[Note: When Cary, my wife, heard about this sermon she laughed and informed me that I was not forty feet up. More like 20. Oh well…)
If you wish, you can hear the sermon as it was preached from the UCJ pulpit. Simply click the play button below:
Delivered at the United Church of Jaffrey
July 2nd , 2017
For the last several weeks I’ve been spending much of my time, when I’m not up here with you in Jaffrey, assisting Ande – the carpenter we’ve hired to help us renovate our house.
And, in the last week, Ande and I have building the roof on the new section of the house.
Ande and I have been lifting sheets of plywood and hammering them atop the rafters…
We’ve been gingerly unrolling great sheets of ice and water shield onto the rooftop – strange stuff that looks like a giant roll of duct tape, but acts more like bubble gum that got stuck on the bottom of your sandals on a hot summer day.
And we were doing all of this standing on planks staged forty feet up in the air.
It sounds scary.
But it wasn’t that bad…
I didn’t mind…
Until…
Until…
*
It is a wonderful chance that the gospel lesson we are considering this morning should come up on a Sunday when we happen to be celebrating the baptism of young Parker.
Listen again to passage…
Jesus said: Whoever welcomes you welcomes me,
and whoever welcomes me
welcomes the one who sent me.
The word “welcome” appears four times in the first sentence.
And what is the meaning of this remarkable “welcoming” sentence?
Here is the meaning…
“If someone welcomes you, that person welcomes me.”
To “welcome” in other words, is an action that does not stop.
The action of “welcoming” is an action that has a tendency to keep going.
To “welcome” is an action that keeps going, because we humans are creatures who are designed to welcome.
We are social creatures.
We do not fully become ourselves until we become a part of something greater than ourselves.
Until we become part of a community.
And the way that we create community, is through the process of welcoming.
And there is yet another thing that Jesus teaches us, about this “welcoming”
Jesus said: Whoever welcomes you welcomes me,
and whoever welcomes me
welcomes the one who sent me.
When Jesus refers to “The one who sent me” he is, of course, talking about God.
So Jesus teaches us, in this passage, that “welcoming” is an action that brings us closer to God.
*
So there I was, standing on a plank of wood forty feet up in the air, when I did that thing you’re not supposed to do when you are standing on a plank of wood forty feet up in the air.
I looked down.
I noticed a couple things.
I noticed that my feet were only an inch or two at most from the edge of the plank of wood.
And I noticed that there was nothing but air between me and the gravel, 40 feet below.
But to say that I “noticed” these things is not exactly correct.
It’s more like I felt these things
I felt something in my gut.
I felt something trembling behind my knees.
What is this feeling?
Fear?
Yes, certainly fear is involved.
But there is something more than fear going on.
When you are standing on a plank of wood forty feet up in the air, and you look down, you have a pure human response.
It’s not an intellectual response.
It’s more like an emotional response – because it feels like fear – but that’s not entirely it either.
Perhaps it’s an instinctual response. Perhaps your deepest, oldest animal responses kick in, and you act, almost without thinking about it, in the one way that you can, in order to preserve your life.
You step back from the edge.
Yes, I think many people would say that this stepping back from the edge of a forty-foot drop is an instinctual response.
But is there another possibility?
I’m a little bit disappointed in this conclusion.
I’m disappointed, because when we speak of instinct we are often considering motivations that are self-centered.
Instinct – things like “fight or flight” are about self-preservation.
And, since I am a Christian minister, I wonder if maybe, just maybe we can think of this moment…
…this pure human response to looking down from a plank forty-feet up in the air
I wonder if this could be a spiritual moment…
A moment that speaks of our relationship with ultimate value.
A moment that speaks of our relationship with God.
*
Today’s passage from Matthew may help.
You see, I have always considered religion to be a way that we humans try to overcome our baser instincts.
I have thought this, because I have always thought that instinct emphasizes self-preservation, while religion, on the other hand emphasizes compassion.
Compassion is more difficult than self-preservation.
Take the Parable of the Good Samaritan, for example. When you see a man bleeding to death in the gutter, it is much easier to cross the road and continue on your way, than it is to stop and show compassion, to dress the man’s wounds, take him to an Inn, and pay for his care.
Instinct would tell us to go on our way. Religion, on the other hand, requires us to do the more difficult thing.
Show compassion.
So religion corrects our instinctive tendency to act, above all, for self-preservation.
Doesn’t it?
Yes, I think so.
But in today’s passage, I think you have something different.
In today’s passage, Jesus teaches us that when we welcome another person, we welcome him. And when we welcome him, we welcome God.
Welcoming – which is something that we do instinctually in order to create community – is something that brings us closer to God.
Can instinct bring us close to God?
*
The other day, after all the plywood was nailed to the rafters…
And all the Ice and Water shield was adhered to the to the roof.
I climbed back down from the staging, and found myself back on the ground again.
And when I stood on the solid ground again, I sighed a great sigh…
I felt good.
It felt to me, as though the solid earth welcomed me back.
The solidity of the earth – the very solidity that would have hurt me if I’d fallen – was a pleasure to experience with the soles of my feet.
“Welcome” the earth seemed to say to the soles of my feet.
“Thank you” my feet seemed to say to the earth.
I had returned from the unnatural state of being high in the air. My instinct, and my spirit collaborated in this celebration.
*
When the Book of Genesis describes the creation of humankind, it says three interesting things.
It says that when God created the world God described it as “good”
It says that God fashioned humans from the earth.
And it says that we were made in God’s image.
In this, the oldest story, in our tradition, about God’s relationship with humanity, we are told three things.
That we are part of the earth.
That we are part of God.
And that this is good.
So welcome.
Welcome to a religion that says that we are made from the earth, and that we made to be like God, and that when this is put together, the result is something good.
Spirit
And instinct
Collaborate
To make the good.
This is who we are.
This is why the moment we step back from a forty-foot drop is not just a moment motivated by the instinct of self-preservation.
It is a spiritual moment.
A moment when we know that, in essence, we are created for the expression of good.
Given life, God bid us welcome.
Welcome to the good.
Amen.
*