Last night we fulfilled our annual journey back to Grace Church in Newark, NJ, to celebrate the anniversary of the founding of the parish 176 years ago. The music and worship were exquisite as always. On this occasion my predecessor was made Rector Emeritus, in his eighty second year. He so loves this parish and has given many years of quiet background service since his retirement. It was sweet to watch him, firm of mind as ever, receive this gentle honor, be held in so kind a regard.
What was also sweet was to be told in succinct fashion how as a young man he had come upon a mystical kind of worship of God. How this form of worship caught his imagination and heart even though it was not usual in all courts. He told his bishop, not expecting support. His bishop, a wise man, then sent him to Grace Church to learn from a master the wealth to be found in the Anglo-Catholic tradition. At the heart of this tradition is a humility of the human creature seeking the glory of God in everyday places. If bread and wine and water and oil can be animated with the mystical Spirit of God's abiding care, so can the human creature. Music, incense, silence, beauty, focus and prayer are the avenues we travel to enter the place of mystery and the fullness of God. Together they weave a receptivity in us for the Holy Other to enter.
And then the Holy Other turns us outward to one another. The great love at the heart of God is not content to leave us in the mystical, but turns us to each other as a place of divine service which is all about gentle care. To miss this step is to miss our core. It is this care which has animated Father Bowen over so many years and was recalled last night.
As if to remind me of this principle of human transformation by the mystery of God's great love, when mass was over, William came looking for me. William is a man I knew most of my fifteen years at Grace. A Viet Nam veteran, broken by Agent Orange, never again to be fully whole. He did not worship for all I knew. He always battled drug addiction. I employed him to do outdoor tasks at the Church from time to time. I had named him one of the Lazarus' at my gate as I listened to his life. Last night was his birthday and always I gave him a gift. So there he was with three hats in his hand for me and gently but insistently reminding me it was his birthday. He flattered me with how he missed me. So I invaded my wallet and offered him a gift. Will he use it well? I am not to know. But I had left worship with Christ in my heart and had only this small space to offer him five minutes to care and hear his life and need.
The lessons are this day about glory seen and digested. Ezekiel sees the glory of God over against the brokenness of Israel. Then he is handed a scroll of God's discerning and judging word, filled with lamentation and woe. Eat, he is told and when he does it becomes sweet on his lips. It will be his task to share this word with others, the nation.
Jesus goes up the mountain with his inner circle to pray. There he is transfigured, turned to dazzling whiteness in the company of two of the great fathers of faith. Peter drowsily notices the scene and as he articulates, "It is well that we are here..." it is past. He is impacted by the glory, "This is my Son, listen to him." After the Resurrection and Ascension, this glory will make better sense. For now they will leave this mystical worship and return to listen to life and human need. They will watch Jesus just filled with the fullness of God, return to ordinary daily care that emanates from divine love and awareness. Later they will catch how glory and service are flip sides on God's love.
It reminds me that when we have entered into worship, when we have tasted divine love and care, when we have eaten it in the Scriptures and Sacrament, Holy Communion, we are turned back out into the world of the ordinary and daily. What will we then do with this glory eaten? Will it transform our awareness? Will we see in each other arenas of care waiting to be entered in the ordinary? Will we notice that it is here, in the ordinary that God has placed us? And we are here placed not just to daily live our lives, but to be transformed by the care with which we see each other, Christ's care. By love which will work away at us, we become so much more. We will also see in each other a potential more fully realized as we handle one another with this transforming love.
I am grateful today for Grace Church and what I learned there. For the mentoring of George Bowen+ and the fragile William. Through each I have seen something of the mystery of God's care.
Who will God use next to open me? Who has and does God use to open you to the mystical and the daily? Such is the way of God.
No comments:
Post a Comment