Sermon from Rev. Carol Kelly
“We are given mistakes,
We are given nightmares,
And our task is to turn them into poetry.
And were I truly a poet,
I would feel that every moment of life is poetic,
Every moment of my life is a kind of clay I have to mold
The actual poet’s task is true for the poetic Spirit in everyone,
The work of giving form, expression,
To everything that happens,
Thus discovering and revealing meaning,
‘the pattern of glory’
Discovering that all experiences, light or dark,
Are stars-
And take their place in the constellation of wholeness”
The Journals of Helen M. Luke
We have come to the end of Epiphany and we can sense it. We do not want the star of grace to go too far away.
It will abide with us if we can keep the heart’s light of our prayer alive. The light of grace has touched our hearts and awakened long-buried treasures: our ideals, our hopes, our devotion. The magenta at the altar works right into our souls, reminding us of our true origins but more importantly of our destination as evolving human beings.
How do we hold our ideals in an “inner lantern” protected, yet steady, and go forth practicing a love which is selfless and perhaps brings no reward?
In the Gospel this morning we encounter Christ as He heals a woman who had been afflicted and unable to stand upright for eighteen years. (Luke 13:10-17) He has compassion for her, lays His hands on her and she is able to stand up straight. He is met by the rebuke of the Pharisees, by the “rules, (man-made) which state that He cannot “work” on the Sabbath.
In general, rules are made so that people do not have to think. We make rules so that we can all just stop at the stop sign and drive on the right side of the road so we don’t have to make it up as we go along. We don’t want to have to decide every time, what to do or what the form or process should be. This keeps everything going smoothly in certain areas. But what happens when the stoplight is broken? Interestingly, people get creative. They wake up to the other cars at the intersection, wait for them, let them through, everybody takes turns! It becomes a beautiful “dance” although it takes a little longer. Could this apply elsewhere?
The Pharisees continue to persecute and condemn Jesus for “breaking the rules” on the Sabbath. He actually brings the woman into her full humanity by allowing her to stand upright. This may seem trivial to us: “Why can’t they just see that this is more important?” But we too have rigidity of thought. We too have rules that we follow blindly, without much consideration and we can easily fall into condemnation of those who do not follow the rules.
In “The Spirit of the Circling Stars” Adam Bittleston writes: “Wherever we are rigid in thought, we are liable to cruelty, however little intended; and the way to transmutation of thought is through a fire of sacrifice, which prepares us to accept radically different conceptions of the world, whatever their consequences for ourselves may be.”
We are called upon to be creative in solving the problems which we must begin to love. This might mean breaking some old forms in order to find new ones. We are called upon to understand more deeply the One whose presence is among us, ready to heal us on the Sabbath, to bring the one great rule of love into the center of our consciousness.