A Gourmet Meal - PENT 10C-2016

This morning I would like to try something.

I would like all of you to close your eyes. Now focus on a sound that you hear.

Now listen for a sound farther away, and farther away again – until you are listening to the farthest away sound.  Give people a chance to listen and breathe.

Did this exercise change you a little bit? Perhaps your head doesn’t feel as fuzzy, or you feel more present/centered; or maybe your breathing has slowed. Are you more aware of what and who is around you?

I learned of this exercise when I was in high school.  A teacher, who was always concerned about the success of his students, offered tidbits of wisdom on how to cope with stress – in this case exam stress – particularly the kind that would have students drawing a blank.  He suggested that before an exam we calmed ourselves by focusing on the farthest away sound we could hear.  If we went blank, or our hearts were racing, we were to listen to the pencil or pen scratching of the student in the next row and then one in the next row and so on.  More often than not pausing to do the exercise re-focused our brains on the task at hand.

Do you focus your heart and mind before, and/or during prayer?

The human mind is pretty amazing. We use only a small portion of the grey matter we’ve been given.  And what we do use is chucked full of schedules, appointments, outside noise, instant replays, the task at hand and others waiting to be accomplished; it is full and constantly busy deciphering data and analysing situations.

Concentrated prayer becomes difficult in this murky mind mess.  In this state prayers end up being all about the “ask,” as if God has a cosmic grocery store in the sky; ready to fill our shopping bags with what we want and what we perceive we need.  Our prayer life is often of the drive-thru sort; “fast food.” These prayers are the quick “help” prayers, and sometimes include the quick “thanks.”

This morning, the first reading and the Gospel share prayers that are not of the “fast food” variety.  Rather these examples are of the gourmet variety.

I recently finished the book, Praying Like a Gourmet, by David Brazzeal.

David’s book considers prayer from the mind and heart from a “foodie” perspective.  The ideas shared in the book are recipes for a fuller prayer life.  The recipes are the next step in prayer – moving one from simply getting the groceries to having a full course meal.

Bring to mind the last multiple course meal you partook in.

For some this would include: before drinks and hors d’oeuvres – often eaten while guests continue to arrive; then there is gathering around a neatly dressed table with appetizers, salad, main course, and dessert with after dinner drinks.  Remember the people in attendance – those gathered around the table. Remember the decked out table with each place setting, cloth serviettes.  Such meals are anything but fast food. The experience is carried over a span of hours with lots of conversation and laughter; enjoyment of culinary dishes and the company of others.  At the end of the evening one is left with a feeling of being full: satisfied, overflowing with warmth, hospitality, contentment.  One leaves feeling better about themselves and the world then when they sat down to eat.  The body, mind, and spirit are nourished and filled with hope.

Last week we read that Abraham was visited by three visitors.  He had bread made and a calf prepared --- the meal preparation took time, lots of time; there was lots of time for conversation and fellowship.  The text this morning suggests that God was at the meal.  The three men have gone ahead and we encounter Abraham in a deep conversation with God.  Abraham is not presenting a “fast food” wish list – he is trying to determine the depth of God’s justice and what role he -Abraham- plays within the endowment of this justice. The conversation is not quick or easy.  I picture Abraham mulling over God’s answers and whether or not to ask the next question – hoping for God to have a vaster sense of justice than Abraham ponders is possible; Abraham’s questions are daring and push the limits of his faith each time he seeks a deeper understanding of God via how vast God’s sense and practice of justice is.

As Jesus teaches the disciples to pray, the Lord’s Prayer also speaks to a deeper form of prayer – the prayer itself is a recipe, that when prayed is a full course meal.

Our Father – is God’s invitation to dinner, our willingness to welcome God to sit at our table

Who art in heaven –  we honour God’s presence and acknowledge that God is beyond ourselves

Hallowed be your name – in these words we praise and bless the Guest; humble ourselves; thank the Guest for coming – when indeed the Guest could have declined

Thy kingdom come.   – and there it is: the focus statement of the prayer.  It is the sound the pencil makes in the next row of the exam room; and the next row after that; ever spreading further outward – God’s justice increasingly endowed. It is a moment of pause for contemplation.

The opening part of the Lord’s Prayer is invitation, praise, thanks, and contemplative focusing.  In Praying Like a Gourmet, all of these courses are positively filling the person who is eating and the ambience sets the stage for the main course to come. By the time the main course is begins the people gathered at the table are so focused on the bounty and the other people at the table, so whelmed by fellowship, that the grocery list of prayers one carries with them becomes short, if remembered at all.  The items on the regular grocery list: give us this day our daily bread, are said, but, because of the courses before are no longer said in a self-serving prayer – as we are in a state of mind thinking of others.  This “ask” becomes give us our daily bread so that we have something to share with others.

And then there is another “ask,” forgive us our sins – but it also does not stand alone, it has become deeper conversation with a statement of our participation in God’s justice as we forgive those indebted to us.

And do not bring us to the time of trial. A forward thinking prayer, as there is much work to do for God’s kingdom to come.  The time of trial is the end – and the request is not an “ask” of protection for ourselves, or a selfish want of having a life without hardship; it is a deep conversation, an aspiration of being involved in kingdom work – so consumed with and endeavouring to endow others with grace that trias goes by- unnoticed and unhampering mission.

The Lord’s Prayer is a full gourmet meal deal!

Let us try another exercise. Choose a person sitting near you.  Close your eyes and picture them. Think on them.

To think on them, is to concentrate and focus on their image, just as you focused earlier on listening to a specific sound. To contemplate the image of this person is silent prayer for them, a prayer that doesn’t need words, or specific petitions, just a lifting up of this person before God. The silent honouring of the person, a holding of them in the palm of your hands, sitting with them at a common table.  And if there should be thoughts, perhaps articulated prayer come out as, “If there be one found righteous, God, would you save the city?” “As we forgive those indebted to us.”  “To them -daily bread, no time of trial.” “To them your kingdom come.”

In an ongoing research study, that is my collection of peoples stories, the majority of people say prayers at bedtime and include the Lord’s Prayer. What an opportune time to practice gourmet prayer.

Consider bedtime as a time when God’s kingdom is under your pillow.

As you lay your head down to sleep, recall the person sitting beside you in church – think on them; now bring to mind the physically closest person to you, then think on the people who live next door, …and the next door.  Work your way down the hallway of your apartment building, or the houses down your street. Next (if you are still awake), think on people further afield: those on the streets, faces from the supermarket, those you know in the next town, province, country, around the world (those who are known and those unknown).  This could become, as I talked with the children earlier, your beaten path to sleep; a beaten path of prayer -drawing your heart to allow the unleashing of God’s kingdom around you and through the world.

As I think on you as I fall asleep this week, I will hold you and lift you before Our Father. As I think on you, it will be for a full course, gourmet, multi-course meal --- no fast food in your prayer diet.  May God’s kingdom come through my prayer, through your prayer, through our prayer --- as God is invited to dine with us and us with each other, may God’s justice surprise.

Martha-and-Mary-Living: Pent 9C-2016

Before us this morning is a tableau, a little table set for tea – with fancy tea-pot, cups and saucers, linen table cloth and napkins, a vase of flowers; ready with 2 chairs, a shawl, a book.

When you look at the table set for tea: what do you think, what do you feel, what do you want to do?

This vignette is the story of Martha and Mary.

Preparing, offering hospitality, serving, cleaning up – conversation, reading, reflecting, relaxing --- all of these gifts are part of tea time.  Which of these are you invited to do?

We have heard the story of Martha and Mary many times. 

Martha models: Service, hospitality, and action.  Mary exemplifies: Study, listening, and reflection.

Reflection on the story often focuses on the actions of the two women (one being better than the other), Jesus chiding Martha, and sometimes, speakers reflect a focus not on the actions, but, the heart behind the serving or listening.

What is important about the story that you may not have heard emphasized are facts like: Martha welcomes Jesus into HER home and he accepts.  Jesus welcomes women, Mary, to sit at his feet – meaning invited to learn, and to be a disciple.  Needless to say these facts make the story amazing.  For the contemporaries of Martha, Mary, and Jesus, the actions in this event would be unheard of, even scandalise.

Today, let us embrace the radicalness found in the story, and turn upside down the pitting of Martha and Mary against each other.

The text of Martha and Mary experiencing Jesus presence in their home falls in an interesting place in the book of Luke. It is a story wedged between the parable of the Good Samaritan, which we heard last week; and Jesus teaching the disciples to pray using the Lord’s prayer. The story of Martha and Mary combines the stories on either side, applying what it means to be an hospitable servant and a contemplative learner and pray-er. The predicament of the text is placed in the middle of Jesus commending the ministry of service and the ministry of the Word.

The great preacher Fred Craddock wrote, ”we must not cartoon the scene: Martha to her eyeballs in soapsuds, Mary pensively on a stool in the den, and Jesus giving scriptural warrant for letting dishes pile high in the sink. If we censure Martha too harshly, she may abandon serving altogether, and if we commend Mary too profusely, she may sit there forever.  There is a time to go and do; there is a time to listen and reflect. Knowing which and when is a matter of spiritual discernment. If we were to ask Jesus which example applies to us, [Martha] or Mary his answer would probably be Yes.”

Consider this. Over the years of attending service you have been modeled the ministry of service and the ministry of Word.  You have been participants in Martha-and-Mary-living through the liturgy.   We gather for worship as both Martha and Mary.

Mary is modeled at the times of the scripture readings, the Kid’s corner, the sermon, the prayers of the people.

Martha is modeled in ushering, in the gathering hymn, sharing the peace, collecting the offering.

And then there is the Eucharist – the Holy meal- where Martha and Mary dance together: Martha sets the table, serves the meal; Mary listening and responding to the spoken Word. Together we gather and support each other in sharing a meal, as community through service and Word the space of the meal becomes holy.

Then following eating together, we are sent out as a people to “go in peace (Mary) and serve the Lord (Martha); to serve and to look and listen for God in daily life –-- Martha-and-Mary-living is holding hands with both and forming a sacred space in which to live and move and have being.

Sigurd Bergmann, Professor of Religious studies at Norwegian University of Science and Technology writes:

The Christian God is the God of the Here and Now.  Today, the task of interpreting God is inextricably linked to the task of interpreting the space wherein, whereby and whereupon God acts. To say that God only acts within religious institutions or within the inner most heart of believers is hardly in accordance with a classical understanding of Creation, which maintains that God is ‘the creator of everything visible and invisible,’ and thus can and should be sought everywhere between heaven and earth in constructed as well as natural places. Faith has to maintain an openness to spatial surprises by means of which God can manifest [God’s] presence.

In a world depicted in the horrors of the evening news and described in the headlines of daily newspapers, there is an important task at hand for each of us.  We are called to create Martha-and-Mary-spaces, to provide sacred places.

Focus on the vignette of the table set for tea.

There is an open invitation and a welcome to those who look – come and rest, come and eat, come and relax, come and serve, come and converse, come and enjoy. 

It took less than 30 mins to create this space. It doesn’t take up a lot of space.  It is beautiful and simple.

What kind of sacred, Martha-Mary-living space, can you create and offer to your neighbour?

·         In the church yard, there is a bench tucked in along the foundation beside the Windsor St. stairs.  I happened across a young women, book in hand, sitting on the bench reading, with an orange lily from the garden tucked behind her ear; she looked happy, at rest. The bench was an open invitation.

·         When I run I sometimes I go out and make my route as I go, going down inviting streets – usually places with nooks and crannies; interesting gardens, streetscapes, places with overhanging trees.

·         It’s creating places within your own home that are inviting – places that make one happy, content, at peace. Places where one takes a mug of coffee or a cup of tea.

·         When visiting in apartment buildings and manors, I take notice of the spaces people create around their doors.  Wreathes, little tables, items placed on provided shelves or curio cabinets, welcome mats.  That tiny space can be a moment of pause amidst the drudgery of every day living.

·         Our very persona in public can be, in and of itself, the creator and inviter of sacred space; the demeanor with which we greet others, the openness of space around ourselves, clothes that say “hello” or have us dismissed or unseen.

·         Our presence on social media, can be a created space that invites others, for conversation and reflection, uplifting moments, captured hope and joy, articulated ministry of service and ministry of Word.

On Thursday of this week I open the parsonage porch for ice tea. It will be an expanded version of the tableau you see here today.  The event is yet another illustration of what it means to balance life; to live a Martha-and-Mary kind of living. A space is provided and amidst welcome, hospitality there is a place for rest, conversation, relaxation, fellowship – Holy space.

Over the years, many times, I have entered peoples’ homes and been offered tea.  Each host has their own rituals around how it is made and what constitutes tea and the setting of a tea table.  There has been everything from chipped mugs and used tea bags, to silver tea services and china cups.  I have experience that the setting doesn’t really matter; each host’s hospitality and service [Martha] creates a safe place, that allows for conversation and fellowship [Mary] to turn tea time into sacred and holy space.

For whom will you set a table this week? For whom will you make tea? 

For whom will you model Martha-and-Mary-living?  For whom will you create safe and holy space?  And in doing this replace the horrors, the blood, the anger of world events with a vignette of welcome, invitation --- holy space.  This is a recipe to be repeated as often as the opportunity presents itself; and that is as often as you dare to set the table.