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Little Bits Go Long Ways

9/13/2015

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9-13-15         

James 3: 1-12  



 

 









Steve Garnaas Holmes, www.unfoldinglight.net  … [What} St. Paul calls “the flesh”…. doesn't mean our body; he means something even smaller, contained within our body, limited by our fears and appetites.

 But we aren't such little “selves.” We are part of something infinite. By the life of Holy Spirit in us we are members of the infinite Body of God, who dwells in us and we in God. ……..To “deny ourselves” is to deny whatever fears keep us from loving fully. It is let go of our self-centeredness, to say no the illusion, to transcend our ego, to abandon our little skull-caged, death-leashed bit of fear and desire and instead become the infinitely alive and loving children of God we truly are. As those who embody God's love we give of our lives for love; we are not afraid even of death, because we trust that with love and grace God overabundantly renews life in us. So we follow Jesus out of our selves and into infinite life: without fear we take up our cross, practice compassionate self-giving and join Jesus in loving the world into its newness.         
         

Its not surprising that my “self” so often feels very small.

Our lives are ever more broken down into little bits.  Maybe it’s the natural outgrowth of the industrial revolution.  When every second counts, for efficiency’s sake, and measurements can now be taken in angstroms, 10 miliion ties smaller tha a millimeter.

We record our lives in little bits- pixels and code.

The new version of the i-phone 6 previewed this week, to great excitement, will snap images in 12 megapixels. I can remember being thrilled with my new camera that snapped shots at 4 megapixels.

Small has never been so big!

            Nanotechnology

            Sound bites

            Digitally preserved moments

But what does it all mean?

Little bits, images and texts, of our lives are floating somehow in a cloud, that’s not a cloud.  It empowers us and also makes us vulnerable, as we saw across Central Maine this week with intimate selfies being hijacked and displayed on a hackers webpage. Or the recent exposure of an extensive on line network designed for cheating on one’s partner.

Its tempting to have just one more little ….

            Cup of caffeine
             Drink
              Cigarette,
               page of porn,
                pain pill,
                  shopping trip…..   whatever my addiction is.  What ever creates a buffer that feels like it protects my little self.

A little can go a long way. 
A little yes
A little no. 

What does it all mean?

I think it means that the horizon has never been so important.

Did you ever spend a summer day as a child, or with a child, carefully constructing a little paper boat, or maybe it was leaves and sticks, to float on your neighborhood pond?   Its possible to loose track of time completely as you puff a little wind into the sales, sending the boat on a meandering course.  There was always one in the group, though, who knew where they wanted their boat to go, who found a point on the horizon and did their best to marshal their craft, puffing purposefully, sometimes resorting to a stick.

When we lose track of the horizon in daily interaction with other people, 
our words sometimes fly like random shrapnel.

One of my friends, a writer, librarian, and linguist's daughter, once told a group of teens who were becoming careless about what words they dropped and where, about her best remembered lesson in language.  She had reached that age, around 11 or 12, when our sense of self stretches to try to fit the world we are discovering around us.  One day, picking up a phone call from a friend, she stretched the cord (remember those?) around the corner in search of the privacy a tween must have when talking on the phone to a friend.  Her father, reading in his rocking chair in the kitchen, could hear every word.  But she was under an illusion of privacy.  Midway through the conversation, she decided to drop the “f-bomb” to demonstrate her sophistication and social maturity. After she hung up, and came back around the corner, her father gently invited her to sit down.  Every little cell in her body went on high alert.  She knew she was busted.

For the next half hour, Dad proceeded to give her a detailed etymological lesson in the history of the word she had used, working chronologically back to its origins in early English, when it described particularly violent acts against women. When he was done he leaned forward and asked her, “now, was that what you meant to say?”

When we have our eyes on the right horizon, certain little bits rise in importance while others diminish.  A parent’s love and regard becomes more important than impressing a classmate.  Taking care of our minds, bodies, and spirit becomes more important than what ever it is we are craving at this point in time.

Yesterday at the Topsham Waste Management Facility, (what I call the Transfer Station, what some of you may call "the Dump,") which is one of my favorite places to go though I admit I don't enjoy the smell in my car on the way there, I watched one of the staff, a great tall man in his orange safety vest finishing a long day of hard work, take the time to bend done next to a young girl and try to help her figure out how a bicycle, leaning against the wall of the “take away” section, might work for her.  He didn’t have to do that.  That he did was an act of grace.  He might or might not have called it that himself, I don’t now.  But he made my community a better place when he could have just been marking time to the end of the work day.  She didn't appear to be a child who had many other options in obtaining a bicycle. His choice gave his work meaning far beyond his paycheck. He was keeping his eye on the horizon.

Germany this week made the staggering decision to absorb up to 800,000 Syrian immigrants into their cities, villages, and country sides.   My word! What an immense and difficult decision. Their leadership has their eye on a horizon that they have learned the hard way, from history, is absolutely essential.

In that intimidating mass of 800,000 are little bits of individuality who are people, just like you and me.  Have you stopped to think where you would go?  If your world was torn apart and your home was no longer safe, where would you go?  Who would help?

What little things might start to matter.  What does a mobile phone mean to someone who now owns only what they can carry?

            -connection to family?
            -tool for moving into a better future?
            -information about where food and water are available? 
            -Where the greatest danger is?


 

In 2005, the Katrina/ Rita double whammy displaced 1 million in the US. It began with Meteorological left-overs, an interaction of a tropical wave and the remains of a tropical depression, small droplets of moist warm air being drawn up into the air by wind.

 

9-11 inspired more individuals, little individual bits of humanity, to make heroic decisions than perhaps any other event in my generation’s living memory.  In the air that day, and on the ground in the days after, people stopped what we were doing and made decisions about what gives our lives significance. We made choices about how we want to spend the finite days we have on this earth. Many began to measure our lives differently.  Our horizon shifted.

 

Last Sunday, as we were returning from Waldoboro, Jeff and I watched the end of the Brunswick Air Show right there before us in in the sky, on I295. Spectacular demonstrations of skill unfolding before us.  I’m glad he was driving!  A couple of days later the Times Record ran a letter about havoc created by guests on their hosts lawns:  fencing sections toppled over, piles of trash left behind, rude responses to requests to respect the property.

 

My automatic pilot kicked in.  “Tsk, tsk, tsk- those people…”

And then, perhaps it was this study of James that we are undertaking together, my horizon shifted.  And I started to wonder what would happen if for the next show,
in 2017, some of us from this church grabbed a bunch of trash bags and went out and offered to collect “those people’s” trash, and maybe hand out some bottles of water on a hot day.  I don’t know if it would make a difference to them. I know it would make a difference to me.

About 10 years ago you helped set the horizon for a fantastic group of young people, one by one, as they were baptized. The little things you do this year to support them in the important phase of their faith journey that we call confirmation, will go a long way to keeping them on course to live God shaped lives.

In the biblical world that pokes, prods, and caresses us toward a God’s eye view, each “Self” is unique and united toward a sacred horizon. Navigating toward that shared horizon begins with such small things, the lifting of an anchor, the turn of a rudder into the wind, an invitation to join the crew, raising a sail to let the Sprit breathe us toward grace.

 

 

 

Memory verse:  Consider ships: They are so large that strong winds are needed to drive them. But pilots direct their ships wherever they want with a little rudder. – James 3: 4

 

St. Francis-When you are proclaiming peace with your lips be careful to have it even more in your heart.


1 Comment

Fancy That

9/6/2015

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Picture
James 2:2-7Common English Bible (CEB)
 Imagine two people coming into your meeting. 
One has a gold ring and fine clothes, while the other is poor, dressed in filthy rags. Then suppose that you were to take special notice of the one wearing fine clothes, saying, “Here’s an excellent place. Sit here.” But to the poor person you say, “Stand over there”; or, “Here, sit at my feet.”

Wouldn’t you have shown favoritism among yourselves and become evil-minded judges?

 My dear brothers and sisters, listen! Hasn’t God chosen those who are poor by worldly standards to be rich in terms of faith? Hasn’t God chosen the poor as heirs of the kingdom he has promised to those who love him?  You do well when you really fulfill the royal law found in scripture, Love your neighbor as yourself.


 Mark 7:31-37 “They were astounded beyond measure, saying, 
                       "He has done everything well; 
                        he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak."

They were astonished,
blown away,
upended.
Hunh, fancy that….
Did you hear what Jesus just did? I know he said to keep it quiet, but did you ever???
What on earth is God up to? It seems like the tables are always being turned. 

Did you hear where in the wisdom writings  (Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23) it says:
              The rich and the poor have this in common: 
               the LORD is the maker of them all.
Hunh, Fancy that

And then:
              Whoever sows injustice will reap calamity, 
               and the rod of anger will fail.
Hunh, Fancy That

              Those who are generous are blessed, 
              for they share their bread with the poor.
Hunh, Fancy That

When the Psalmist sings, the lyrics speak of a God …..
               who executes justice for the oppressed; 
                who gives food to the hungry.
                a LORD sets the prisoners free; 146:7
Hunh, Fancy That

The problem of course, 
our problem,
is that the things most often catching our fancy 
get in the way of what God fancies to be truly important.
There are so many fancy things that glitter and tempt
and seem utterly essential to our happiness.
And we ourselves feel poor
when our experience doesn’t measure up to what’s dangled before us.

 I saw a catchy book title this week-“Under the Affluence” by Tim Wise.  I've been trying to use the library more and buy less, but I may have to break the rule for that one.  

John Wesley’s life changed entirely when he realized that Jesus wasn’t just speaking metaphorically but literally about how important the poor are to God.  AND that the same people Jesus was talking about were just outside his own front door.

It turned him right around. 
It repented him.
Fancy that.
That seeing another’s need could save one of the great preachers of his day.

Most of the United States lives in economically segregated neighborhoods today.
We are more likely to encounter a poor person on the other side of our car door, or as a stranger on the sidewalk, than in our neighborhood. When our common sense tells us to walk away, its time to double check our common sense. 

The distance between most of us and the truly poor has grown, even in an economically integrated state like Maine.  We think of the obvious poor, those out on the streets.  But the hidden poor are all around us.

They are elders trying to hold onto their houses with rising tax rates.
They are young parents working multiple shifts 
to feed and cloth and house their children.
They are students working to avoid tuition debt.

How do we get close enough to know a struggling person as a person?

Here's how one guy did it.  Willie Baronet wanted to find a way to connect with people who were homeless in his Dallas Community. One day he thought to ask, Can I buy your sign?"  That one sign became a series of signs and conversations that now stretch across the world and invite others into the experience by showing the signs massed as murals.  "Every person's story is unique," Wille learned. 

How do we get close enough to know a struggling person as a person?
It begins with looking someone in the eye, greeting them,
Treating them as honorably as any other human being.
It begins with not assuming 
that we already know what we need to know about them.
Or that we could never be in that situation, whatever the struggle is.
It begins when we make time to stop for a minute.

Jesus stopped and noticed the deaf man that day.
Then he went one step further.
He touched him.
In a strange and uncomfortable way Jesus touched him.

Some of you interact with the poor at work.
Some of you interact with the poor in the ways you volunteer.
Help the rest of us see. 
Don’t be silent about the real people you meet, respect their privacy,
but make their strengths and challenges known. Bear witness.

The Pew Research Center and others have identified what counteracts poverty:    
       *meaningful work,
       *opportunity to improve your life and the life of those you love,
       *and hope.

So let’s practice, people of faith in the Jesus who stops and notices.  
          1) Let's notice our favoritisms, prejudices and conditioned responses this week.
          2) Let's choose where we look.  Choose our responses.
          3) Let's let the wisdom of faithful memory depend its roots with this memory
                        verse - You do well if you really fulfill the royal law according to the 
                         scripture, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." James 2:8



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    Karen L Munson

    United Methodist Pastor & Liturgical Artist

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