Homily from staff retreat, June 2011
Things aren’t always what they seem to be; in fact, they almost never are. Jesus said, “Whatever you do unto the least of these you do it unto me.” Really? So we should treat everyone as Christ? If that’s the case, then every person you encounter is your teacher and your path to transformation. It seems like these are good things to remember in a room full of people with whom you spend 40 hours a week. Can you see Christ in each of your co-workers as you look around this room at these 13 faces? Can you see Christ in the students we interact with? What about the homeless person downtown? How about the people you live with? Do you love them all as if they were the Son of God? If you’re honest, you’ll admit that there are plenty of people who don’t elicit a Christ-like response from you. But it’s kind of like in the Bob Newhart show – remember the character Darryl? He’d say “hi, I’m Darryl, and this is my brother Darryl, and this is my other brother Darryl.” Think about that sometime, whenever you’re so angry with someone you could spit…hmmm…this is my brother Jesus and there’s my other brother Jesus, and on and on until Jesus is everyone you meet.
I once heard a story about two Christian monks in a Russian Orthodox monastery. And the older monk tells the younger one: "I have finally learned to accept people as they are. Whatever they are in the world, a prostitute, a prime minister, it is all the same to me. But sometimes I see a stranger coming up the road and I say, 'Oh, Jesus Christ, is it you again?'"
And not only every person, but each and every thing you see and touch is a part of God’s creation and is therefore…holy…without him there was nothing made. And everything you do or say is only possible because of God. In him we live and move and have our being.
One of my favorite songwriters, Carrie Newcomer, has a wonderful song about the sacredness of everyday things. It’s called Holy as the day is Spent.
holy is the dish and drain
the soap and sink, and the cup and plate
and the warm wool socks, and the cold white tile
showerheads and good dry towels
and frying eggs sound like psalms
with bits of salt measured in my palm
it’s all a part of a sacrament
as holy as a day is spent
holy is the busy street
and cars that boom with passion’s beat
and the check out girl, counting change
and the hands that shook my hands today
and hymns of geese fly overhead
and spread their wings like their parents did
holy is the familiar room
and quiet moments in the afternoon
and folding sheets like folding hands
to pray as only laundry can
i’m letting go of all my fear
like autumn leaves made of earth and air
for the summer came and the summer went
as holy as a day is spent
holy is the place i stand
to give whatever small good i can
and the empty page, and the open book
redemption everywhere i look
unknowingly we slow our pace
in the shade of unexpected grace
and with grateful smiles and sad lament
as holy as a day is spent
Just ordinary things. Ordinary life. We could add a few lines of our own:
Holy is the BCR
And the birds that poop upon my car
And ringing phones in the middle of May
And the money I gave to United Way
The expense report sent through campus mail
And the auditors who are on my tail
And the way a paper clip is bent
As holy as a day is spent
You know, what seems to be happening at the moment is never the true story of what is really going on (Thomas Merton). We see through a glass darkly. Don’t assume that you are fully awake to what is.
Cynthia Bourgeault tells a little story (The Wisdom Way of Knowing) that I love that illustrates how what we assume we are isn’t necessarily true, and that by dying to ourselves, as Christ taught us, we can become what we were created to be. It's called "Acornology."
Once upon a time, in a not-so-faraway land, there was a kingdom of acorns, nestled at the foot of a grand old oak tree. Since the citizens of this kingdom were modern, fully Westernized acorns, they went about their business with purposeful energy; and since they were midlife, baby-boomer acorns, they engaged in a lot of self-help courses. There were seminars called "Getting All You Can out of Your Shell." There were woundedness and recovery groups for acorns who had been bruised in their original fall from the tree. There were spas for oiling and polishing those shells and various acornopathic therapies to enhance longevity and well-being.
One day in the midst of this kingdom there suddenly appeared a knotty little stranger, apparently dropped "out of the blue" by a passing bird. He was capless and dirty, making an immediate negative impression on his fellow acorns. And couched beneath the oak tree, he stammered out a wild tale. Pointing upward at the tree, he said, "We . . . are . . . that!"
Delusional thinking, obviously, the other acorns concluded, but one of them continued to engage him in conversation: "So tell us, how would we become that tree?" "Well," said he, pointing downward, "it has something to do with going into the ground . . . and cracking open the shell." "Insane," they responded. "Totally morbid! Why, then we wouldn't be acorns anymore."
Things aren’t always what they seem. Most of us sleepwalk through our days. We work in our sleep, we eat in our sleep, we speak in our sleep. More than anything, we need to wake up, we need to go into the ground and crack open our shell, and this is where prayer is so important. Jesus said when we pray we should go into our inner room and close the door. And he wasn’t talking about locking yourself in a closet in your house. Your inner room is the room of your heart…and this is where God dwells. And prayer is not only, as most of us grew up thinking, talking to God, but it is also listening to God. And listening to God, just like in listening to anyone, is best done by doing just that: listening…. Stop your chatter! How can we learn to know God better if we never give Him a chance to get a word in edgewise? Listening to God requires shutting up on every level it is possible for us to shut up, including our thinking. Be still and know that I am God…quiet your mouth and quiet your mind. It is in silence that we will come to know God as he is (and ourselves) as we truly are. Speaking to God is also good, don’t get me wrong, but so often our prayers are a one-sided conversation – do you think that we can tell God anything he doesn’t already know? Whenever you pray, but especially when you are still before God, you are recognizing and surrendering to a power greater than you. Prayer, especially those prayers that happen when we realize our own sinfulness, when we are at the end of our rope…those times when a prayer of words seems meaningless and words just seem to bounce off the ceiling...those prayers when we fall to our knees and cry out to God and we admit we can’t do it on our own…these prayers are like going into the ground and feeling our shells split wide open. This is when we grow…in prayer we are transformed. Pray without ceasing…can you begin to see that life itself is prayer?
I’d like to close with a quote from Mother Teresa with a few small additions of my own.
Let no one glory in their success but refer all to God in deepest thankfulness; on the other hand, no failure should dishearten them as long as they have done their best. God sees only our love. God will not ask how many books we have read, how many miracles we have worked, [how many applications we have processed, what our average GRE is, how good our website looks, or how much we overspent our 9300 budget] but whether we have done our best for the love of him. Have we played well? Slept well? Eaten well? Nothing is small for God.
Amen.
