consider

It’s been a while since I posted a sermon, mostly because all of the medical stuff I have been dealing with has made what I have offered from the pulpit less than postable. But I’m back and talking about the birds and flowers that Jesus pointed to as examples of how to be human.

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Ginger and I went to breakfast after one of my recent doctor visits and from the window of the coffee shop we could see these small black birds sitting on the cable that ran above the street. I don’t know what kind of birds they were. Sparrows, maybe starlings. Every so often, based on some signal we could not discern, they flew off the wire in formation and then swirled and darted and banked all together until they returned to their perches. They would sit quietly for a few minutes and then they did it again.

It was amazing to watch the skill and whimsy of the little creatures as they zigged and zagged across the sky, accomplishing nothing specific other than being themselves, which is what every last one of us, from starlings to stars was put here to do: to be ourselves and to be together. It’s right in Jesus’ words that we read a few minutes ago:

Don’t worry about your life, what you’ll eat or what you’ll drink, or about your body, what you’ll wear. Isn’t life more than food and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds in the sky. They don’t sow seed or harvest grain or gather crops into barns. Yet God feeds them. Aren’t you worth much more than they are? Who among you by worrying can add a single moment to your life?

I learned this week that the root of both the words worry and anxious has to do with choking or strangulation. When anxiety takes hold it constricts us. Gratitude, on the other hand, puts air in our lungs; it is expansive. Listen to the words of poet David Whyte:

Gratitude is the understanding that many millions of things must come together and live together and mesh together and breathe together in order for us to take even one more breath of air, that the underlying gift of life and incarnation as a living, participating human being is a privilege; that we are miraculously, part of something, rather than nothing. Even if that something is temporarily pain or despair, we inhabit a living world, with real faces, real voices, laughter, the color blue, the green of the fields, the freshness of a cold wind, or the tawny hue of a winter landscape.

He closes by saying, “Thankfulness finds its full measure in generosity of presence, both through participation and witness. . . . Being unappreciative might mean we are simply not paying attention.”

Gratitude finds its full measure through participation and witness. I love that. And I needed that word this week. As many of you have experienced, one of the hardest part about being sick is it makes us self-focused. That is not a bad thing in and of itself—sometimes we need to pay attention to ourselves—but when we turn inward we can lose sight of all that connects and supports us. We can’t see beyond ourselves. Our view of the world and who we are in it becomes constricted.

One of the definitions of depression I learned early on was that it was “anger turned inward.” I would add that I think it’s just about everything turned inward. When I am depressed, I can’t see beyond myself.

Illness is not the only hardship that can alter our perspective. Sometimes it’s just life. Do you ever catch yourself thinking, “I just have so much to do?” And you’re telling the truth. Life is hard and demanding and exhausting and even constricting. And so, Jesus said, consider the starlings and the lilies.

The root of the word consider means “observe the stars.” Look up at the heavens. Instead of focusing on all that feels like it’s going to strangle us, consider the universe, from flowers to galaxies far, far away.

To live in a spirit of gratitude—to pay attention—is to actively point our minds and hearts at something: to look up, look out, look for, look beyond individual selves and see the ways in which everyone and everything is essentially connected.

We sit here this morning in a building constructed by our forebearers, a tangible reminder of what has been handed down. Look out the window and we see cars that belong to Quinnipiac students and the staff from the restaurant across the street, as well as the beginnings of the Boy Scout troop’s Christmas tree lot. We will share coffee and snacks together in a building that will house people this week for twelve step groups, Jazzercize, contra dancing, and several meals. The fruit and vegetables that adorn our Communion table this morning will go, along with the bags in the parish house, to feed people across Hamden this week.

Hear the words of David Whyte again: “Thankfulness finds its full measure in generosity of presence, both through participation and witness.”

I think thankfulness also finds its full measure in the temporary. By that I mean, the fact that we aren’t here forever can be an expansive truth rather than a constrictive one, if we so choose.

Do you know how long a starling lives?

I had to look it up. Two to three years. A sparrow can live up to five. Lilies bloom only a few weeks out of the year. We don’t last that much longer. Writer Amy Leach says, “Our transience is our tragedy but also our beauty, because when you don’t have forever, intensity is imperative.”

The writer of Ecclesiastes said, “I know there is nothing better for us than to be joyful and to do good throughout our lives; to eat and drink and see the good in all of our hard work is a gift from God.”

And it’s in the last verse of the hymn that will close our service this morning (which you’ve heard me quote several times because it’s one of my favorites):

For the harvests of the Spirit, thanks be to God.
For the good we all inherit, thanks be to God.
For the wonders that astound us, for the truth that still confounds us,
Most of all that love has found us, thanks be to God.

May be we stargazers and starling watchers; may we pay attention to all that swirls around us; may we breathe deep the breath of God and choose to be intensely grateful for these days that we share together. Amen.

Peace,
Milton

PS—my sermon reminded me of this wonderful Bill Mallonee song.