Faith Vs Sight

2 Corinthians 5:1-21

Matthew 14:13-21

8/3/20

               As Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J. has said, we are not in fact physical beings on a spiritual journey.  Rather, “We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”  I think we can see this to be the case at times.  I remember when we first got the three kittens that are now my kids’ cats.  I remember watching them “try on” their bodies.  At least that was how it looked to me.  They were figuring them out: figuring out how to make them work, how to walk, how to balance, how to use their paws.  I remember moments when they would do something and it would startle them – as if they were saying, “oh, so this is what happens when I do this!”   We’ve seen this with our human babies too, but I think because cats develop and grow into adults so much more quickly, it was all the more obvious to me with the kittens.  I saw that they were beings wearing cat pajamas and trying to explore the limitations and gifts of those pajamas as they navigated this new world for them. 

               In many ways we hear this echoed in Paul’s words.  He talks about God’s house as the real house, the house where we want to be, ultimately.  He talks about our human residence as a tent that weighs us down, a place away from “home”.  These feelings too are familiar to many of us.  I have lived in other places besides the Bay Area in my life, but each time I was in these other places, I felt this strong pull, this strong yearning within me, “I just want to go home” I would say.  But the reality is that whenever I would then move back here, back “home”, those yearnings were ever only partly answered.  There is still a strong desire within me to “go home”, to “be home”.  A spiritual being seeking for a physical home in a physical world.

               What is “home” for you?  Have you ever felt those yearnings to go home or be home, and if so, what did you mean by it?  What are the feelings that you associate with “home”?  If you were here, I would ask you to tell me, but since we are apart, I’m going to have to guess what some of those feelings are.  When people tell me about their “homes” they talk about warm fires and food, good conversation and music.  But the two feelings that I hear most are unconditional love/acceptance and safety.  Home is the place where you feel safe.  Home is the place where you are loved and accepted as you are, where you can be fully and wholly yourself without fear of pain or rejection.

               I’m part of a clergy group here in the Bay Area that meets for an hour every other week.  Most of the other people in this group are people of color.  The African American man who leads the group asked us this last week when and where we felt safe.  To a tee all of the black or African American pastors and faith leaders in our group said that there was no place here where they felt safe.  No place where they felt free to be themselves without threat to their person.  Can you imagine what that feels like?  I can’t imagine what that feels like in terms of physical safety.  I usually feel safe in my house or car, for example.  But I do know what that feels like emotionally.  There have been times in my life where there is no place that I have felt safe emotionally. There have been times in my life where I felt I had to be “on guard” every hour of every day, not knowing where the next “hit” would come, where the next slam would hit, where the next demand on my time, energy and personhood would be exacted.  And again, in all of those moments, I found my soul crying out “I just want to go home!”  And I knew that what that meant for me was that I just wanted to find that place that felt safe, where I would be loved and accepted as I am, where I would no longer be the spiritual being on a painful, intense, long and difficult human journey; but where instead I would be seen in fullness for all of who I am, and loved not just in spite of it, but because of it. 

               I think that because of this deep-seated desire for safety and unconditional love that some people describe another human being as their “home”.  My home is where YOU are.  My home is where THEY are.  But, as Meg Ryan said in the movie French Kiss, “There is no home safe enough, there is no country nice enough, there’s no relationship secure enough.”  And no matter how romantic and wonderful it is when two people stay married and in love their entire lives, those of us who’ve been divorced can tell you that every relationship has conditions.  “Unconditional love” in romance isn’t real.  There are conditions.  And if your partner has met them for the entirety of their life, then you are one of the lucky ones to have found that.  For most of us, the conditions have been found and named and fall short in human beings.  And I would say that even for those who’ve been married their entire lives, there have been moments with your partners that have not felt good, that have not felt emotionally safe or loving.  That’s part of being human.  No one is perfect and when you get two imperfect people together, there will be disagreements and times of pain.

               So in the midst of that, where do we find “home”?  Where do we finally look for that place of unconditional love and safety?

               Many people look towards heaven for that.  This ties back once again to the idea of us as spiritual beings on a human journey.  The number of people who have said to me towards the end of their lives, “I just want to go home” is too many to count.  For them, “home” is that place after death: heaven, or rest, or a kind of Eden where there is no more pain, emotional, physical or spiritual; there is just love and safety. 

               But what I would challenge you with today is the idea that when we call the ones we love “home,” and when we talk about heaven as home, and when we see something beautiful in nature, or hear an amazing piece of music, or visit a country that touches us, or have those mountain-top experiences that feel like home – that all of these point to the same reality.  And that reality is that “home” is where God is.  This home isn’t created or limited by space or time, by life or death, by the people we are with or those we are missing.  And while Paul says, “we live by faith and not sight”, I would say that God’s presence is here for us to see as well as to have faith in, in every moment of every day.

               And that brings us to the gospel lesson for the day.  Jesus is trying to withdraw.  He is tired, he is wanting some space to himself.  But the people are following him, and despite his personal needs, we are told that “Jesus had compassion for them and healed those who were sick.”  Evening came and his disciples tried to get Jesus to send the people into the village and buy food for themselves.  Once again, I want to point out, God here, Jesus here, is not a good business person.  He could have sent them into the village to buy food for themselves, to “boost the economy” and to support local trade.  But he doesn’t.  He also does not “fix it” for everyone.  We tend to change this story in our heads into one of Jesus passing out the food which multiplies and multiplies in abundance.  That is how we tend to hear this story because that is how we’ve been taught to hear this story.  But that is not what happens.  Instead, Jesus says to his disciples, “There’s no need to send them away.  YOU give them something to eat.” 

               The disciples did not want to do that.  They did not want to share.  “We have nothing here except five loaves of bread and two fish.”  So, Jesus prays over the food and then, giving it back to the disciples, asks them to give it to the crowd, which they do.  We don’t know what happened.  We don’t know if the food did in fact multiply – the story does NOT tell us that.  What we know is that once people started sharing what they had, which began with a small group but grew out into the crowds, that there was more than enough for everyone.  And THAT is where we see God, and that is heaven, and that is the safe and loving place that we call home – it is all around us at all times.  But we do not see it because we do not truly believe in it, we do not act on it, we do not live it. 

               I'm reminded of the stone soup story from our childhood.  A man comes to town and, though he is very hungry, no one will help him, no one will feed him.  They feel they don't have enough to share, they don't have enough to give.  So he takes out his pot, gets some water from the local stream and begins to cook it with just a stone inside.  People are curious and come out.  He says to them, "I am making a wonderful, magical, amazing soup!  I will share it, but it surely could use a carrot."  One of the villagers thinks, "well, I have a carrot I could add" and he returns with carrots to throw into the soup.  Then the stranger says, "Hm.  It surely tastes good now, but it could use a potato or two," and one of the villagers remembers that she has some potatoes to throw in.  This continues until the stew is an amazing soup of everyone's ingredients which the stranger is then able to share with all.  They didn't think there was enough.  But together, there was more than enough for all.

               There is always more.  There is always enough, if we could choose to trust in it and share it.  Did you know there was a study out recently that was looking at how people use money?  No surprise, the more money you have, the less you share it.  What was so interesting though is that the poorest of the poor really were the first to share what little food they had.  Greed is a spiritual illness that grows along with how much people have.  The more a person has, the more they are afraid of losing it and less likely they are to share it.  We see this through our country, we see this not just as individuals but as groups, too.  We forget how to see God’s kingdom.  We forget to be “home” for one another.  The bottom line, we forget how much we have been given and how much we have to share.  This does not just apply to money, either.

               I remember a time when my youngest child was just a baby of about 6 months old, 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 come to expect help 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 her 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 with my one free hand that wasn’t holding Youngest, and I 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.

               A friend of mine told me the story this week of his sister-in-law who is a doctor-of-all-trades whose primary job it is to fill in when other doctors can’t go in.  She’s basically on-call all the time at a particular hospital, for wherever she is needed and in whatever capacity.  Well, her husband died recently.  The day of the memorial service, she not only hosted the service, but hosted the party afterwards at her house.  Before everyone had even left, she received a call that one of the doctors who was supposed to give a lecture that day to a class of medical students just hadn’t shown.  The lecture was supposed to have started already and while the person calling understood she had just lost her husband and that the service was that day, she just didn’t know who else to call.  My friend’s sister-in-law thought for a minute and then realized she, too, had “more than enough”.  She chose to do the class because she had it to give.  That energy, that choice to share what we have whether it is resources, time, energy or money – that is where the kingdom of God, that is where “home”, that is where God, God-self is to be found.

               It’s not that faith isn’t important.  It is faith that tells us that there is enough for everyone.  It is faith that tells us to share and to give.  It is faith that hopes, trusts and believes that if we give what we have, there will still be enough for us.      

               We are, right now, in a time of increasing need.  While some people’s rents have been “put off”, they will have to pay them eventually and many simply won’t be able to.  The increase in numbers of homeless is growing exponentially.  The number of those who don’t have health care during this terrible time is growing.  The lines at the soup kitchens, the food pantries, the need-based agencies is growing exponentially.  This is a time when we need those loaves and fishes to go a long way.  But God gave us the ability to make that happen as God has given us the ability to share what we have, and not from our abundance, but from our recognition that these people are our brothers and sisters, our community, our family, who are in need.  The choice to believe that Jesus alone turned the bread and fish into a feast is a choice to abdicate our responsibility here.  We are not off the hook.  It was to his disciples that he said, “give them something to eat” and in this story from today it is the disciples’ own food that they are being asked to share.  Can God take that and make something amazing out of it?  Of course.  But it must start with our choice to share, to give, and to trust that there will be enough for us all.    

               “We walk by faith and not by sight”  Paul tells us.  But that faith becomes sight, and the world becomes “home” when we choose to follow in Jesus’ footsteps and to love fully, remembering that we are spiritual beings on this human journey together, called to live that out as the people of God that we were made to be.  Amen.

That inner ache - the human condition

     The inner ache, that sense of missing something, a feeling I think most of us experience at one time or another, takes on many forms.  For some it takes on the form of loneliness, a wanting to connect to others, to feel understood, embraced, loved fully and completely for who we are. Others have described it as a desire to "go home" and have said that this place (this life) is just not home, somehow. They feel restless, lost, out of place. For some it feels like an absence of meaning or purpose.
     Our culture has, for awhile, tried to find the fulfillment of that emptiness or ache in the form of "true love", something described as incredibly rare and by some as only for "one couple in every hundred years". Other practices don't see it as that rare, but still emphasize that this partnering somehow makes us whole. Many faith traditions offer a belief of "the two becoming one". Some honor marriage, therefore, as a sacrament in which God has made one whole out of two halves, a whole that cannot be divided no matter what. I understand the value in that thinking, and maybe for some people that is true. I had a very good marriage. My husband and I were very well suited to each other and rarely disagreed, let alone argued.  We played well, worked well, parented well, partnered well together.  We were compatible in our theology, politics, finances, ideas of parenting, level of cleanliness, foods we liked, activities, books and movies we enjoyed... actually I can't think of much that was incompatible until the end.  For many years, I was happy with him and with the marriage. Still, I never felt that somehow I was "made whole" by the marriage.  And by that, I mean three things.  First, I never felt that I had been only a half a person before. Second, there were still times in the marriage when that ache, loneliness, emptiness, yearning was present for me. And third, when the marriage ended, I did not feel that I became half a person again.  There was a ripping, a tearing, but not into two halves of a whole. Instead it was the ripping and tearing of any close relationship that is injured, damaged, or torn. It was deeper because the relationship was deeper. But it was not because I was torn away from my other half, but because we were tearing another chink into the divisions of the world. I think that, perhaps, the whole idea of "true love" being incredibly rare is an attempt to explain why, despite partnering and marriage, most of us still do feel that ache at times, even in good marriages.  But, at least for most of us, I don't believe we really can be filled by another human being. We aren't "half of a whole, waiting to find the other half," rather we are a puzzle piece in a huge picture, the whole of which is bigger than we can see or imagine.  It includes all of us, and I would say all of creation.  We are pieces of creation, and our separation from that body, into individuals who sometimes seek our own good at the expense of the whole, leads us into this feeling of disconnect, of ache, of separation. Until we are united again in a vision that we truly are one and that what hurts me hurts you, what hurts you hurts me, and that therefore we must work together for the good of everyone - until we have this unity, I think there will be that aching, that yearning, that sense of not "being home" and of not "being whole."  We aren't home, because we are torn from one another and can not rest in a sense of unity.  We aren't whole because we are like a shattered mirror, with many pieces that cut and stab, unaware that until we work together, we will never be a whole.
     I had a wise spiritual director once say that that inner yearning is, ultimately, the desire to connect more fully to the Divine. To me this is a recognition that together we are more than the sum of our parts. Together we have meaning. Together we are a work of art, created by something we cannot begin to comprehend, and yet something that we ache to be a part of.  We yearn to be a note in a beautiful piece of music, not singing it on our own, but being sung as part of a universal chorus.  We ache to be a part of an amazing piece of art, not simply another slash of color painted at random and drifting around, but an irreplaceable part of a creation that has beauty and light and wonder.  We long to be part of a lovely and purposeful dance, not simply a movement on it's own, but a movement with meaning and purpose that works together with all of the other movements to become something we all are part of and that guides and fulfills each part even as it is in itself breathtakingly wondrous.
    Moments of transcendence take us into that larger vision.  But returning is hard as we once again fall into our own unique space and struggle to find the whole once more.
    Still, keep striving.  Keep searching.  Keep reaching out to find your place in that whole.  The ache itself calls us to do that, to be a part of putting the puzzle pieces together and of helping to imagine the picture, the music, the dance, that is bigger than we can see.  It is only together that we can be the creation we were meant to be.  And it is only together that we will finally be "home", and "whole" and connected with that which is bigger than the sum of the parts.  It is only together that we will be with the One who made us and creates us to be beautiful.

Different places, good and bad. Or, missing Ohio, despite the gifts of being home.

Truly, it is good to be "home".  The weather is better for me psychologically as well as physically (since my primary exercise is walking and I can do that almost year round out here).  It is good to be with family and friends I've known for years.  It is a gift to be in communities that used to mean so much to me and to find that I am still welcomed and wanted as if I had never left.  I love my new church community.  There is much that is good.

However, there is also a lot that I miss about Ohio.  The fall trees, the green, the Metroparks, the lakes, the more reasonable pace of life, the fact that people are not so mobile, stay where they are and therefore tend to be more connected.  There are many people I miss deeply.

But the truth is that this evening, Halloween, I missed Ohio more deeply and fully than I yet have. Halloween in our neighborhood in Ohio was an amazing community event.  Despite the cold (often well below freezing on this Hallowed Eve's night), our neighbors would often be outside with their portable fire pits, sitting in their driveways, wrapped up near these blazing fires, handing out candy to the parade of kids who walked by.  Houses were decorated, Halloween was restricted to a two hour window, and there were only a few neighborhood houses that did not participate.  We got to know our neighbors on Halloween, and my kids would be greeted by name at the different houses, as well as by many of the other kids from their schools whom they knew and would pass by or walk around with, talking animatedly the whole way about their costumes and candy and Halloween traditions. Some houses would hand out treats (popcorn, etc) for the adults as well.  I loved Halloween in Ohio. I loved dressing up myself, but mostly, I loved the amazing community event that was Halloween.  I didn't like the cold, I'll grant you that, but the evening was a wonderful way to celebrate neighborhood.

In contrast, tonight it was a balmy 70 degrees outside - wonderful weather to be outside, sitting, talking, visiting with folk.  We live in a very nice neighborhood, "one of the best" in our area, we've been told again and again.  And yet, as we headed out the door I saw what I had remembered from when I lived in the Bay Area before, that instead of it being the rare house that had its lights OFF, it was a very rare house that had its lights ON.  We live on a court that has about 20 houses.  Three of them had their lights on.  We walked to a nearby court.  Same thing.  We did not see any other kids outside until the end when we saw one other family walk by.  One.  Family.  This was not a community event.  This was a "turn off the lights and hide from the beggars" evening.  And I found my heart aching.  Aching for those neighborhood connections, aching for that kind of community, aching for the warmth and connections and celebration of childhood that Halloween could be and is in other places.

My kids had worked hard on their costumes, putting them together from things we had around the house. (We don't tend to buy costumes.  I want them to be creative). They'd worked on them for weeks, preparing for this evening.  They were excited and talked about nothing else all day.  But I found all of us came back from trick or treating quiet, cranky, disappointed.  They don't care about the candy.  We actually have a "candy fairy" who offers them a present in exchange for their candy if they so choose - a choice they always make because they have inherited from their mom a lack of enthusiasm for sweet things (chocolate excepted, of course!).  It isn't the candy.  It's the community and the creativity of costumes that they look forward to.  But only a few people saw their costumes, and they saw none others except this one family with their two little kids in store-bought Cinderella and Star Wars costumes.  We came back quiet.  And missing our neighborhood in Ohio.

I believe we need to be the world we want.  So I have a year to figure out now how to recreate community around Halloween for my kids.  Maybe we will have a party for their friends.  Maybe we will host something at church.  I don't know yet.  I do know that it was a gift to have those Halloween experiences in Ohio.  And that missing that this year reminds me how important community events really are.  For tonight, we are quiet.  And tomorrow I will start to dream bigger.  Next year we will create community.  And we will plan better, knowing that things here are different.  Communities have different gifts and different challenges.  There have been many gifts in moving back.  But tonight we remembered one of the challenges.  Ohio community, don't change.  Keep being what you are because you have no idea what a gift that is.  California community, we have some work to do. But together, I think we can create something beautiful here as well.  To all communities, we have gifts and challenges.  Other communities have things to teach us, and with experiences other places, we can learn and grow as well.  That is a gift.  Thanks be to God.