Holy Moments
Holy Cross Homily, 26-May-24
Edward Happ
Lectionary:
Isaiah 6:1-8
Romans 8:12-17
John 3:1-17
Psalm 29
"Let the words of my mouth and
the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength and
my Redeemer" --Psalm 19:14
Please be seated
One of my former priests, instead of
the usual sermon, would occasionally give what he called a BLT, a "blessed
little thought," a shorter reflection. So, here is my hopefully BLT this
morning.
I. Holy moments leave us speechless
For my text today I am taken up by the
words of the Psalm we just read:
"The voice of the Lord is a powerful voice; the voice of the Lord is
the voice of Splendor." --Psalm 29:4
Bill Moyers once interviewed Coleman
Barks, the translator of the Sufi poet Rumi, sometimes called the Shakespeare
of the east. In the interview he asked Coleman about his experience of
ecstasy. So Coleman talked about when he was a young boy in the south, at
a certain time during the year, when the sun would come in the window with a
golden glow. And he would fall on the ground and hug himself and say to
his mother, "Mama, I have that full feeling again." I have
that full feeling again.
When we went to the cathedral in
Detroit a few weeks ago, and sat in the wonderful splendor of that cathedral, it
was easy to feel small. When the organist on that grand instrument began
to play the Bach prelude, and then we all stood and sang the hymn “"Christ
is made the sure foundation” together as the choir processed up the aisle, I
could not sing the first verse. I was so moved, so overcome by the
emotion and feeling of the Holy drawing near to us that I was speechless.
I don’t know whether you’ve had that experience being choked up or being caught
up in the moment, but I suspect you have.
I wrote about it in this poem:
That Full Feeling
I go searching for the prelude
we heard at the Cathedral
in Detroit,
and it is after the first pause
in the recording
I am overcome anew
with that full feeling
that Coleman Barks described
and I too hug myself
until nothing is left
except that moment
when I cannot utter a word
or look forward with composure
but just crumble
and be
in the presence
of all that is larger
than
this place
this life
than me.
A few weekends ago we were in
Connecticut to celebrate the 90th birthday of a dear friend who I
affectionately adopted as my Auntie Mame. This was the weekend of the northern
lights, and we were reading the accounts and looking at the photos that friends
posted in the evenings, as the celestial displays began. Late each night Shirley woke up and went
outside with her camera in the hopes of catching a view of the lights, but the
Connecticut skies were ever cloudy. So, we imagined people standing out in the streets
or fields with cameras in hand, looking up at the sky in wonder as the splendor
of the different shades of color appeared.
We shared in their wonder vicariously in their later descriptions.
II. The Holy Trinity
But what happens next, after the
moment of awe? The words come in abundance. Every poet knows this. This
is what we have heard in many Bible stories. The witnesses are admonished
to “be not afraid,” to “fear not”. And what happens next? They write Psalms and Gospels with words we
hear again and again. And there are no shortage words in the Bible! I was astounded to read that the King James Bible
has over 7 8 3, 0 0 0 words!
Of these, “splendor” occurs just 27
times, one in the verse we just read.
And “awe” occurs only 3-6 times depending on the translations. However, "The most common Hebrew word
translated as "awe" is "yare" (meaning "fear" or
"dread"), which appears over 400 times in the Old Testament but its often
translated as "fear" in [the King James Version].
Fear not,
here ends the math lesson for the
morning! …
The point is that the words follow a
time of silence, a time of being speechless.
The abundance comes after the gasp,
after we are without words.
Today is Trinity Sunday. The Trinity
is one of those defining concepts in the history of our faith. Though the word Trinity does not occur in the
Bible, the concept of Father, Son and Holy spirit is in the Great Commission at
the end of Mathew’s Gospel. He writes:
"Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in
the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." [Matthew 28:19]
It took the Church over 300 years of arguing
about what was the right profession of the Trinity before it set it down in the
Nicene Creed, which we will stand and say later in the service:
"We believe in one God, the Father...
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ...
We believe in the Holy Spirit..."
What it is we profess is a God who is “one
in three and three in one” as the theologian Karl Barth describes. How
does this make sense to us?
I thought about a story here from my
high school days that was triggered by the hymn we sang in March, “O wheat, whose crushing was for bread.” But Shirley said it was confusing, so I took
it out. Explaining the Trinity is a
theological challenge, fraught with danger, as those in the 4th
century found out!
And sometimes even a metaphor falls short. But when in doubt, I’m willing to say that it is a mystery. Lord, help me.
III. God Comes to Us
Perhaps on one level this is what the
Trinity means, it is the ways God comes to us. As we pray, “God
the creator, redeemer and sustainer”. And when God comes to us in Holy
moments, our reaction maybe simply be speechless.
It happens in moments in our worship,
particularly at Christmas and Easter, when I find again that I'm not able to
sing that first verse in the processional hymn... especially Charles
Wesley’s hymn "Christ the Lord is Risen Today" and we sing again the Alleluia’s.
I’m choked up each time that those moments come. These are Holy Moments, and
we’re caught up in silence before the Voice of Splendor, like the shepherds in
Luke’s Gospel:
“And there were shepherds living out in
the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the
Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they
were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good
news that will cause great joy for all the people.” [Luke 2:8-10]
Written
large, I think that’s what moments of awe and wonder are about.
Written
small, they are no different.
And so I’d like us each to ask
ourselves, what are our holy moments? Do
they happen unexpectedly, or can we find them, even create them?
The important thing I’ve learned is
that we can choose to go to those places and times with the expectation that
something will move us, whether the prelude in the cathedral, a virtuoso violin
solo, lights in the northern sky, or a riot of stars on a clear night in Upper
Peninsula—the events in our church renewal program. We go with the hope of being created anew as
the Holy moment comes to us.
It can also be the simple moments in
our lives. I often tell my students about an advisor who told me to pay
attention to the times I become Italian.
Italian, I said? My mother was
from an Italian family! He pointed out
that when I’m engaged by something, I come alive and start gesturing with my
hands like I was in a market in Florence talking about the fresh peppers that
had just arrived. Pay attention to that,
he said, and ask yourself where you are, what you are experiencing when you
come alive like that. And what I
realized is that I can choose to be in those situations again and go with the
expectation that I will come alive.
Later in the interview with Coleman
Barks, Bill Moyers asks him about the experiences of ecstasy that others in the
Eastern faith have had. And Coleman said, “I don’t know if I can talk
about this.” “I don’t know if I can talk about this.” I don’t think he
meant that he was forbidden to describe these, but rather that there were no
words to describe the experience. It was something that just needed to
be.
And so I’d like to leave you with a
thought from Frederick Buechner that I’ve paraphrased:
Holy moments “cannot be expressed, but
only experienced,” before the splendor of the Lord, the most we can say is,
"I have that full feeling again!"
Amen.
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