Monday, October 3, 2011

Jubilee - Cliff Notes of World Communion Sunday Sermon

The Bible is full of cycles of seven -- seven days to a week, six of work and one of rest or Sabbath; seven years – six of working, both land and labor and a seventh of rest and freedom or manumission; and seven sets of seven years for the Jubilee (on the 50th year) – return to the land, returning purchased land (which is more like our leasing or renting of land) and freedom from the bondage of servitude to another . . . all are cycles of creation.

Creation in the biblical view, is an on-going thing.  And somehow, some way, mysteriously, human beings are part of the creating as well as being the created. 

And one of our acts of co-creation with God, one of the hardest, is the act of restraint . . . of refraining from . . . of stopping . .

In the stopping, in the restraint, creation itself emerges as part of the divine creative process . . . the painting emerges from the canvas . . . the form from the sculpture . . . the character takes shape in the drama . . . and as every artist knows, sometimes, it’s the job of the artist to get out of the way . . . to take hands off . . . and simply allow the creation to speak for itself . . .to take on its own shape and form . . . to grant it the freedom to emerge . . .
 
We confess before coming to the Communion Table in order that we might ourselves be freed . . . freed from all that binds us up into the worries and hurries and scurries of this world into the waiting . . . wondering . . . resting . . . rescusitating pace of the divine . . .

We are assured of our own pardon that we might freely pardon others . . . that they too may be freed of the worries and hurries and scurries . . .

Jubilee reminds us that even as we are loved, so too is the other . . . as God loves each and all of us, so too God loves other people . . . the animals . . . the land . . . it’s immensely practical, this jubilee business, but so too is is wonderfully, divinely, inspired . . . Jubilee . . . rest and rescusitation . . .freedom and space for the emergence of . . . God’s own masterpiece!

2 comments:

  1. The hardest thing for me to do is get out of gods way.i have to do it so often. I dont know how i keep getting back in the way. I feel like a screen door....every time i get myself open and god comes through some how i slam shut again without even knowing....why do i close out what i want the most?....why does my liking to feel in control trump my love of god with out my even being aware?...maybe that is the essence of humaness and our job on earth to overcome Ann

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  2. Ann, I love the imagery of the swinging/slamming screen door - the sound reminding us, even as it catches us by surprise. Thank you for all your feedback. Hope you're feeling better.

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