St. Paul’s Church in
Bergen & Church of the Incarnation, Jersey City NJ
May 13, 2018
Year B: The Seventh
Sunday of Easter
Acts 1:15-17, 21-26
Psalm 1
1 John 5:9-13
John 17:6-19
“Walking Around Shining Like the Sun”
Alleluia!
Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!
A
couple of weeks ago when The New York
Times published a special section in the paper containing a series of
photographs from 1978.
There
was a newspaper strike that summer and in order to scrounge up a little work
some newspaper photographers approached the New York City Parks Department with
the idea of photographing people using the city’s parks.
Maybe
surprisingly, the Parks Department said yes and so the photographers fanned out
across the city, taking pictures of people enjoying a break from the city by
hanging out or playing in parks, but the pictures were quickly forgotten and
were never released, until now.
The
images of these people in the fashions and hairstyles of that time took me
right back to those days – I could almost hear the pop music blaring from transistor
radios!
These
forty year-old pictures are also a helpful reminder to not idealize the past.
You
don’t have to look very hard to see signs that these were not the best days in
the history of New York City, or any city for that matter.
There’s
lots of graffiti and broken benches and trash – a reminder of that time when a
broke city couldn’t keep its streets safe or clean and the subways were like
something out of a post-apocalyptic nightmare.
Yet,
despite all of that brokenness – or maybe because of it – there is also
something endearing and appealing about these pictures.
I
guess part of their draw is nostalgia for people my age or older, but there’s
something else that I couldn’t quite put my finger on until a few days later
the Times published a letter from a reader about these pictures.
The
letter-writer wrote,
“What
struck me immediately about the photos was that in each one, people are engaged
with one another and their real-time activities. People looked at each other,
spoke to each other, listened to each other, paid attention to their
surroundings. No phones competed for their attention.”
And,
that’s exactly right.
Thanks
to these small but powerful computers that most of us carry in our pockets or in
our bags we are able to access a world of information – but many of us have
become addicted to this never-ending flow of stimulation.
Probably
we’ve all seen parents glued to their phones as their children vie for their attention
or couples sitting side-by-side staring at their screens rather than into each
other’s eyes – and, I’m not going to ask for a show of hands, but maybe we’ve
been those people.
And
then some of us are actually required by our work to always be connected,
to always be reachable, to always be “on.”
This
super-connection and over-stimulation has serious spiritual consequences.
As William
Wordsworth wrote a couple of hundred years ago, “The world is too much with
us.”
You
wonder what he would say if he could see us today!
In
today’s gospel lesson we heard part of Jesus’ long farewell prayer as recorded
in the Gospel of John.
And
in Jesus’ prayer, we can hear his care and concern for his disciples – for us –
who somehow must manage to be “in” the world without being “of” the world –his
prayer that we are not to allow the world to be too much with us.
In
the case of both Wordsworth and Jesus, we should probably put “the world” in
quotes – because they’re not talking about God’s good creation.
No, instead they
are talking about the mess of a world we’ve created, a world stained by sin, a
world that we can see so clearly, especially these days, is broken by greed,
corruption, and lies.
For
centuries Christians have struggled to figure out just how to live in this
broken world but not to be of this world – how to not fall in line with the
priorities and values of the world.
And
some have even taken the radical step of withdrawing from “the world” – and going
off to live and pray in a cave or in a convent or a monastery.
One
of those radical Christians was Thomas Merton, born in 1915, a highly educated and
rather complicated guy, who in 1941 thought
he was leaving the world when he entered a strict Trappist monastery in rural Kentucky,
a place called the Abbey of Gethsemani.
There’s
a wonderful photograph of him at the monastery on his ordination day He’s
holding a newspaper and laughing about how much he’s missed since he had left
“the world.”
But,
if you know anything about Merton, you know that to his surprise stepping away
from the world and living in the quiet of the monastery, cutting off much of
the world’s stimulation, allowed him to see the truth – to see the world more
clearly - both as it is and as it was meant to be.
And
so from his monastic isolation he began to engage with the great issues of the
day – writing about atomic weapons and the Cold War, the civil rights movement,
the war in Vietnam, and much more.
Probably
the most famous incident in Merton’s life occurred in 1958 when he was in
Louisville running errands for the monastery.
Standing
at the corner of Fourth and Walnut he suddenly had a mystical experience, a
vision of the world as it was always meant to be, a vision of the world as it
really is.
He
saw, really saw, the people passing
by, just going about their business at that bustling corner.
Later
he wrote, “Then it was as if suddenly I saw the secret beauty of their hearts,
the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can
reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God’s eyes. If
only they could all see themselves as they really are.”
And
Merton added, “There is no way of telling people that they are all walking
around shining like the sun.”
Wow,
right?
I’ve
been interested in Merton for a long time and, since like for all or most of
us, “the world” is too much with me – and since I am also very richly blessed –
last week, as some of you know, I was able to drive to Kentucky and spend a
week on retreat at Merton’s monastery.
I
was able to withdraw from “the world” for a few days.
And,
I have to tell you it was amazing.
The
monastery is in a secluded spot, more beautiful than I had imagined, surrounded
by acres and acres of trees and farmland.
It
was so quiet – the Trappist monks don’t talk much and we were all expected to
be pretty much silent. Just about all I heard were the birds chirping, cows
mooing and roosters greeting the dawn, and the monks chanting during their
daily services, the earliest of which is at 3:15am.
I
could only get a cellphone signal in a couple of spots, so, for the most part,
I really was able to leave behind “the world” and appreciate the beauty of the
world that God created, and always intended for us to enjoy.
I’m
so grateful for this wonderful time, but I have to admit that I didn’t have
some big breakthrough profound spiritual experience at the monastery.
For
the ride home – about 700 miles – I had thought about trying to push through
and drive all the way in one day, but after about eight hours my right foot
started to hurt and I realized I was beginning to lose focus – kind of dangerous
when doing 80 on the interstate, so reluctantly I pulled off somewhere in
southern Pennsylvania and got a room at a Holiday Inn just beyond the highway
exit.
After
I checked in, I was hungry and went looking for a place to eat. I looked around
at all the motels and fast-food places and the stores selling discounted
cigarettes and all the traffic and all the concrete and thought how ugly it all
was, and how already the monastery was feeling a like a whole different world,
almost like a dream.
After
dinner, back at the hotel, I noticed that a fair number of my fellow guests
were bikers – middle-aged men and women wearing their leather jackets with lots
of patches, bandanas, the whole uniform.
I
try not to judge, but let’s just say that I was wary.
The
next morning I got up early to take advantage of the complimentary breakfast –
a good deal, by the way – and, sure enough, some of the bikers were already up
and at it, already at tables with their food and coffee.
I
sat next to one table of biker women and couldn’t help overhearing their
conversation.
It
turned out that they were on some kind of history tour and one of the women was
talking excitedly about the chance to see the spot where Abraham Lincoln
delivered the Gettysburg Address.
Judge
not, right?
But
then, another middle-aged biker couple arrived – a man and a woman, dressed,
like the others, in the full outfit. This woman, though, woman wore sunglasses
and tapped a cane in front of her.
She
was blind!
The
first thing I thought of was how it’s scary enough to ride behind someone on a
motorcycle, but how scary it must be to not be able to see what’s going on
around you!
Now,
I have to tell you that the man – her husband, I assume – was so incredibly
gentle and tender with his blind wife, gently holding her arm and guiding her
along.
“Here,
sweetheart, there’s a chair for you.”
“Here,
honey, I got you a bagel. It’s right here. Is there anything else you’d like?
“OK,
I’ll leave you ladies to talk, but I’ll be right over there, honey.”
The
whole scene was so touching and beautiful. I didn’t want to be rude but I
didn’t want to look away, either.
I’m
not sure I’d say that this loving man and his blind wife were shining like the
sun, but it was pretty close.
So,
yes, the world we’ve created is a mess and may very well get a whole lot worse,
but the world that God created and continues to create is still out there,
still in here, and it’s still very beautiful.
It’s
as beautiful as people enjoying each other’s company in a broken-down park.
It’s
as beautiful as a biker lovingly caring for his blind wife.
All
of this beauty all around us, created by the God who loves us enough to come
among us, and to die and rise again!
Alleluia!
Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Amen.
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