Something Beautiful for God
A sermon from Ray Simpson at St. Luke’s, Ottawa Sunday June 16 2013
I bring you greetings from England’s Holy Island of Lindisfarne – a place where beautiful things were done for God when St Aidan, the Irish Scot first brought Christ’s gentle ways to English-speaking people. A place where brutal warriors learned the Gospel of Peace, where slaves whose freedom Aidan bought in the market place were offered work or study, where pigments and designs from east and west came to flower in the exquisite Lindisfarne Gospels, and whence Aidan went to dine with his saintly King Oswald, who in a beautiful action, gave the food from their Easter banquet to the hungry and even had the silver dishes cut into pieces that the hungry might be sustained.
An action that is still reflected in the Queen’s yearly visit to an English Cathedral on the day Jesus washed his disciple’s feet, to give silver coins to deserving local people.
Our lives although advanced in so many ways, can be marred by ugly drivenness or gnawing self-doubt – so we miss what it means to do something beautiful for God, or we have to low a self-image to do anything.
Take heart from today’s Gospel. Yes it was a Pharisee who gave Jesus an upfront dinner party – but it was a woman of the streets, despised by the establishment who was drawn to his goodness, sensed his impending suffering, spent her income on precious ointments, and lovingly lavished it upon his tired feet with kisses and tears.
Perhaps some of you feel, I’ve left it too late. It is never too late.
Helen worked at our Retreat House on Holy Island. She contracted inoperable cancer two years ago, and we thought she might die last year. Not so. A few days ago I received an email from her: This is the last time she could do such a thing – but this valiant Christ-loverhad a farewell charity thank you event yesterday at our Retreat House to raise money for the cancer support staff who have been caring for her. *
Some of us, however, don’t dare to do something beautiful for God because our love is locked up inside us. The Rector who trained me when I was a curate realised this was true of me. He taught me: “If you feel something, do something”.
I learned to start with the little things. David, Patron Saint of Wales, said “Do the little things you have seen me do”. A thank you note, a greeting, opening the door for someone, a smile that thaws a frozen face.
This is Father’s Day. Let us thank our Dad’s whether they are alive or dead, whatever were their faults for something they did that we appreciated.
‘Dad gave us tickets each year for the Atlantic Coast Basketball Tournament ….. I take full responsibility for the things I screwed up with Dad’ I found yesterday on a Dad’s Day google search..
To my Dad, now deceased, I say: Thank you that though you were too stressed to play with me, I have a photo of when we were on holiday and you did play with me – and for coming with me in the car to hospital when I broke my arm’.
Maybe we try to do kind things, but we feel we get it all wrong, we miss the mark. I frequently felt that, until someone gave me a book entitled ‘The Five Languages of Love’.
I learned that to express love to Jane I needed to tell her ‘You’re great and how can I help you?’, that to express love to Jim I needed to hug him. To show love to Kate I needed to do the washing up, and to Kevin to bring him a gift. And Nancy, she needed a listening ear. Since my love language was one of these, I needed to explain how friends could love me. I needed someone who understands me but gives me space until I call.
On this day when we recall how a woman anointed Jesus’ feet, why not ask ourselves these two questions:
1)what is the most beautiful thing anyone has done for me?
2)What is the most beautiful thing I have done for someone else?
1)I guess it’s a mother’s love, or maybe the person who prayed for my ears – when I did not know how to listen to the sounds of God in myself, or others, or in civilisation, or in stillness. When that person laid praying hands on my ears I felt they were expanding so much that I was embarrassed for anyone to see such huge ears – until I realised it was my inner ears that had been healed.
2)What is the most beautiful thing I have done for someone else –I can’t think. Not much. But I think I now know what I have got to do. Last week, at a TorontoChurch called ‘Sanctuary’ for people on the streets led by a Rock Band, I met Michael. He digs graves in a Jewish Cemetery. “You know,” he said, “it makes me sad, to see so many guys lowered into their graves, who’ve never told their story. Their children don’t know. They had a light but they didn’t let it shine”. I decided even as I sat next to Michael, that I would write my memoirs.
We can’t finish there. The woman in the Gospel gave her love to Jesus. Let’s join her - make sure we do something for our beautiful Jesus.
How do we do that?
Jesus said, “In as much as you do something for one of my brothers or sisters you do it to me”.
Mother Teresa tended the dying in the streets of Calcutta, it was Jesus her hands lovingly tended.
In the gentle silence of an aware and loving heart, smile at someone who has become sour, share with someone who beckons your heart.
Celtic Rune of Hospitality
We saw a stranger yesterday.
We put food in the eating place
Drink in the drinking place
Music in the listening place
And in the Sacred name of the Triune God
He blessed us and our house
Our cattle and our dear ones.
As the lark says in her song
Often, often goes the Christ
In the stranger’s guise.
* Helen died two weeks later