"LISTEN CAREFULLY"

I Kings 19:1-15
Mark 10:13-16

St. Andrew's-Wesley United Church

Rev. Gary Paterson

June 27, 2010

How a sermon, a service begins coming together….. It started with this Sunday being the day of our Church Family Picnic. When I was a kid, we called it the Sunday School Picnic, and I still get memory flashbacks… a warm Sunday afternoon running through green fields, and laughing; sack races, and three-legged races, where everybody ends up with a blue ribbon; Dixie ice cream cups… and you could always get seconds. It was a time of innocence perhaps, but I still remember the feelings, the delight in a community of laughter and joy, where we are invited by life, by God, simply to wonder at the world around us, and to play and enjoy. To quote Dylan Thomas,

When I was young and easy under the apple boughs

Above the lilting house, and happy as the grass was green

Time let me hail and climb

Golden in the heydays of his eyes….

… “happy as the grass was green…” – that’s what I remember. Maybe we need picnics to help us remember – family picnics - parents and their kids; uncles and aunts and cousins; and grandparents, and friends of the family; your best friend. You need kids for a good picnic … unless you’re at an earlier, pre-kid stage, and picnics are all about romance and lovers. But for most of us, it’s children.

Then, of course, I remembered it was Baptism Sunday, when I get a chance to hold babies, and, with the Spirit in our midst, the whole bunch of us get to participate in blessing these children; sometimes it takes a child to help us remember that holy ancient love from which we are born, and in which we live; a grace that is simply there; present, and all-surrounding. The blessings holds for every person, but after a lot of years, the container gets pretty bruised and battered, twisted out of shape; sometimes we need to see a baby, we need to hear the original blessing. I imagined holding little Piper and Evelyn, and being part of the wild declaration that these two little children, that every child, is beloved by God, enjoyed by God and blessed by God. And if we feel tears to be close, then maybe it’s because we sense that declaration is true for us too. Maybe it really is all about a theology of grace; maybe we really are loved….

And then, a day later, Darryl talked to me about music for this Sunday – with the Vocal Ensemble on a well-deserved summer break, and the Gospel Choir not returning until September, he was wanting to invite two boy sopranos and a young violinist to sing and play for the congregation. I could hear echoes of “a little child shall lead them,” as I imagined children offering their gifts of music – which meant that this was an opportunity for us to be reminded of the theology of beauty and art, and to find pleasure as the wisdom and artistry of teachers is passed on to the next generation, received, and then changed.

I figure if I get three nudges by the Spirit, I need to pay attention, so I dropped into Jen’s office – “What do you think about having June 27th be a Sunday when we celebrate children and their gifts?” Well, if you know Jen, you will not be surprised when I say that she levitated about ten feet up in the air, did a small Snoopy dance, and said, “Yes! And I think we should have children participating in just about every part of the service… prayers, offering, benediction, call, grace… what a powerful way to really honour our vision of inclusivity, declaring, “You’re not just welcome, but you have something to offer as well!”

So we were away to the races, and figured it was time to listen to what Jesus had to say about children. He was pretty clear… he liked them; spent time with them… “Let little children come unto me” – and they did; seemed like kids enjoyed hanging out with Jesus. “And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.” But then, as usual, Jesus pushed the envelope: “Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.”

It’s the kind of statement that you want to think about – what might it mean to “receive the kingdom of God as a little child.”? Well, last week our daughter Emily and our two grandchildren were staying with us – Zachary, just turned three; Abigail, almost five. Not much time to think, I must admit, but lots of opportunity to experience first hand what it’s like to open the door of the kingdom. To be full of wonder and laughter, to see the world freshly each morning, an adventure just waiting to happen. Mind you, I had forgotten that the wonder begins at 6 a.m. And none of this “Let’s wake up slowly” stuff; like, it’s 6:01, and you’re full on!! Catch a coffee later, on the run. Who knew there was so much wealth at the beach – our home now boasts marvelous collections of shells, flowers, rocks, and feathers.

It’s all about paying attention; taking the time, lots of endless time; it’s about squatting down and taking a good look; touching everything – what does it feel like? What does it smell or taste like? “Oh Boppie, when I rub my hands over the bumps on the sofa, my fingers get excited.” Exactly; I knew it all the time; and if you drop by unexpectedly and catch me running my hands over the sofa, please understand that I am just getting my fingers excited.

Do you recall what I emailed out in this past week’s “Gleanings” -- an excerpt from the “Introduction” to God Lives in Glass: Reflections of God through the Eyes of Children, by Robert Landy: …

I felt that I was losing the ability to intuit a spiritual presence, to visit the special places where God lives. A clue was that suddenly when I looked out my window at the changing seasons, I didn’t really see anything at all. My eyes were focused on my work and all the tasks I had to do each day. All the colors and textures of trees and stones, of clouds and vapor trails and stars were gone because I could no longer see them. Then one morning when I awoke, racing to get to work, I caught a glimpse of the fiery red leaves of a Japanese maple tree in late autumn. For a moment I stopped in my tracks. It was a wake-up call. “There is a world out there,” I thought, “and a world beyond that world. And you,” I said to myself, “are missing both. If this is what it means to be an adult, you need to find a way to see the world more like a child.”

Well, a member of the congregation responded to Gleanings with a small quiz… the first two lines of a poem, with the question, “Who wrote it?” Thank God for Google! It’s a poem worth the sharing…. “Leisure” by W.H. Davies:

What is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs

And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, in broad daylight,

Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,

And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can

Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care,

We have not time to stand and stare.

Let me tell you a story, a true story…. You’re in Washington, D.C., in the main downtown subway station on a busy January morning, where something like two thousand people pass through every hour. A man comes into Metro Station, pulls out his violin, throws down his hat, and begins playing, something classical. A couple of minutes pass – a middle-aged man pauses, listens for a moment, then rushes along to meet his deadline; a few more minutes, the man receives his first dollar from a woman who smiles but doesn’t break her stride. Ten minutes, and a young guy stops, leans against the wall, but then hauls out his iphone, listens, begins talking and starts walking away. Twelve minutes, a mother and child pass by. The kid is entranced, stops; Mum pulls on his arm, forcing him to keep moving, which he is forced to do, but with turned head, watching the violinist. Same thing happens in the course of an hour to several other children, as parents, without exception, insist that their kids keep on schedule. At the end of the hour, six people had stopped to listen, at least for a short while; twenty people had contributed money, although most didn’t actually pause and listen; the busker had earned $32.

The name of the violinist, by the way, was Joshua Bell, one of the greatest players in the world; his was playing Six Variations by Bach, some of most complicated but beautiful pieces of music ever composed; on his own violin, worth about three million dollars. Two nights previously, he had played at a sold-out Theatre in Boston, where the tickets sold for around $100.

True story… an experiment run by the Washington Post, to test whether we are able to recognize talent and appreciate beauty when it turns up in unexpected places, at inconvenient times. Maybe we need to ask ourselves, if we missed listening to one the worlds’ greatest musicians, playing some of the most intricate music ever composed, on an instrument without compare… if we missed that, what else are we missing?

The sermon could have stopped here, I guess, with a final admonition to see the world like a child. But there was another voice in my heart, crying out in a different key – “Another gift that children bring is the experience of suffering.” When the poet Sylvia Plath wrote about her first born child, she asked herself, “…how long can I protect you from the blue bolts… it is as if my heart put on a face and went walking in the world.” She’s right, isn’t she…. Children .. your own, your nieces and nephews, your friends’ kids, the children of this community… they teach you about love, and vulnerability and hurt. Children soften the heart. I have, in the past few months, talked to a couple of parents in this congregation, whose children have made poor, and even bad choices, gone off track, while they, the parents, watch helplessly. Not only that, I have also talked to parents whose children have died, who have held their children as cancer slowly and painfully ended their lives. It’s hard to connect this reality with the invitation to “stand and stare” and, like a child, discover the wonder in this world. What happens when what you discover is the pain and the suffering?

It was these questions which in a very strange way took me back to the first story we heard today, from the Hebrew Scriptures, the Old Testament, that story about Elijah on the mountain and hearing the “still small voice” of God. You see, it was one of the appointed readings for this month, and when I took a first glance, I thought, “Perfect… that still small voice in which God speaks could very well come bundled up in a small child.” It seemed even the Scripture readings were suggesting that we talk about children this Sunday – a great idea until Abigail and Zachary were with us, and I discovered that which children there was no such thing as “still”… unless they’re sleeping! And if we used the more accurate translation, well, then it appears that what Elijah heard was “the sheer sound of silence” – I thought, well, we’re even further off-track here; kids are not silent; not for long, anyhow.

But it was a good story to return to, when the question of suffering arose… as the story opens, Elijah is on the run, his life falling apart; no longer sure where to go, what to do, where to turn. You know these times, especially when your heartache is wrapped around children. Maybe like Elijah we yearn for a word from God… something definitive, helpful , reassuring, comforting – something clear, and preferably big and certain, like the wind, the fire, the earthquake. Who knows… a cure; a solution; a path to follow. But what you get in this story is silence; no answer; absence. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” is the cry; and nothing happens.

But this where faith steps forward, trusting that out of that silence a word will come, shaped and formed by the circumstances in which we find ourselves. Indeed, maybe it is only from silence that the truest words arise, come. From beyond ourselves, from the Spirit; from within ourselves, from the Spirit. A word that speaks to us, addresses us. Sometimes, perhaps, it is a word that arises from children playing at the beach… The kingdom of God is at hand; change your ways, and trust this good news. Rejoice, and be exceedingly glad. And maybe, when our hearts are sore, and breaking, we hear, as if a faraway whisper, a murmuring that slips out of the silence, “God is my shepherd, I shall not want; he maketh me to lie down in green pastures, he leadeth me beside still waters; he restoreth my soul…. Yea, though I walk through the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.” Or maybe we hear words from Isaiah, as if we had once again become like children – “Be not afraid, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name, you are mine. And when you pass through the waters they shall not overwhelm you, … and through the fires, they shall not consume you…. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Saviour… and you are precious and honoured in my sight… and I love you…” And maybe when a word like this comes out of the silence, then maybe such a promise is enough to keep faith, and, even in the face of suffering, to live a life of praise.

One of the nights that our family was with us, young Zachariah awoke in the middle of the night, in the midst of a fearful nightmare. Fortunately, we were in another room, and could soon roll over and go back to sleep… the perks of being a grandparent. But I heard Emily’s murmurs of comfort, “There, there….” and I remembered years back, when our youngest daughter Zoe woke up in the dark with similar tears. I remember holding her, rocking her gently, quietly whispering, “It’s okay, it’s okay; I’m here; I love you. It’s all right, it’s going to be okay.” It’s a strange truth in those words; for in this world, beautiful and terrible things will happen; with a lot of love, and a lot of suffering. But it will be okay; I think that’s what Elijah heard, out of the brokenness, out of the silence, a holy word that sent him back into his life, with new instructions about justice. Elijah returned, trusting that God was with him. And maybe, when we listen to the Word, spoken and in the flesh, when we listen attentively, faithfully, like a child, then we too will hear God’s promise. And like children, we will discover the strange beauty of the kingdom of God.