November 23, 7:00pm (Kevin Westling)
Stopping to talk with a panhandler, looking him or her in the eyes, responding to him or her like you would any person you know who has asked you for something, whether or not you decide to contribute a coin… that is a small act of love. Pausing, I mean really pausing your body and mind, to look at the salesclerk or bus driver or cashier and breaking out of seeing them in their utilitarian role that is there to help you get your task done… pausing, to make a real human connection, even if only for thirty seconds – that is an act of small love. Affirming a teenager that is not your kid, affirming them in their humanity and in their personhood and offering them an intentional show of dignity and respect, that is an act of small love.
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SERMONS AT TRINITY
Sunday November 22, 2009
Trinity @ 7
The Rev. R. Cameron Miller
Good Evening.
This we is Thanksgiving
which is an awesome hinge
between autumn and winter,
between personal gratitude
and the celebration of communal abundance,
between household and nation.
Thanksgiving is just one of those times…
one of those special moments,
so I want to step back
and open our arms to it.
And the way I want to do that
is by returning to a favorite theme of mine.
We spend too much of our time and energy
looking toward the big, amazing, wowy-zowy events,
and miss the blow-your-mind-astounding
that lives in the small and ordinary.
In particular,
we seek God in the spectacular and universal,
in the intensely emotional and amazingly mystical…
all the while God’s custom
is to arrive on the wings of the ordinary,
the quiet,
the foolish,
and the particular.
It is a ferocious paradox:
the schism between
our expectation of cosmic-sized holiness
and the dust of ordinary God-particles.
I think that we should take it as a big fat hint
that we lust after God in the Temple,
and marvelous sanctuaries,
and spectacular miracles,
and in vistas of stupendous Natural wonders…
and all the while God,
like the Whos of Who-ville
that only Horton could hear,
is hanging out and talking to us
in the ordinary small things of every day life.
We should take this schism
between what we expect and what actually IS,
as a hint.
And the hint is,
as I am fond of saying,
that the Economy of God
operates on the principle of small loves.
It is the accumulation of small loves over a life-time
that is the measure of true wealth
in the economy of God.
Don’t get me wrong,
the big flashy single acts of love are great
when they come along,
but even though they often give the impression
that they are the course-of-history-changers,
it is more likely
that the big flashy events
happened in the first place
because of a series of small,
even insignificant and unnoticeable
acts of love that preceded it.
Bringing a sleeping bad in here is an act of small love.
Stopping to talk with a panhandler,
looking him or her in the eyes,
responding to him or her like you would any person
you know who has asked you for something,
whether or not you decide to contribute a coin…
that is a small act of love.
Pausing,
I mean really pausing your body and mind,
to look at the salesclerk or bus driver or cashier
and breaking out of seeing them in their utilitarian role that is there to help you get your task done…
pausing, to make a real human connection,
even if only for thirty seconds –
that is an act of small love.
Affirming a teenager that is not your kid,
affirming them in their humanity
and in their personhood
and offering them an intentional show
of dignity and respect,
that is an act of small love.
Sharing your time with someone,
or a whole organization of someone’s
who need someone like you –
even if it is to stuff envelopes
or sweep the floor
or pick up people or transport food…
to share our incredibly precious time
is an act of small love.
To give away your money to someone,
or to an organization of someone’s
who help or advocate for someone,
especially when you certainly do not have to,
and no one will really know if you ever do or not…
is an act of small love.
To lower the thermostat, take a bus,
use less of anything,
buy less of almost everything,
or in any other way reduce our carbon footprint
by even so much as a toenail,
is an act of small love.
To stand up for someone or something,
even against your friends and neighbors,
because you do not want to give the impression
you tolerate bigotry or prejudice,
is an act of small love.
To write a letter on behalf of a prisoner of conscience,
to email a representative on behalf of those who are marginalized, to join our voices together,
and insist that coercion or injustice be stopped
in the name of God if no one else,
is an act of small love.
Stopping to listen to someone who talks a lot,
or making an earnest inquiry of someone who rarely talks, or asking to do something with someone who you suspect feels lonely, any of these
are acts of small love.
You see what I mean.
The love does not have to be very big,
it can be quite small.
Being so small that it goes unnoticed
does not make it too small.
That is the kind of small change
upon which the Economy of God generates wealth.
It is in these acts of small love
that God likes to hang out…and is most accessible.
We think it is in the big stuff
but really,
God is in the small stuff –
just as your life and mine
are defined
and shaped
and fed
and held
and changed
and strengthened
by the accumulation of all small things we do…
or, conversely,
that we have chosen not to do.
In the Economy of God
true wealth is accumulated over time,
by change so small
almost no one thinks it is of value any more.
So tonight as we light a candle,
this week as we stop to listen and pray,
on Thursday as we celebrate,
I invite you to give thanks for the economy of God
in which we are all wealthy beyond measure;
and all capable of an enormous accumulation
of a gazillion acts of small.
