January 13, 2008
Matthew 3:13-17
“When The Heavens Last Opened…”

“And suddenly the heavens opened up to him… and a voice from heaven said, 'This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”  Tell me… when was the last time the heavens were opened up for you and you heard God's blessing, God's benediction, upon you?  I have a hard time remembering such moments.  Or is it that I have a hard time believing God's blessings are with me.  Do you struggle like this, too?

Why is that?  Is it that we think we are rarely, if ever, in God's favor? Do we think that sometimes we are not God's beloved and then, depending upon our behavior, our beliefs, or simply God's mood, sometimes we are?  Does God turn divine affection on and off like a light or a faucet?  God loves me - God loves me not.  God loves me - God loves me not.

Or, rather, is it more the case that we are always God's beloved, we just get caught up with the ways and words of this world and believe differently.  “I'm no good, and I probably never will be.”  Do we separate ourselves so very far from Jesus, contrast ourselves so highly with him, that we begin to think we could never receive God's blessings like him, so the heavens must be shut up tight for us.  No blessings come to us anymore.

There is another way, however.  Doctor and writer, Rachel Naomi Remen, quotes author Mark Nepo..
Each person is born with an unencumbered spot, free of expectation and regret, free of ambition and embarrassment, free of fear and worry, an umbilical spot of grace where we were each first touched by God.  It is this spot of grace that issues peace.

Why do we lose sight of this “spot of grace?”  How can we forget these original blessings of God?  Can we reclaim them today? Must it take the heavens opening up to get our attention?

There's the story of the little boy who had a brand new baby sister.  The first time he thought he was alone with the baby after she had come home from the hospital, his parents heard him whisper into the crib the heartfelt question that clearly had been on his mind since she was born, “Tell me about God.  I'm beginning to forget.”

Sometimes we forget, but sometimes, we just get weary.  One of my most favorite theologians, Walter Brueggemann, captured this for me:

So what is it that makes people like us weary?  It is not working too hard that makes us weary.  It is rather, I submit, living a life that is against the grain of our true creatureliness… being placed in a fast position so that our day-to-day operation require us to contradict what we know about ourselves and what we love most about our life as children of God.  Exhaustion comes from the demand that we be, in some measure, other than we truly are; such an alienation requires too much energy to navigate. (2)

Baptism is that moment, not just in the life of the individual being baptized, but in the life of the entire community, where we take a stand against the world and call each of us to live the truth.  The truth is that every moment of every day of every life of every person on earth, and even the creation itself, is beloved.  We renounce the lie that we have to live against the grain of our God-given selves and we reclaim that spot of grace that was formed at our birth that is God's love forever found in our lives.

Mark Nepo affirms, “To know this spot of inwardness is to know who we are, not by surface markers of identity, not by where we work or what we wear… but by feeling our place in relation to the Infinite and by inhabiting it.”

I remember a sign on the desk of my college pastor which read, “There is absolutely nothing you can ever do to keep God from loving you!” which is to say, the heavens are open for business, 24/7/365!  You do not need to do anything special or be anybody other than who God created you to be to receive God's blessings, God's benediction, which literally means, “God's Good Word.”  We might forget the truth, listening to the lies of the principalities and powers that would have us believe God's love is fickle and God's blessings are for others more holy than ourselves.  But it is for us who gather each Sunday who hear and read and sing the truths of Holy Scripture to remind ourselves and others that we are blessed.

Henri Nouwen, Catholic priest and renown writer who worked with people who are challenged mentally, tells a story of how difficult it is for some of us to believe we are blessed and how critical hearing good words, literally “bene-dictions”, is:
There is one of my friends there who is quite handicapped but a wonderful, wonderful lady. She said to me, "Henri, can you bless me?" I remember walking up to her and giving her a little cross on her forehead. She said, "Henri, it doesn't work. No, that is not what I mean." I was embarrassed and said, "I gave you a blessing." She said, "No, I want to be blessed." I kept thinking, "What does she mean?"

We had a little service and all these people were sitting there. After the service I said, "Janet wants a blessing."… Janet walked up to me and said, "I want to be blessed." She put her head against my chest and I spontaneously put my arms around her, held her, and looked right into her eyes and said, "Blessed are you, Janet. You know how much we love you. You know how important you are. You know what a good woman you are."

She looked at me and said, "Yes, yes, yes, I know.” I suddenly saw all sorts of energy coming back to her. She seemed to be relieved from the feeling of depression because suddenly she realized again that she was blessed. She went back to her place and immediately other people said, "I want that kind of blessing, too."

That is what we do here today.  We raise our faces to the open heavens above us.  We dare to tell the truth of the gospel and proclaim the hope of God: we ARE God's Beloved children.  Let us speak and live that truth anew each day!

(1) Mark Nepo, from “Unlearning Back To God,” 1994; quoted in Rachel Naomi Remen's Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories That Heal, (New York: Riverhead Books, 1996, 2006), p. 271

(2) Walter Brueggemann, Mandate To Difference: An Invitation To The Contemporary Church, (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 207) page 42.

(3) "The Life of the Beloved," Fr. Henri Nouwen, 30 Good Minutes, Chicago Sunday Evening Club, 1991.
http://www.csec.org/csec/sermon/nouwen_3502.htm






Rev. Allen V. Harris
Franklin Circle Christian Church
www.FranklinCircleChurch.org


 

Copyright 2008 -- The Rev. Allen V. Harris

Franklin Circle Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

1688 Fulton Rd., Cleveland, OH 44113-3096