Sunday
March 3
Communion Meditation
By Marsh Chapel
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Preface
By grace we are gathered together, here, come Sunday, for meditation and communion together. It is a high moment, a rare privilege, an unfathomable gift, a moment of grace. It is a high moment, a rare privilege, an unfathomable gift, a moment of grace.
Our own individual lives, and our personal lives caught entangled in the tragedies of the globe around, our being and being together, are, for a brief moment, one holy hour, touched, touched, touched by, well, the grace of God. This touch will not erase, eliminate or conclude the dimensions of dreaded death about us—loss in family, illness near or very near, slaughter and retreat in Ukraine, hunger and hatred in Gaza, expanding chaos in our own American political, social and cultural life—or the evanescent but present, lingering awareness of our very mortality. But, still the touch, as we meditate at communion, may, strangely, personally, help us, give us hope, give us stamina, give us strength, give us the chance to rise and live and face another day.
John and Lent
Our lesson from the fourth gospel gives us a stylized memory, in and through which we prepare.
The long weeks of patience, wandering, and wilderness which form our yearly Lenten pilgrimage prepare us.
Notice that John has rearranged the furniture of the gospel. He has placed the temple cleansing at the outset of the story. He decided to make a change.
We become who we are by daring to decide. We discover the power of imagination by daring to find the courage to decide. Choose. Choose!
Matthew, Mark and Luke, the gospels other than John, mark Jesus’ downfall at the temple. As he attacks inherited religion, as he cleanses the temple, his doom is sealed. In John, it is the resurrection of Lazarus, long chapters later, which seals his fate. But John too sees the power of decision in Jesus’ appearance in the temple. In fact, in the second chapter, today in our hearing—have we heard?–John opened chapter two with Cana, and the promise of incarnation enshrined in that wedding, and closes with the temple, and the forecast of the cross, the hour, the word, which is his abiding interest. Jesus is himself the temple which others will destroy. Here, he gives his new view of the future, not to be awaited somewhere in the clouds. It is taking place now in the life and destiny of Jesus. All throughout, throughout his life, and throughout your own, there is the struggle, this struggle, his struggle, for truth and grace. This is Jesus’ struggle. And it is your struggle too. He becomes himself, his own most self not his almost self, in dealing with decision, in this today’s decision to affront and confront inherited religion.
Faith is finding the courage to choose. Faith is dealing with decision.
Memory is our aid here. Remember Proust comparing ‘the low and shameful gate of experience, and the other… the golden gate of imagination’ (RTP, 401). Memory feeds imagination. Faith is finding the power, receiving the power to choose, to reflect on choosing, to take responsibility for the choice, to learn with choosing, and to address the consequences of choice. Dealing with decision means dealing too with regret and failure. This too is faith in action. Listen again to the regret in Yeats’ poem…
No single story would they find
Of an unbroken happy mind,
A finish worthy of the start.
Young men know nothing of this sort…
Observant old men know it well
This year, in our worship, intermittently when not reading Mark, we will scale a far greater promontory, the highest peak in the Bible, which is the Gospel of John. With every cut-back trail, at every rest point, atop every lookout, with every majestic view, this spiritual gospel will address you with the choice of freedom, with the ongoing need to choose, and in choosing to find a life of belonging and meaning, personal identity and global imagination. Yes, choosing diversity and equity and inclusion. Yes, and also, choosing unity and justice and love. More personally, this Gospel helps those who struggle with dislocation and disappointment and departure. Is that you?
Now the Passover of the Jews was near. There are three Passovers in John, not just one. This is where the notion of Jesus’ three-year ministry comes from. These feasts may be more symbolic than chronological. This cleansing of the temple, here, is a moment of identity, for Jesus, and for his followers. And so, for you and me. In the other Gospels, it is the cleansing of the temple that takes Jesus to the cross. Not here. That comes with the raising of Lazarus nine chapters later. Jesus begins his ministry, today, here in the temple, where in Matthew, Mark and Luke, he ends his ministry. John makes the end the beginning and the beginning the end. Earlier, in this chapter, the changing of water into wine is meant to symbolize that the old is over, and something completely new has come. It is hard to hear, to read, the Gospel of John, and not shiver, and not quiver.
To Be
You have come here this morning in order to lead a life of faith, to lead a Christian life, to lead a life worthy of God.
So, you recognize the need, for time. Especially for time, a sacred, discreet hour, every Lord’s Day, for worship. For quiet, for meditation, for prayer. For faith—the joy of faith, the language of faith, the community of faith, the communion of faith, the gift of faith. Faith needs practice. You cannot learn a language without practice. You cannot play a sport well without practice. You cannot master a musical instrument without practice. It takes time. Time it is said heals all wounds. But that is not fully true. Time does not heal all wounds, though all wounds benefit from the healing in time. As human beings, stretching to feel the reach of being human, we want and need to have the time for such. Sunday at 11am in a church pew, alongside a community family, within a sacred space, in the hearing of holy writ, in the promise of the mystery of sacrament, that is a place and time and way in which to revere time, and to make time reverent. A long time ago, in a benediction at the end of Sunday worship, I caught the eye of a friend. Sixty years old, or so, she raised alone a needy son, while working full time at the neighborhood University. The next Tuesday, without any warning, she suddenly died. The precious hour of worship, and the little sentence of benediction, good word, have stayed present to me, in force, ever since. We have one day at a time, no more, no less.
You have come here this morning in order to lead a life of faith, to lead a Christian life, to lead a life worthy of God.
So, you recognize the need for talent, for the right use of talent. We read, some 800 of you daily, what has emerged now at Marsh Chapel as a significant means of grace, our electronically conveyed daily devotions. We listen to the voices of our community, so varied and hopeful they are, in these brief writings. Our colleague Alec Vaughn reminded us of this, in his passage on Thomas Merton. Merton said that to be a saint is to be your own best self, your own true self, your own-most self. Thurman said the same, don’t cut against the grain of your own wood. And this means attending to the things, not only the things that make for a living, but that the things that make for a life. You have seen people who showed you the way. The mechanic who spent Saturdays teaching children carpentry. The dentist who found time to sing in the choir. The chemical engineer who made committee work an art form. The retiree who conjured up a fishing derby for kids who had little. The teacher who really came alive running a soup kitchen. The insurance man who reluctantly became a scoutmaster. Some of your personal talent is rightly expended in your work, your job. And some is not. Using that sum is the sum of the rest of parts of service.
You have come here this morning in order to lead a life of faith, to lead a Christian life, to lead a life worthy of God.
So, you recognize the need for treasure, for the use of means, of wealth, of money for the common good. Said Wesley, gain all you can, save all you can, give all you can. He who lived his adult life on 60 pounds sterling a year, and took to the street in the evenings appealing for funds for the poor. The New England traditions of industry and frugality endure, to some limited measure, and that is good. Every Sunday in worship we lay gifts on the altar. It is a moment, symbolic and spiritual, that reminds us all that you only have what you have the power and freedom to give away, that you only finally possess what you have given to somebody else. Possession is generosity, and generosity is possession. Today alongside our present congregation there will be people by livestream seeing the lifting of those collection plates, on a communion Sunday, from 26 states, from 11 other countries, from near and far and very far. A writer in Alaska, a poet in Texas, an academic in Rhode Island, a dozen households on Cape Cod, a man in Dublin Ireland, a teacher in London, a third grader in Albany. And you and me, here and now. The moment of worship lingers in the imagination of the listener, near or far. From you, in your liturgical practice, others are teaching and learning about, well, about giving. Thank you for your example. You try to unite the pair so long disjoined, knowledge and vital piety, learning and holiness combine, truth and love for all to see.
The path of faith is found along the walkways of time, talent and treasure, the investment of time in worship, the gift of talent in service, and the offering of treasure in community. Lift up your hearts!
Coda
Near the cross! O Lamb of God,
Bring its scenes before me
Help me walk from day to day
With its shadow o’er me
In the cross, in the cross
Be my glory ever
Till my raptured soul shall find
Rest beyond the river
