When I was a young boy, my mother often read to me from a slim volume that was entitled “A Child’s Garden of Verses.” The book, I now know, was a collection of 64 poems written for children by the Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson, but at the time it was a magic little paperback that my mother would crack open and read from, delight flitting across her face. Mom enjoyed reading poetry out loud – she read as another person might enjoy a mouthful of delicious food – savoring it slowly. That was my mother. When she enjoyed something, she took her time.
A child, looking up at her from the flannel safety of my bed, I was blissfully unaware that she was offering me a gift that would give meaning and flavor to each day of my life… the gift of the simple but abiding pleasure of language. The gift of the careful observation of beauty.
One of the poems in that book returns to me now, as I contemplate the gospel passages that we will consider this morning. The poem is entitled, quite simply, Rain. It is printed on the back of today’s bulletin:
The rain is raining all around,
It falls on field and tree,
It rains on the umbrellas here,
And on the ships at sea.
Now that the somber winter months with their steady overcast are a memory; now that we have passed through that long accumulation of days when it seemed the world itself was made of encrusted snow, salt and asphalt… now, I say, that the lush fields, newly green, stretch out to the distant hills, these early May days are, perhaps, the very essence of blessing.
They are a kind of healing.
The full streams all a-chatter; the light spray of color trembling on the edges of the treetops; the evening choir of peepers singing hymns to the constellations.
The soft arrival of spring is more than just an experience of beauty. This is a beauty that nourishes – a long drink of water to satisfy a parched soul.
This morning, as I drove up to Jaffrey, a blanket of clouds covered the sky, and a thin mist hung in the trees. A couple of crows landed on the electric wires, and called out at me as I passed. The air, the trees, the mountains, the streams – the land, as sacred as the first day of creation.
Everything that surrounds us…
None of it is ever static.
In the Spring, more than any other time of year, it is manifestly clear that the ecosystem that sustains us, sustains us because it is in a perpetual state of transformation.
There is never a moment when the clouds are still, never an instant when the pine needles do not shiver, never a split second when the sun or the moon does not glide through the heavens.
And it is within this perpetual, miraculous and unceasing motion that our carbon based life forms enter, take deep shuddering breaths, let out throaty squalls and set forth into the dance of existence.
Heraclitus, the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher was onto all of this when he famously said
You cannot step in the same river twice.
Every blade of grass, snowflake – every grain of sand is unique.
None are identical.
The idea of uniformity is a human notion that, it turns out, only exists in theory. Sure, we can make a road flat, and a door jamb true enough not to squeak, but peer through a microscope, and the reality of variation is revealed – variation that is caused by constant change. Change and variation – these are the guiding principles of the cosmos. The universe does not contain the possibility that two things could ever be the identical.
All of which makes me wonder why Christian thinkers throughout the ages have insisted on the immutability of the divine – the idea that God is not subject to change.
Perhaps it is because when we, who live for such a short time, try to conceive of something eternal – something that is not contained by the limitations of time – we imagine that whatever it is must not be affected by time. To be affected by time is to change, so God, who is unaffected by time – so the logic goes – must be immune to change.
I suppose it is also comforting to think that there can be something out there that is constant – that is not subject to all the uncertainties that plague our lives.
Perhaps we have an emotional need to imagine something that is beyond. Something other. Something that can control things, without being controlled.
Are these the reasons why, even though change is the very essence of everything we experience in our lives, we find ourselves imagining a God that cannot be changed?
And here is something else, along these lines, that we can puzzle over…
Since Christian thought is so enamored with this idea that God is beyond change…
isn’t a bit ironic that the gospels insist, over and over, that God wants us to be willing to change?
Before Jesus even appears on the scene, John the Baptist shows up, and the first words that come out of his mouth are:
“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” (Matthew 3:2)
I have made the point, from this pulpit, a number of times, that the word that has traditionally been translated as “repent” is the Greek word metanoia – a word that is in no way suggestive of the shame and guilt we hear in the word “repent.” Metanoia is more accurately translated as “deep spiritual transformation.”
In order to prepare for the Kingdom of Heaven, then, we must first be open – open to the possibility of change.
No… not just change…
deep spiritual transformation.
From this we can gather, then, that change – that transformation is not only essential to the very nature of the ecosystem that surrounds and sustains us…
It is also a core assertion of the religious life.
To be religious – to believe in God… to become a part of the reign of God – is to be open to the possibility of deep spiritual transformation.
Of course, it’s all very well to assert, in these unequivocal ways, that transformation is necessary…
But if God is asking us to be willing to be transformed, the inevitable follow up question must be asked…
Just what transformation are we talking about?
Are we talking about any particular kind of transformation?
Since we are gathered, this morning, on the 6th Sunday after Easter, the two passages that Vicki read for us, straddle the end of Christ’s life.
In one passage, from the 15th chapter of John’s gospel, Jesus seems to sum up his teaching by concentrating it into one final commandment – the commandment to love.
In the second passage from the book of Acts, which takes place after Jesus has ascended to heaven, the disciples are in the world offering Christ’s teaching, and they discover that there are other people, besides the Jews, who are listening to what they have to say.
There are other people who are interested.
In both of these stories, it seems to me, the transformation that is being presented, is a movement outward, from self to other…
From I to we.
This is a simple move, perhaps – it may not be earth shattering in terms of philosophical complexity. Yet this transformation – the move from a life dedicated to me, to a life dedicated to us – this is, I believe, the crucial ethical transformation that is at the core of all religious life – every impulse that leads to the sacred.
Insofar as hatred and dehumanization are the necessary precursors to war and killing – just so, it is love and the recognition of shared humanity that lead us to God.
It is instructive to place the two passages– one from the Gospel of John, and the other from the book of Acts, next to each other, because together they demonstrate that Christ’s teaching, like nature, does not stand still.
It moves outward.
The commandment to love is a personal one – an idea that plays out between you and me. The recognition that Peter has when he is preaching, is on a larger intercultural scale. Understanding that his audience contains Jews and Gentiles, Peter says:
“Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?”
The concentric circles of love and compassion move outward.
The motion that describes the sacred is a movement that begins with the “I” world of the infant, and with age and wisdom (hopefully) moves outward from I to we. The next move – as Peter discovered – is from “we” to the world.
“We” moves outward from me, to my people, to the people.
Not long ago, I found myself standing under the eaves of the church as a summer rain came in. I stood there and watched, and listened. Over the days that followed that moment, I wrote this poem:
A hint of rain
Paints the parking lot
A little at a time
Under eaves
Collecting thoughts
A little at a time
Sun breaks
Through cloud cover
A little at a time
Rain whispers
“Summer’s over”
A little at a time
Slowly
slowly
Just a sec
Let me linger here
All alone
As the afternoon
Sheds
A quiet tear.
Wind talks
In treetops
A little at a time
Puddles soak up
raindrops
A little at a time
The moment ebbs
grace appears
A little at a time
After rain
heaven clears
A little at a time
Slowly
slowly
Just a sec
I will linger here
All alone
As the afternoon
Sheds
A quiet tear.
As we grow into our faith – as we move from me to we, to the world – it is crucial now, to add a new concentric circle. Our compassion and love must not stop with the people. We must not stop, as Peter did, with giving God’s love to the gentiles. We must now, do as the rain does – nourish the ecosystem.
If we are to survive in this miraculous creation, our compassion, our love, our ethical concern must extend beyond each other – beyond even our enemies – finding a wider home in the wide fields that lead up to the mountains, the quiet babble of the streams, the glorious buds that, even now, awaken in the trees.
We must no longer “subdue” the earth. The sacred movement is a movement within creation. We are the land. The land is us.
The love of God is rain that moves across the landscape. It does not choose who it nourishes. It nourishes all.
Let our love too – like the God of Rain – nourish all.
Amen.