Are you listening?

James 1:19--¹⁹You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger;

When I read this scripture I am reminded of my best friend’s grandfather, Grampy Toumajan, he was a very slow speaker.  As we follow the lectionary for this Sunday the Gospel of Mark reminds us of all that is and isn’t important about tradition.  The Tomajan house was full of tradition one being Grampy’s long slow talks.

                Every Sunday we would arrive at Grammy and Grampy’s ready for the homemade rice pilaf and boereg (bear-egg…the best!).  After every meal we would go into the living room with Grampy and he would tell us stories of life.  The truth is that he spoke so slowly that we often missed his message.  We were teenage girls after all with a lot to do.  We had places to go, people to see and while we would never be disrespectful to him, our feet would tap eagerly, we would look at each other with unspoken questions in our eyes such as “Is he done yet?” or “Can we go now?”  Today when my friend and I meet we often ask “What was he saying?” and then we quickly follow with “I wish we had listened.”

                Why do we wish that we had listened?  Because everything about Grammy and Grampy’s life has led us to believe that they had something valuable to share.  Their life, their traditions, their love was worth passing on.  I was not a blood relative of these people but loved I was.  Their eyes lit up every time we showed up on their steps, which was often and most times without warning. 

                As my friend and I would head out to run with our phys-ed class for a morning run, the class would go one way and we would head another.  Our jog would take us to Grammy and Grampy’s and Grammy in her robe with her long morning braid swung to one side, would open the door with a delighted exclamation of “Girls!” and then breakfast would follow, English muffins with cottage cheese.  It strikes me that they never asked us why we weren’t in school, they just opened the door.  If we were bored, hungry, happy, sad, their home was often the place to be. 

Pictures from the past surrounded us in every room. When their children and other relatives visited you here could hear English and Armenian being spoken at the same time.  There were stories from their past that I did not understand until I got older, we do not teach about the Armenian genocide in high school.  As a 50 year old woman I can better understand why Grammy had a hard time sleeping, I can still picture her sitting looking out the window late at night. Given an opportunity I would love to ask her what were you thinking, remembering?  I would also thank both of them for holding on to their traditions; they mattered so much to me.

Visiting Grammy and Grampy remained one of my traditions until Grampy passed and Grammy moved south to be with her family.  My husband and I, and eventually our daughter, would come from Maine to N.H. and a trip to the Toumajan house was always on the schedule.  We would arrive to hugs and food and then the long slow talk in the living room, if there was a baby in tow Grammy would be rocking and singing to her in the other room while we listened.  Because if it wasn’t stated before, often Grammy was out of the room for these talks, my husband would often be tapping his foot looking at me with eyes that asked the same questions my eyes once asked, but on these visits I never felt rushed, they were the place I wanted to go, the people I wanted to see. 

My children have never had homemade pilaf or boeregs, we did not do a traditional Armenian dance at our daughter’s wedding, these traditions were not my ancestral inheritance, but they have their own memories of the people who have loved them well.  And isn’t that the point, the miracle is not in the actual food but in the love behind it.  

Clean-up

So I was taking communion with some colleagues, friends, and we broke bread after our lunch and conversation.  I was struck by the image of our leftovers, the slung over napkin, an empty coffee container, a mug and a soda can. A bouquet of Black-Eyed Susans, the loaf and chalice are in the mix as well.  Beauty and truth lay within the image.  Carrie Newcomber’s lyrics to Betty’s Diner came to mind:

Here we are all in one place  

The wants and wounds of the human race

Despair and hope sit face to face

When you come in from the cold

Let her fill your cup with something kind

Eggs and toast like bread and wine

She’s heard it all so she don’t mind

It makes me think of Christ looking down a long table with friends and searching for the bread, then reaching for the cup, as in the image, one among many for sure.  Communion can be a messy business; we arrive with our leftovers from hours, days, weeks or even years. And yet when we join in this tradition, this sacrament we join together as God’s children.

There is an understanding as we collect ourselves for communion that there is more than meets the eye, faith is just that, understanding, believing there is value in what is unseen, that there is more.  Just as in the photo there is value in the unknown, the grace said before the meal goes unheard, and the fellowship as we satisfied our hunger cannot be felt, the sweetness of chocolate chip cookies is missed.  Is it not unfortunate that often what we see first is what needs to be “cleaned up” from an event? 

 Would it not be ironic that Christ looked around the table and decided to “clean-up” a bit?  As he grabs a loaf he is struck by the image of a whole loaf, somehow surviving the meal, and he sees himself in this as well as the loaves that have been broken throughout the supper.  A few moments later, with “clean-up” fresh on his mind, he finds the cup filled with red wine, he is struck again by what is about to happen. 

He looks upon his friends, the debris, the messes and the joys; he looks upon them with love, knowing there is so much more to their stories and his. He looks at them “despair and hope sitting face to face” and he says, “This is the sign of the new covenant, the forgiveness of sins” the ultimate cleansing---remember me whenever you drink from this cup.

Safe Sanctuary

           

When our boys were little they were allowed to take one of their first bike rides by themselves.  They were in elementary school and I let them ride up and around the block.  As I waited anxiously for their return home, I saw them come down the road and I could tell from their approach that something was amiss.  As they got off their bikes Nate shared that Chris had fallen off his bike and was bleeding.  I looked at Chris’s patched up knee and asked who took care of him and Nate replied “The church ladies.” 

The “accident” had happened by the church we attended and Nate saw the door open and brought Chris in for help.  There were several women in the parish hall cleaning and of course when they saw our boys they stopped everything and patched up the wounded knee.  Nate saw the church and knew it would be a safe place to receive help and the door was open.

What does it mean to have a safe sanctuary?  I think for many years it was just assumed that a sanctuary would be safe, but we have come to realize that this is not necessarily the case.  It is not in our best interest or in the interest of children to assume that they or we will be safe anywhere without guidelines and built in plans of protection.

One of the ways in our church to assure safety is to change our locks and issue new keys.  And after a recent theft we even had to lock our sanctuary.  A locked sanctuary—who’d thought it?  Gone are the days when a church was open all day and even all night, gone are the days when a homeless person slept in a pew and snuck out in the morning, gone are the days when most pastors lived next door to the church and were available any hour of any day.  Gone as well though are the community’s desire to stop in and talk to the pastor or to seek comfort in the sanctuary.

            At first all this talk about locks and keys can make one feel unsure about what we are doing as a church, it can make us feel sad that we cannot leave our doors open to the public on the other hand it may move us outside of our church into the community.  Maybe now is the time for us to go into the community, to move outside the comfort of the church into the places that can make us uncomfortable.

            I love that our sons knew the church was a place for them to go for help, I love that they knew the women that assisted them.  I also know that if they knew where each  of the 5 or so women lived they would have had that many more places to go for help.  Change can be difficult, but so often it is just what we need, it can be the springboard to increased courage and strength.  Change allows us to rethink old ideas and embrace traditions like they are new again. 

            Ephesians 2:19-22
19 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. 21 In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. 22 And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

            Walls cannot contain the Spirit and locks cannot keep the Spirit out.  Our sanctuary will continue to be a place of worship, a place where we are strengthened on Sunday mornings.  Our children will be taken care of responsibly and parents will know that we consider ourselves blessed to help their children grow in faith.  And yet the message will be the same, the same one that Christ hit the road saying “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 

            So on Sunday morning look around the sanctuary, really look, who is your neighbor?  And then when you shut and lock the door look again at the world around, really look, who is your neighbor?

Who me?

I am not preaching on the Old Testament this Sunday but it is one of the scriptures that can remind us of a soap opera; 2 Samuel 11:26-12:15.  This is scripture continues the life of David who is taken up short when he realizes that Nathan, who described a horrible person, who had much and stole from his neighbor who had less, was been talking about him!

David says:  “As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die; ⁶he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.” ⁷Nathan said to David, “You are the man!” (2Samuel 12: 5-7)

            Years ago my neighbor and her young daughter, who was and is adored, came for a visit.  While my friend and I talked about an incident that happened at the preschool I taught at, her daughter sat in a corner playing with some toys.  We were unaware of her listening to our conversation when suddenly she looked up at us and asked with a stunned look on her face “Me?  Are you talking about me?!”  Somehow this cute little two year old realized that there may have been something she had done that might cause us to speak this way about her.  How had David lost this innocent awareness? 

            I imagine David lost it the way most of us are in danger of losing it.  We get busy; we are distracted by the desires and standards of the world.  We acquire too much or too little, both causing us to make choices and decisions that can stress our better judgment at times. 

            It is not always easy to see ourselves through the eyes of others especially when we are made aware of less than desirable actions.  It can leave us speechless, ashamed, stunned and even defensive.  David was left humbled and having to face significant consequences.

            My little neighbor, who is now a young woman, had the courage and nerve to ask “Are you talking about me?”  She wanted to know!  I think for many of us learning what others think of us could be an uncomfortable event whether the news is positive or negative. 

            Most of us do not like talking about ourselves yet it is through difficult self evaluation

that we are able to fully embrace this life.  When we see and allow God’s grace as our own then we know that it belongs to others as well thus it becomes possible to see our cup as running over due to the pastures that surround us and the waters that run beside us. (Psalm 23---author David)