Sunday, September 16, 2007

The 16th Sunday after Pentecost: Spiritual Dust Bunnies

The Rev. Canon Anne E. Kitch

Luke 15:1-10

Why do we call them “dust bunnies”? You know, those little balls of dust and dirt that gather under beds and in corners of most homes. Are they “dust bunnies” because they multiply like rabbits, or because they move so quickly that just when you think you are about to capture one it scurries further under the bed and eludes you. Wikipedia, the online dictionary, proffers this, “Dust bunnies (often one word, dustbunnies) are little clumps of fluff that form under furniture and in corners that are not cleaned regularly.” It says nothing about where the term comes from. My daughter reminds me that Wikipedia is not a reliable source. So, another source of information available is Dust Bunny Facts at www.durtbunnies.com, which tells us that dustbunnies have been around for centuries and are an “untouched resource of easy-care pets for our busy life styles. They have lived quietly along side us and have already been domesticated.” Further internet research reveals Dust Bunnies, Inc. in Irving, TX which provides housecleaning and janitorial services. You can find them at www.dustbunniesinc.net.

None of these sites gives us a clue as to the origin of the term, but they aptly describe (even humorously) the dust and dirt that collects in our everyday lives. There is always “stuff” that eludes even the most diligent of housekeepers. Furthermore, I am convinced that spiritual dust bunnies have invaded our souls as well, cluttering them with who knows what. And there are also all those small items that get lost amongst the dust, as if the dust bunnies keep them as treasures: lost pencils, lost game tokens, and lost coins.

When Jesus was questioned about the kind of company he kept—you may remember that many people were concerned about him hanging out with the poor, the least, the lonely, and the lost—in typical fashion, he tells a story. He describes a woman who loses one of ten coins. She lights a lamp, sweeps the house, and searches carefully until she finds it. Once she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together to celebrate. Right. When was the last time you threw a party after you finally found that missing piece of the jigsaw puzzle you couldn’t finish last winter? What an incredible story Jesus tells.

But sometimes what is lost is much more important than a missing puzzle piece. I believe we can be lost amongst the dust and darkness of our inner lives, in profound ways, but also in everyday ones. When have you been lost in the darkness and dust of your own house, of your everyday life? We cannot keep our spiritual lives clear of clutter at all times. What if we have a God who is a diligent woman bringing light into the dark places of our lives? What if we have a God who industriously sweeps away all the dirt and dust and then searches to bring us out into the open? What it, once we are found, we are also brought into the community to celebrate with friends and neighbors?

That is exactly the kind of God we are loved by, and knowing this brings us hope. Hope is something we can give as well. Our Diocese and our Bishop have made a commitment to bringing hope to others. In a moment we will hear in a letter from Bishop Paul about our New Hope Campaign. This effort reaches out to those who are lost in their everyday lives of struggle and poverty. The New Hope Campaign affords us the opportunity to bring light into their darkness and sweep away despair. It compels us to search diligently for whoever may be lost and, once we find them, to then bring them into community. Better yet, we can become a community together, surrounding one another as friends and neighbors so that we can all celebrate!

God may be the diligent woman who searches for what is lost, but perhaps we can be the light or the broom or the neighbors who rejoice. When we are poor, or least, or lonely, or lost, God searches for us diligently, leaving no corner unswept. And once we are found, God welcomes us into community with all of those whom God loves. Knowing a God like this fills us with hope. When those around us are poor, or least, or lonely, or lost, we can also bring them hope. New Hope. New friends. New life.
Amen.

Copyright © 2007 Anne E. Kitch

Sunday, September 02, 2007

14th Sunday after Pentecost: Where is God in All This?

The Rev. Canon Anne E. Kitch

Jeremiah 2:4-13 Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16 Luke 14:1, 7-14

The water bottle is ubiquitous this time of year. You see them everywhere because drinking water is important—especially when it’s hot. There have been several days this past week when we have had to be careful of the heat. Drinking water is actually urgent when you are hot, or pregnant, or exercising. Yet drinking water is important all the time, even when not urgent. Still, it is amazingly easy to ignore water and our thirst for it.

I once volunteered to help with field day at the elementary school. My job was to handle the water station. I poured water from a cooler into tiny paper cups so that thirsty 1st and 2nd graders could come for a water break. But when they came, one looked at me, puzzled. “What’s this?”
“Water.”
“I don’t drink water.” I don’t drink water. Not, I don’t like water, or I don’t want water, or I’m not thirsty, but I don’t drink water. I just looked at her.
“Do you have any juice boxes?” she asked.
“No.”
She was not the only who refused. I pondered this. How could you not drink water? Had she and her family been lured into believing that juice boxes, full of sugar and false nutrients, could assuage her thirst? In so many instances we are lured into what seems easy or comforting or flavorful and ignore that we simply need water in order to survive. As we forget or forego the importance of water for our thirsty bodies, so we can easily forget God for our thirsty souls.

It is amazingly easy to ignore God--even for religious folks. Many people go days, even weeks or months without thinking twice about God. For some it is years or a life-time. Even those of us here today, who have made some public affirmation of some kind of faith, are not immune to God-forgetfulness. How easily do we set God far off? In heaven or in the future?

This is the cry of Jeremiah. Why do you not seek for God, he cries. Living and preaching God’s word 500 years before Jesus was born, Jeremiah was God’s chosen prophet to all the families of the House of Israel. “What wrong did your ancestors find in me,” God speaks through Jeremiah, “that they went far from me, and (not only that) went after worthless things, and became worthless themselves?” Why did they not simply ask, “Where is the Lord?” This is the important question for Jeremiah to be asked at all time and at all places—where is God in all this. Because in asking the question, we set our attention toward God. When our eyes and heart are set on seeking God, we have already acknowledged God’s presence. We pay attention. We sense that God is near.

This is the question for us as people of faith to be asked at all times and in all places: where is God in all this? It is not a rhetorical question. It is a question of faith, because it assumes an answer. It is not whether God is present, but how God is present. The answer to “Where is God” will always be, “here.” It is the forgetfulness of the people that Jeremiah laments. Your ancestors did not say, “Where is God?” and the priests did not say, “Where is God?” They stopped asking the important question. Instead they forgot who they were. They went about their lives as if God were not. And worse than that, they tried to replace the sustenance of God with empty wells. They forgot to drink their water. “Be appalled, O heavens, at this, be shocked, be utterly desolate…for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and dug out cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that can hold no water.”

I once had a water pitcher with a crack in it. I kept filling it and putting it in the refrigerator, but when I wanted a cold glass of water it never seemed full. I kept thinking that someone was drinking a lot of water. Somehow I didn’t take notice of the puddle of water that kept pooling at the bottom of the refrigerator. Even today we trust cracked theologies, false gods and faulty reasoning. We place our hope in systems of faith that simply do not work, that won’t hold water. We are lured into living day-to-day as if God is far off and as if heaven is in the future. This can lead us into the false notion that our life is about living well in order to get into heaven. Then we will meet God face to face. Since God is far off and in the future, there is no relationship now.

We couldn’t be more wrong. Jesus knew this. Jesus knew that the Sabbath was not about worshipping a God who was far off, not about keeping strict rules of worship in order to be honored and earn a special place at God’s banquet table in the after-life. The Sabbath was set aside to remember God’s great act of creation, to honor that creation and each one in it, to celebrate a relationship with God here and now. A life in Christ is not about how to get ourselves the best seat at the table—it is about inviting others to the table. Jesus enacts an ethic of radical hospitality as if we were in the Kingdom of God at the banquet table right now. As if it was true. As if God were present here and now.

Following in the footsteps of Jesus, the writer of the letter to the Hebrews reminds those first century followers of the way (and now 2000 years later reminds us) what God has said, “I will never leave you or forsake you!” Because God is here and now, God’s love is here and now. We are called to enact mutual love, show hospitality to strangers, remember those in prison, honor our marriage vows, keep our lives free from love of money, and be content with what we have because we are God’s beloved. Our lives as God’s beloved are not about working to earn ourselves a place in some far off Kingdom of God, but about working to create the Kingdom of God for others here and now.

When we stop asking, “Where is God?” we lull ourselves into believing we can live without water. We need to turn to God for living water. And we need to invite others to come along; or better yet, take the living water to them. We need to say again and again, “Where is God in all of this?” In times of desperation, where is God? In times of joy, where is God? In times of foggy indifference, where is God? Because there is no where or when, where God is not.
Amen.

Copyright © 2007 Anne E. Kitch