Sermon: In the present time,
In the present time, I am feeling called.
If I share this deep sense of being “purposeful”, people ask, “Do you have another church yet?”
I answer, “No, but I am feeling incredibly grateful.” because there’s really nothing better than restoring the sense of being secure in the presence of the Living God. It is a relief, and a great reason to be hopeful.
For those who don’t know the story behind this feeling, here’s a brief summary of the situation: In July of 2014, I joined the ministry staff here, at The United Church in Meadowood, as a full-time minister. At the time, the Council and the congregation called me with the hope that the financial resources for two full-time ministers could be supported by this church. However, we have been unable to manage the challenge of this change, and early this year, the Ministry Profile committee started the hard work of reassessing our community’s needs, capacity and sustainability, and recommended that we reduce our staff to one full-time position. After much deliberation, I decided not to apply for the position. As a result, my pastoral relation with Meadowood will change as of the last day of September. I admit that the months between hearing the news and making my decision were very, very hard.
We hear from the Gospel, “Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it,” It is very true that taking a risk is a very sacred act, like Jacob in our ancient Hebrew story. He wants to go home, then he has to confront an angel – a giant, mysterious figure – beside the river, before he crosses it. The angel delivers a brutal blow to Jacob’s hip. It cripples him, yet also saves him. This is the touch of God! It wounds, yet heals him at the same time. He sets things right with himself and with God, before he crosses the river and is welcomed home.
Now, I am ready to set out on my journey and move on. Of course, the first thing to do is stand beside the river and look at the water before I cross. Crippled, wounded, then healed, I come to the shore, and believe in faith that my current limitations also open up possibilities. Many of you have experienced this threshold, or thin place in your life, haven’t you? In order to restore confidence and hope and joy for a new adventure, I took some deep time for rest, reflection and study. Study really helps. Study, for me, means investing your whole intellectual and emotional capacities into what you really want to understand. I write things down on paper or type them into the computer.
I open my old journals which I have been keeping between 2014 and last year. Its last entry was made last November. I was really surprised to see that everything I wrote then, I need now: Notes from workshops. My own personal reflections; my memoirs of challenges and how I overcame them. After 3 years, these notes are treasures - positive memories of what inspired me redevelop the map of spirituality in my mind.
I wrote my new entry on the next page available. May, 2017: “My inquiry, focus and challenge: People are gracious and thoughtful, and respond to the positive focus. Therefore, I can trust people’s genuine intention to choose goodness and positivity.
Strongly grounded in self-knowledge, I will be focused on nurturing and being rooted in spirituality at all times possible – combatting any possibility to succumb to anxiety that the concerns around safety, security, status may raise.
Because they harm one’s spirituality.
I will construct an appreciative inquiry, philosophy and perspective on life, ministry and the world.
In all my actions and words, I will be open and honest with myself and people,
With integrity,
With pastoral compassion,
And with my true vision for our collective ministry: embracing diversity in our midst and in the world.”
In early May, my family went for a hike. It was such a refreshing day after so many days of stress.
Has anyone here walked the beautiful trail of Spirits Sand in Spruce Woods Provincial Park? If you go there in the hot summer, you will need to bring a lot of water, but you will still feel so hot. This park is sand dunes, deserts, mysteriously appearing from nowhere in the middle of the plain, nothing-special, Manitoban prairie! Luckily, when my family went, escaping rainy Winnipeg, it was a perfect day to take a slow walk.
On our visit, I experienced “double vision.” Double vision means that the world is alive with God. We become aware of God through the earth, through ‘double vision.’ The ability to see everything as it is and in God, both at the same time. It is not a rare experience. You often lead into this vision when you find yourself in the exceptional beauty of nature: You are inspired and awed by the perfect balance and harmony of the ecological network of life and creation. I really like how double vision is explained in this quote: “God and the world are not in competition: The more God, the more world, the more world, the more God.”
So what did I see there at Spirits Sand? On our hike, I didn’t want to interrupt my family’s deeply spiritual journey, so I didn’t take any photos; the pictures on the screens are somebody else’s, not what I saw. (Close.) I hope that they give you a hint of what I am going to describe, but now I really wish that I had taken at least one photo of what inspired me so much!
The desert wild plants and flowers actually reminded me of the hardy Tundra ecosystem. They really look similar. These plants, low in height, close to the ground, were entangled and complicated and reached out to fill the old sand dunes. Some of their roots came out above the surface and crawled onto the soil and sand and rocks. I saw and experienced God’s mystery: the place which seemed to be empty and void was filled with all things. The other places in Spirits Sand that were densely filled with woods and trees revealed the self-emptying God. Children are very responsive to what they experience: the sacredness and the holiness of pure nature. I told my older son Peace (11), “Hey, you see this amazing network of life connect to each other…reaching out to each other…” My son replied, “It looked to me like the inside of a computer memory chip.”
Yes, I am his mom. And I was inspired! Surely, it looked like just as he said:
Electronic circuits!
In his image, I saw a vision of the power of the present time and community.
When I was sad and struggled and lost confidence in my strength, what restored me was relationship. I received a lot of kind words, encouragement and tangible support from many clergy colleagues and lay partners, including you and especially you, here in UCIM and also from the outside. In the most difficult times, the best thing I did was to reach out for support and get connected, strongly, and wonderfully, with the people I love and trust.
As a result, I could make sincere appreciation of the meaning and the power of the present time. Before, I wondered whether I had any good spirit left. I read the resume I had written three years ago for Meadowood and was feeling almost defeated by my spirited younger self. I was so vibrant, and it was just three years ago! Then when I could let go of my concerns for the past and for the future, but only focus on the present, suddenly my “inside” began to enlarge itself and fill me with new, fresh energy and hope. When I stopped assessing myself from the deficit model, asking, do I need this and that capacity? Have I lacked them? Do I have resources inside and within me? but believed I have everything I need, already, inside and in relationships a miracle began to bloom. The miracle is that you can work again from a place of appreciation, gratitude and abundance. Jesus says, “Don’t be afraid.” in today’s Gospel, repeatedly, affirming “I came to you so that you may have life, and life abundantly.”
Rosemary Radford Reuther is a passionate and fierce feminist theologian. She said, “The Shalom of the Holy; Divine Wisdom; the empowering Matrix; She, in whom we live and move and have our being – She comes; She is here.”
In Spirit Sands, what I experienced in my double vision was the “Empowering Matrix”. Matrix is a really nice metaphor for the power of the present time! Like the Divine Mother’s womb, it is imbued with the pregnancy of possibilities.
The vision for the community also can be, “Empowering Matrix.” God works through you. You with God and God with you is like the electronic circuits in the inside of God’s memory chip.
God works through you: through relationships: how you relate; through stories: what you witness; through memories: what you remember; and through connections: how you are transformed through an authentic relationship with the Other.
As we see the slideshow of various pictures of the inside circuits of computer memory chips, I invite you to contemplate how community works through God: in relationships, in diversity, with stories, with memories and with connections.
In the present time, we are called to join, to diverge, to be connected. Even if we take different paths, our journey starts all a common source, and spreads energy everywhere we go .
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