October 26, 10:30am (Kevin Westling)
It is us, just at another moment in history. We are those people who have forgotten who we are and whose we are. That table there, or another like it someplace else, has the power to remind us who we are and whose we are… and to reshape us. We need a table that brings us back to who we are: Creatures made to live in community and connected by a power greater than ourselves. It doesn’t have to be this one. Trinity has no claim on any one of us. Community is chosen. You choose which table and which community.
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Sermons @ Trinity
October 25, 2009
“Enzymes, Microbes, Hope & Joy”
The Rev. R. Cameron Miller
Good morning.
I want you to think environmentally with me
for a few moments.
Close your eyes – if it helps you to visualize –
and conjure up the image of a wetland.
It could be by the side of the road,
created from the highway construction process.
Or it could be a backwash or bayou
created near the kink in a meandering river.
Or it could be the aftermath of beaver ingenuity.
Whatever caused it,
visualize a shallow wetland
with different generations of growth around its edges.
Hearty deciduous trees at the far edge,
some with their trunks now deep in the water;
others uprooted by prolonged moisture,
fallen over like a dead body
half covered below the dark surface.
Thick herds of cattail hide the shore
except where patches of lily pads reveal muddy banks
that are etched with a chaos of resident signatures:
worm squiggles,
neat raccoon paws,
the scratched scribbles of shore birds,
and bubbling pimples
revealing the hidden presence of crawdads.
The pond’s mushy bottom is strewn with leaves
that the naked trees long ago bid adieu,
and the procession of seasons
has layered them
into a bubbling silt of decomposition.
Tannic acid leaches from the marinating leaves
and turns the water a dark leather brown.
For every element we see
in this gorgeous scene of Life sighing with satisfaction,
there are dozens or hundreds or even thousands
of components and residents we do not see.
We imagine,
because it is just the way we are,
that the big actors create and make the scene.
The beaver,
the lightening,
the road construction or river,
the fish and turtles and snakes.
But the microbiology of chemicals and enzymes
make that ecosystem what it is
every bit as much as the beaver or the trees.
In fact,
if is a healthy ecosystem
gracefully balanced upon a formula for homeostasis,
the largest tree
and the unseen enzyme
form a bond like branches and heather
intertwine to make a wreath.
The giant oak is as dependent upon the enzyme
as the raccoon is upon the fish,
as the cattail upon the decomposing leaves
as the water upon the underground spring,
and on and on and on.
Take away one element,
corrupt one invisible microbe
and the whole City of Life may crumble.
But it might…
find a way to compensate for one loss
or perhaps even two…
but the strength of the whole
is utterly dependent upon
the bond between each component part.
Such intricate balance seems so obvious to us now,
and if we zoom out,
like one of those Google maps on the internet,
we can see the connection between
that little ecosystem
and an entirely different and seemingly unrelated
City of Life
down the road a dozen miles or more.
It seems laughable now,
that we didn’t understand how important wetlands
are to the larger ecosystems we depend upon.
In the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s
all we could see is that wetlands
stood in the way of economic development.
Fill them in,
cover them over,
drain all that wasted space
so that we can build and build and build.
But low and behold,
it turns out those wetlands were important filters
for the larger, more intricate varicose veins
of our waterways.
It turns out that those humble wetlands,
all that wasted space,
filtered an enormous amount of pollution
out of our rivers and lakes.
Without them
the primary waterways started filling up with gunk
like sickly lungs hardening with mucus.
“Oohh! It’s all connected, nobody told us!”
Funny how ancient tribal peoples
without the benefit of modern science
could have told us – even tried to tell us –
that it is all connected.
I think we all know now,
we all “get it” now,
this basic formula of interdependence
that exists everywhere.
We resist it.
We don’t want to change to conform to it.
We don’t want to give up much to live with it.
But we understand it now. We get it now.
We see now,
the evidence of the consequences
of treating the earth like a present
under the tree at Christmas
that we tear open and play with for a few moments
before moving onto the next one.
We get that…we see it…we are even thinking about changing our ways.
But there is someplace we do not see it –
this inter-connectedness…this interdependence:
we do not see it with one another.
We think about it as regards pollution
and consumerism and energy use.
We get the problem with oil,
with coal,
with plastics and landfills and ozone pollution.
We do not quite yet
get the problem with human fragmentation.
We do not quite yet
get how terribly segregated and isolated
and disconnected we are,
and how that is connected to the break down
of the whole.
Imagine what would happen
to a colony of ants or bees
that decided to live in individual tunnels
so that everyone could have their own
privacy and stuff.
Then imagine what would happen,
as we are starting to,
if the ant colonies and the bee hives
began to die and disappear as a result.
Think about how that would effect the ecosystems
that depend upon ants and bees?
Humans don’t disappear when we become
disconnected, you might say,
and you would be right.
But we do get depressed,
we do develop dysfunctional behaviors,
we do form mental illness and mental anguish
when we lose the meaning and purpose
that is so dependent upon life with others.
You see, that table there,
the one we have been naming our place at
for the last three weeks,
is not your table or my table.
It is our table
and you and I desperately need
a table that is not our own.
You and I imagine that we only need our own tables.
We are just fine, we imagine,
living around our own kitchen or dinning room table.
Maybe we have children there
or brothers and sisters,
or cousins and aunts and uncles
and grandparents.
We have a big extended family around our table –
it’s just fine, we might imagine.
We have enough food.
We have nice furniture.
We have good company and friends when we want it and oodles of privacy when we don’t.
We have security and feel safe at our own table.
We don’t have to worry about manners
and we don’t have to eat our vegetables
if we don’t want to.
It’s great being us because we have our own tables…
Then why do those with the best,
most bountiful and private tables
have the highest rates of depression in the world?
Why do those with the most privacy,
the greatest security,
the most food
have the highest rates of private gun ownership
and some of the highest crime rates in the world?
Why is it that those with the best and most private tables have such a high rate of dissatisfaction
when compared to millions of other people
who have to share a table with other people,
and may not even have enough to fill a table?
Well…I am not a social scientist
or an economist
or a psychologist…
heck, I’m hardly anything with an “ist” at the end.
But, like all of you,
I recognize a broken ecosystem when I see it.
Like you, I can feel a broken ecosystem
when I am living in it.
Like you, I may not know all the causes for
the imbalance that is killing the ecosystem,
but I can feel and see and hear the symptoms;
and, like you, I think I remember some ancient wisdom that is far enough removed
from our present world –
like that Google map zoomed outward –
to give us a needed perspective.
We can find this ancient wisdom in lots of sources
and many forms, but here is one I really like.
In the Book of Deuteronomy
Moses gives a farewell sermon to the Israelites
just before they cross the Jordan River
into the Promise Land.
It is not unlike the speech that
Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
gave when he tells his followers about his dream.
Moses dies at the end of his sermon too.
Anyway, he looks out at a ragtag herd of people
who had been wandering in the wilderness –
the arid, tough and rugged wilderness –
for 40 years.
It says they’ve been walking for 40 years
through a severe and harsh land
yet their clothes did not wear out
and their feet did not swell.
Now cut yourself some slack here.
It doesn’t matter whether or not this story is factual
because what it holds
is oceans of truth.
So don’t be asking, “Did that really happen?”
which is a totally Enlightenment kind of question
that distracts from the more important question,
“What’s the question this story seeks to answer?”
“What’s the question this story seeks to answer?”
Or more simply, what is the truth embedded in it?
So I am going to reduce it like clarifying butter.
Moses tells them they are about to enter
The Promise Land
they have been walking toward for 40 years,
and that they have been envisioning for centuries,
since the covenant with Abraham and Sarah.
It is a land, he hardly need remind them,
flowing with milk and honey.
It is a land, he acknowledges,
with houses they did not build;
wells they did not dig;
vines they did not plant;
food they did not grow;
herds they did not raise.
And yet, all of this will be theirs to enjoy.
The danger,
he warns them,
is that they will gradually come to believe
that they are self-made.
They will forget, he says,
who they are and whose they are.
They will forget that they were slaves.
They will forget that God liberated them.
They will forget that for 40 years they lived as a community, sharing what was needed
and not allowing stragglers to get lost
or the hoarders to get rich.
They will forget who they are and whose they are.
And then…when they forget,
they will lose the Promise Land.
Now doesn’t that sound like us?
Never mind that it is a story that may have only the most distant roots to any kind of an historical event.
Never mind that the dates and names and people
have been changed or lost or are mythical.
Doesn’t it sound like us
and this magnificent Promise Land of Earth
that is slipping through our fingers?
And doesn’t it sound like us
who have lost even the memory of what
true, authentic community was like?
Of course it does.
It is us, just at another moment in history.
We are those people
who have forgotten who we are
and whose we are.
That table there,
or another like it someplace else,
has the power to remind us
who we are and whose we are…
and to reshape us.
We need a table
that brings us back to who we are:
Creatures made to live in community
and connected by a power greater than ourselves.
It doesn’t have to be this one.
Trinity has no claim on any one of us.
Community is chosen.
You choose which table
and which community.
And I know that depression and dysfunction
and social chaos have some scientifically measurable
sources but…
I also know, as you do too,
that the greatest and most devastating source
of this scourge
is that we have forgotten
who we are and whose we are.
We have been seduced by the economy
and its agents of marketing
into believing that we are nothing but individuals
and self-sufficient
when operating at optimum capacity.
But that is not who we are.
We are creatures built for interdependency
just like the rest of the Creation.
We are creatures programmed to be bonded
and connected by mutual dependence,
just like the enzyme and the tree.
That is who we are.
When we act as if we are only an individual,
and when we try to be self-sufficient…we wither.
That is who we are.
Likewise,
whose we are has been obscured
by a blizzard of self-centering opportunities.
We have been led to imagine
that we are self-made –
that it is we ourselves
who have achieved and succeeded.
But our very life,
and our every potential
is granted or derived
from a power greater than ourselves.
That is whose we are.
Now I mention all of this
because all three of our readings today,
either directly and obviously
or indirectly and subtly,
are about the connection between
hope and joy.
Hope and joy are connected
just like we are,
just like the enzyme and the tree.
There is not one without the other.
And the greatest source of our depression
and dysfunction as a people,
derives from our lack of hope and joy.
I can’t prove it in a laboratory,
but I can see it and so can you.
We have experienced it
regardless of whether or not
someone has run a successful study on it.
Hope does not reside outside community.
Hope is empowered by
and sustained in
and made palpable through
the experience of interdependence.
When we feel that bond
when we know that connection
when we celebrate that mutuality
hope becomes irrepressible.
And once encountered
it is infectious,
feeding into joy.
That is how they live together.
I can’t prove it
but I know it.
And so that table right there,
what it symbolizes
is more than food for the journey,
more than an individual’s receipt of grace.
It is no less than the source of hope and joy –
because around it
we remember…we remember:
who we are and whose we are.
So for the last time then,
at least in worship and for the time being,
I invite you to name your place at this table
on your way to light a candle in prayer.
