Month: June 2018

“Touching Moments”

A Meditation & Prayer Experience

Based on Mark 5:21-43

July 1, 2018

Community Congregational Church of Chula Vista

Dr. Sharon R. Graff

* * * * *

            What to do on this Sunday closest to the Fourth of July…in the two years past, on this particular Sunday, we’ve read many of this country’s signature documents…and been reminded of the great values upon which the United States was ostensibly founded.  Today, I choose a different route, a route that is timely and especially relevant for you.  For one of your great strengths, Community Congregational Church, is your ability to pray…and to pray with great love…to pray in ways that make a difference.  

            So today, in place of the usual meditation from me, I invite you into prayer.  As you see in your bulletins, I will share a prompt for your praying, and we will all respond, “God in your mercy, hear our prayers…” followed by 1 minute of silence for you to pray in response to that prompt.  Then I’ll offer another prompt, we’ll all say together, “God in your mercy, hear our prayers…” and pray in the minute of silence that follows.  We’ll do that 9 or 10 times, so our prayers this morning will be quite a bit longer lasting than usual.

            Let’s start with two stories.  First, the Jesus Story we’ve read and heard this morning.  Jesus uses the gift of touch—first with a woman then with a child.  And in both those instances, through touch, healing happens.  A woman, a child, dispensable in many cultures, including, now, our own.  Yet Jesus sees them.  Jesus hears their plight.  Jesus does the unthinkable and the illegal: he touches them…he allows them to touch him.   And in that exchange—a simple human touch that carries the healing energy of the Divine—they are made well again.  You have the same power in you, my friends.  You have that power through prayer, and in a few moments, you’ll be invited to offer that power, to use that power for good.

            But first, another story…one I shared with you last year and the year before; it’s a story told in 1971 by former-share-cropper-turned-civil-rights-activist Fannie Lou Hamer; it is the story of an old man: 

“This old man was very wise, and he could answer questions that was almost impossible for people to answer.  So some people went to him one day, two young people, and said, ‘We’re going to trick this guy today.  We’re going to catch a bird and we’re going to carry it to this old man.  And we’re going to ask him, ‘This that we hold in our hands today, is it alive or is it dead?’  If he says ‘Dead,” we’re going to turn it loose and let it fly.  But if he says, ‘Alive,’ we’re going to crush it.’  So they walked up to this old man, and they said, ‘This that we hold in our hands today, is it alive or is it dead?’  He looked at the young people and he smiled.  And he said, ‘It’s in your hands.’”

In her spirit, knowing that Jesus has given you the power of healing touch—this country, this world, they are in our hands today—let us receive them, hold them, and pray together…

For immigrants awaiting a new life at so many of our world’s borders…

            God in your mercy, hear our prayers…

                        Silence for prayer…

For refugees throughout the world, fleeing for their safety…

            God in your mercy, hear our prayers…

                        Silence for prayer…

For our Muslim sisters and brothers, now fearful for their future…

            God in your mercy, hear our prayers…

                        Silence for prayer…

For the leaders of our cities, counties, states, and nations…

            God in your mercy, hear our prayers…

                        Silence for prayer…

For the environment over which we have been given stewardship…

            God in your mercy, hear our prayers…

                        Silence for prayer…

For those who live in fear of the other…

            God in your mercy, hear our prayers…

                        Silence for prayer…

For first responders in our country and in others, who face their own mortality in order to save the lives of others…

            God in your mercy, hear our prayers…

                        Silence for prayer…

For the world’s children and for their parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles who care for them and seek their protection…

            God in your mercy, hear our prayers…

                        Silence for prayer…

For those who choose love over fear, faith over anger, and hope over despair…

            God in your mercy, hear our prayers…

                        Silence for prayer…

“In the Face of a Storm”

A meditation based on Mark 4:35-41

June 24, 2018

Community Congregational Church of Chula Vista

Dr. Sharon R. Graff

* * * * *

                   We’ve just heard one of the great storm stories of the Bible, yet to look at the cover of the bulletin today, one wouldn’t even imagine a storm anywhere in sight.  When all is calm—like in this picture—and the waters are clear enough to see the bottom, then is the precious time we can reflect on storms.  Not when it’s raging.  Not when we’re preparing for its blast.  Not until we recover from its power.  But now, when things are calm, Jesus invites us to think about storms and how they affect us, even what they teach us.  Those are the waters the scripture invites us to enter today…so put on your lifejackets…we’re going for a boat ride! 

                   One of the dictionaries I consulted defines “storm” as

• a violent disturbance of the atmosphere
• a tumultuous reaction
• a violent or noisy outburst
• move angrily or forcefully (e.g. “to storm in…”)
• uses words like “intense” “force” “uproar” “controversy” “assault”

Even more than religion or politics, these storms in our lives are topics of conversation we were early on taught to avoid in polite company.  Few of us wear these storms on our sleeves, and fewer still are willing to dive into their depths, even after the stormy waters clear.  Most of us seek peace, quick and speedy peace, when those storms have passed.  And we tend to think that peace includes the instruction to never speak of that storm again. 

                   Yet, Jesus teaches differently.  Jesus teaches the healing power of community.  Look at that bulletin picture again…you’re not just in the boat by yourself.  You are in the boat with others.  Together, it reminds us.  Floating on water that will hold all of you up.  Warmed by sun and cooled by clouds.  On this day, brothers and sisters, you are safe within the safety of community living, Jesus-style.  I think that’s the primary reason that Jesus reacts as he does when the storm is stilled.  You remember the sequence of events:

• prior to today’s passage, earlier that same day, Jesus taught his heart out with parable after parable
• crowds grow so large that he and the disciples get into a boat at the seaside, row out a bit to give some more shore space to the crowds
• by nightfall, Jesus is tired, and suggests to the disciples they head over to the other side of the bay where it might be quieter
• and before the boat leaves shore, Jesus falls asleep, exhausted
• as it common on the Sea of Galilee, a storm arises; these trained sailors navigate the best they can; the sea tosses their boat to the point they are afraid for their lives
• they awaken Jesus and he calms the storm with a three short words, “Peace, be still!”
• Then he gets to teaching again, with two powerful questions, “Why are you afraid?” “Have you still no faith?”
• The story ends, as we might expect, with the disciples in awe and distracted by Jesus’ power over wind and waves

                   That story fits every definition of “storm” you already heard today!  It was violent, disturbing, tumultuous, noisy.  The disciples reacted with angry outburst—“Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”  They are angry and forceful with Jesus, and the whole scene is filled with intensity, controversy, assault.  So much so, that the disciples do not even seem to hear those two powerful questions Jesus poses: Why are you afraid?  Have you still no faith?  I don’t think Jesus asks those questions to shut them up, to guilt them into obedient silence.  Nor does he pose them to elevate himself or his faith above their own fear.  That’s not Jesus, at least not with his closest disciples.  Maybe with a group of hypocritical Pharisees or short-sighted political leaders…then he uses irony or even sarcasm to make a point.  But not with his beloved community.  With them, Jesus poses those questions for their own good.  For their own learning.  For their own growth.  Why are you afraid?  What a question, after the storm has stilled…  Not “why were you afraid” but why do you still fear?  The storm is passed.  There is no need to carry the fear from it.

                   There’s a wonderful little zen koan that comes from writer Anthony DeMello, who was himself a Jesuit priest and psychotherapist from India.  He tells the story of two priests—forbidden to touch or interact with women.  The priests are walking along a pathway and come to a stream they must cross.  Also at the shore is a woman who is afraid to cross the water alone.  Without hesitation, the elder priest picks her up, carries her across, carefully sets her on the opposite shore, and she goes on her way.  The two priests walk off in the opposite direction.  Hours later, the younger priest, still scandalized by his elder, asks, “Father, we are forbidden to touch a woman.  Why did you do what you did?” to which the elder replies, “Oh, my son, I put her down on the shore…why are you still carrying her?”

                   Why are you afraid? Jesus asks them after the storm has stilled.  Their fear no longer serves them.  Their fear keeps them from acting when things are calm.  Their fear was helpful in the storm, to be sure, in that it jolted them into action that saved their lives.  But now the water is calm.  The storm is passed.  Fear no longer serves.  This Jesus teaches by keeping the fear isolated and contained within the event of the storm.  Spiritual teachers teach us that when fear from past events bleeds over into the present, what it creates is anxiety.  And anxiety is a roadblock to our creative thinking.  Anxiety also gets in the way of Spirit’s good work.  In this storm story today, Jesus is trying to teach us that fear in the storm makes sense, while fear clung to beyond the storm is just sad and unnecessary.

                   With Jesus’ second powerful question—Have you no faith?—we might be inclined to hear it as an accusation.  Again, that’s not who Jesus usually is with his disciples, certainly not when they are still recovering from the intensity of stormy waters.  Rather, we can read into this second question of faith, a great depth of compassion, maybe even tinged with a bit of sadness or perhaps with a quiet reminder that they still have so much to learn and he has much to teach them.  Have you no faith?  It’s like that question of the elder priest to the younger, why are you still carrying her?  Jesus’ question of their faith is a gentle mirror held up for them to see their actions in light of the presence of God with them.  And in seeing, truly seeing, honestly, eyes-open seeing, then they grow.  Those moments are familiar to each of us, for as the storms subside, then the penetrating seeing comes into focus, and the deeper growth can occur.

                   The Irish have a name for this process of growth, and with all the water in their land, it is no surprise that the name echoes a lake.  I stumbled across it years ago, while studying Irish Celtic Spirituality.  It is called, dearcadh siochain (dee-ARR-could SHEE-uh-hawn).  It is an ancient practice that was incorporated as a spiritual practice by early Irish Christians as well.

The old Irish word dearcadh literally means “vision.”  In some usages, it refers to looking; and it is related to modern Irish words meaning to look; to be far-seeing; considerate; it refers to one’s outlook or opinion, one’s vision or foresight.  Interestingly, the word dearcadh is also related to the word for acorn.  My take on that is that, in the ancient Irish language,    trees played a central part.  In fact, the original Irish alphabet is based on different types of trees. 

The oak tree was considered the most sacred, and oak groves were among the earliest outdoor sanctuaries in Ireland.  Perhaps the word for acorn has derived from some early vision rituals. 

Who knows?  As I heard once from an archeologist at Stonehenge, without written records, any of our opinions are as good as the next!  So dearcadh has to do with vision or seeing. 

                   The second word, siochain (SHEE-uh-hawn) means quiet or peace.  Thus, together, the loose translation of dearcadh siochain is “peaceful vision, or view from quiet.”  Imagine the surface of a lake on a windy day, when one’s vision of the depths is obscured by all the silt, sand, and muck stirred up by the wind.  When the wind is stilled, one can see much more clearly.  So in the way of dearcadh siochain, the wind is our thoughts, which must be stilled in order to take notice of what is under the surface.  In the case of today’s Bible story, the wind was the fears, which had to be stilled in order to grow.

                   In the practice of dearcadh siochain, one sits quietly and comfortably; noticing first the breath, and stilling it to a peaceful rhythm.  When thoughts appear, as they will, one seeks to simply notice them as if they were passing clouds in the sky.  Noticeable, interesting even, but distant and disconnected from any desire any necessary or immediate action.  As one practices this discipline, the thoughts recede to make way for a clearer vision of whatever it is that needs to be more clearly viewed.  Perhaps it is a concern for a loved one’s health.  Perhaps a long-ago grief that wants to be healed.  Perhaps a new job assignment or a new relationship or a new challenge recently appearing.  Whatever it is that you want to see more clearly, the practice of meditation, Irish style—or ancient Jesus style—this practice of intentional silence and meditation can help you in quieting the racing thoughts, in calming the waters on your own internally-windy lake, so that the view comes more clearly into focus.

                   In her book, God’s Joyful Surprise, author Sue Monk Kidd has written,

“One of the misconceptions about journeying to a deeper intimacy with God is that we don’t need other people.  We may want to get wrapped up in the coziness of ‘me and God.’  But of course this is a perverted spirituality and doomed from the outset.  One of the worst illusions…would be to try to find God by barricading yourself inside your own soul.  As we wake to God’s love and presence in our lives, we actually become more capable of loving others.  It’s as if our hearts are somehow being enlarged.  It means that as we open ourselves to God’s love, journeying deeper into intimacy, we become more able to love ourselves.  And when we love ourselves, we are finally able (and sometimes for the first time in our lives) to love others—not with a what’s-in-it-for-me love, but with the strong, authentic, wear and tear love Christ showed us.”

Jesus teaches a way of life that acknowledges fear in stormy situations, that moves beyond fear when the storm is over, that looks with penetrating intensity and penetrating compassion in the quiet after the storm, and that accepts and welcomes growth!

                   You, as a congregation, are living through the benefits of this very journey.  These past couple of years, you have willingly reviewed some of the stormy times in your own past.  And, praise God, you’re still breathing!  From those reviews, you’ve seen some new insights, you’ve garnered some new meanings, you’ve reframed some of that difficult stormy history, and you’re stronger for it.  Now I urge you to leave the fear behind at the shore.  It no longer serves you.  It may be holding you back.  God is with you, this you know.  Spirit has your back, this you have seen over and over again.  Jesus walks with you and you with him—on the water, into the boat, and over to the other shore.  So, look deeply into the calm waters, and you will see all you need to see.

 

Amen and Blessed Be

 

“Harvest Time”

A meditation based on Mark 4:26-34

June 17, 2018

Community Congregational Church of Chula Vista

Dr. Sharon R. Graff

* * * * *

                   We, in the 21^st century, tend to be people of production!  We focus on bottom lines in budget reports, we seek detailed evaluations of actual events, we wait for final scores in sports match-ups, etc. etc.  We like producing.  Accomplishing.  Finishing a project.  Long ago, my sister and I—she a school teacher and me a minister—mused that for two people who have such strong needs for closure, how in the world did we end up in work that has little actual completion?! 

                   Yet, the work of ministry, the work of the Gospel—the work all of you do on a daily basis—is much more about process than about production.  To be sure, the church light bill needs to be paid on time, and there are repeating monthly events (like the beautiful Women’s Fellowship Tea this past week) events that come and go on the calendar.  Projects.  Accomplishments.  Time-specific aspects of church life.  Yet, listen closely to how people around here talk about such aspects and you’ll notice that the primary interest is in how the relationships swirled through an event…in other words, when it comes to being church, the process seems more significant than the product. 

                   The same is true when Jesus teaches the crowds on the hillside in today’s story and he compares the reign of God with the way a seed grows; that growth is a hidden and mysterious process.  Jesus says—and you can almost see him pick up a handful of seeds for effect—“the kingdom of God,” he says, “is like a bunch of seeds scattered on the ground that take root and grow under the watchful eye of the landowner…”  Jesus goes on.  “The kingdom of God is like a tiny mustard seed that is planted and grows into a bush big enough to provide shelter and home for the birds…”  These agricultural images are repeated in other places in scripture,

where Jesus talks about the kingdom of God, the reign of God as more process than product. 

                   The parables we read today, however, are more than just good stories, more than simple useful illustrations to make things clearer.  Parables make us think, and think hard.  In our day, we tend to think in logical and rational ways, perhaps using the left side of our brain more than the right.  In contrast, parables exercise our right brains more, inviting our imagination to engage with our spirituality.  As we seek a deeper understanding and experience of the reign of God about which Jesus speaks, wouldn’t it surprise us if that reign of God has much more to do with the right brain than we have previously understood?

                   I remember years ago, preaching a sermon on the kingdom of God.  And, as often happens, my gestures became more and more dramatic.  As I said the words, “Jesus teaches that the kingdom of God is at hand”—my own arm flung out in front of me, and I stopped up short.  Words aligned with gesture.  And in that moment, my eyes were opened to the truth that the kingdom of God is not some destination vacation spot for the good and the upright to go at the end of their earthly lives.  That’s not what Jesus is talking about when he talks about the reign of God.  The kingdom of God is right here.  Right now.  At hand.  Literally.  The kingdom of God of which Jesus teaches in this reading from Mark is an ongoing discovery of God’s presence and of God’s purposes in each and every one of our lives.  And, spoiler alert: awareness of that reign of God “at hand” requires more of our imagination than our logic, although both are helpful! 

                   Now let’s bring this message out of the clouds of imagination and into the tangible grasp of our everyday lives.  Today is Fathers Day.  And this congregation is blessed with a father figure in the person of Pastor Jim Donahoo.  Patiently, Jim listens to our concerns.  Joyfully, he celebrates our accomplishments.  Prayerfully, he responds and directs both our joys and our concerns to the One being who can truly address them all, One God, One Father, One Mother of us all.  This is the kingdom of God in action, through Pastor Jim.  For the kingdom of God is not destination, it is discovery of your growing relationship with the Divine.  And in his quiet, kind, compassionate, consistent and faithful way, Pastor Jim lives that kingdom in his relationships with each one of us.  I delight in telling the story of Pastor Freeman asking Jim, then in his 80s, to come on staff to work with the elders!  Fast forward 20 years—Jim was then 100 years old—and he was telling his own doctor he had to be released from the hospital so he could get back to work!  With Jim as a model of the persistence and presence of the kingdom of God, we could make our own parable this morning: the kingdom of God is like Pastor Jim rising 5 days out of 7 and being present in and for this church. 

                   Further, if we think about our own good good fathers—our own dads or, perhaps, other male figures from whom we’ve learned and grown—we can see more and more parables that show us the kingdom of God.  If you were creating your own parable about the kingdom of God—the reign of God as you see it—using your father or another father figure as the central character—what might you say?  Think about that for a moment.

                   But there is more…  Jesus may have been very intentional about using the little mustard seed as a model for the kingdom.  It seems that mustard is not only not a sweet little image, it’s not even a neutral image.  Jesus’ hearers would have been offended by his reference to mustard, because it was a ritual weed that they would never be caught planting.  Mustard was invasive, chaotic, uncontrollable and of no value in any respectable garden.  One scholar describes mustard as “an offense against Torah observance in a chaotic world.”  Yikes! 

The way Jesus talks about the shrub that grows from the tiny mustard seed may have reminded Jesus’ listeners of the great cedars of Lebanon in the Hebrew Scriptures: Ezekiel 17:22-24 speaks so beautifully of God taking a sprig from a mighty cedar, and planting it high on a

mountain so that it can produce fruit & become a home in its branches for birds of every kind. 

                   As Jesus uses these same words from the Hebrew scriptures describing majestic cedar trees, uses these words instead to talk about an invasive weed, it gives our imaginations pause. 

Maybe Jesus is saying that the kingdom of God appears in surprising, even shocking guises.  Maybe Jesus is teaching that the reign of God may be found in unlikely places and unexpected people.  Maybe Jesus is saying, jettison your expectations about the kingdom, clean the slate of your mind, so that you can receive the kingdom of God when it appears in whatever appearance.  Maybe Jesus is really saying, not only that the kingdom of God grows from small insignificant acts into life-altering events, but also that the reign of God is truly like a pesky plant in that it is tenacious.

                   And speaking of tenacious, we are coming to the end of the season of graduations, tenacious events for parents and graduates alike!  A few days ago, John and I attended the high school graduation of our honorary granddaughter Samantha.  She was in a graduating class of over 600 students, so as you can imagine, there were countless repetitions of “Pomp and Circumstance” and the large football stadium was filled to the brim with parents, grandparents, other family and friends.  We were alike: all waiting, anticipating, listening carefully for our special person’s name to be called.  With each name, came the explosion of hoorays, the confetti, the clapping and cheering, as together we all celebrated.  That spirit of celebration was contagious.  Such is the kingdom of God.  More process than product.  More discovery than destination.  And, in the case of the mustard seed…more out of control enthusiasm than contained!

                   Barbara Brown Taylor, a wonderful preacher and teacher in our day, talks about the “agricultural grace” we see in today’s biblical passage.  Gently, she reminds us of our anxiety amid uncertainty, as we live now “between the planting and the harvest.”  WE are in process, not yet produced.  Her sermon on this passage lists some of the symptoms of our anxiety, including perfectionism, driven-ness, moral outrage, restlessness, dread of being alone, and estrangement from God.  Barbara Brown Taylor claims that anxiety is “an occupational hazard of being a finite creature in a universe of infinite possibilities” and she suggests that we repent of our belief that we must work out our own salvation, on the one hand, and that, on the other hand, we are doomed to fail at that very task. 

                   You’ve seen that penchant in yourself.  The inner voice of it sounds something like this: “If only I take on one more church commitment, if only I help one more friend, if only I sign one more petition or march in one more protest or or or…and then the kingdom of God will be clearer to me.”  Sadly, we try to take on our own salvation, says Barbara Brown Taylor, then beat ourselves when we fail.  When that sort of anxiety is present, then what is absent “is faith…faith that God will be God, [faith] that the automatic earth will yield its fruit, [faith] that life can be trusted.”  Not people.  Not presidents or premiers or prime ministers.  But God.  Life.  These deserve our trust. 

                   The antidote to anxiety, then, is courage, courage that we choose over and over again, every day we awaken…and from that courage, because of that courage, with that courage, we scatter our seeds.  And we trust that some will actually root and grow!  Friends, that is what it means, in a nutshell, to be church in the 21^st century.  There are no guarantees.  As there has always been, there are many things that may press down our spirits: there is war and hatred, prejudice and injustice, hunger and violence, 1500 children separated from their parents and held in despicable conditions throughout this nation.  Yes, there are many things each day that contrive to press our spirits into the ground.  And when these things do, and when because we are pressed to the ground and the only direction we can look is up, remember, little seeds, it is in the ground where God does some of God’s best work.  In the mysterious, often hidden process of growth, God is present with us and for us and through us.  Jesus teaches there is daily invitation to trust that God has this.  God has you.  God has all our backs and is always working for good. 

 

Amen and Blessed Be

2018-6-10 You Will Be Found Greg Davis