Our service’s theme today is “reverence”. It might strike you as a bit of an odd choice, or at least a bit stuffy: irreverence is celebrated in our culture. An irreverent look at something—maybe Jon Stewart on the Daily Show— seems to imply an honesty, a light skepticism, an inability to suffer fools or the pompous gladly. All good things.
I don’t want to have to compete with Jon Stewart. But I don’t think I need to. The sacred text today tells what may be the familiar story of Jacob’s ladder. I want to use this story to say something about the importance of reverence, and how reverence is integral to our relationship with God.
In the story, Jacob is traveling, he’s left his father, he’s about to settle in a new place. It’s getting dark, it’s time to stop, and he lies down on a stone. The stone is a hint right away, as many cultures use stones to mark sacred places. Jacob dreams—and we know how God can dwell in dreams.
In his dream, Jacob sees a ladder, alternatively translated as a stairway, a stairway to heaven. He hears God speak to him, and God makes a promise to him.
So Jacob has an experience of the sacred, a closeness with God. He’s in thin place, a place where the dividing line between the holy and the ordinary is very thin. When we wakes up, he exclaims “Surely the Lord is in this place- and I did not know it! How awesome is this place!” He calls the place Bethel, translated: the House of God.
This is a moment of reverence. Reverence is an ability to feel awe, reverence is being attuned to the sacred, where the sacred actually is.
Surely the Lord is in this place, and that won’t change if we stopped paying attention. But if we don’t have reverence for this place, we might not notice it.
What are the thin places in your life? Is the church a place where you can experience awe, experience the sacred, experience God? Can you feel reverent in nature, in the woods or at the top of a mountain? Or in the pounding beats of music or dance?
It takes work to be open to awe, and ceremonies and rituals are ways to enhance our capacity for reverence. In the story we read today, Jacob marks the place with a stone for a pillar, and pours oil on it to honor it. A little later in the narrative of Genesis, Jacob returns to this spot to build an altar. He doesn’t need to do it—God was in that place even without the altar. But the altar, the pillar—they help mark the place as special, set apart.
And so it is with our worship service here. The things we do are not necessary to worship God—we can worship throughout our life, just as we can pray without any words or ritual at all. But this ceremony—the time for silence, the breaking of the bread, the reflection on a text: this worship service helps us make space for God, to make space for feelings of worship or awe.
There is a danger to ceremony and markers of reverence, that they become empty: A worship service where everyone’s not “really there” . Or worse yet, the danger is that we try to generate reverence when it is inappropriate: an abuse of reverence—calling it unpatriotic to criticize the government. But reverence is not obedience, or lack of dissent, or even skepticism.
Reverence is an openness to and acknowledgement of the Spirit, the presence of God.
May we all find ways to feel that presence, in worship and in our lives.
Amen.
Showing posts with label epiphany. Show all posts
Showing posts with label epiphany. Show all posts
Monday, February 2, 2009
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Sacred Text for "Centering Down" Reflection
How good it is to center down!
To sit quietly and see one's self pass by!
The streets of our minds seethe with endless traffic;
Our spirits resound with clashings, with noisy silences,
While something deep within hungers and thirsts for the still moment and the resting lull.
With full intensity we seek, ere the quiet passes, a fresh sense of order in our living;
A direction, a strong pure purpose that will structure our confusion
and bring meaning in our chaos.
We look at ourselves in this waiting moment - the kinds of people we are.
The questions persist: what are we doing with our lives? -
What are the motives that order our day?
What is the end in our doings? Where are we trying to go?
Where do we put the emphasis and where are our values focused?
For what end do we make sacrifices? Where is my treasure and what do I love most in life?
What do I hate most in life and to what am I true?
Over and over the questions beat in the waiting moment.
As we listen, floating up through all the jangling echoes of our turbulence, there is a sound of another kind –
A deeper note which only the stillness of the heart makes clear.
It moves directly to the core of our being. Our questions are answered,
Our spirits refreshed, and we move back into the traffic of our daily round
With the peace of the Eternal in our step.
How good it is to center down!
From Meditations of the Heart by Howard Thurman.
To sit quietly and see one's self pass by!
The streets of our minds seethe with endless traffic;
Our spirits resound with clashings, with noisy silences,
While something deep within hungers and thirsts for the still moment and the resting lull.
With full intensity we seek, ere the quiet passes, a fresh sense of order in our living;
A direction, a strong pure purpose that will structure our confusion
and bring meaning in our chaos.
We look at ourselves in this waiting moment - the kinds of people we are.
The questions persist: what are we doing with our lives? -
What are the motives that order our day?
What is the end in our doings? Where are we trying to go?
Where do we put the emphasis and where are our values focused?
For what end do we make sacrifices? Where is my treasure and what do I love most in life?
What do I hate most in life and to what am I true?
Over and over the questions beat in the waiting moment.
As we listen, floating up through all the jangling echoes of our turbulence, there is a sound of another kind –
A deeper note which only the stillness of the heart makes clear.
It moves directly to the core of our being. Our questions are answered,
Our spirits refreshed, and we move back into the traffic of our daily round
With the peace of the Eternal in our step.
How good it is to center down!
From Meditations of the Heart by Howard Thurman.
Centering Down: Epiphany and the New Year
We celebrated epiphany at church this past Sunday—the recognition of the birth of Jesus by the Magi, the travelers from foreign lands who brought gifts of gold, frankincense & myrrh. Epiphany is an important holy day for the church—not just because we have a picturesque image of Three Kings all dressed up bearing gifts. The story’s told in the Gospel of Matthew, a gospel written about a very Jewish Jesus to a very Jewish audience—the recognition of Jesus’ birth by non-Jews, the Magi, is meant to highlight the universal nature of Jesus’ message.
Yet epiphany might be eclipsed in our lives by New Year’s, marked by much bigger parties at the least, a holiday shared with others throughout the culture. New Year’s is a time of transition—and for many, New Year’s resolutions and an examination of what we want to be doing differently with our lives.
The sacred text for today, “How good it is to center down”, fits well with both the reflection of New Year’s & the recognition of God in epiphany.
“Centering down” is what we do here, each week as we gather for 15 minutes of silent prayer & meditation at the beginning of rest & bread. It can be hard to sit down, expecting peace, yet have the questions beat in upon this sacred time. “What am I doing with my life, where am I trying to go.”
I am bit jealous, though: Howard Thurman ends the poem “Our questions are answered,Our spirits refreshed…” And I know I am still waiting for answers to my questions, but when I find it, I receive the peace for my spirit with gladness!
The Magi bring gifts, gifts of treasure. And the poem asks, “Where is my treasure and what do I love most in life?” Our treasure is what we value, what we strive for—our family, our money, our work, our church? New Year’s resolutions—going to the gym to take care of the body— these resolutions are an acknowledgement that in the small decisions of each day, we can lose track of the big treasures that matter most.
And so we center down. Each week, we listen for that deep note in the stillness of our hearts, for the whisper of God. We listen for God to remind us of treasures we forget were even possible. We listen for God to name the treasures that we already possess, the treasures we can offer to others, even to Jesus. Through a long Advent, we awaited the coming of Christ. We waited for God to speak. Now, we move back into the traffic of ordinary life, perhaps refreshed, hopefully with a just bit of the Eternal in our step.
Amen.
Yet epiphany might be eclipsed in our lives by New Year’s, marked by much bigger parties at the least, a holiday shared with others throughout the culture. New Year’s is a time of transition—and for many, New Year’s resolutions and an examination of what we want to be doing differently with our lives.
The sacred text for today, “How good it is to center down”, fits well with both the reflection of New Year’s & the recognition of God in epiphany.
“Centering down” is what we do here, each week as we gather for 15 minutes of silent prayer & meditation at the beginning of rest & bread. It can be hard to sit down, expecting peace, yet have the questions beat in upon this sacred time. “What am I doing with my life, where am I trying to go.”
I am bit jealous, though: Howard Thurman ends the poem “Our questions are answered,Our spirits refreshed…” And I know I am still waiting for answers to my questions, but when I find it, I receive the peace for my spirit with gladness!
The Magi bring gifts, gifts of treasure. And the poem asks, “Where is my treasure and what do I love most in life?” Our treasure is what we value, what we strive for—our family, our money, our work, our church? New Year’s resolutions—going to the gym to take care of the body— these resolutions are an acknowledgement that in the small decisions of each day, we can lose track of the big treasures that matter most.
And so we center down. Each week, we listen for that deep note in the stillness of our hearts, for the whisper of God. We listen for God to remind us of treasures we forget were even possible. We listen for God to name the treasures that we already possess, the treasures we can offer to others, even to Jesus. Through a long Advent, we awaited the coming of Christ. We waited for God to speak. Now, we move back into the traffic of ordinary life, perhaps refreshed, hopefully with a just bit of the Eternal in our step.
Amen.
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