Back in May, a friend of mine gave me a gift.
It was a notebook.
The notebook itself is not terribly fancy or anything. Black on the outside; white unlined pages on the inside.
When my friend gave me the gift, she included a little card that said, and I quote:
“A wide-open notebook to write-draw-sketch-map your way into a wide-open future…”
As is often the case with such notebooks, this one sat around my house for a few weeks, and was about to be lost in the undergrowth of receipts, defunct post-it notes and back issues of Consumer Reports, when, on a whim, I rescued it, and threw it, unceremoniously, into my backpack.
It lived there for a while, getting dog-eared. The fact was, I just didn’t know what to do with it. My colleague, who had given it to me, would have filled it, by now, with her precise chicken-scratch notes and observations!
Was I suffering from notebook envy? This is an affliction that can only happen between English teachers.
The breakthrough happened almost by mistake.
It was Memorial Day weekend, and I was up in the White Mountains volunteering. My beloved home-away-from-home, the World Fellowship Center, was preparing for the season, and I’d shown up to help. It was evening and the lodge was empty. My phone was in the car, and so, instead of being distracted, I sat in the deliciously spooky moment. The door to my room quietly swung open.
This was too good!
I reached into my backpack, and LO – there was the notebook. I rummaged for the nearest writing utensil and wrote:
“The door swings open
wide enough
For a ghost
or a small cat.
These lines sat by themselves on the first page of the notebook. I liked them. After a little while, the silence offered me another little something, so I added it:
There is no particular reason
to close it,
I wrote,
There are no other
guests yet,
just the sound of the radio
playing in the kitchen.
**
The writer of the epistle to the Ephesians, a portion of which Vicki just read for us, makes use of a metaphor that has peaked my interest. In this letter, the faithful of Ephesus, are described as:
members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone;
Members of the household of God…
I wonder.
If the people in the early church in Ephesus are called members of the household of God, can we also, as Christians, consider ourselves members of the household of God?
I don’t know about you, but my answer to this question is “yes.”
I believe in this. I believe that this is how it works. How we work.
Now the skeptical could easily point out this epistle was written in the first century AD to a Christian community on the other side of the planet (modern day Turkey). Vast swaths of time, and great cultural and physical distance separate us from the people in Ephesus, to whom these words were directed. What can a letter like this have to do with Christians who live in a community of faith in the Southwest corner of New Hampshire more than 2 millenia later?
I would argue that we should claim the metaphor for ourselves – that we should listen attentively to the claim that the metaphor makes on our behalf.
Why?
Because this is what we do. When we read the scripture we place ourselves within the narrative – or, in this case – within the metaphor.
If we did not do this the Bible would be a pretty dry book.
If we did not place ourselves within the metaphor, the Bible would not be a living influence on our lives.
If we did not place ourselves within the metaphor, the Bible would be nothing more than a historical record.
**
I was pleased with the deliciously spooky poem scrawled into my journal. My satisfaction was not based on poem itself – which not much to speak of, as poems go. I was pleased because I knew I’d stumbled upon a method that would work for me – and with it, the purpose that the notebook could fill in my life. This I could do! I would fill the book with simple one-off impressions. In the same way that a piece of chocolate gives you a single unique taste, or a photograph arrests time , these poems would have no greater ambition than to leave the reader with one precise glimpse of a moment in a human life.
I told myself I could make this a daily practice. The next day, shortly after waking up, I reached for the book and wrote:
Crow
came by
this morning.
His conversation
woke me up.
Later
I heard him
again
further
off.
**
Alright… if we agree that we can own this metaphor that the Bible gives us, let’s explore it. What does it mean to be members of the household of God?
Before we go too far down this road, though, we better make sure that the word “household” that appears in this verse, is an accurate translation of the original Greek.
I looked it up.
The word in question derives from the Greek word Oikos – which means home, or an inhabited house. The adjective form that shows up in this verse – oikeioi means “belonging to a house or family, domestic, intimate.”
That sounds about right to me. This word oikeioi which is so unfamiliar to our ears, seems to have much of the same meaning that we give to our word “household.”
We can notice, for example, that both the word Oikeioi, and our word “household” contain a series of ideas –
Both words can refer to the physical building that we call a home;
Both words can refer to the people who inhabit that building,
And both words contain that feeling of belonging – that deep allegiance that we hold in our hearts for the four walls and roof that form home, and the people who inhabit it.
Here’s another thing. I don’t know about the old Greek word, but in our language, we attach the word “household” to phrases like “household name” and “household item.” In these phrases, the adjective household means that something is common. A household name is the name of a person who is famous enough that we mention it to each other as we go about the house. A household item, likewise, is familiar. It is something we encounter everyday in our home.
Household is a busy word, with plenty of meaning. It follows, that it would be a busy metaphor.
If we imagine ourselves members of the household of God we could imagine that we belong to a place, and that this place is also a place where God belongs.
This is a comforting picture.
I suppose it is possible that God could ask me to pick up my room or remind me that tonight is my night to do the dishes.
Does it grate on God’s last nerve when I sigh like that?
OK now you’re just being silly Pastor Mark.
**
My black notebook is filling up.
I have not been perfectly successful writing a poem a day, but I’ve been close – and if I miss a day, I try to write two the next day.
I have always been a poet, but I have had many lean years – times when I went for weeks – even months – without writing.
One of things that hung me up, was my reverence for the art form.
As a younger man, I was fearful of the written word, because I wanted everything that came out of my imagination to be marvelous – to have profound literary value.
I felt that if my poems were lame, then I too would be lame – and since poetry seeks a kind of personal truth, this would mean that, something essential about me, would be lame.
I wanted all my poems to be high art – to appeal to the most refined sensibilities – the kind of painting that you can’t get too close to without setting off an alarm – the kind of tea that you cannot drink without lifting your little finger in the air.
The poems that I write these days are not like that at all. They are really barely poems – they are more like glimpses.
One night, I remembered, after Cary turned off the light to go to sleep, that I hadn’t written my poem yet, so I got up and went into my son’s room to write it. I couldn’t think of anything to write. Eventually, I wrote this:
The orange cat
comes in
to investigate.
What are
you doing here?
One morning, I was taken with the first words that Cary and said to each other. The question and answer, unadorned by any jewelry, became my poem:
Did it rain
last night?
Yes.
I know I’m not going to win the Nobel prize with these poems, but I don’t care.
It’s not so much the poems, as it is the writing of them, that nourishes me.
I guess you could call these “household poems.” They happen in my life. They resonate with a kind of belonging. They are everyday. And yet, there is something quietly sacred about them.
In the summer
we open the doors
in the early morning
to let in
the cool air.
It also lets in
the gossiping of the
birds.
I like it that the poems don’t need to make a point. But a sermon does. I think you already know my point though, don’t you?
The sacred is not so far from the everyday.
We live within the metaphor.
If we only have eyes to see, and ears to hear, we find ourselves in the household of God.
Amen.