TEXT: Matthew
7:3-5
Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the
log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the
speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first
take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the
speck out of your neighbor’s eye.
I have always been intrigued by
Willy Nelson’s guitar. Whether or not
you are a Willy devote, perhaps you have seen his guitar. It’s the one with a hole picked clean through
the body by years of use and untold hours of strumming. I use to think, “Surely he has enough money
to replace that beaten up, pathetic old thing.
But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to understand why he keeps it. The guitar is a certain reflection of him –
far from pristine; worn from years of participating in the music of life. It has earned those scratches and nicks the
old fashioned way, just as he has: by
getting out of the protective case and getting busy. They are “character marks” if you will. As such, they represent something
precious: a guitar – a life – used and
loved into realness.
It reminds me of the Skin Horse in
Margery Williams’ classic book, The Velveteen
Rabbit. The Skin Horse, who had
lived longer in the nursery than any of the others, was teaching the brand new
Velveteen Rabbit, about life. “He was so old that his brown coat was bald in
patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had
been pulled out to string bead necklaces.”
He was wise, too, which Rabbit apparently sensed, for one day he turned
to the Horse and asked,
"What is
REAL? Does it mean having things that
buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"
"Real isn't how
you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to
you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but
REALLY loves you, then you become Real."
"Does it
hurt?" asked the Rabbit.
"Sometimes,"
said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you
don't mind being hurt."
"Does it happen
all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"
"It doesn't
happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a
long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or
have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you
are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you
get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all,
because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't
understand."
Like an old guitar. Or like a well-used cup – with chips that mar
its original perfection. Throughout the
Lenten season, we have been using Joyce Rupp’s observation that a cup is a
useful image for reflecting on our spiritual lives. Our assignment has been to pick one out from
among those on your shelf to use as a meditational guide through this season of
reflection and renewal.
She has pointed out that, like our
spiritual lives, a cup has the capacity – and is intended – to hold something;
that it has boundaries that enable it to contain what is poured there; that
sometimes what is already in it needs to be poured out, so that something new
can be added. This week, she wants us to
notice those places where life has left its “dings.”
“Life marks us both externally and
interiorly if we really live it. The
‘perfect bowls’ are the ones that oftentimes are never used to bring joy to
others because they are carefully kept behind glass doors or hidden in
cupboards collecting dust. They never
really get to engage in life or enjoy nurturing others. Flaws and inadequacies come with the
territory of being human.” (p. 66)
In that light, she invites us to
reconsider one of the most intimidating and misunderstood bits of scripture
that people often allow to daunt them.
It is found in Matthew’s telling of the Sermon on the Mount, and says, Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father
is perfect (5:48). As Rupp reminds
us, a better translation would read, “Be whole as God is whole.” And wholeness involves a process, a “gradual
coming together into a oneness in which all the parts are integrated, but not
necessarily perfect” (p. 69).
It is a notion that honors, it
seems to me, less the flawlessness of what we bring and what we attempt, but
rather the integrity of it. Rupp
observes that the people Jesus called and drew to himself were chipped – were
flawed. Jesus didn’t stay long with
people who thought themselves to be perfect.
In fact, those supposedly perfect people tended to attract Jesus’
harshest rebukes. Those who can’t
recognize the logs in their own eyes – the mistakes they’ve made, the gaps in
their knowledge, the dings in their experience – will never accomplish much
growing; will never qualify in the Skin Horse’s definition of “realness.”
The chips in our cup of life may
well represent what Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung described as our “shadow” –
that part of our inner world that we do not know or that we know but refuse to
accept. It is that part of our inner
selves that is literally “in the dark.”
It could be something positive that we have yet to claim – a gift that
carries with it the power to bless that wholeness beckons us to bring into the
light, nourish and allow to flourish in healing and life-encouraging ways.
But in the shadows could also
reside something negative that we have yet to admit. The truth is, not all chips are the result of
active and innocent busyness. Many are
the result of malignant behaviors, some innocently ignorant, some abusively
callous, that destroy and consume and violate the very fabric of life. It doesn’t take much looking around to
recognize the chipped places in the world we inhabit. The greed that leads to overstuffed closets
and basements is fed by the destruction of the environment and the exploitation
of underpaid workers. Fear and arrogant
prejudice are assuaged by wars and subjections that pit people against each
other, rather than celebrating our common need.
Honest attention to the chipped cup
that is our world leads us to name our own shadowy dimensions, and name the
different sorts of behaviors that have the power to heal instead of hurt, to
encourage rather than inhibit, celebrate our mutuality rather than hide and
hurl behind our jealousy. Among them are
the practice surrounding us this weekend – the six points that contribute to a
culture of peace; lifestyles that keep us from chipping the earth and each
other unnecessarily:
1. Respect all life;
2. Reject violence;
3. Share with others;
4. Listen to understand;
5. Preserve the planet;
6. Rediscover solidarity.
We pray, then, for wisdom – wisdom
to discern, as Joyce Rupp suggests, “when to embrace our imperfect selves with
compassion and when to give our imperfect selves a swift kick in the right
direction” (p. 83). We are finally
called to bring our whole selves to community of creation – not pristine
selves, but our real selves; chips and all.
Contrary to the ads that tempt us to believe otherwise, we will not –
cannot – look like everybody else, nor be like everybody else. What we can bring, however, is the genuine
gift of ourselves: who God has made us
to be, enabled us to become, and beckons us to still imagine. For the gift that we can be, and the healing
that we can bring.
Prayers
of the People
God of music and meter and color and brush, we give you thanks for the artistry of our days. We give you thanks for the dobs of joy that give pulse to our lives; for…
We give you thanks for the creative impulses that move us to imagine beauty we have not seen, and to reach for it. We give you thanks for the vision of a world that your imagination has seen, and stirring within us the actions and practices that begin to trace its shape. Enliven within us a respect for all life. Bless us with the patience and creativity to find more useful responses to conflict than violence. Relax our possessiveness and selfishness that we might share with others. Grant us the curiosity, the respect, and the humility to listen to understand. Stir in us your own love for this creation that our lifestyles actually preserve rather than consume this planet. And when we look into one another’s eyes, let us see there a reflection of our own – and yours, and through the recognition, rediscover a deeper solidarity with all.
We bring our pain and offer it into your healing care. We pray for…
Make us instruments of your peace, O God of brighter plans and better ways. We pray in the name of Christ, who taught us to pray…
I love candles, and their simple, vibrant concentration of light – easily carried into wherever the darkness may cover. But as we demonstrate every Sunday morning, candles will not light themselves. It takes intentionality. And behind the scenes, every week in preparation for our time together, a Chancel Steward prepares them by trimming the wick as needed and filling them with oil. The fire, in other words, takes tending, nourishing, and intention.
As you 13 travel on our behalf to El Salvador this week, think of yourselves, if you will, as keepers of the flame. Through your commitment, through your energies and abilities, you are bearing light into a corner darkened with poverty and lack. We are grateful, as will be the people whose lives you brighten. But in the blessed alchemy of service, you have come to know that the people with you will work and live bear a light of their own that you will carry home. We look forward hearing your stories, and sharing in the light of their glow.
To give light, then, and receive it on our behalf, and to walk in the light of God’s own keeping and direction, we commission you as missionaries – ambassadors of grace; instruments of peace – among the people of El Salvador.
Congregation, let me ask you to stand and affirm your support by saying aloud the statement of support printed in your bulletin:
We thank God for your attention to human hurting and need,
your willingness to follow God’s leading, and to the witness of presence you
will make on our behalf. We surround you
with our support and our prayers that your ministry in El Salvador may not only
build a house, but also bear witness to the solidarity God intends. May the Lord watch over us and the Holy
Spirit guide us while we are absent one from another. Go with our blessing, and our heart.