Divine Companion on Life’s Journey

[N.B. This is the sermon I preached at the Easter Vigil Eucharist, St. Richard’s Episcopal Church, Winter Park, FL, March 31, 2018]

May I speak in the name of the G-d who creates, redeems and sustains us? AMEN.

In the Hebrew cosmology, a new day begins each evening as the sun sets. The lesson from Genesis we just heard reflects that understanding: “There was evening and there was morning, a new day.” And so tonight we welcome a new day.

But this is not just any new day. It is the day that we Christians celebrate as the Day of the Resurrection. For liturgical traditions this feast day comes at the end of six weeks of reflection, self-denial and preparation for the Great Feast of Easter. Lent has offered us a symbolic journey through the desert, following the Way of Jesus who himself periodically sought out such times alone with the G_d he called Abba, Daddy. 

Our readings tonight reflect humanity’s journey with the Holy One. They reveal a G-d whom we recognize as the source of all that exists, a G-d who sustains our lives with divine presence and a G-d who awaits the souls of all created beings at the end of their life journeys. Our readings reflect a G-d who lies at the very core of our being and cannot be separated from us regardless of whatever life’s journey may bring us.

Tonight I ask you to reflect upon your own life journey, to try to become aware of G_d’s presence in your life. And I am going to ask you to assist me with this sermon. I will offer three short meditations and I will ask you to respond to each by singing a verse from a beloved hymn.

Be Thou My Vision is set to an ancient Celtic melody, a musical rendition of the beloved Celtic knot pattern which reflects our life journeys with all their unexpected twists and turns. I think you will quickly understand why I chose this hymn for this purpose. So let us begin.

Meditation One: G-d is the Source of All That Exists

The Priestly writers who composed the Genesis account in the Hebrew Scripture have done a remarkable job of talking about how all things came to be. While some would pose a false dichotomy between the words of Genesis and the findings of evolutionary science, in fact the Genesis account of the creation process accurately reflects the order of evolution. Initially there is nothing but G-d. Then G_d speaks and a Big Bang results, spinning into motion an evolving cosmos that we human beings are only now beginning to realize its immensity and its wonder these many eons later.

The final act in the Genesis narrative is the creation of the human being. We humans are created in the image of G-d possessing the potential to grow ever more into the likeness of G_d. While we are the last of the created beings in the narrative, it is important to remember that we are ultimately one of many created beings, not the only one who counts. And our creation comes with a task: we are given responsibility for caring for the Creation and for one another.

At the end of this creative process two immensely important things happen. First, G_d assesses the creative process just concluded with the creation of humanity. And G-d is pleased. It is very good. Not perfect, a Greek concept foreign to the mind of the Priestly writers six centuries before the common era, but very good. St. Clare of Assisi puts it very well in her last words: “I thank you, G_d, for creating me, a wonderful being!”

The second important thing to happen is that G-d blesses the Creation. Thus, we human creatures begin our journeys into the likeness of G_d with that assessment and that blessing. We are, indeed, very good creations. Not perfect but very good. We are called to take our spiritual journey to grow and develop into the likeness of G-d.. And G-d’s blessing rests upon us from the very beginning.

So I invite you tonight to consider your own origin in the very heart of G_d. And I invite you to take a moment to reflect in silence on the wonderful being G_d has created you to be and the divine likeness you were created to live into.

[Silence] Let us respond with verse one of Be Thou My Vision 

Hymn 488 (Hymnal 1982) Be thou my vision

1. Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart;
all else be nought to me, save that thou art--
thou my best thought, by day or by night,
waking or sleeping, thy presence my light.

Meditation Two: G-d Is the Ground of All Being   

The journey of the people of G_d has never been a smooth one. Early on we came close to being wiped out by a flood which swallowed up the Earth, saved by a righteous man who walked with G_d and responded to G_d’s call to save himself, his family and the animal kingdom. 

Our forebears, the people of Israel, became enslaved by the Egyptians to whom they had originally come for help during a famine only to make a dramatic exodus from Egypt pursued by Pharaoh’s army. There G_d takes the side of the slaves and delivers the Israelites in dramatic fashion at the Red Sea.

G-d will later watch in sadness as the people turn from worshipping the G_d of the covenant, the source of their very being and their constant companion, to prostrate themselves before the idols of the nations. Again and again the prophets of G_d call the people to return to their covenant. Again and again, they refuse. And as a result first Israel and then Judah will be swallowed up by invading armies, their peoples taken into captivity.

G-d is heartbroken. But even amidst the devastation of exile, G_d remains present, more than willing to breathe the spirit of life back into dead, dry bones, to renew Israel, to restore the covenant, to begin the spiritual journey anew. Even when G-d’s human creations seek to separate themselves from the G-d who created them and sustains them, G_d never lets go of us.

My guess is that each of us can relate to these stories. There may have been times when the presence of G_d was so strong it was palpable. And then there have been other times when G_d has seemed so far away as to be missing completely.

There may have been times when we have been angry at G-d, when we have gone our own way and ignored the G-d who was always present, patiently awaiting our response to G-d’s call to us, hopeful of our willingness to rejoin our spiritual journey into the likeness of G_d. Yet, in every case, even as we wandered, G_d was still there.  

And so I ask you to reflect for a moment on the journey of your own life, the moments when G-d’s presence was so near you could touch it and the moments when G_d seemed far away indeed. Where have you seen the presence of G-d in your life?

[Silence] And now let us respond with the second verse of our hymn.

2 Be thou my wisdom, and thou my true word;
I ever with thee and thou with me, Lord;
thou my great Father; thine own may I be;
thou in me dwelling, and I one with thee.

Meditation Three: G-d is the Destination of All Souls

The Gospel of Mark whose ending we heard tonight is decidedly different from the other three Gospels. Mark begins at the Jordan River. No virgin birth. No angels or shepherds. No flight into Egypt to avoid a bloodthirsty Herod. It ends just as abruptly as we heard tonight – no resurrection, no Jesus walking through walls, no ascension into heaven. Just an empty tomb. And some very frightened followers fleeing in terror.

Contrast that account with the preceding verses we have heard this Holy Week which describe the death of Jesus. He is clearly human. He wishes to avoid the pain facing him. The empire subjects him to the gratuitous infliction of pain and enormous suffering in a show of power. He feels abandoned by G-d, quoting a psalm of the condemned. And in the end, he dies, raised up on a Roman instrument of torture, naked, in full view of anyone brave enough to still be present. In Mark’s Gospel, it will be an empty tomb that has the last word.

But there is something very important to be noted in this account. Jesus clearly had to know that he was headed to his death when he entered Jerusalem amidst major upheaval and celebration. If the messiah was to come at any time, it was during Passover. The Romans were on high alert and the first thing Jesus did was to go to the Temple courts and shut down the lucrative businesses of offerings, money changing and tax collection. From that moment on, Jesus was a marked man.

So why did he do this? Why was he willing to engage in such provocative, dangerous behavior? Why was he willing to subject himself to the torture of the Romans and the suffering it would extract from his very soul?

Unlike his frightened followers running from an empty tomb, Jesus evidences something very different. He models existential trust. He intimately trusts the G-d he calls Abba, Daddy. He trusts he has correctly understood his calling to proclaim and to model the Kingdom of G-d even as it means that the way to that kingdom is also the Way of the Cross. And he trusts that G-d will vindicate him, raising him up from the dead to a place of honor in the heavens.

Tonight we celebrate the wisdom of Jesus because G-d has done exactly that.

The G-d Jesus reveals is an ultimately trustworthy G-d. Jesus trusted his very soul to the G-d who had created him, sustained him through his long spiritual journey to the cross, and whose strong but loving gentle hands awaited his bruised soul at the end of the journey. 

Tonight, the good news is that we can, too.

And so I ask that you consider where in your life you, like me, resemble Jesus’ followers fleeing from an empty tomb in doubt and fear. And where in your life do you follow the Way of Jesus, trusting G_d with your very soul?

[Silence] And now let us respond with the final verse of our hymn.

3 High King of heaven, when victory is won,
may I reach heaven's joys, bright heaven's Sun!
Heart of my heart, whatever befall,
still be my Vision, O Ruler of all.

The gift that Jesus and his resurrection reveals to us this night is indeed a pearl of great price. Ironically, it has been ours from the very beginning even as we, like Jesus’ first followers, have often run away in fear from the prospect of death seeking to reassure ourselves with whatever theological formulae we believed would give us a measure of certainty.

The Greek word eucharist means thanksgiving. This is the night to express our gratitude for the great gift of Jesus and our trust in the G-d from whom all things come. How do we do that? By simply coming to this altar, holding out our hands and gratefully receiving “the gifts of G-d for the people of G_d.”

So let us come to this altar in gratitude. And every time we do may we be grateful enough to say like St. Clare, “I thank you, G-d, for creating me a wonderful being.”

Thanks be to the G-d who has created us.

Thanks be to the G_d who sustains us.

And thanks be to the G_d who awaits every single soul at the end of its life journey.

For it is into your hands, O G-d, that we, too, commend our Spirit.” AMEN.            

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Harry Scott Coverston

Orlando, Florida

 frharry@cfl.rr.com

hcoverston.orlando@gmail.com

If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding. Most things worth considering do not come in sound bites.

For what does G-d require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your G-d? (Micah 6:8, Hebrew Scriptures)

Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it. - Rabbi Rami Shapiro, Wisdom of the Jewish Sages (1993) 

 © Harry Coverston 2018

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