August 27, 2017
The Rev. Mark Pendleton
Christ Church, Exeter
 |
| Taken by Steve Portalupi on August 21 in Kentucky |
Our Fragile Island Home
The great eclipse
of 2017 came and went this week. It was the first to be seen from coast-to-coast
in nearly 100 years with its shadow racing across the surface of the earth at
2000 mph. We will our chance in seven years
when the next solar eclipse will pass directly over the North Country here in
New Hampshire.
Of the many quotes
and comments from those who experienced the great eclipse in person, there were
common threads: awe, wonder, community.
Two of our members
from Christ Church, Elaine and Steve Portalupi, drove over 2000 miles and back
for 2 minutes and 32 seconds that they said did not disappoint. Elaine
commented how it was such a moving experience it brought tears to her eyes –
“during totality I felt like I was touching the face of God.” Steve: “It was both profound and
exhilarating. Seeing and feeling the effects of our moon's interaction with our
sun made me feel much more a part of our solar system.”
An Episcopal priest
whose church was in the sweet spot in Kentucky picked up those themes: “It was
like a moment of seeing the holy. And you had nothing to do with it. It was
just a gift. It’s like you are looking at perfection” (The Rev. Alice
Nichols). During those 2 brief moments
of totality, people everywhere cheered, howled, applauded, cried, danced, stood
with their mouths gapping open. An event of a lifetime. The ultimate bucket list event. “Magical,” “spiritual,” “more than I could
have ever imagined.”
What was so clear
to me was how the goal for so many onlookers was not to find a remote and
solitary place to see the moon pass in front of the sun, but to experience this
natural wonder alongside others. Entire
football stadiums filled -- churning with anticipation.
For two brief
minutes, millions of people in our country looked into the heavens and were
elevated and drawn out of and away from their daily concerns. The weight of the world’s problems lifted for
a brief time. There was little talk of politics, terrorism, hatred or war. Bill Nye the Science Guy gave the best advice
leading up to event: don’t spend too much time looking through a camera or
phone: “just be in the moment.”
One
of the more memorable phrases in the Eucharistic prayer C in our Prayer Book
and gave rise to its nickname as the “Star Wars” version is: At your command all things came to be: the vast
expanse of interstellar space, galaxies, suns, the planets in their
courses.” And then: “this fragile earth, our island home.”
As
we witness the change in weather patterns and rising global temperatures – we
see the enormous amount of rain being dumped over Texas as Hurricane Harvey
pounds the coast -- perhaps the liturgical scholars who wrote Prayer C were
onto something true. This earth is fragile,
it is home to all of us.
This past Monday I imagined what the
God of creation would say to humanity. Looking down at so many of people
wearing those funny glasses. “Is this
what I have to do to get your attention?
Send the moon every few years and place it between the earth and the sun
for a few minutes so that the light of day turns into darkness? Is that what
will bring you together, stop working and go outside, make you realize your
place in the vast universe, bring tears to your eyes and smiles on your faces
and experience something of nature with millions of other people? OK, then.
That’s what I will do.
We know and believe now that God does
not live up there and the devil down under the earth as our ancient ancestors
did -- God is beyond space and time -- but looking heavenward for inspiration
and meaning is still worth our collective effort.
We stand in need a constant reminding
of our place and purpose in this world.
Who God is, what God does, and what we ourselves are called to do and
become to respond to this gift.
Paul wrote his most
theological letter to the emerging church in Rome: 2Do not be conformed to this world, but
be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is
the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.
What
might this mean to us? Do not be
conformed: be transformed.
We
spend a lifetime essentially conforming to what we should be. It starts early. Most
of us, I believe, grow up as children seeking the affection and approval of our
parents. Many us desire to be accepted within circles of friends. So we incorporate ways of living to conform. Be
kind. Play nicely with our
siblings. Share. Don’t be rude. Later on: study hard. Pay attention. Pick the
right kinds of friends. Stay in your lane. Don’t color outside of the lines.
Know your place.
We
spend a great deal of time and energy conforming to what our society and world
tell us makes one happy and successful and good. We know that advertisers paint a skewed
version of perfection: the perfect body, family, career and life. The hard part
is moving beyond what we are sold and told.
Paul
knows the Gospel and imagines a different way of living in the world. True
transformation is a process that gets kick-started by this God we are all
trying to understand more deeply and be in relationship with.
It
is wonderful to stand in awe of the creation God has made: mountaintop
experiences, eclipses, watching the sun rise and set over the ocean, enjoying
the fruits of earth. It is good to be transformed
and changed by the awe and wonder that the God of creation forever
activates. And, let us be as inspired as
we look into the heavens, to also look at our fragile island and those with
whom we share this island home.
We
are to care for and about fragile things and people – the faces of God. We can never forget those Jesus cared about: the hungry, poor, sick, marginalized, sinner,
outcast, and the stranger. Who are they
today? The single mother, the disabled
veteran living with the trauma of war, the transgender youth trying to figure
out why she never felt in her own body what the world told him to feel, the
immigrant who fled a violent homeland, risked his life and that of his children
to work on our farms, pick our crops, and do other back breaking and tedious
work that many here would rather not do.
The
late English writer G.K. Chesterton wrote this: “We should always endeavor to
wonder at the permanent thing, not at the mere exception. We should be startled
by the sun, and not by the eclipse. We should wonder less at the earthquake,
and wonder more at the earth.”
Permanent
things: the sun, the earth, our island
home. It is all we have.
