Small Wonder
By Lisa Rzepka,
April 25, 2004
Acts 9:1-20,
Psalm 30
Prayer: Living God, help us to hear your Holy
Word that we may truly understand,; that, understanding we
may believe, and believing, we may follow in all faithfulness
and obedience, seeking your glory in all that we do. Amen
It
was early summer, June 2002, the first full day of the Rzepka
family vacation in the Grand Tetons and we were faced with
a critical question: What do you do when you come across a
bear in the woods?
We
had to process the question quickly... Because, yes, we had
lucked out that morning…we had to ask ourselves: What do you
do when you come across a bear in the woods?
In
the intensity of the moment it was hard to discern whether
this bear was a black bear, brown bear, grizzly bear, male
or female bear, all we knew was that it was A BEAR and it
weighed more than all of us.
Instinct
told some of us to RUN, others to PRAY, and collectively we
decided to make a lot of NOISE. As it turns out, the bear
ended up running in an opposite direction - and it appeared
to not be all that big - BUT, we weren't exactly off the hook
as we weren't sure if we might be caught somewhere in the
middle of a mother and her cub. And you know the warnings
about not getting in between that parental bond.
We
made it back safely to our cabin, singing O When the Saints
Go Marching In, as much a covert prayer for protection
as noisemaking. Then, we went straight to the general store
and bought bear bells to take on our next hiking adventure.
This
experience intensified the irony of an event Barbara Kingsolver
retells in her book Small Wonder, a collection of essays.
Kingsolver recounts a true event about a lost child in the
hills of Iran. The parents had been out tending their wheat
field, the child left with a village teenager. The teenager,
caring for other children, was distracted and when her attention
focused again on this one particular child, he was gone. As
anyone who has cared for young children knows there's a sickening
panic that starts to pulse through your system and quickly
grows when a child turns up missing.
Frantically
the parents search the entire village of the Lorestan Province,
every box turned upside down. Neighbors join the search, offering
reassurances, but soon even the reassurances begin to scatter
as darkness and cold begin to set in over the rocky outskirts
of the village. He is nowhere to be found. Questions of survival
creep in. Someone suggests the possibility of a bear -- everyone
else says NO, not a bear -- don't say that, his parents might
hear you!
Night
comes and goes, and then another. The father finds several
men willing to go up into the mountains to search - mountains
that are three miles away. How could a sixteen month-old toddler
get up to the mountains the mother asks?? Without answers,
the men silently go into the mountains, into the shelter of
wild animals and bears.
"No one knows if it was the fourth or the hundredth cave
that was checked - but in the last cave the men hear a voice
- a child's cry. Cautiously, they look into the darkness,
and ominously, they smell bear. The boy is in there, crying
and alive. As they creep further into the half-light of
the cave, they find a she-bear curled around the little
boy, protecting him from these new intruders into her cave.
The baby was found with the bear in her den, alive, unscarred,
and perfectly well after three days. And, he was well fed,
smelling of milk. The bear was nursing the child." (Kingsolver,
Barbara. "Small Wonder," Small Wonder: Essays. New
York, NY: Harper Collins, 2002, pgs. 1-21. )
What
does it mean? How is it possible that a huge hungry bear didn't
rip into the boy, but instead, took a small, delicate child
and fed him? Some would say "IMPOSSIBLE" but Kingsolver swears
the story is true, even providing the internet key words enabling
readers to pull up the accounts. Instead of impossible,
Kingsolver invites us to consider that warm lives are drawn
together in cold places. The bear was a mammal, as are
we, one that was lactating, and so had young offspring of
her own. We're invited to read this story and think of the
unconquerable force of parental love coupled with the
fact that we share a great majority of DNA code with other
mammals. In this context - baby crying, bear has milk, small
wonder the bear feeds the child- warm lives drawn together
in cold places.
That
story kept popping into consciousness as I read the story
of Paul's Damascus Road experience. Saul is the notoriously
violent person intent on his Stop-the-Church movement. Earlier
on in Acts he held coats for those stoning Stephen. From there
he began gathering lists - hungry to stamp out those people
of The Way. You know the broad sweep of the story; Paul ends
up one of the Way, appointed by the Lord Jesus to seek Gentile
converts, to nourish them. This is no small wonder!
Paul's story also reminds me of a small wonder
that came to the surface on the Women's retreat last weekend.
With Mary's leadership we immersed ourselves in experiencing
everyday spirituality. One of our exercises was to examine
a list of 26 spiritual disciplines and to identify which ones
particularly struck a chord with each of us. In small groups
we shared our experiences or desire for a chosen discipline.
Someone in my group said, "This isn't actually my chosen discipline
but I wonder how unity is a spiritual discipline."
(repeat)
Interestingly,
anyone ordained in the PC(USA) pledges to further the peace,
unity, and purity of the church. It's an ordination
question. How many of you have answered that question about
furthering the unity of the church? How do you practice the
spiritual discipline of unity?
Let's
think for a moment about ordination. Presbyterians recognize
ordination as a called position, where one is called to serve
a special function in the church. Actually, in the priesthood
of all believers, we believe God calls everyone to serve in
some unique way. Well, in our story today there is more than
one call. Think for a moment about Ananias' call. God's calling
him to minister to Paul. Now, I'm not sure they actually pledged
to further the peace, unity, and purity back then but I think
it's evident that it's on Ananias' mind. When Jesus tells
him to go to Paul -Ananias replies - wait a minute Lord, you
know what he's been doing to us, how much evil he's done to
your saints…it's as if he saying, this will not further the
unity of your church. The pews might start emptying out…I
don't know… But the Lord responds -
"Go, for he is
an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before
Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel; 16 I
myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake
of my name." (Acts 9:15-16, NRSV)
It's
a pivotal unifying act - recognizing Christ at the center,
Ananias goes to Paul -illuminating for us that conversion
is not an individual or onetime matter. Together, both of
these people of faith undergo transformation. Saul's blindness
is healed; Ananias sees Paul in a new way, notice he refers
to Paul as 'brother'. Seeing and knowing the risen Christ
is not an individual matter or onetime matter.
Conceptually
we would all agree that to know the Risen Christ we need each
other. And yet, it is so much easier to run from the Sauls
of our lives and into the comfort of those just like us. But
Jesus breaks in…we may not be knocked to the ground but Jesus'
breaks in and calls us…
- in the faces
of our family from whom we might be estranged;
- in our coworkers
who may annoy us;
- in our churches,
in our sessions, and presbyteries, and denominations struggling
to be faithful to the gospel they preach.
Everyday we are challenged with opportunities
to become transformed disciples, not in addition to who we
already are and what we do in the world -- but in and through
our passionate commitment to make the gospel visible wherever
and with whoever we are called to be.(Parrella,
Frederick J. "Third Sunday of Easter: Theological Themes,"
Lectionary Homiletics, Vol. XV, Number 3, April-May
2004, p. 23.)
Our
trust is in a Living God who continues to create and do new
things, calling us to reform our interpretations from time
to time. Does that mean faith is relative? To use Paul's words,
"By no means!" I think we're leaving room for the Risen Christ
to do new things in and through each others lives, which brings
new understanding as this morning's reading from the Acts
of the Apostles emphasizes. Yet, it sure makes the spiritual
discipline of unity somewhat of a moving target - again, no
small wonder.
The denomination feels it is really no small
wonder at this time in the life of the denomination. In 2001,
General Assembly of the PC(USA) put together a Theological
Task Force on the Peace, Unity, and Purity of the church.
Members of the Task were intentionally selected to reflect
the diversity of the church, in order to "lead the PC(USA)
in spiritual discernment of our Christian Identity in and
for the 21st century…" If you've been around "the Church"
for any amount of time, as in all times, there are a myriad
of issues facing the Body of Christ. And, to quote the Task
Force: "There is rich diversity in the Body of Christ and
there are deep disagreements among its members. Yet, the unity
we seek cannot be reduced to either uniformity or unanimity.
In particular, unity cannot be attained if the voices of some
members of the body are ignored. It is especially important,
when the mind of the church is significantly divided and its
decisions are unlikely to be unanimous, that all voices be
heard and respected."(Theological Task
Force on Peace, Unity, and Purity of the Church Preliminary
Report to the 216th General Assembly (2004), 23 February
2004, pg. 3,
http://www.pcusa.org/peaceunitypurity/resources/prelimreport.pdf
)
A
recurring theme in focus group discussions and interviews
was the need for the Task Force to determine a process and
instrument to engage genuine and honest dialogue about what
we really agree upon and what we disagree about. Denominationally
there is a focus on promoting dialogue with those who in faith
and faithfully disagree in order to practice unity. Borrowing
imagery, I'd like to point out that the Body of Christ is
a gathering of warm lives drawn together from cold places
~~ drawn together by the Risen Christ. Intentionally diverse
from an artistic God, it's not always an easy place to be.
God will show the way ~ when we pray, and work, and sacrifice
for a more faithful life together.
I end with this thought from a sermon titled
"Could You Be Wrong about God" preached by Craig Barnes, former
pastor of National Presbyterian Church in DC: "In his book
The Call, Os Guinness tells the story of Dr. Arthur
Burns, the former chair of the Federal Reserve Board. Although
he was Jewish, Dr. Burns agreed to join a White House Bible
study. But since he was Jewish, the other members of the study
were afraid to ask him to pray at the end of their time together.
One day, they had a guest leader, who didn't know the unwritten
rule and asked Dr. Burns to pray. To everyone's surprise,
he stood up and began to pray "O God, may the day come when
all Muslims will come to know Jesus, and when all Jews will
come to know Jesus, and when all Christians will come to know
Jesus." ("Stories that Preach," Preaching:
Word & Witness, 25 April 2004. Vol. 04:3, p. 22)
Our unifying quest is to pray and to work and
to sacrifice to know Jesus with all of our being. The
Psalmist reassures us of the outcome that comes from the struggle
~ weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes in the morning.
God turns our struggle into dancing and clothes us with joy.
No small wonder. Amen.
© Copyright, 2004, Lisa Rzepka
All Rights Reserved.
Providence Presbyterian Church
Fairfax, Virginia
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