St. Andrew's-Wesley United Church

Rev. Gary Paterson

April 18, 2010

It has been a hard week,with the death, last Friday, of Edith Mary, my mother-in-law. Many tears, many prayers. There was a sermon more-or-less ready for this morning, but when I went to take a final look at it last night, just before heading for bed, I recognized that it wasn’t the sermon that really fit with what had been happening, so I went to sleep with a prayer, and an early alarm – so, today particularly, I ask you to pray with me:

O Holy One,

help us be open to the touch of your Spirit,

so that the words of my mouth,

and the meditations of all our hearts,

might truly be graced by You,

in and through the love of Jesus Christ.

Amen.

I begin with a poem… “At Blackwater Pond” by Mary Oliver; listen --

At Blackwater Pond the tossed waters have settled
after a night of rain.

I dip my cupped hands. I drink

a long time: it tastes

like stone, leaves, fire. It falls cold

into my body, waking the bones. I hear them

deep inside me, whispering

Oh what is that beautiful thing

that just happened?

The cup of water… fire, cold… waking bones… whispering… “Oh what is that beautiful thing that just happened?” A beautiful thing, a moment of grace; holy, holy, holy.

April 14… Wednesday, in abrupt haste Heidi Ballem Chase arrived in the world, an early baby, very early, a surprise and a miracle to her parents Kate and Stuart. Her parents worried, so glad to welcome her, so glad she is safe, sad because she still needs the care of nurses and doctors, tubes and ventilators. They stand side by side, looking through the window… their very bones whispering, “Oh what beautiful thing just happened? Oh what beautiful thing just happened?”

Stuart has already written a letter to his daughter, blogging away on his Facebook. Listen…

First of all, welcome to all four and a half pounds of you. You may seem small, but already, you seem bigger than life. Your arrival is something we have been looking forward to, this goes without saying. You are the reality of something we have, until today, only dreamed about. But it sure was a surprise that you showed up when you did….

Gestationally speaking, let it be know that you decided it was showtime at 32 weeks. This, for the record, is more than just a tad early….

Your tiny cries haven’t been heard by many ears yet, nor will they for a few weeks perhaps, until you’re allowed to come out of the hospital. We’ve got to get you up to speed on a few things you weren’t prepared for, like how those lungs work, and how to eat food. You’ve got a few tubes in you at the moment, but don’t worry about those. You’ve got the grit to take care of that situation….

This is a great world to be a part of. People care, most of the time, and don’t be afraid to let them in to raise you up when you need the help, just like your doctors and nurses are doing for you now. Life can be like that, you know. Just when you think things are awful and frightening, you get surrounded and carried to a better place. May you know the comfort of rescue when it’s needed and it comes, and may you know the feeling that comes from being some else’s rescuer, too.

And while we’re on the subject of rescue, maybe we can just ask you to make sure you do some good in this world. On little scales, on big scales, whatever. Just do things that make you happy and proud of yourself. …

So anyway, it’s hard to say where to go with all of this. Need it be said aloud, your arrival today was about as big a surprise as we could’ve imagined. There is joy at your arrival mixed with a melancholy for not yet being able to hold you and seeing you hooked up to machines. The day was melancholic to begin with, which you might later understand: April 14th is the day your Granddad lost his battle to cancer, three years before you were born, so the fact that you chose to show up on just this date…well, lets just say there is a whole ‘nother circle of life conversation that could be had over this whole affair.

But we don’t need to focus on the death side of things today, now that we have your new life. Your joyful life, just begun and soon to flourish. And we can’t wait to watch it happen before our eyes. Early as your arrival may have been, we are so glad you’re here.

A beautiful thing, a moment of grace; holy, holy, holy.

Friday morning, Edith Mary is dying; her breath is becoming erratic; it has been a long week. Her son Tim and her daughter Mary Anne are sitting beside her, where they have been all night long. They are holding her hands; keeping watch; loving her. And then they pray together – the 23rd Psalm and the Lord’s Prayer; and when the “Amen.” of that moment is spoken, their mother stops breathing. Silence, tears… fire, cold… the bones whispering… not beautiful, but mysterious, awe-ful, spirit-filled…. death, sad, yes; yet also a moment of grace; holy, holy, holy.

On Easter Sunday, Judy Capes (a member of our congregation) started another round of chemotherapy, this time to ready her for her blood transplant, which took place early last week, and now she continues with further chemo to prevent rejection of that transplant. But on Friday night the doctors told her that she could go home. Not that she was out of the woods, yet; another six weeks to know for sure. But she is doing so well right now, that she can go home. Her home, a place of quiet, beloved familiarity; out of hospital, back into the most wonderful ordinary; home, where her sister awaited her, having come to be with her, to walk this journey with her. And I can imagine Judy coming through the door of her home, looking around, her bones awake and whispering, “Oh what beautiful thing has just happened?” A moment of grace; holy, holy, holy.

Saturday afternoon, I am visiting Stan Phipps in hospital. He is eighty-nine; he is not well; the future is uncertain. In our time together, talking about this and that, a hard conversation, well, somehow his glass of water is knocked over. I grab some paper towels, clean up the mess, and hand him a refill. He looks at me, accepts the cup of water, and then quietly says – is that a twinkle in his eye? -- “‘Inasmuch as you give a cup of water to the least of these, you do it to me.” Isn’t that what he said?’” I looked at him, and realized that I was catching a glimpse of the Christ – a beautiful thing had just happened; a moment of grace; holy, holy, holy.

These moments come, when we have eyes to see, and ears to hear. They come in times of joy and of great sorrow; when the world cracks open, and we see more deeply, intensely; when we encounter Holiness… whatever name we might give it -- Higher Power, the More, Divine Energy, the Spirit… God. We experience and treasure these moments; we ponder them; and then we seek to weave them together, perhaps to understand what just happened, and to allow the encounter with the Holy to begin to influence our lives, to bring meaning, direction, and purpose; to offer strength and reassurance.

All the great faiths, I believe, take such moments and incorporate them into a framework of interpretation, so that they become part of a larger story, a story of the Spirit which has been moving within creation from the very beginning of space and time; a Spirit that is moving within our own lives. The larger story is always some sort of revelation of who and what this Spirit is – what is the nature of being? Is the universe friendly? Are we, who are so small…. are we included? Is the Lord gracious? And what does the Lord require of us? How might we respond?

Listen…. another story, another moment -- at the Sea of Galilee the tossed waters have settled after a night of rain. Peter and six other disciples are out fishing, having returned home from Jerusalem some time after the events of Easter. Only seven disciples… where are the other four? Is the community already falling apart? Peter is in his boat, rocking gently on the waters; the sky is still dark; the fishermen pull up their empty nets one more frustrating time. Peter is not saying, “Oh what a beautiful thing has just happened?”

He stares at the dark cold waters, remembering. A death – yes there were rumours of Jesus alive once again; stories from women, a dream-like moment in an upper room, but then the next day… nothing. And nothing on the day after that. And so it goes. But the memory of death is large. And what came before -- his own denial, pretending over and over that he didn’t know this Jesus – I understand that…. he was in danger of being arrested himself, of being crucified beside Jesus. No surprise that he would duck, deny, pretend, avoid, sidestep. We all understand those moments when we have turned away from what is good, our better impulses; when we have lost courage; when we have slipped our ideals down a notch or two; when we are in despair, doing what we don’t want to do, not doing what we want to do. Peter is us… with guilt, with grief, with despair.

He gives up on the dream; all those moments with Jesus, the cup of water, the whispering bones; people made whole, set free, alive and joy-filled; it had ended with crucifixion and with Peter playing his part in it. And so he gave up, and returned to the old ways, to the ordinary; he went back fishing. But it didn’t work; it never really does. He kept casting his nets, and coming up empty. If the people have no vision, they perish. If you don’t encounter holiness in your daily life, then there is emptiness, no matter how busy you are with your many nets.

But then, the earth turns, and there is a lightness in the sky; the gulls begin to cry out, ready to greet the dawn, even before it arrives. The time of half-light, the boundary of night and day, when noontime definitions of the possible become a little looser, more fluid. A stranger walks on the beach, on the shore, that boundary between sea and earth, where solid definitions shift and flow with the waves. His voice calls out… drop your nets one more time; a memory of long ago, a first encounter; so they trust this voice, try once again….and suddenly the nets are full; where there was emptiness, there is now abundance; where there was death, there is now life. “It is the Lord,” cries out the Beloved Disciple. Maybe the sun rises just at that moment, and this stranger is silhouetted, becomes the focal point of light pouring over the horizon, illuminating and warming everything and everyone it touches – it is the Lord.

And Peter jumps over the edge of the boat, thrashes swiftly to this stranger… and now, yes, his bones are awake and whispering, “Oh, what is this beautiful thing that has just happened?” It is the Lord. That’s what this story claims; that’s what this story invites us to trust. The Spirit that Jesus embodied and revealed; the God that Jesus proclaimed and trusted; his lived experience of love and the kingdom of peace and justice, with loads of forgiveness and compassion and laughter – none of this has been defeated by the cross and all that it represents. Even death. Jesus has been raised; Christ is alive, and will come to us. Came to Peter in the midst of his old life and his nets full of guilt, sadness and despair. Will come to us. The good news of Easter… for us. This beautiful thing that keeps happening, day by day, the moments when we encounter the Christ, and know that all our moments are included in the larger story of a God who loves this world so much….

The poet Gerard Manly Hopkins had a word for this…. he cries out to God, “O Easter in us….” Yes, I know that language purists will be annoyed as one more noun is transformed into a verb, but Hopkins has it right, I think – “Easter in us, and be a dayspring to the dimness of us.” That’s the whole line. “Easter in us, and be a dayspring to the dimness of us.” Stand on the shore, at the dawn of every day, and call our names; and show us how to fill our nets with life. Heidi, Edith Mary, Judy, Stan; drinking deep, bones waking; Christ appearing – oh what beautiful thing has just happened? Thanks be to the God who keeps Eastering in us.