Easter 7 (A) It’s Knowing Where to Look
Easter 7 (A) It’s Knowing Where to Look
Have you ever stepped outside in the early cool of a summer’s day and breathed in the fresh morning air? Can you remember the sensation of that moment on your skin? It’s as though your whole body is saying, thank you, this is perfect! Then all the other senses come alive and you feel like dancing…. well…. maybe skipping. Yes, you say, God is in His heaven and all is right with the world.
Evelyn Underhill, who was one of the world’s guiding spiritual lights, encouraged her students to look more often for the deeper secret in our daily experience. “Look for holiness” she said, “Look for the holiness welling up from beyond the world of visible life.” What most of us would call “ordinary experiences” she would call, “windows to heaven.” Sometimes seen (she would say) in the most unexpected situations.
I would like to share one of those moments from my own life’s experience for us to think about.
One summer, back in my younger days, I led a high school youth group on a two-week camping excursion from Minnesota to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. I’ll give you a moment to think about what I just said.
With the help of my wife, Margaret, who has the gift of organization, the food for every one of our meals of our trip (including the last one) was in a well-marked box in one of our two Volkswagen vans as we departed St. Georges Church.
I’m sure you will agree that taking responsibility for six teenage boys and six teenage girls on an adventure that would include a four day back pack into the Teton Range was more of a challenge than most rational adults would care to embrace. (When our son David, with his degree in Outdoor Recreation looks at the slides from that trip, he shakes his head and says, “Dad, you were out of our mind!”).
Just so you will all know, I did have 25 years of camping experience before leading the Wyoming trip. I’m pleased to say that the trip went well…. very well. We collected enough stories to last a lifetime.
On our way back to Minnesota we made the “obligatory” stop at a Wall Drug, South Dakota for a quick breakfast. I ordered a cinnamon roll and a cup of coffee. The cinnamon roll was delicious! You might even say that it was “divine.” Even after we got home, I could not get that “wonderful” cinnamon roll out of my mind. I began a cinnamon roll quest. I tried every bakery in town. Margaret made up a batch from scratch, but none matched my Wall Drug “cinnamon roll” memory. I even thought of how I might have some flown in.
Now, I see what was happening more clearly. The ordinary Wall Drug cinnamon roll was a glimpse into heaven. It was a glimpse of eternal life. We were on our way home, we were all in one piece, safe and happy, together and at PEACE. It was as I now recall, like one of those early described cool summer mornings.
Again, Evelyn Underhill: “At times in our earthly experience we are able to perceive life in the light of the incarnation, God, self-disclosed in and with us.” That Wall Drug cinnamon roll simply summed up a fun adventure with people I loved. It was for me one of those mystical “thin places.”
“They knew Him in the breaking of the bread.”
Only in my case, it was bread shaped like a cinnamon roll.
“O taste and see how gracious the Lord is,” and don’t be surprised where that “glimpse” or “breath” or “taste” may occur.
I believe that when the Lord walked this earth, He could discern our human hunger for “something more.” It was, I believe, that hunger that moved His followers to drop everything and follow Him. Those who were looking for something safer, and more established …. turned away.
There are two ways to approach a window. We can look at the window, in which case we see flyspecks, fingerprints and scratches. Or, we can look through the window, and see the landscape of God’s awesome creation. The challenge of “practicing the presence of God” is to see the big picture through the window. What is the “something more” that you and I see as we walk down the road of our “ordinary” lives?
Can we see the Glory of God in say:
A running toddler’s grin?
A wild orchid that you find while on your hands and knees?
A rainbow of Gross Beaks at your window bird feeder?
A well-trained team of EMT’s arriving at the scene of an accident?
A phone call from an old friend?
Have you this past week experience the Glory of God without knowing it?
In today’s Gospel Jesus says, “I have been glorified in them.” In the message the same verse reads, “My life is on display in them.” Put simply, you and I are the windows through which others we know will see the beauty and grace of God. WE “Put the Lord’s life on display.” WE are the means by which God’s presence is made known to all people. Our lives, yours and mind, are meant to reflect God’s forgiveness, God’s kindness, God’s generosity, God’s care, God’s justice for all people. WE are the ones called out to make God’s presence known to the people we meet on our journey through life.
I was pondering on just how God would continue to present himself some many years after Jesus walked this earth. I was thinking about how God sent His Holy Spirit to be our helper and our guide, when I remembered the words of a song that our daughter Kathy wrote while she was living in Ketchikan, Alaska.
She was working at the public library when the son of a friend of her boss died from an accidental overdose. He was in his twenties and alone when he died. Kathy had sung at a number of Ketchikan weddings and funerals, so she was not surprised when she was asked by the mother of the young man to sing at his funeral. The question Kathy asked herself was, what song would be appropriate? The young man had no church connection.
That same day, while sitting at her desk in the children’s section of the library, the words and music for a song came to her as fast as she could write them down. It is, I believe, an answer to the “How God is present to us today.” Present to us in ways that are less formal than what we typically think of as religious.
This is the song: No, He’s Not Invisible
Life’s not just a simple task
it’s a struggle day to day
to find the place we’re needed,
that special place where we’ll receive
the friends to lend a helping hand,
and show God’s love is real to me.
Chorus: No, He’s not invisible.
He’s here for all to see.
I’ve found His Spirit’s traces,
seen Him in your faces,
felt His love’s embraces,
in your loving arms ‘round me,
in your loving arms ‘round me.
If you should ask me who’s my savior,
Who is my friend?
I’ll say, my God can be found just any place
He’d never vanish without a trace.
I’ll never have to look too far for Him
I can see Him in my friends,
I can feel Him in my friends. Chorus
The challenge of the spiritual life is also it’s reward. To see the Glory of God in everyday, ordinary happenings of life.
I received a phone call this past week from one of my old youth group campers, Debby Peterson. She is now sixty-years-old, married with four children, living in Colorado Springs.
When I left St. Georges, it was Debbie (on behalf of the youth group) who presented me with a wrist watch. Inscribed on the back were the words, “REMEMBER THE TIME.” She said, “We chose those words because that’ s how all our adventure stories begin. “Remember the time?”
I remember the time when we were trying to set up camp in a rain storm. We were soaked, tired and frustrated by our soggy new home in the woods. I looked up and there was Debby Peterson with a hot cup of tea and a cookie.
I’ll never have to look to far for Him because He has Angels, and we want to be one too.
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