Rev. Molly Phinney Baskette ~ First Church Somerville
Sunday, August 10, 2008 ~ Thirteenth Sunday in Pentecost
Matthew 14:22-33
"Lure"
Monday morning, 8:23 am. I'm stuck in traffic on Mass Ave in North Cambridge in a borrowed car, and I've gone only 3 blocks in 15 minutes. My two-year-old daughter Carmen is spilling raspberries all over the back seat, grinding them into my friend's upholstery. I've already been to East Somerville and back this morning through an obstacle course of irritation; I have exactly one nerve left and every car between here and route 16 is sitting on it.
Monday morning, 8:27 am. We have moved precisely 9 feet. Carmen needs to be at her allergist's office in Concord. In 3 minutes. I will my little Toyota Echo to turn into Chitty Chitty Bang Bang so I can rise effortlessly over the rows of cars and into the ether. I can't miss this appointment. Today is the day they may take Carmen off the steroids prescribed for her asthma. If I miss this appointment, I might have to wait a month for another one.
Monday morning, 8:29 am. We haven't moved. I imagine the gritty urban sequel, entitled Shitty Shitty Gang Bang, in which Chitty goes on a shooting spree and takes out every SUV in North Cambridge. I'm drawn out of my angry reverie by Carmen, hollering from the back seat that she's done with her toast. It's toast made from the only kind of bread commercially available that is safe for her to eat, since in addition to asthma she has deadly peanut and sesame allergies. She hands me her crust, and as I take it, I see on the edge of the toast: a single verboten sesame seed, mocking me.
Were there other sesame seeds that actually made it into her mouth? I check for signs of anaphylaxis setting in. Panting, hives, wheezing? Carmen is singing happily, and kicking the seat in front of her.
This is life. We are perfectly ok one minute and the next are gasping for breath. We are engines that go from 60 to 0 in twenty minutes on Mass Ave. We think we are fine, and then the most ordinary thing completely undoes us. My spiritual director asked me the other day, "Do you know the difference between ego desire and soul desire?" Sometimes, I said. Sometimes. We are forever battling between ego-desire and soul-desire; between the things that will satisfy our control tendencies and the things that will make for harmony between ourselves and all other living things.
Last week Laura Ruth said during the time of confession that it takes her a long time to figure out what she wants. I don't have that problem. I always know exactly what I want. I also have a pretty good idea, most of the time, about what other people ought to want. And it is, as Laura Ruth also said, hard for me to let go of my own desires, my own divine plan, for myself and for others. On that Monday morning, the plan was for Carmen to go to her allergist, and be declared healthy and approaching normal and therefore not a cause of constant anxiety for me and her father. It was also the plan for every other car on the road to intuit my need and graciously give way.
8:31 am. Still no signs of anaphylaxis. Also no signs of making the turn off Mass Ave and onto Route 16 before the Rapture. It is too late to go to the allergist, and I want to cry. I am crying. There is only one thing I can do. "Save me," I whisper to God, over and over. "Save me. I know my plight seems terribly trivial given everything that Zimbabwe and Georgia are up against today, but I need you. Show me a way out of no way."
There are those among you who have trouble praying. There are those among you who have trouble asking God to save you. If you pray for something specific, for something you deeply desire, and God gives it to you, does that mean God loves you more than God loves those who suffer without ceasing? We can't believe in such a God.
And then there is the other possibility. If you pray and you pray and God doesn't give you your desire, does that mean God can't, that God is powerless, or perhaps does not exist at all?
What power does God have to change the circumstances of our lives? To remit cancer, to bring refugees home, to protect children from violence in their homes? The real problems of pain and evil seem to indicate a God who has left the building. And if God doesn't cure every cancer, who are we to ask God to get us out of traffic?
God gave us free will and can't and won't make us behave. Human choice and plain old circumstances make for a great variety of suffering. There are holocausts and there is Monday morning gridlock.
But if there is a real problem of pain, there is also a real gift of grace. We know it is true because we have received it. There are moments we notice beauty out of the corner of our eyes and turn toward it. Moments when a breeze blows up out of nowhere and we close our eyes and let it overtake us. This is a moment when things re-align and a miracle slips into the space that has opened up.
The beauty, the breath of air, is the invitation to grace. What if God is luring us with this breath and beauty? What if the only power God in fact has is the power to lure us toward grace with beauty or truth?
I am too late to go to the allergist. The truth is, the only lane of traffic moving is the right hand one, leading back toward home. There is only one thing to do. Call and reschedule. Give up my wants, my agenda. No, no, no! Ok. Yes. I will. The receptionist is very kind. She can hear the tears in my voice and gives us the last appointment of the day, bless her heart. We drive to Concord that afternoon through dappled sunlight. When we arrive, the doctor is relaxed and chatty. "I'm so glad you didn't come this morning-there were a lot of people with complicated issues. It's good to have some time to talk." We talk about asthma, about the perils of errant sesame seeds, and then conversation turns to, of all things, Jesus. The doctor hasn't been to church for a long time, 20 years. He sounds wistful. And now hopeful, does he sound hopeful? What if the only power God has is to lure us with beauty and truth, to make a little opening and hope we turn, notice, say yes?
The rose in bloom. The subway busker. The last-minute invitation. The newspaper ad. The song that comes on the radio, letting you know what you should do. Our loved one comes up behind us as we stand at the kitchen sink crashing the dishes around and nuzzles our neck. Do we brush them away impatiently, or turn and requite? God is luring us with beauty and truth, the breath. But we get to decide if we will take the bait.
The disciples sat in the boat, some cowering, some complaining, stuck in the middle of the stormy sea of Galilee. Peter saw Jesus walking toward the boat, and he wanted more than anything to be with him. What was his wanting? Was he showing off for the other disciples? Look how tight I am with Jesus? Was he putting God to the test: "if it is you, Lord, command me to come to you on the water." Or was he following the lure of beauty and truth? Was this ego-desire or soul-desire?
It is always a soul-desire to want to be closer to God, even if there's ego mixed in. CS Lewis said: you would not desire God unless God first desired you. The longing you feel, to be close to God, is God. Jesus felt drawn to Peter from way up on that mountaintop, and set out toward him long before Peter leaped out of that boat. Jesus' love and longing and luring long preceded Peter's.
Our own wantings and agendas crowd in and will never give us a minute's peace, like all those disciples left bickering and shivering in the boat. In a minute we will sing "I'm tired of sin and straying, Lord." That's a different way of saying, "I'm tired of wanting what I want, and I'm ready to want what you want." It's not wrong to want your child to be well. But it might be wrong to want it at the expense of other people's needs and destinations and children. All those other people, inside of their cars, inside of their lives, struggling between ego-desire and soul-desire, between sin and grace. We are all intricately connected in this body; our salvation depends on one another, and it's God who does the connecting. The luring, if we are sensible enough to notice.
Every moment of every day, in every one of your lives, a hand reaches out across the waves. A space opens in the schedule, a right turn happens, a little miracle slips in.
People,
If you don't hear the voice of God.
If you don't know where your prayers go when you pray.
If you are stuck in the traffic of your mind.
If you are afraid to pray trivial prayers.
If you can't breathe too much of the time.
If you can't let go of control.
Look and listen for the lure
The lure of beauty
The lure of truth
The breath of air
The bit of dappled sunlight finding its way to the forest floor
The little open place where a miracle has enough room to drop in.
The author Haven Kimmel says:
"God is helpless. We are at the mercy of our own radical freedom, and all God can do is take into God's self the grief, the violence, the sublime acts of kindness, the good sex. God comes to us from the future, and has only one godlike gift: the lure. We are lured toward truth, beauty, goodness...the lure is pulling at our hearts like some lucid joy inside every actual occasion and all we have to do is...
Say yes."
