Hold Everything: Last Sermon of Summer

Sermon for Proper 16B 2012: “Hold Everything”

(Based on 1 Kings 8:22-30, 41-43 & Ephesians 6:10-20. Copyright Mainecelt 2012))

We had to stay awake. It wasn't easy-- most of us at the Conservation District meeting were farmers, and we'd been up since dawn for one reason or another: nursing a sick animal, repairing a fence, picking greens and packing them off for a long day at the farmers' market. But the District's monthly meeting was an important one. The hard metal chairs and the fluorescent lights would have to be endured.

Now, usually, these monthly meetings are pretty routine. Maybe a landowner needs help with erosion control, and the District's staff works with the board to develop a service plan. Or maybe a town has trouble with storm-water runoff and they ask the Conservation District to help with assessment and management. Usually there's great news from the one of the District's educators, who works with schoolkids on all kinds of projects, like local food lunches and hands-on science where they study the ecology of wetlands and streams. We hear the reports, smile and applaud, and go home feeling pretty good about all these good local efforts to care for our land and water.

But this time around, everything was different. After the usual reports, a new document was handed around, and the room grew quiet. When a copy reached my hands, I realized why. The title read, “Going in Reverse: The Tar Sands Threat to Central Canada and New England.” Nineteen different organizations had signed on, from the Maine Clammers' Association and the Appalachian Mountain Club to the Natural Resources Defense Council and Maine Interfaith Power & Light.

In twenty pages, it laid out the properties of tar sands oil, a type of bitumen: extra-corrosive, extra-acidic, extra-abrasive, and basically extra-everything-bad. There was a map of the 60-year old pipeline they want to send this stuff through, from Alberta, Canada, to Portland, Maine. It explored the potential harm to waterways and watersheds, from the Great Lakes to the Androscoggin, Sebago Lake and Casco Bay, if this bitumen ever busted through the aging metal anywhere along the way.

Turns out, the stuff is so heavy and thick they have to dilute it with lots of chemicals to make it flow at all. They have to pump it at higher pressure, and it tends to heat up as it flows. The more we learned, the more concerned we became. That 60-year old pipeline was built before they imagined pumping anything this thick. And because the pipeline was already built, the company could reverse the flow at any time, without even informing the public.

I lived in Alaska from 1989 to 1994. I knew what a regular crude oil spill could do to wildlife and fishing communities. But this stuff wouldn't just float on the surface and wash up on the beaches. Bitumen sinks. We don't have any containment systems designed for that. If the Conservation District was going to figure out how to serve the public in the event of such a disaster, it was going to require the wisdom of Solomon.

Unfortunately, Solomon had his own containment problem. His people had been on the move for so long, pushed from one place to another, caught up in conflict after conflict...and now that Solomon was king, he wanted to make good on his father David's promise: to raise up a temple with a solid foundation, to root God's people in one glorious place, to announce that God's favour had come to rest right here, right now, finally, in a purpose-built structure with the best materials and designs and craftsmen that royal money and influence could buy.

Solomon was probably a little bit stressed about this. His own route to the throne hadn't been particularly neat and clean. His older brothers had all been victims of wartime schemes, power-plays and horrible misunderstandings, until finally Solomon was the one left standing—the tenth boy-child of David, practically the last in line. And so Solomon prayed. He prayed not for riches or power, but for wisdom and understanding. And God heard Solomon's prayer and blessed him with that very gift.

Now, after all that, the big day arrived: the precious box of holiness that had rolled alongside God's people for so many years, that bouncing little God-buggy called the Ark of the Covenant, was carried up the steps by specially-selected priests, observed by the gathered elders of all the tribes of Israel. They proceeded to sacrifice so many sheep and oxen that the Bible says they lost track. Then the priests carried the ark into the inner sanctuary and installed in the newly-completed temple.

What happens next? A cloud of glory fills the whole temple. It knocks the priests to the ground and rolls through the corridors and seeps out of every possible crack and opening. The temple cannot contain the raw power and beauty and love of the Creator of the universe. Solomon has a serious containment issue. He cries out to God: “But will God indeed dwell on earth? Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, much less this house that I have built. In other words, never mind the oil. This is a Godspill of epic proportions, and nobody makes clean-up gear or haz-mat suits for that.

Good thing Solomon prayed for wisdom. Wisdom tells him to open himself up to all God's glorious possibilities—and it tells him to keep praying. Pray he does—not just for his royal house, not just for the priests and the elders, not even just for the people of Israel. God is uncontainable. Solomon gets it. And so he prays for foreigners, for everyone beyond the circle of the chosen and the blessed. He prays that all the peoples of the earth may come to know the God who spills out everywhere, and that God would hear and answer even the prayers of the lost and wandering, the poor and the placeless.

Meanwhile, over in the New Testament, Paul is having some containment issues of his own. He's under a special kind of arrest, literally chained to a Roman soldier—sort of a living ankle bracelet for rabble-rousers. Waking and sleeping, he hears the clatter and clank of his captors' plate-mail, the iron rings rattling as they shift, leather bands creaking underneath. There's no ignoring the flash of the swords and daggers suspended from their wide copper-plated belts, or their bronze helmets with the long cheek-guards and wide brims, fancy crest-ornaments stuck on top for extra show. Every soldier's footfall rings on the tile walkways thanks to the iron hobnails on their leather boots. These sights and sounds, along with the clanking weight of his own chains, create the rhythm of Paul's days and nights.

Yet, somehow, Paul is allowed to write. Manacled and under watch, he is still allowed to compose and send letters that travel far. He knows his words may be carried from one household of believers to another, from one faith community to the next. And so, for the sake of his brothers and sisters in Christ, Paul has a little fun at the soldiers' expense. He suggests another dress code for followers of the Christ: not the gear of an imperial warrior, certainly not the gear of his Roman security guards: “ Put on the whole armor of God...fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness. As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace.” Shoes that make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace... Not Bean boots? Not Nikes? Not Crocs? What is Paul suggesting? He goes on with his list of recommended gear: a shield of faith. A helmet of salvation. And the only weapon in the list: “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”

This is not, as some Christians suggest, battle gear for Armageddon or the Rapture. This is how we prepare ourselves for all the everyday temptations, all the subtle evils and seductive double-talk that bleed us, bit by bit, in our daily lives. It is gear for our efforts on the home front: gear that shores up the spirit, gear that keeps a heart from breaking in the thankless, exhausting work of care-giving, gear that keeps us engaged in community outreach, gear that helps us respond to those who fear disaster, gear that keeps us connected to the health and healing of our wider world.

The whole armor of God is a metaphor, a way of reminding ourselves that we cannot fight evil with its own weapons—we have to use something different. It is a reminder that God's loving, creative, redemptive power trumps all our clever human constructions, from fancy shoes to temples to pipelines and empires. It is a reminder that we are God's beloved family, bound into the same cosmic network of action and accountability.

Especially, it is a reminder that this work is not for superheroes in a galaxy far, far away. It is here, now, in our own time and place, that we must take on the work of living faithfully. It is here, now, that we shoulder the challenge of reconciliation and justice-making. It is here that we must learn how to walk, proclaiming with each step the Gospel of Peace.

We have to stay awake. Because, all around us, people are trying to shove and shoehorn God into boxes and temples, trying to blind us to the glory of God that seeks to bust out in our midst. They're trying to weigh everyone down with the heavy armor of empires, until our helmets cover our eyes and we trip over our own chains. But we serve the God of the foreigner, the God of royal wisdom and holy foolishness, the God of the last-in-line. We serve the God who longs for our wholeness— and the wholeness of Creation.

We serve a God for whom there is no containment system, and God's power and love spill out everywhere, transforming and healing each of us. This is the Good News. Thanks be to God!

Photo credits: Solomon's temple found here. Roman armour found here. Maine local lunch found here. Ruth Duckworth's "The Creation" found here. Sebago Lake map found here.

Dames of Hazzard

"Why don't you take MY car? Then I'll know you're safe."

I had to agree with her. The forecast was for snow, hard and fast, starting around four o'clock, and my off-farm job had me scheduled 'til six. My car--of recent rock-meets-window fame--sat in front of the house with bald tires and a trendy rural tricolor look, courtesy of a 2003 meeting with a mailbox and some black ice. Ever since that accident, (which happened when I was going, literally, five miles per hour), we've designated mine "The Summer Car" and hers "The Winter Car."

The Winter Car is one of those ubiquitous Maine vehicles: an eleven-year-old Subaru Outback. We've used it to carry bagpipes to gigs in Fort Kent and Kennebunk. We've hauled bales of hay for our cows and grocers' gleanings for the food bank. We know exactly how many eight-foot-long 2x4s we can fit inside--22--if we align them and drive slow so they don't bump the windshield. I love station wagons. Most farmers seem to pride themselves on their pickup trucks, but not me. I'm happy to borrow one now and then, depending on how much hay or lumber we need, but my vehicle of choice is a station wagon: a serious, safe workhorse untainted by too much testosterone.

It was time to warm up that workhorse and go to work. I didn't relish the thought of standing at the cash register all day, but I knew enough to take the work while I could get it. I put on festive holiday garb and--in anticipation of long hours--tempered the effect with cushy socks and hiking boots. I was glad of those boots as the day wore on. There were trips up and down the steep back stairs, baskets in hands, to restock the shop. There were hours at the register, smiling pleasantly as I rung up and bagged items I could never possibly afford, myself, to buy. When the snow began to fall at half-past four, I was glad. The day of retail purgatory would soon be ending.

My co-worker looked out at half-past five, and told me to go home. I was happy to oblige. The roads seemed to be fine, judging from all the shoppers zooming by. The extra half hour would give me time to go get the milk. (Our cattle are beef animals, not dairy cows. We buy milk from another farm and take pride in our support of other local producers.) I drove off with joy and caution, keeping a slow pace to match the medieval carols on my CD player as well as the road conditions.

At the farm, my milk was waiting in the old soda cooler in the barn. A big jingle-bell was tied to the handle of the jug, a whimsical seasonal nod. I thought about cows and Christmas and the hard work of dairyfolk, work that has no regard for human illness or holidays. I lifted my milk-jug like a toasting glass and whispered my thanks to the quiet barn.

Back down the driveway, past the pasture fences, and onto the road... the snow was coming down heavily now, but the pavement seemed fine. I checked my brakes and kept my speed down. Other drivers observed the same caution and everything went well for a couple of miles. Then, suddenly, things didn't. The car started to fishtail and skidded toward the edge of the road. All I could see was a swale of darkness, an enormous looming nothing framed by skeletal stands of birch. The car gracefully floated over the edge, into the void. Remembering anecdotes of unhurt infants and unscathed drunks, I willed my body to relax--the only helpful action left for me to take--and prepared for the assuredly awful impact.

Thump. That was it--just, "thump." No breaking glass, no grinding metal, no shattering bones, no blood. I scanned my surroundings. Two great black circles, taller than the car, stared back at me. I had gone over an embankment and landed at the base of two culverts, in the drainage swath. Clumps of ice in the slushy water nudged the running board and swirled lazily around the wheels. Our Winter Car was in its element--or elements--now. A truck--yes, a pick-up-- pulled to a stop above me, at the top of the embankment. A woman hollered, "Oh my God-- Are you hurt? Do you have a cell phone?" I cheerfully, if dazedly, answered "no" to both questions. She called 911 and stayed 'til the police arrived, five or ten minutes later. As much as I love my station wagon, I did appreciate her truck for those few minutes, and thanked her for biding there.

The best part, (riding home in the officer's car as IT fishtailed along was the worst), came after the firetruck arrived. The police officer and the fireman, both burly in their professional gear, came down the embankment to "rescue" me from the car. I opened my door and leaned my head out. "If one of you fellows could just pop the hatch of my car," I said, "I can crawl right out through the back." The fireman looked surprised and, well, a little disappointed. I grabbed the milk jug, threw my purse and registration papers into my handy reusable grocery bag, and scrambled between the two front seats, over the back seat, into the back of the wagon.

"Now, be real careful, Ma'am. The footing's really uneven. We'll give you a hand." The fireman and the policeman both reached toward me, prepared to Do a Good Deed to a Damsel in Distress. I gave them the milk and the grocery bag instead, and stuck my hiking-booted foot out. "Whoa," said the fireman in a reverential tone, "Appropriate footgear!" Flanked--but not held--by my two grocery-lugging public servants, I stomped up the hill without hesitation. Sure, the car was probably totaled, but I was alive, unhurt, and I had appropriate footgear.

Home again, thanks to the Man in Blue, I put the milk in the fridge and recounted my harrowing tale to my two Godsons. I regaled them with the fishtail and the swerve, the black hole and the swale. "Cool!" they said. "Did you catch air?" Upon reconsideration, I realized I just might have "caught air."

It must have looked pretty impressive, like one of those 80s "Dukes of Hazzard" chase scenes where Bo & Luke, once again, outwit Boss Hogg. I'm not saying I'm ready for NASCAR or anything, but I do know one thing: when we hear back from the insurance adjuster, we're zooming up the road to Norm's Used Cars. They specialize in Subarus. Yep, we're gonna buy us another Winter Car.