Gracious Living
By Charles Rush
November 23, 2008
Lk. 17: 11-19
[ Audio
(mp3, 6.5Mb) ]
few weeks ago, I crashed my bike going around a turn in a freak accident. After I bounced and rolled onto my back, I lay there trying to assess the damage and recover my frayed dignity when I looked up to see a Summit Mother bearing down on me in her Chevy Suburban, children in car seats, dog in the front seat, yakking on her cell phone. The thought occurred to me that I might be leaving this world.
I have to tell
you that I didn't see any vision of a tunnel of light, glorious angels, or a
feeling of peace. Actually, as I was sitting there, crying and
laughing that my life was becoming the opening scene in a Gus Van Zant movie. And you might think that us Ministers, being
spiritual leaders, would have some kind of integrated calm at a moment like
this, some kind of serenity or acceptance, some words of wisdom in their
passing. My actual words were “I can't afford this now.”
It is funny
when these things happen to you mid-life. I'm very aware of the fragility of
life and that stayed with me for quite some time. Perhaps you saw Warren Zevon interviewed by David Letterman shortly before he died
from cancer. Knowing that he had a terminal disease and that his time was not
long on this earth, Dave asked him what he had learned through the process. Warren said ‘to enjoy
every sandwich'. He's right. It was interesting to see the film that Warren made about his
last few months of life. He became focused on spiritual things that really
matter. He made an album with a whole bunch of his friends, a wonderful
creative process with folks he really cares about. He spent time with his kids,
with his wife, with people he had known for years. Even when he was tired and
sick, he had a way of celebrating the wonderful humanity of living.
We are about
to enter the holiday season and before the rush starts, I want to remind us
that we celebrating God's unmerited grace towards us, the fundamental message
of Christmas. And backing up from Christmas to Thanksgiving, President Lincoln
suggested that we take a day and remember all that we have to be thankful for
in our nation. It is not a bad thing, perhaps
especially in a year when a lot of us are feeling sorry for ourselves, looking
over our shoulders to see if the Lay-Off god is gaining ground on us.
I recently
read a description of our country in 1903, one hundred years ago. “Only 14
percent of homes in the U.S. had a bath tub. Only 8 percent had a telephone. A
three minute call from Denver
to New York
cost 11 dollars in an economy where the average worker made between $400 and
$2000 a year. There were only 8,000 cars, and 144 miles of paved road… The
average life expectancy was 47 years of age. 90% of all U.S. physicians
had no college education. The 5
leading causes of death were pneumonia, the flu, tuberculosis, diarrhea, and
heart disease or stroke. 95% of all children were born at home.
“Most women
washed there hair only once a month and used borax or egg yolks for shampoo. Marijuana,
heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter [which may explain, in
part, why people were happier then].
“Crossword puzzles,
canned beer and iced tea hadn't been invented yet. There was no Mother's Day or
Father's Day. Only 6% of all Americans had graduated from high school, and one
in 10 adults couldn't read or write…”[i]
Despite our problems, we are blessed to live in a pretty interesting era, with
expanded opportunities for self-realization for a pretty wide spectrum of the
population.
In our
scripture this morning, Jesus encourages us to cultivate a life of gratitude in
everything that we do. Be ready to give thanks, see the blessings around us.
Don't take things for granted but live the blessing. It seems to me that the
world as we experience it invites this kind of awe and appreciation. Appreciation
is a fundamental spiritual disposition that Christianity highlighted and
underscored.
I have been
privileged in my life to have many encounters with the transcendent gratitude
that attends the cosmos and I am more regularly engaging this from here on.
Our country,
in particular, is blessed with many majestic shots of the landscape. There is
something about the wide grandeur of our mountain peaks that is sobering in
their perspective. Despite being relatively young, the life cycle of a mountain
range is so much broader than our own that they bear with them the strength of
the eternal hills. Next to them, it is much easier for us to have a sense of
our own ephemeral evanescence without being the least bit morbid or maudlin. (slide 2,3 4).
(slide 5 black)There is something about the experience of
water particularly, at the dawn or in the evening, when everything is calm that
pervade and saturate our senses and our soul with placid tranquility. (slide 6, 7,8).
(slide 9) At the edges of our comfort zone in the natural
world, even as we are nearly freezing to death to get to and from that place,
there is often an ethereal quality is pulls us into it, even as it is dangerous
for our health and well-being (slide 10, 11, 12, 13) This last one is from the
mountain range in Idaho (slide 14) and you can almost see Zeus bearing his
thunderbolt can't you? (slide 15 black)
Likewise, over
the course of eons of time, left without interruption by humans, erosion and
movement produce artistic quality patterns that are just stunning (slide 16, 17)
Similarly, (slide 18 black) we can produce some of the same results just using
time lapse photography to merge celestial movements, highlighting their
patterns. (19)
In my
lifetime, the sense of wonder has moved out of the orbit of earth alone to take
on planetary and then galactic proportions. A couple weeks ago, I was in Montana
and got to see the full moon in the big sky without any humidity in the air
which makes the moon appear closer and clearer. (slide
20)
But since we
have projected the Hubble telescope, the wonder of our solar system has
continued to expand. These are two images of Mars and Saturn. (slide 21, 22) Wondrously beautiful.
(slide 23) A galaxy in panorama, just
awesome.
(slide 24) The birth of a star
(slide 25, 26) The engine of a black hole,
sucking up stars. And we now
believe that the visible universe accounts for less that half of the total
mass of the universe. One can only speculate on the mystery that will unfold as
we image mass (slide 27- black) that we cannot see with the simple eye alone.
On the other
end of the spectrum, the micro universe is equally as beguiling as the
macro-universe. These snow crystals. (slide 28, 29, 30). They exhibit a remarkable complexity, variety, and beauty.
And the ordinary
world around us (slide 31, 32, 33) is full of lovely glimpses of grace
unfolding before us. (slide 34-black)
(slides, 35, 36,37, 38, 39) No, our world fundamentally
presents itself to us with wonder, with awe that it is so much bigger than us
and grants us such an incubus. It is majestic, inviting, and it can absorb us.
There is such a mystery and wonder to the livingness of the earth, to it's radiance and the fact that we are part of it at all.
When my
children were little babies, I used to hold them on my chest. You could feel
their little heart beats and their breath so regular as they fell asleep on big
old Papa bear… just a simple hearbeat is almost a metaphysical
transcendent when you reflect on the great chain of being and your
little link in it… And the way that kids can rest with complete, secure abandon
on Papa bears chest. It is marvelous.
Existence
itself is full of wonder. It beckons forth in us gratitude that we are here and
that we get to participate in it. Life is just fundamentally good- It is filled
with tragedies, accidents, depressions, difficulties, sure… but it is
fundamentally good even with them.
I take
gratitude to be a fundamental spiritual disposition that responds to the
gracious transcendent aesthetic of the cosmos. For me, that has always been one
of the strongest arguments for theism- just look at it and tell me how it makes
you feel. It moves us deeply in ways that we can't even fully articulate.
Existence is wonderful. Being alive is wonderful.
St. Paul says, cultivate
a life of gratitude. It should be a lietmotiff that
you come back to again and again. Obviously you can't stay with the wonder
thing day in and day out- not with that knucklehead honking at you on the
garden state parkway, not with your kids and those glazed over eyes from
staring for hours at game boy, not with 12 voice mail messages on your cell
phone. There are all kinds of banal realities around us to keep us perpetually
grumpy, focused on the “to do” list, just trying to get through the day and week.
I understand that.
But, Warren Zevon was right, enjoy each sandwich. Spiritually awake
people are attuned to this. They take from the occasional, overpowering
experiences of the transcendent in nature and they let those inform them and
guide them through lots of daily stuff…. Like watching a kid finally get some
mastery of an instrument they have been practicing (that is a transcendent breakthrough)… like an
endearing touch of warm humanity (that can be a transcendent moment)… like an opera, a ballet, a play when so many
great performers come together in a moment of magic… You just go ‘Wow,
it is great to be alive.” Cultivate that spiritual disposition. Weave
it into the fabric of your daily existence. Be grateful.
And you know
what happens when you do? You grow in generosity in all its manifold aspects.
You become a generous person. You live out of the abundance of the treasure of
life. What a better way to live.
Ego tells us
to live out of scarcity. Ego reminds
us that there won't be enough. Ego is
afraid that we won't be taken care of. Ego wants to horde more than it really needs.
Gratitude
reminds us that the resources around us are not ours to hold onto for very long
in the best of circumstances. Gratitude reminds us that the real joy of life is
becoming a blessing to those around us.
Gratitude reminds us to invest ourselves and our resources in ways that multiply the blessings that we know are
spiritually real.
Now you know
that this is the time in the life of our Church when we are asking you for
money for next year. We need the kwan.
We want you to fork it over. And I know you will. And that is part of what I am
talking about.
But what I am
talking about is much broader than that. Money is an important step in making a
commitment of ourselves and that is what we want from you, to commit your time,
your resources, yourselves in this community. It is the very real spiritual disposition of
gratitude and generosity that shapes all aspects of how we live, our time, our
involvement, our investments.
For most of us
this is a growth area, to learn to live out of life rather than out
of fear, out of trust rather than anxiety. The good news is we can get
better at it.
I met a woman
who grew into this spirit in her own funky way. When I met her she was probably
70 years old. And she lived in this very interesting home that had an extensive
garden out back and quite a lot of greenhouses and barns and out buildings
right around her house.
She had lots
of cats, but also birds, dogs, farm animals- a pair of geese, a couple
chickens. It was a rambling home and she was a bit of a hippy. She would
regularly have a grandchild or two over, friends. I got to know her because she
was looking out for a teenager that was going through a rough patch.
She kept a
teapot going and was forever offering you a piece of nut bread with a mug of
tea. Whatever else was going on, she was always moving around the endless
plants that adorned her home, watering here, weeding there. And what a green
thumb she had, all this stuff that grew.
She had this
marvelous tradition, especially for first time visitors, she would take a
clipping from one of her plants, plop it in a planter with soil, and hand it to
you as you left. And you had to do something with your little plant because you were now
a gardener too. And there was something about her manner, the way she
handled her plants and the people around her, that you knew you couldn't just
throw this plant in the dumpster, you had to tend to it. Spiritually, she was,
in one of William Faulkner's favorite words, fecund. She grew other people, she
grew stuff. She was fecund. That is a great spiritual response to the wonder of
the world. Gratitude begets generativity. And something like that is what I hope
you will grow to become.
Grateful, generous, gracious, growthful.
Live out of your positive spiritual energy and let it multiply. Invest yourself
in others, in ways that others can grow. Bless others. Give… And I don't want
to scare you, because if you let this develop, you might find yourself becoming
one other G word, you probably never thought would be associated with you… Godly.
Watch out.
I have a
post-script… (slide 40)… One other thing I want you to
do this Holiday season with your families. I want you to remember that even
with all of our concerns, we are privileged to have
them because someone else is making a much bigger sacrifice for us. If you would draw yourselves
together and remember what they are going through (slide 41). These are
our kids, all of them… and the truth is that there are a lot of them (slide 42).
The sacrifices have been deep and profound… and make no mistake, they are
always personal (slide 43). We are here because and only because, they are
there. We are all in this together and we will only find a way through it
together. (slide
44) Tell them how grateful you are. Pray for them. And in the midst of war,
pray for the things that will make for peace. Amen.
[i] From “Planet Proctor” by
Phil Proctor in FunnyTimes,
(November, 2003), p. 11.
© 2008
Charles Rush.
All rights reserved.