Readings for the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Year A) Proper 18 – Track 2
This sermon was preached at Christ Episcopal Church in Eureka CA on Sunday September 10, 2023.
It’s good to be back indeed! After 15 consecutive Sundays away, it’s good to be back. One of my goals when I arrived here almost six years ago was for this congregation to experience a successful Sabbatical which includes the return of the rector after the Sabbatical, and that very important part of the goal is fulfilled today. As Jesus preached in his first sermon, “Today this is fulfilled in your hearing.” And this is no small feat. This accomplishment speaks to the health and vitality of this congregation and to the trust between us. Thank you for trusting me and thank you for deepening and strengthening my trust in you. Although the official Sabbatical is over, the overall Sabbatical experience continues as we reflect together on what we’ve learned and as we discern what God is now calling us to be. As the Sabbatical door is closing, we are invited to notice what windows are opening, what life-giving breeze is calling for our attention.
During the first several weeks of Sabbatical, we included in the weekly email updates videos of my teachings on the Hebrew alphabet and Psalm 119, which is read from each Wednesday in our Daily Office. This acrostic Psalm, I learned, is read from every day at Midday Prayer in the Anglican Church of Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia. Their Midday Prayer service includes a portion from this Psalm for each day of the week. Three times a day at St. John’s College in Auckland, we would stop what we were doing whenever we heard the ringing of the church bell, and we’d gather in the chapel to pray. And at Midday Prayer on Mondays, we read the verses from Psalm 119 that we just read/sang this morning. (I wish I could take you all with me to that timber Gothic Revival chapel in Auckland.) The verse that I focused on in my teaching was verse 37, which the New Zealand prayer book translates in this way: “Turn away my eyes from vanity, and give me life in your Spirit” (Ps. 119:37).[1] And the heading given in the New Zealand prayer book for this eight-verse-long stanza of the psalm (which is 176 verses long altogether!) is “Desiring life in God’s Spirit.”[2] Now although I very much appreciate this title and translation (and I’m absolutely enamored with the New Zealand prayer book), I was disappointed to see that their prayer book fails to include any reference to the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, upon which the whole psalm is structured.[3] So I felt even more glad to be home when I saw in our bulletin this morning the proper Hebrew letter written above the psalm on page 11, right before the Latin title.[4] Thank you, Thomas! I did not tell him to do that.
The Hebrew letter is written as “HE” and is pronounced “Hay.” It looks like a backwards lower case “r” with an extra vertical line. It is believed to be an ancient pictograph (or derived from an ancient pictograph) of a window. Remember every Hebrew letter has its own wisdom and power and personality. The wisdom of the letter HE teaches us that “when one door closes, another window opens.”[5] The letter HE invites us to turn our attention away from the closed doors in our lives and start looking at the open windows. So, what’s opening in your life? In our life together? Where are you noticing the flow of a life-giving breeze? The HE stanza in the psalm emphasizes this invitation when it says, in verse 37, “Turn my eyes from watching what is worthless [the closed doors] and give me life in your ways.” In other words, turn our attention away from our sense of scarcity and show us the gifts of abundance that are being offered every day, the joyful abundance that flows through our windows, so that we might be more “rooted in abundance.”[6]
As the Sabbatical door is closing, we are invited to notice what windows are opening, what life-giving breeze is calling for our attention, as individuals and as a congregation. At the second Vatican Council, Pope John XXIII used the image of the window when he talked about bringing the church into the 20th century, updating the church, aggiornamento. He said it was time to “throw open the windows of the church and let the fresh air of the spirit blow through.” What does it look like for us to let the fresh air of God’s life-giving spirit blow through our windows? What does it look like for us to turn our attention towards life? The other readings today all echo this invitation to turn towards life. In Ezekiel, God speaks through the prophet, saying, “[May] the wicked turn, turn, from their ways and live” (Ez. 33:11). In his letter to the Romans, Paul says, “Let us lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light and let us live” (Romans 13:12). And Jesus’s teachings in the Gospel of Matthew are all about how we in the church can help those who are stuck staring at those closed doors and turn their attention to the abundant life that is flowing through the open windows all around us.
On the first day of my Sabbatical, I learned about the tragic and unexpected death of my close friend, Jacob. He worshipped here once during a visit, and I would often go camping with him around this time of year. His death, which has shaken me profoundly, cast a significant shadow over my Sabbatical. Although it’s hard and heavy for me to share on this first day of my return, my dear friend died by suicide. So, the invitations in the Scriptures today to turn towards life are especially poignant for me. I have spent a lot of time weeping, grieving, and reflecting on the closed door of his earthly life, but I also feel his spirit nudging me to notice his presence in the beauty of the places where we would camp (like Harris Beach State Park) and in the gentles breezes that blow through life’s open windows. As we begin this post-Sabbatical season together, may we keep turning our eyes away from what is empty, worthless, and vain and may we learn to keep turning our attention towards what is life-giving, especially towards our loving, liberating, and life-giving God, who has revealed himself to us in Jesus Christ and who has given us each day and each moment of “this one wild and precious life.”[7] Amen.
[1] In the Psalms for Worship section, the verse is translated: “Turn away my eyes from what is empty and false: and give me life in your way.” A New Zealand Prayer Book: He Karakia Mihinare o Aotearoa, 340.
[2] A New Zealand Prayer Book: He Karakia Mihinare o Aotearoa, 148.
[3] Even in the “Psalms for Worship” which includes a different translation of Psalm 119, the letters of the Hebrew alphabet are not included. Instead, the letters of the English alphabet are used, which does not make sense since the original Hebrew poem is structured acrostically according to the Hebrew alphabet not the English alphabet. A New Zealand Prayer Book: He Karakia Mihinare o Aotearoa, 338 – 349.
[4] The Latin title “Legem pone” means “teach me your law” or “lay down the law.” The phrase began to be used as a slang term in the 1570s since this portion of the psalm was read on the twenty-fifth morning of the month which also happened to be payday. The phrase “pony up” is believed to be a corruption of this Latin phrase “legem pone.”
[5] This quote has been attributed to Alexander Graham Bell. Although Bell wasn’t Jewish, some insist that he invented the telephone so that he could call his mother, hence, “Ma Bell.” https://www.jewishpress.com/sections/the-jew-who-invented-the-telephone-and-the-record-player/2017/10/10/
[6] This year’s stewardship theme.
[7] Mary Oliver, “The Summer Day”
DANIEL DeFOREST LONDON 