end of the roast and set it aside.  

So one day the little girl asked “Why do you cut the end off of the meat?” 

 “Because that’s the recipe,” her mother replied.  “That’s how my mother did it.”  

“OK,” the girl said, “but what does it do?  Why do it?”

Well, come to think of it the mother was not sure, so she called her mother, who likewise had no idea why she had always prepared a beef roast that way.  “That’s how my mother always did it,” she also said.  

How lucky the little group of seekers was, however, to be able to consult yet another generation! They contacted the little girl’s great-grandmother, only to hear her burst out in laughter.  “I always cut the end off a roast beef because the only pan I had for the oven was too small to hold the whole thing!”

         OK – some rules really are completely senseless and arbitrary.  In fact, Reformed pastor Scott Hoezee elaborated in his commentary that ‘Frederick Buechner once noted that in all of life there are two kinds of laws: arbitrary laws like the setting of a Speed Limit or a property owner’s decision to post ‘No Hunting’ signs on his land.  

There may be some rationale behind those kinds of laws but they could also change: a state government could raise or lower the maximum Speed Limit.  The next person who buys a piece of land that had previously been designated ‘No Hunting’ may allow hunting on that land after all now that it belongs to him.

But then there is something like the Law of Gravity.  It’s not arbitrary.  It explains how the world works.  The Law exists to tell us not how some random person or government decided how things could be but rather these laws exist to reflect how things very simply are.  If you don’t like a Speed Limit of 35, you can push it up to 45 and probably get away with it most of the time.  

However, if you decide you don’t like the Law of Gravity and so defy it by stepping into thin air on the edge of a cliff . . .  well, you won’t get away with it.” Two kinds of laws:  And the Law about which the Psalmist writes is the second sort, whether we follow it or not.

         In his commentary, Byassee goes on to say, “There’s nearly nothing about the content of the law at all in this psalm. It goes on and on about how wonderful the law is, but never tells us what the law is. Not once! If this was the only chapter of the bible we had, we couldn’t reconstruct one of the ten commandments from it, let alone scripture’s 603 other commands. The psalm is an attitude adjustment, not a content dump.”  

The Psalm espouses not a complete set of complex and constraining rules, but rather a way of life that will bring one closer to God. Taking a wrong turn is likely to leave us broken.  Listening for God as we walk the path of our spiritual journey will bring us joy.

And yet, it is often so difficult to listen for God in this season of darkness, this season of chill.  Curled up in front of the woodstove with a good book may seem like the perfect antidote.  However, in the long run, doing so is likely to lead to social and spiritual isolation – and Spiritual Affective Disorder.  

As worship consultant Marcia McFee informs us, “Research shows that one of the most effective mood-boosters is moving our bodies. Stretching, walking, and dancing can send feel-good endorphins coursing through us and the change can feel like a light coming on. The Hebrew authors of our scriptures used the metaphor of ‘walking’ in God's ways to help us see the benefits to our spiritual lives of moving toward the goodness of God.”

Certainly for me, when I was doing early morning walks while training for the 10 annual 60 mile Komen breast cancer walks that I have completed, I just felt so much more centered – and frankly alive.  Those walks gave me an opportunity to clear my head.  In fact, I wrote some of my best sermons (in my mind, of course) walking on the road! 

Walking also gave me a chance to slow down and take in the world around me.  I remember walking close to a hidden red wing blackbird nest one morning.  I had no idea I was disturbing anything by my presence until an adult bird was suddenly flapping its wings a foot or two from my face.  The experience was a rather shocking blessing I will never forget!  I recommend a good intentional walk – even in the wintertime – as a spiritual practice to bring one closer to God and to keep the winter blues at bay.

I do not do much running anymore, so I cannot really comment on it as a spiritual practice.  Certainly some people find it exceedingly helpful – especially when they get into the so-called “zone” and feel like they could continue running forever.  I guess it is a wonderfully freeing feeling which, I must admit, I cannot ever remember experiencing.

But dancing!  That is another story!  Joe’s mother loved to dance!  In fact, one of my fondest memories of her was the evening after Thanksgiving a year before she died.  The Irish music was playing loudly, and she was dancing – first by herself, then with a daughter.  

Soon a granddaughter joined her, and finally Joe’s mother beckoned to Tim’s then girlfriend, now wife, (who had never really experienced a Foran Thanksgiving weekend before), invited her to come and dance as well.  It was beautiful to watch!  Multiple generations dancing together!

Joe inherited his mother’s love of dancing.  He frequently dances in the kitchen while preparing dinner – either with me or with one of the dogs.  And if you ever watched the TV show, Grey’s Anatomy, you will know that at the end of a particularly trying or devastating day, a few of the women would gather in their living room with a glass of wine, and they would have a spontaneous dance party – each one of them rocking out to her own rhythm, all of them dancing to chase the blues away.

Dancing can be social or solitary.  Anyone can do it, and it takes no special equipment – not even a pair of walking or running shoes.  You can dance to songs on the radio or to one of your playlists on iTunes.  You can dance to whatever Alexa or Google Home is dishing out.

Our Psalm may be eluding to walking in the way of God in a metaphorical sense.  It may teach us the Hebrew alphabet and about the goodness of God when we keep to the path God sets out for us.  However, walking – or running – or dancing – in a non-metaphorical but rather in a very real physical way – can transport us for a short while away from all that is dragging us down, letting us focus instead on all the blessings that surround us.  

Movement – moving our bodies when sometimes our minds are telling us to stay put, hole up, forget the world around us – can be a deeply invigorating spiritual practice as we seek ways to eliminate Spiritual Affective Disorder from our hearts and minds.

And so this week, as I have throughout this worship series, I offer you a challenge.  Here it is.  It is simple.  It is a one-word challenge:  Move, especially when you do not feel like doing so. 

Go for a run.  Take a walk – with your dog, with yourself, with your spouse, with a friend.  Breathe deeply of the cold winter air.  

Or – walk indoors.  Find a labyrinth.  There are several in the Portland area.  Walk the halls of Windham High School.  It is open several evenings a week for just that purpose. 

And if walking is not your thing, put on some music and dance. It does not matter if you have two left feet and no sense of rhythm.  Dance as if no one is watching you. 

 After all, as an old saying goes: “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s learning to dance – and I would add walk or run – learning to simply move with joy in the rain – or the snow – or the darkness of winter – trusting that when you do, the sun will rise again, and the light of God will once more shine in your life.