SEVENTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST,
CREATION TIME: SKY SUNDAY, Sept. 23, 2012
“Look Up!” (Psalm 19)
It seemed like a good idea at the time. My student intern and I would take the
Youth group on an overnight camping trip to nearby St. Malo. It would be an opportunity
to build community. It would be a chance to experience the outdoors – the beach in the
heat and sunshine of a Manitoba summer day, and the campsite in the cool, velvety
darkness of night.
With the dualistic thinking so entrenched in our society, we tend to be good at
identifying opposites like light and dark. While the psalmist does not portray light more
positively than darkness – in fact, he sees the cycle of light and darkness as testifying
both to the order and stability of creation and to the power of God - we can fall into
labelling the first as good and the second, as bad. Such labelling is reinforced by
images like those in silent movies of heroes in white hats and villains in black, by
mysteries beginning with the proverbial "it was a dark and stormy night", and by
childhood imaginations conjuring up monsters under the bed, monsters that can only be
dispelled by the leaving on of a night light.
This labelling may appear to fit with our experience living in a northern latitude.
Some of us suffer from SAD – Seasonal Affective Disorder – and struggle with
depression every year at this time because of the loss of light. I personally find this
autumn transition difficult. Now when I get up, the sun hasn't even risen. No longer can I
start my day, sitting out on my deck, reflecting and praying, as blue jays zoom in for
their peanuts and chickadees and nuthatches flit amongst the bushes. . I grumble about
being stuck in the darkness of my living room. And yet, as the days pass, I learn once
more to love these mornings. They are so peaceful: with a single candle flame, I cannot
see the rolls of dog hair drifting across the floor or the stack of books waiting to be read;
there is nothing to demand my attention; nothing to stop me from simply resting in God's
presence. By the time spring arrives, I find it hard to lose the darkness which has
become like a sheltering cave, a nurturing womb. In a society where light is seen as
good and dark as bad, where this kind of dualism can slide into racism, we need
reminders that both are gifts from God, both are essential for the health and well-being
of this planet and the creatures, including human beings, who call it home.
This camping trip was meant to be such a reminder. I began to doubt my wisdom
almost immediately. I hadn't thought about the other people who would be on the beach.
I hadn't expected one of the girls would be so ready and willing to be picked up by a
young man, a total stranger. Supper, from my point of view was also a bit of a disaster.
We had made up a healthy, nutritious menu, but the two members entrusted with the
grocery shopping had substituted chips for carrots, and twinkies for apples. Still, nothing
could spoil what for me was always the best part of summer camp – the camp fire – the
circle of light, gently illuminating the faces, the dark all around, and up above the glory
of the heavens. On clear, starlit nights like this, I could understand why the Hebrew
people viewed it as God's dwelling place.
As the wood crackled, and a blessed tranquillity settled over the group, I
suggested that we lie on our backs and look up. There was a rustling of bodies, and
then: a "Wow!", and an "Is that the Big Dipper?", and an "amazing!", and an "Is that a
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planet that is so brilliant?" But one person remained resolutely upright. "Look up," I
encouraged her; "It is do beautiful." But she just shook her head, and kept gazing at the
ground. I moved beside her: "what's wrong?" "I don't like looking up," she replied. "It's
too scary. I feel so small." That comment coming from the same girl who was eagerly
plotting to sneak off to meet her stranger on a deserted beach at 3 a.m. stopped me in
my tracks.
A psalmist sang: "when I look to the heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon
and the stars you have set in their places, what are we mortals that you should be
mindful of us, mere human beings that you should care for us?" He may not have grown
up in Dominion City where everyone knew your name and everything about you, but he
too felt small when he looked up. When we are born, if we are blessed with good
caregivers, we may feel we are the centre of the world: we cry and an adult jumps to
feed or change or soothe us. As toddlers, we learn the power of "no. It can be a shock
to our system when a sibling is born, and we have to share our parents' attention. It can
be an adjustment as we move from home to public school to a bigger high school to
university or college. Very few youth from Dominion City even tried for any postsecondary education, and of those, some found it too hard to adjust to the anonymity of
life in a city like Winnipeg. It can be scary to look up and realize that we, as individuals
or a family or community or nation, are so incredibly tiny. This was true for the Hebrew
psalmist who viewed the earth as a finite flat disk with the dome of the sky up above.
How much more may this ring true for us who know that the earth is actually a ball
rotating through space in an ever expanding universe.
It can be scary to look up. But it can also help to put things into perspective. As a
mature adult, I should know that I am not the centre of the universe. And yet, I can fall
into the trap of speaking and acting as if I were. At the last Presbytery meeting, by the
time I got to the buffet, most of the dishes were empty. Since no provision had been
made for vegetarians, the pickings were even slimmer. I looked at my plate: "$10 for
some lettuce leaves and a few rather dried up macaroni noodles". The server remarked
that there would be nothing left for the workers; they would be going hungry. I hear her,
but I couldn't even summon up a sympathetic murmur. My universe had shrunk to me,
myself and I. Can you relate? When you are stuck in heavy traffic and feel your irritation
growing with the car in front that is hanging back too far, and letting everyone slip in
ahead of you. When weather interferes with your plans: sure, the farmers need rain, but
you had a big barbecue organized; now, what are you supposed to do? When someone
says or does something that "spoils your day". You and I may benefit from looking up,
and realizing, yet again, that the universe is immense and we are incredibly tiny.
Looking up can help to put things in perspective. We all live under one dome. It
matters not whether the coal fired plants are in the United States or Canada, the
pollution will affect us all. The volcano may have erupted in Iceland, but the ash
disrupted air travel in Europe. We all live under one sky. As Edward Hays, author of
Prayers for a Planetary Pilgrim, reminds us: "every year two million tons of cosmic
dust fall upon this small planet." Our bodies are "dust from stars whose blazing beauty
is now silent". With these bodies "composed of star dust" – shades of Joni Mitchell
singing in the chorus of "Woodstock", "we are stardust. We are golden. And we've got to
get ourselves back to the garden" - we can blaze anew with light. Just as the apostle
Paul suggested, we can shine like bright stars in the sky. We all live under the heavens.
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We are all earthlings, made in the image of God. We are unique, precious, beloved. In
early Hebrew thinking, God's concern was seen as focused on one particular group with
whom God entered into covenant, saying: "I will be your God and you shall be my
people." God was the one who heard the cries of an oppressed people and led them out
of slavery, at a high cost to their Egyptian masters, then, through the trials and
hardships of the wilderness into a new land which they occupied at the expense of the
resident Canaanites. But this understanding of God's love as exclusive was soon
challenged. As people looked up, they noticed: the sun shone down on the Hebrews,
but also on the Egyptians and the Canaanites. Clouds passed overhead; rain fell not
just on the fields of a few, select righteous individuals but on all the land that lay in the
path of the storm. Jesus, in Matthew's presentation of the Sermon on the Mount, says:
"God makes the sun shine on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and
on the unjust." We human beings may like to draw lines between "us" and "them", "our
people" and "those people", between Christians and Muslims, Protestants and
Catholics, Canadians and Americans, but God does not draw lines. God refuses to love
only those who love God or only those who are loveable or only those who are
deserving. God's love is unconditional, steadfast, and all embracing. As the moon
mirrors the sun so we are invited to mirror God's love.
Looking up can help to put things in perspective. It is easy for us human beings
to get tied up in knots over whatever is happening in our lives: we may have too much
to do and too few hours in the day; there may be problems at home, problems at work,
and even problems in the church where we had hoped to find perfect harmony; we may
be facing difficulties with our health or grieving the loss of a loved one. We can feel our
world contracting until all that remains is the stress, the problem, the difficulty, the loss.
I would name it as the lowest point in my ministry – let's hope I never sink
farther! Despite the helpful intervention of the Personnel Officer and a truly excellent
Lay Supervision team, I was struggling with my student intern. I had become so
frustrated with her closed mind, and annoyed with her condescending attitude that I had
actually hung up in the middle of a phone conversation. This, of course, became
another issue between us. From the moment I woke in the morning to the time I tried to
go to sleep at night, I thought about nothing but this student and how to handle her.
What saved me from going under were walks on country roads. I'd hear the call of a
hawk and look up to see it soaring effortlessly through space. Then I'd notice the
blueness of the summer sky and the fluffy white clouds – nature was definitely not
reflecting the turmoil and anger, the disappointment and sadness I felt within. It was
enough to encourage me to take a few deep breaths, and remember: there is a great
big world out there, a world that existed long before this student came into my life and
would keep on long after both she and I had turned to dust
Looking up can help to put things into perspective. It may even inspire. I wrote
the first draft of this sermon out on my deck. By preference, I would write all my
sermons, sitting outside, with my fountain pen in hand. Long before I had heard about
the eye charts of neuro-linguistic programming, now considered a pseudo-science, I
was aware that I am more able to imagine possibilities when I take my eyes off the page
and look up – to watch the clouds or a bird or simply let my mind drift. When I went to
stay with Cliff Elliott, a minister emeritus at Bloor Street, and a respected preacher and
writer, his wife suggested that I sit in Cliff's "sermon chair" to do my own work. It was
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perfect: it swiveled and rocked and best of all, offered me a truly spectacular view over
a valley. With the leaves off the trees, I could see plenty of sky – sky to lift my spirits,
inspire my creativity and fire my imagination.
Look up. Day and night, in light and darkness, the sky is always there, its beauty
and wonder, declaring the glory of God.
Linda M. Butler
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