“The Line Still Holds
– all those who have gone before, myself, and those who are to come”
I want to thank the
Tongan Fellowship of our congregation for the foretaste of World Communion
last night – the bountiful meal, the beautiful dancing. In his words of
benediction, the founding pastor of the Tongan fellowship proclaimed that we
are “born to share.” Born to share! From the tiniest children who are
baptized this morning, from whom we borrow the future, -- through the
parents and the elders, from whom we inherit the past, -- to the 192
member-states of the United Nations, and all the native peoples and
language-groups, and even the four-legged peoples, with whom we share the
resources of this earth meant for all, and with whom we must find new and
bold ways to break the cycles of violent revenge and make peace as demanding
as war, -- We are all “born to share!”
“The Line Still Holds,”
writes Marie Livingston Roy, in our Words for Meditation, this morning.
Hold that line! She remembers the wrinkled hands of her grandmother, and
her grandmother’s tattered Bible, and the awe with which her grandmother
held it, -- even as Paul from prison here exhorts his young colleague
Timothy by memory of the faith of Timothy’s grandmother Lois and mother
Eunice, -- a third generation of the faithful already! Those whom Marie
Livingston Roy says by faith “hold the past within their hands” and hand it
on to us – what is baptism for us this morning but the handing of these
babies from God to us! The handing of these babies, from God’s hands to
ours.
Bill Withers sings of
“Grandma’s hands clapped to church on Sunday mornings / Grandma’s hands
played the tambourine so well / Grandma’s hands used to issue out a warning
/ . . . Grandma’s hands soothed the local unwed mothers / Grandma’s hands
used to ache sometimes and swell / Grandma’s hands, lord they’d really come
in handy!” We are handed the faith of this “old brass-bound Bible” for our
hearts, our minds, our fears, -- by those who teach us to talk to God when
they pray! Who bring God near to us and give us a safe place to be with
God! This God, “so wrapped up in the small goings-on of daily life,” – this
God “not too far away and busy with eternal things to take notice of one
small child.”
How shall we learn to
sing the Lord’s song of peace and justice, of holy baptism and world
communion, in such foreign lands? We live in so many Babylonian exiles from
one another. Note the word “baby” in “Babylonia!” Which today is Iraq.
Think of the babies of Iraq. Imagine them. See them. Touch them. Hold
them. Our brother in faith and district superintendent Suk-Chong Yu even
now is visiting with two sisters in North Korea whom he has not seen in more
than fifty years! He told us on retreat just before he left what mixture of
hope and fear he felt at not knowing just how he might sing the Lord’s song,
the song of some generations of his family, in his own homeland.
How tempted we are by
violent revenge! How easy for us to internalize the evil, the bad things,
that happen to us, -- to want to repay those who torment and torture us,
defeat and even devastate us! Even to dream of dashing their little ones.
How many molesters were first molested? How many violators first violated?
Even how many “terrorists” first terrorized? How unaware we may be of the
ways so many others have suffered so much in this world, of how they
understand what has happened to them, and of how they relate it to us.
Likewise so many workers, here and around this world, work, says Jesus, like
slaves in the field all day, only to come home to another job at night, just
in order to keep feeding and clothing, much less educating and
health-insuring their families, -- and our work, our world, our worship, --
our economics, our ecologics, our ecumenics -- relate closely to theirs.
World Communion says we are all related, all connected. Especially the harm
we do to others, whether we always mean it or not, whether we always know it
or not, we end up doing deepest to ourselves. The seeds we reap are the
seeds we sow.
Jesus speaks to us of
the tiniest faith of the tiniest seed. Our Call to Worship proclaims, “It’s
the tiniest of promises, that contains the greatest possibilities.” Each of
these children baptized this morning is born with the hopes, as well as the
fears, the entire world. Their new-wrinkled hands “hold out lifetimes of
gifts.” Their eyes “witness a generation of dreams.” Their feet “contain
unknown journeys yet untravelled.” They are “born to share.” And to be
shared with all the world! These babies are the free yet costly gifts of
God to each and to all of us, -- even as our gifts of faith are free yet
costly. For God is always giving, always providing. God never runs out of
gifts. God is sufficient. God is sustainable.
What’s amazing about
these tiniest of persons is what’s amazing about the tiniest seeds and even
about the tiniest faiths: All are made up already of everything they need
to grow! Tiny as they are, everything needed is in them already! To
mature! To bud, and to bloom, and to burst forth with fruit! As we say in
our “Progressive Church Prayer,” there is already an identity to our
diversity, an integrity to our complexity! No matter how long we may be in
full discovery and definition of our true selves! If we will just hang in
there with! If we will just love ourselves, and let ourselves be loved, --
tended, seen through to our harvest!
I close with some of a
lengthy interview, entitled “The World In a Seed,” with “seed saver” and
food historian William Weaver of eastern Pennsylvania. ( John Feffer,
www.alternet.org/story/19998/ ) The interviewer writes, “Along one
side of his house is an English garden. In the back are pots containing a
fruit paradise of quinces, medlars, lemons, pomegranates, citrons, even a
limequat that apparently makes a mean marmalade. Down a slope from the
front of the house, however, is the real treasure; a succession of raised
beds containing a colorful riot of vegetables and flowers. “’It’s a seed
garden,’ Weaver explains without a hint of apology in his voice, ‘not a
Martha-Stewart-kind-of-beautiful garden.’” (May Martha be gardening
still!) “’Seeds represent entire civilizations,’ says Weaver, ‘miniaturized
to fit into the palm of our hand.’ When a venerable seed variety perishes,
as with the loss of a valuable manuscript, human culture dies by degrees.”
Human culture dies by degrees. Think about vanishing seeds, think about
vanishing species, think about vanishing forests and habitats, think about
vanishing languages and cultures, -- think about vanishing tribes and
peoples.
Seeds are like tiny
books of genetic information! In the 1970s blighted U.S. corn was saved by
genes from a disease-resistant variety in Mexico down to its last 25 acres
of habitat! The Irish were not so lucky with their potatoes of the 1840s.
The interviewer summarizes Weaver’s concerns for the seeds of this earth –
“Fruit and vegetable varieties are rapidly disappearing and not simply
through changes in taste or fashion. As part of its efforts to standardize
trade, the European Union has outlawed the sale of thousands of heirloom
varieties. Agribusiness supports monocropping to maximize efficiency.
Biotechnology forms are patenting new genetically modified seeds that may
well threaten older varieties through unintended crossbreeding. And seed
companies are downsizing their catalogues to save money.” Weaver goes on to
prophesy, “We’re collapsing the ownership of the land into the hands of very
few people. We’re indenturing farmers in a very different way. Farmers are
now indentured to the land and the bankers own the ground.” “This has
reduced farmers to little more than modern-day serfs or, as Weaver says,
‘facilitators of technologies owned by a third party,’ and ‘the ownership of
seed makes it more absolute.’”
Jesus reminds us, God
owns the seeds, -- as sure as God owns the babies and God owns our faith.
Just think, imagine, what God can do with the very smallest of offerings
from us. As we come to partake together, to share, of the seeds of the
field, of the grain, of the grape, we remember with Mother Teresa, “We
cannot do great things, -- only small things with great love!” Let the
increase remain in the hands of our God, who gives all life and each of our
lives. Amen.
Rev. John Auer
