In the Beginning

Genesis 1:1-2:4a

John 1:1-5

               Today we have two very interesting passages that talk about the beginning of the world.  We have this story in Genesis, which tells us so much more about God and the nature of creation than it does about the hows of creation.  We learn from this story that God is creative, that this is the very nature of God to create, to make new, to shape. We also learn that God has a vision before acting, and that the very images of God begin the process of creating.  We learn that God speaks and the world is created, that it is in speaking, or moving thoughts out of ourselves through words that creation happens.  We learn that God values the passing of time and chooses to mark it with days and nights, and that God sees value in both light and dark, in days and nights.  We see that God values life and delights in huge diversity, creatures of the sea, animals that fly, creatures of the land, with so many different types and kinds.  We learn that God wanted relationship and creatures called humans who could be companions and have genuine interactions with God, ones that God would recognize as reflecting Godself.  We hear that the plan was not for killing, even for food, in the original.  Instead, to all animals and people was given the grasses and the seeds and fruit. We see that the work of creating is God’s work and is important, but that rest is also important.  And finally and most importantly, we come to see that all of this was made supremely good.  That creation, that earth, that life, that all animals and plants and stars and the moon and sun: all are very, very good.  Original blessing: something much stronger, by the way than any kind of “original sin” because it comes from God-self.  We learn therefore to appreciate and value the beautiful and wondrous creation that God has made, to not take it for granted, to not abuse it or mistreat it, but to honor it as the very creation of our good and loving and awesome God.  

                Breathe that in!  The awe, the wonder, the amazement.  It is good.  You are good.  The earth is good.  We were made good by God’s Words, by God’s WORD.  And we have been gifted by our time here; our time of work and our time of rest.  We have been blessed by the beauty of relationships and connection to God and to all living things.  We are part of this wondrous and amazing creation!  In Isaiah God said it this way, “Be glad forever and rejoice in what I create… for I create my people to be a delight.”  I invite you to just sit with that for a moment, sit in the awe and wonder of what God has created just by speaking.

               And then we come to the second scripture, the passage from John, which also talks about creation, about the beginning of everything and the vision for who God is, who we are and who we are to be together.  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The Word was with God in the beginning. Everything came into being through the Word, and without the Word nothing came into being.  What came into being through the Word was life, and the life was the light for all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness doesn’t extinguish the light.”               This is such an incredible, beautiful passage.  But I want to start this section by asking you, what do you think this passage actually means?  Why “the Word”?  Just past this passage in John we learn that “the Word” is Jesus: Verse 14: The Word became flesh and made his home among us. “  But why?  How do you feel about this passage?

            As you saw during children’s time, charades, while a really fun game, can also be a really difficult or challenging game.  Especially when the phrases you are acting out include names, or places.  And what makes charades, or even games like Taboo hard is the limitation on our words, the words we can’t use, or the words we can’t say. 

           I think about Helen Keller.  She contracted scarlet fever when she was 20 months old and became both deaf and blind.  Because of this, her life became one of wildness, isolation and frustration.  When she was six, the family hired Anne Sullivan who came and began to teach Helen sign language into her hand in order to teach her how to communicate with others.  It took a long time for Helen to even understand what Anne was trying to do.  But once she understood, her life changed completely.  Through communication – through words, though not “spoken” words they were still words, she was able to earn a college degree and become a successful lecturer.  More importantly, she was able to have relationships with other people, lifelong friendships, connections.

           Communication is never easy.  We misunderstand one another so often.  We mishear, mis-interpret, misunderstand.  We misread people’s body language, or people’s intent.  We mis-speak or phrase or frame things in ways that are sometimes easy to misunderstand.  Those misunderstandings are the primary cause of human distress, conflicts, problems.  And the only solutions to those miscommunications are more words, are more communication, are intentional talking. 

           We also at times misuse our words for bad.  Words can be weapons.  While words create, they create relationships, they create dynamics, they create our world, the ways we use our words sometimes create in negative or harmful ways.  We can create relationships in need of healing, or dynamics that are negative.  We can bully each other, put each other down, destroy egos and community with our words.  We can do so much damage if we are not intentional, graceful and loving with our words. 

           Our words can also be simply confusing and unclear, especially for children.  Someone passed on to me this story, apparently from the movie, My Queen: “A visiting aunt, who is a nun, gave her little niece communion. It was basically just for fun, playing. She put the wafer on the child’s tongue and said, “Corpus Christi”. The kid asked what that meant. The aunt replied, “The Body of Christ.” Alarmed, the kid made a sour face and violently spit it out. In the next scene, though, the kid was baptizing her pet, and because she didn’t know the Latin that her aunt used, she spoke funny gibberish (shubba dubba…).”  We know this is a true story.  Our kids do not always understand our words, and frankly neither do the adults in our lives.

          And yet, despite the possibilities for errors and misunderstandings and harm of our words, still we return to this passage: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The Word was with God in the beginning. Everything came into being through the Word, and without the Word nothing came into being.”

      The word “WORD” in the Bible means more than language.  As one commentator said it, “logos, is a rich and nuanced word, meaning mind or rationality, but also speech or communication…. In Jesus, God speaks God’s mind.”  (Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary - Feasting on the Word – Year C, Volume 1: Advent through Transfiguration.)  The mind that God speaks is creation, is creative, is love, is grace.  All was made through the Word.  But it is more than that.  It is also revelation and reconciliation.  Revelation is a revealing, an opening, a showing us who God is.  Reconciliation is a healing, a coming to understand one another, and a coming through that understanding to love one another and heal the breaches between us.  All of this is part of “word”.  A Word that speaks truth and opens up to us what we cannot see.  And a Word that brings understanding and healing, opening us to understand that which we do not understand in one another.  All of this is encompassed in the “WORD”.

This Word existed, we are told, from the beginning.  We knew God and God knew us.  God created through words.  God SAID “let there be light” and there was.  God SAID, “Let there be a dome…and it happened that way.”  “God SAID, ‘Let the waters swarm…”  “God said, “let the earth produce…” and thus it was.  God SAID, and it happened.   The WORD that was with God and the WORD that was God created it all with words, with THE Word.  Nothing and no one existed outside the word of God.  Nothing and no-one existed outside the creative, life-giving purposes of the Word.  Nothing has existence outside of the WORD.  It is the Word that tells us who, what and when because it is the Word that created who, what and when. 

In C.S. Lewis’ book, The Magician’s Nephew, Aslan created the new world by singing.  He brought into being the world, all it’s creatures, all it’s form through singing, speaking.  But unlike what CS Lewis said, this passage from John says that the Word is Jesus and that Jesus, as the Word, is God.  So the Words made the world, but the words themselves are not the world – instead God is the Word that made the world. 

It was the Word that created.  And then it was the Word that reconciles, reveals and redeems.  With the birth into this world of the Word, our knowing God, our understanding of God is different and everything else is different too.  Jesus as the Word then is the embodiment of revelation and reconciliation.  He is the embodiment of the creative energy that makes everything new, that reveals who God is, and that reconciles us to one another.

 When I think of words, I think first and foremost about communication.  And the key aspect of communication is that it only happens in community, in relationship.  This is, again, a strong statement about God as community and relationship, God as the author of community and relationship, and relationship being central.  In the beginning was God and the Word, and yet they are one.  They are relationship, they exist in relationship, and they create through relationship, through Words, through the Word, through speaking.

  So what is the message in all of this?  First, that God created and continues to create.  God creates through Words, through the Word, through communication with us and with all of creation.  God continues to speak, to reach out to reveal and reconcile.  That is God’s nature as shown to us through the creation and through Jesus.  We are created in and for community, for connection.  And that community and connection happens as our words of love and creation happen.  We are made in God’s image, called to use words to create, to build, to reimagine, to reveal just as God used the Word for the same purpose. 

               Thanks be to God.  Amen.

Ducks!

         Yesterday we were given a very odd, but amazing gift.  I was working in our back yard, pulling weeds and Middle came out to help me.  I asked him to please water the plants around the edges when suddenly I hear him yell.  I stopped what I was doing, ran to where he was and he pointed to...

                    

    In case it isn't clear, that is a picture of a mama mallard duck and she has ten little babies.  For those of you who might not know, our backyard is completely fenced in, there is no water area, and by non-Bay Area standards, it is actually quite a small yard (for here, it's pretty decent!).  I was astonished.  

    How did they get in?  How would they get out?  Where could they possibly go to find water near here? There is a creek about 3 blocks away... they could probably walk to it, but it is completely dried up.  There's no water in it.  

    But the first thing I did was open our gate.  Again, I couldn't figure out how they would possibly have gotten IN, but I had a suspicion that maybe the babies were actually born here, in which case, the mama could have flown in.  I had seen her and her mate in our yard once before, but had no idea they had taken up residence somewhere within it.  Was it possible the babies had actually been born under a bush here?  That was the only way I could fathom they had gotten in.  

    The second thing I did was that I called the wildlife hospital at Lindsay Museum.  But I had to leave a message.  (This was Sunday afternoon, after all).  In the meantime, I saw the mama duck basically pacing back and forth in the corner with her ducklings and I began to worry about them having water.  I took the bird-feeder bowl that we have on a pedestal (we made sort of a fountain out of it) and I put it on the ground near the corner where the mama duck was.  I refilled it with water and stepped back.  The mama immediately walked over and climbed into the bowl.

    Okay... but there was no way the ducklings would be able to climb into the bowl.  Hm.

    So, still waiting to hear back from Lindsay Museum, out of worry, I finally got out a cookie sheet, filled it with water and put it next to the bowl.  Within seconds the ducklings were all playing in the tiny bit of water:

    Both of those are under our big tree that has a bird feeder under it, and I noticed they were nibbling on some of the seed that had spilled out of the feeder.  So I took a scoop of birdfeed, put it on a plate and set it near the cookie sheet.  They immediately ate some of it.

    All this time I was talking to the mama duck.  She would tilt her head and look at me as if she was working to understand what I was saying.  She was not afraid of me at all, not even really cautious, which was both flattering and concerning.

    Finally, Lindsay called back.  The woman told me I needed to shoo them out of my yard.  They are wildlife and do not belong there.  I told her I was worried they would get hit by a car and that there was NO water source nearby.  She basically said "Too bad.  That is what you must do. It's not your responsibility if the mama duck is a bad mama."  Ugh.

    So we tried.  We told them they had to go and tried to encourage them to go out the gate by getting closer and closer to the ducks and trying to herd them in the proper direction.  This did not go so well...

    They basically sat down and were not moving.  Nope.  No way, no how.  

    I started to really worry about them.  Middle read that it takes 5-8 weeks before the babies are ready to fly.  I did not think our yard, with its lack of a real water area, enclosed, was a really good place for the ducks to live.

    So I got on the phone again and started making other calls.  California Game and Wildlife isn't open Sundays or Mondays, but I left a message.  Contra Costa Animal Control also wasn't open but I left a message there too.  I asked around.  Someone suggested I catch them and take them to Heather Farms Park (about a 15 minute car -ride away) that has a couple big ponds with lots of ducks and geese.  But I had read (in my search) that it is illegal to catch and relocate wildlife, even from improper places.  

    I kept my eye on the ducks for most of the time, and they seemed to just be exploring the yard.  The mama walked them here, walked them there.  They followed her around, but none of them seemed particularly anxious.  Still, at one point I had to get up and go into the other room for a couple minutes.  When I got back, I could no longer see them in the yard.  We went out to see if we could figure out where they went, but couldn't find them anywhere.

    While I think it is extremely unlikely that they went out by the gate, which was quite a ways away from where the ducks had been hanging out, we could not find them, nor could we find any other possible exit.  No holes in the fences that we could see, no holes to under the house.  This remains the case.  I haven't seen them at all today.  

    They appeared unexpectedly.  They disappeared unexpectedly.

    And while I know that their journey is their own, and that our yard was not a good place for them, while I spent most of the time they were with us trying to figure out how to help them leave, I still found myself unexpectedly disappointed and sad at their leaving.      

    I found myself reflecting once more on the story Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers, about a little boy's encounter with a penguin, his hard work to get the penguin back home and his final realization that the penguin wasn't lost at all, just lonely and wanting a friend.  The boy in the story only realized in the end that he, too, was lonely and needed the penguin as much as the penguin needed him.  

    That story became real for me over the last two days.  I spent the entire time of this amazing gift of a duck mama and her babies trying to help them move on, only to discover when they were gone how much their afternoon with us had touched me, had blessed me, had given me a gift I was very sad to see end.  I found myself wondering if we had been too mean, trying to chase them out of our yard, despite the instructions of the Lindsay Wildlife worker (and though we were unsuccessful at the time).  I worried they had felt unwelcome.  I worried I had missed the whole thing: spending it in being too concerned for the duck and her babies.

    But the thing is, this is how the Divine, God, Mystery, blessing, or (for the non-religious) serendipity shows up.  It can't be summoned, and it lasts an unpredictable amount of time.  We have no control over when it comes or when it goes.  Our call (and this is for our own sakes, as all of our calls ultimately and most deeply are!) is therefore, very simply, to keep paying attention so that we do not miss the blessing, the face of God, the gift of mystery when it shows up.  Our call is to be open to seeing it, because sometimes it comes in a flash and is gone just as quickly.  If we miss it, we can't get it back.  It is gone.

    Don't waste those amazing moments, those unexpected visions of life and mystery, those incredible and unanticipated wonders that sometimes come our way.

    I almost missed this gift.  I didn't appreciate the depth of it when it was mine to behold.  But the gift continues through the lesson.  So I step into a new day.  Eyes open.  Ears open.  For that next amazing wonder that comes my way.

Doing what we can

Mark 6:30-44

Sometimes things seem overwhelming.  Sometimes we become so used to relying on other people that we don’t see the options until we are forced to be in a leadership position.  We don’t know our strength and our gifts until they are called on.  We sometimes take the easy way out and don’t even see options unless we are the only ones who can.

I remember a time when my youngest child, Youngest was just a baby of about 6 months old, Middle, my son was 2 and my eldest daughter was 5.  I would not have been winning any parenting awards on that day, and at one point I even considered shipping off at least one of my lovely three children to someone who I knew would be much better capable of managing what I came to think of as my own personal monkey cage.  I had to come expect help from my husband on Fridays, but this particular Friday I was completely on my own all day.  The kids had been in rare form; all demanding things in temper tantrum format all afternoon.  By 7:00 I was a stressed out mess.  With Youngest in a bouncy chair, and Eldest in the shower, I was trying to get Middle dressed for bed.  But when I tried to put his pajama top over his head I was greeted with yet another temper tantrum.  He would not tell me what he wanted, but instead ripped the shirt off and started to scream at the top of his lungs.  At that moment, Eldest called me to help her wash her hair and Youngest decided this was the perfect moment to put in her two cents as well and she started crying like there was no tomorrow.  I explained to Middle that if he was going to fight me I couldn’t help him, I left him in his room, went and picked up Youngest who continued to scream, took her into the bathroom with me to help Eldest with her hair and tried to take a deep breath.  When Middle came running into the bathroom after me, it was all I could do to not snap his head off with a “What is it now?” But instead of crying, or screaming, my two year old boy walked up to me, wrapped his arms around my legs and with a look of deep compassion said very simply, “I’m sorry I was fighting with you, Mama.”  In that moment I saw him again - my little, caring, sweet boy who needed my attention, who needed my love.  Yes, I could give it.  I had reserves that I didn’t even know I had just for him just for then. 

Still, that was one day.  For the last 6 years, as you know, I’ve been the single mom of these three children every day.  And not only do I manage to have the energy to do it, but I usually enjoy my time with my kids and even manage to laugh and play with them regularly.  I didn’t know I could.  But we can often do more than we think we can.

After I graduated from seminary, I interviewed with a church in AZ to become their associate pastor.  A member of the nominating committee, as well as their senior pastor, came up to meet me and spend some time with me to see if it would be a good fit.  They were planning to spend the night at the seminary and had made arrangements to do so, but when they got to their room, they discovered that the door was locked and they could not get in.  I think before this situation had arisen, I probably would have been one of the people made helpless by this.  “What are we going to do?  The office is closed.  There won’t be anyone there.  It’s late at night.  I can’t wake anyone up.  What are we going to do?”  But I was in the midst of an interview.  And somehow I knew that this un-premeditated test was going to either make or break the interview for me.  So I took a breath and did some quick thinking.  I was house sitting at the time at a home with no extra bedrooms.  But I thought of the student who I knew worked in the housing office and who might be able to help us.  This was pre-cell phone days and I didn’t have his phone number, but I did know where he lived.  So we walked over to his house, found he was not yet asleep and that he could help us, and together we were able to settle the two men into their dorm rooms.  I was offered the job.  But more than that, I learned that day that I could do more than I thought I could.

In the movie, “The Family Man,” the main character, Jack was given the opportunity to see what his life would have been if he had chosen a different path at a critical juncture.  At one point he met the man who in his real life worked under Jack and who, in this glimpse of a life that might have been, was now the boss.  What Jack found was that the same man, in different positions, with different levels of authority, behaved very differently, acted very differently, held himself differently.  When he was the boss, he was powerful and could make decisions and saw things clearly.  But when he was second in command, he was not capable of making decisions, but deferred to Jack in everything, at times even whining with a “what are we going to do?” kind of behavior of helplessness.

            What are we capable of?  What are we really made of?  What can we do if we have to, if we are forced to, if we must?

All of these situations remind me of the disciples response to the situation described in today’s gospel lesson.  The disciples don’t know what to do with all these hungry people and they can’t seem to think on their own.  They want Jesus to fix it.  They want Jesus to send everyone away so they won’t have to deal with them.  But Jesus challenges them to think and to take charge.  “No,” he says, “you feed them.”  But still, they don’t want to take on this leadership role, they don’t want to think, they don’t want to use the gifts God has given them.  So at that point they become whiney, “But we only have 5 loaves and 2 fish!” they protest.  They choose not to think for themselves, or to act in this situation.   I can just imagine Jesus giving a heavy sigh of frustration as he takes the food from them.  He does his miracle.  He shows them a different way of being, one that involves trusting God to provide and “acting as if” until the things that are needed become more than just something to be hoped for, but actual realities.  He shows them that their faith is stronger than they can imagine, and their abilities to rise to any occasion are deeper than they know. 

But do they get it?  Do they then become the people God calls them to be, or do they just continue to look to Jesus to always fix it for them and make things better and stronger?  They continue to rely on Jesus until Jesus is finally gone.  But they have him as a model and when he does leave them, they finally do find their strength and are able to continue to serve God and proclaim Jesus’ Good News to all the people, despite personal danger, despite their human weaknesses. 

            We are called, like the disciples, like all of God’s people, to be the best, most whole, most faithful and most God-led people we can be.  We are called to feed God’s people and to heal God’s people and to tell the good news of God’s love and grace. We are called to stand up for the poor, the oppressed, the displaced: to stand up for them and make a better life for them. But we get stuck in our “I can’t” thinking, and this is dangerous for all of us.  It is also unfaithful. 

            Hildegaard de Bingen once said: “A divine voice spoke to me, saying, ‘How fragile you are, Human, made of dust and grime, but I am the living Light.  I make the darkness day, and I have chosen you to see great wonders, though I have humbled you on earth.  You are often depressed and timid, and insecure.  Because you are conscientious, you feel guilty, and chronic physical pain has thoroughly scarred you.  But the deep mysteries of God have saturated you, too, and so has humility.’  When I heard the Voice, I began trying to live a godly life.  The path became difficult as I questioned myself again, saying, ‘This is pointless.’  I wanted to soar. I dreamed impossible dreams and started projects I could never finish.  I became dejected, so I sat and did nothing.  My self-doubt is my greatest disobedience.  It makes me miserable, and I struggle with this cross daily.  But God is by my side, reminding me that he created me.  So, even in the middle of my depression, I walk with wise patience over the marrow and blood of my body.  I am the lion defending itself from a snake, roaring and knocking it back into its hole.  I will never let myself give in to the devil's arrows.”

            Marianne Williamson said it this way, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

            God calls us to be whole, and to serve out of the gifts we are given.  Let us strive to follow God to the fullest that we might be the most whole People God calls us to be. 

            I want to end today by sharing with you a prayer called the Knots prayer:

            The Knots Prayer

Dear God, please untie the knots that are in my mind,

My heart and my life.

Remove the have nots,

The can nots and the do nots

That I have in my mind.

Erase the will nots,

May nots,

Might nots that may find

A home in my heart.

Release me from the could nots,

Would nots and

Should nots that obstruct my life.

And most of all,

Dear God,

I ask that you remove from my mind,

My heart and my life all of the “am nots”

That I have allowed to hold me back,

Especially the thought

That I am not good enough.

Amen.