Sermon - You are Safe
Our first reading from the Psalms 104 (v. 24-28) declares that God’s works are myriad in form and shape. It says God has made them all in wisdom; The earth is full of God’s creatures, including ourselves: We are part of God’s holy earth. If you have participated in getting ashes or in taking clay from the stations this morning … through this experiential liturgy and exercise, you have received the truth: God’s creative work with you and within you is not yet done. Has anyone here been warming the clay in your hands and kneading it? (pushing it and shaping it, using your thumbs and fingers) How does it feel? Does the clay become pliable? Has anyone made it into a certain shape? (In the given instructions, you could make a bowl, symbolizing your ‘receiving’ God’s love)
Our being created is not yet done; creation is still being active with us. Maybe it’s because we are not like water-based clay, which dries quickly once it’s shaped or sculpted and left alone. Yes, you may paint it or bake it, make it more beautiful. Yet once the creative process is finished, it can’t be redone.
But we are not like that. Our creation does not end like something made of water-based clay. Our body - maybe. When we get older, our body does not move like when we were younger. However, our mind, our spirit, the depth of our being - We ARE spiritual beings - is more like wax-based clay.
Permoplast modeling clay
You know wax. It doesn’t get dry. It never gets hardened. Instead, it responds to warmth. This clay needs warmth to be in the creative process: in your hands or by being placed under a window that receives full bright sunshine. The shop owner of the Sounding Stone where I bought the clay said to me, if I put the clay stick on the windowsill on a warm spring day, it will become like butter!
We are Spiritual beings. We respond to warmth. We respond to God’s hands - touching, pushing, pulling, kneading, holding, shaping, stretching … We and God respond to each other in movements and actions, in love like the lovers. Love makes sense. Love enables creation.
I believe Jesus refers to the dimension of love when He calls us friends. Jesus says “You are my friends, if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends.” (John 15:12-17)
Servants act based on the orders they receive. The hierarchy and system enforce the work. The relationship between the servant and master is based on fear, not necessarily understanding. However, Jesus wants us to know that God works by love, not fear, trust, not intimidation, understanding and listening, not being on top of us, in control.
Jesus teaches us how we can be ourselves, how to become ourselves in this world. I wonder the key is in how we become less fearful. I learned a lesson from the last experience I had with our youth when we made ashes in the church parking lot last Sunday. On Ash Wednesday we mark our foreheads with ashes, saying the words from Genesis: “Remember you are dust, and unto dust you shall return.” Normally we consider dust as not being clean. It is everywhere. It stains what is clean. It is light. It blows. It is not important: at home, we try to get rid of dust by dusting or vacuuming. There’s not much we can think to do with a handful of dust. However, I learned something enlightening: the ashes that come from burning the past year’s celebratory palm leaves - the dust - when our youth gathered them from the metal pail, they were not just ‘unnecessary’ or just ’stuff’ any more. It became a sacred ritual when we rubbed the ashes between our thumbs and fingers, mixing them with the oils on our skin. The beautiful blackness became clean, pure, sacred. (The reason why we bought a new metal pail is to make sure nothing else gets in to the ashes - you don’t want any old, dirty stuff from the last barbeque mixing in with the new ashes) I realized that how we are created - our ‘dust-ness' - may be the same. The pureness, the cleanness, the sacredness is us. It never changes. I see it in you and you see it in me. A wise person said, “Don’t be surprised if anybody doesn’t like to be marked on the forehead. It tells us we normally avoid being defiled.”
But you know, we are never defiled. Never. We as the creation and part of God’s holy earth will never be defiled. Trust in the way all of us are created. Pure, clean, sacred. Never lose the sense of deep reverence upon your being: your body, mind and spirit. Knowing that you will never be hurt, that you are safe in God, can be a spiritual awakening: nothing that happens to you, even the terrible things that have happened to you can’t damage the fact that you are deeply loved; you belong to God. No life conditions can create or break the profound essence of who you are. The right sense of security comes from inside, not through finding security in exterior ‘conditions’. Only when you know you are safe and that you will never be harmed will you know you are in the right territory to find your meaning, purpose, and identity.
Jesus wants us to know that we don’t journey alone. Our journey is not “Lonely Planet.” After worship today we will have our Budget Talk: you are invited to come and join us to talk about all the questions you have about our community, where we are going, what plans we have. Next Sunday, everyone is called to join and participate in our 2017 Annual Meeting as members and friends. Please know that in these meetings, you are asked to be our friends. By saying, “be our friends” I am not just talking about the need to respect each other and their voices. Or be polite and nice, avoiding anything that would offend or hurt anybody’s feelings. What I would like to emphasize is, “Be involved.” “Be engaged.” “Be invested.” I passionately invite all of us to come and know what our community is doing, how we move into the future, how we evolve, how we invest in the next adventure with purpose and goals. What I find amazing in Jesus’ teaching in today’s Gospel is that Jesus is very clear in teaching us that fear never creates friends. Fear has no capacity to make two people become friends. If you call one another friend, what it really means is that you are interested and you are willing to invest in knowing what your friend is doing and what he or she is passionate about. Being a listener and companion is your calling as a friend. Fear is simply incapable of creating potential to grow a vibrant spiritual community, but friends can create a powerful, safe space between them – even build a community that is strong enough to share its purpose even in a situation of fear or foreseen uncertainty.
Friends of God, there may be many answers and lots of advice about what we can be and how we are and how we become ourselves in this world … But I hope that these reflections help you find your own answer.
Find the spiritual source that helps you develop a deeper sense of security.
We are not in control of everything around us, but even in the times when we are out of control, we can trust,
because the depth of our being never loses the sense of who we are.
Know that we are not alone in this journey of finding ourselves.
We are
creatures of the earth.
Children of dust.
Beloved of God.
Disciples of Jesus Christ.
Lastly, we are called to be friends. Join us in our next adventure as friends would do. Engage, participate and Invest your friendly interest in knowing us. Help us to evolve into a future that has plans, purpose, and a powerful sense of joy and mission.
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