It’s the time of year when school is drawing to a close, in a few short hours we will OFFICIALLY be in the season of summer, and today we celebrate the role of fathers, grandfathers, uncles and men in our lives as mentors, friends and role models. This week’s readings also encourage us to reflect on the role of God in Three Persons, in our faith and in our lives … God as Parent/Father, God as child/sibling, and God as Holy Spirit. Three terms that are easy to speak of – controversial at times if we get hung up on the wording and on specific genders – but they are also terms that are both comforting and challenging, particularly if we are willing to wrestle with the ROLE God plays in our lives through those three faces, if you will, God shows.
As I was preparing for this sermon, I found myself reflecting back on my childhood, and the impact that our teachers had on our lives. For a number of reasons this week I kept thinking about my Grade 7 teacher who struggled in vain to improve my penmenship. Mrs E, was a great teacher – she was old school before we knew what old school was – and she tried and tried and tried to help me improve my writing – my writing is ATROCIOUS – you will seldom see me actually write something long hand. I prefer the computer, or printing … even I struggle to read my own writing.
But Mrs E, bless her heart tried for months to help me improve my illegible penmenship. I remember one day just before she threw in the towel and announced that my writing was simply HOPELESS, a conversation – or more of an argument we had. I commented that learning to write neatly was pointless because there would soon be a day when we were able to do EVERYTHING on a little computer that we could carry with us everywhere … now, to contextualize this – this was the early 80’s before computers made their way into anything other than the biggest businesses in downtown Toronto.
She said I was crazy for thinking this, and that it would never happen … I persisted and said that some day soon, we would do ALL of our writing on a little computer and we wouldn’t need to write things out long hand … her tone got a bit stronger and a wee bit harsher … and we had to “agree to disagree” on the matter. When I got my first laptop to work on, I thought of Mrs. E … when I got my smart phone that can do everything from phone calls to word processing, and it fits in my shirt pocket, I wished she was still around to give her a call … I would love to say – “I told you so ...”
Long ago one of my mentors in life and ministry quipped that life is about doing the best we can and hoping that we touch someone’s life in a positive way … he went on to say that we seldom know what impact we’ve had until years later when the person looks back and can see the ‘a-ha’ moment you were part of … This debate with Mrs. E was just such an a-ha moment for me … Another that has stuck with me for almost forty years came in my early years at school when we were to make a Father’s Day craft for our dad …
My Dad had died in a car accident four or five years earlier, and given the scale of his funeral with over 100 uniformed OPP officers forming an honour guard, and the number of newspaper articles about his accident and death, I can not imagine that the substitute teacher we had that day, was THAT oblivious to the fact that I was without a dad … but what I remember about the craft is being TOLD that I had to make it out to my dad … I remember crying and saying, “can’t I make it out to my grandpa instead … my dad is dead …” And the teacher was insistent that I had to do the same craft as ALL the other kids …
Looking back I hope she was just having a bad day … what I remember is crumpling the craft up at the end of school and throwing it in the trash before I got on the bus … it was one of those defining ‘a-ha’ moments … not necessarily a good one … but one nonetheless.
For me, it underscored my discomfort with June … having grown up in a fatherless home, and having had experiences like this, soured Father’s Day for me … moreover, every June 29th, I am mindful that on that day in 1968, our family experienced a horrendous and devastating loss that deeply coloured everything that followed …
Yet, this year I have had another ‘a-ha’ moment – this time, one of my own creating …
I’ve been spending a fair bit of time lately turning my front lawn into gardens … I’ve been working at reclaiming the over grown flower borders at the front of the house, and carving flower gardens and vegetable gardens from the grassy lawn facing the street … I’ve been reminded along the way that Grey county is a pretty rocky place … my aching muscles and sore joints at the end of a gardening sessions is a reminder of how tough Grey county rocks and stones really are.
But, my OTHER a-ha moment comes when I sink my hands into the dirt and soil and churn it up, and prepare the holes for plants and seeds, and I feel the cool moistness of the ground … in that moment, I feel connected, almost like I’ve grabbed a hold of the earth, and I feel part of it again.
In the last six months, I’ve struggle some days to make it through the day. I know from my ministry experience the various stages and experiences of grief, but yet, when you’re in the middle of them yourself – it’s a whole different ball game.
I’ve felt lost and disconnected at times … at other times I’ve been frustrated and angry … I’ve run the breadth of emotions and feelings … and it has been hard. But when I am on my knees in the garden – an appropriate stance all things considered – I feel like I am not only connected the the earth, but I feel overwhelmed with a sense of The Holy – the very presence of God – in that moment. I can move my hands through the dirt and KNOW the truth of that affirmation in Genesis that has God looking over the newly formed bits and pieces of creation and saying boldly – “it is Good !”
Our readings today begin with that bold assertion that everything God has called into being is truly GOOD, and move to the Psalm reading that celebrates and proclaims the greatness of God`s holy name, then we hear the challenge of Paul calling to the people of Corinth – a diverse and divisive faith community – urging them to live at peace not just with each other, but with themselves and with the very creation that surrounds them, and then finally we move to the Gospel of Matthew where Jesus is calling on his followers go boldly into the world and make disciples of the whole earth.
Traditionally, we have an understanding of these concepts found in the readings, that is triumphalist and about going out into the world and from a place of power and might, embracing our God given Dominion over everyone and everything we meet … the world is there to be conquered and civilized, is the traditional view of discipleship and the stewardship given to us in Creation.
But in recent years a different understanding of our place in Creation, and our role as people of faith has begun to emerge … rather than focusing on seeing creation as something to be subdued and civilized, we are being quietly being challenged to see Creation as something we are a part of … a web of life in which we live and move and have our being … instead of looking out and seeing things to be exploited, we are to look out and know that it is good.
Our paradigm has shifted … as a church our theology is changing – softening and focusing less on the ideas of sacrifice and repentance, and more on the concepts of grace and forgiveness and holiness.
This past week I`ve read more of Bill Phipps` book where he calls on us to embrace a new understanding of faith and our place in the cosmos. There is an appropriateness to reading his words this week, with the Solstice so close at hand – one of the sources of this new understanding is the ancient teachings of the First Peoples across the globe. Rather than throwing out these centuries old ideas and concepts, Phipps – and others throughout this United Church of ours, would urge us to listen to the concepts of stewardship towards creation and all the living things we find around us, that our first nations cousins have long whispered.
Creation is a gift to be enjoyed, not exploited.
Peace is found, not in military victory or in might, but in the quiet moments when we stumble into God`s holy presence.
And, our calling to go into the world and make disciples requires that we are willing to listen as we preach, and to encourage others to share their a-ha moments with us, as we seek to share our a-ha moments with them. It is about connecting with one another and living our faith with the a-ha moments - May it be so – thanks be to God … Let us pray …
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