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DonateJuly 16, 2006 |
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2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19
Psalm 24
Ephesians 1:3-14
Mark 6:14-29
Each morning in spring and summer, I awaken just before sunrise to symphonies of singing birds. They remind me to begin each day with the words of the Psalmist, “this is the day that God has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it!” While I cannot translate their melodies, I agree with process philosopher Charles Hartshorne that these companion birds are singing their joy and celebration of this new and wonder-full day. They have awakened with beauty and nothing can keep them from singing!
The Hebraic scriptures shout for joy, and invite us to read them with the accompaniment of drums, cymbals, saxophones, flutes, and all types of celebrative song. A new nation is emerging and David is dancing in the streets, celebrating God’s greatest and love with all his might. What would happen if you danced around the pulpit today and the choir swayed and clapped?
Celebration! “The earth is God’s and all that is in it, the world and those who live in it!”
Hallelujah! God is with us, planting possibilities with every encounter, inspiring adventures with every step!
A number of spiritual guides have described our age as “ecstasy deficient.” So caught up in our agendas, our plans to change the world, and our need to stay abreast with changes that occur each nano-second, we miss the wonder and beauty of the moment. We tranquilize ourselves with hi-tech games, hours at the computer, and monotonous worship service and church meetings. I speak as one of the family – after all, here I am, fresh from a morning walk, writing this lectionary aid, and it’s only 6:00 a.m.!
Commentators on contemporary religion suggest that the rapid global growth of Pentecostal religion stems in part from its focus on lively, emotionally transforming, ecstatic experience. As one of my former students at Wesley Theological Seminary affirmed, “a charismatic is someone who believes that God shows up” and then rejoices in God’s presence, expectantly awaiting God’s next miracle! And, so we ask, “what great thing will God do today? What great thing will we see today? What great adventure is God calling us to?”
Process-relational people have much to celebrate. We believe that God whispers to us in every encounter and thought. We affirm that our emotional lives witness deep down God’s passion for wholeness. We proclaim that God parents forth galaxies, poppies, puppies, chirping birds, laughing children, and the color purple. In that spirit, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel asserted that the heart of spirituality is the experience of radical amazement!
Yes, in our busy-ness, and even our social concern, we are often ecstasy and wonder deficient! As progressive Christians, we are uncertain about what do about praise! To many of us, praise seems to address a sovereign ruler, outside ourselves and the world, who must b e placated, or else he will withdraw his love and protection. But, perhaps there is another path to praise and celebration, one that joyfully recognizes the wonder of each moment of life, the beauty of each encounter, and the majesty of the cosmos. Even as progressive Christians, we can joyfully sing that Billy Graham theme song, “How Great Thou Art,” and mean it. Our God, as process persons, is majestic, beautiful, and surprising.
But, the experience of celebration is not an accident. Celebrations of worship, birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, and holy unions require preparation. While we may be caught up in ecstatic experiences – in moments of mysticism and revelations in thin places – when the heavens open and the universe presents itself to us in all its wonder, whether in the form of a grain of sand or a galaxy, we need also to practice celebration. Process-relational theology calls us to “lived omnipresence,” a joyful recognition that God is our lively companion in every moment of experience and in every encounter.
Surely there is much pain and suffering in the world, and we must ease suffering by our generosity and political involvement. But, the “foundations of the world,” as Psalm 24 proclaims, are sure and faithful. We don’t have to worry about our planetary journey around the sun or our sun’s journey through the Milky Way. In the intricate matrix of divine and creaturely creativity, God has brought forth a stable and beautiful world, and God will sustain us and the universe. Let us rejoice in it!
Celebration grows out of spiritual practice. Elizabeth Barrett Browning rejoices in her vision of this wonderful world:
Earth’s crammed with heaven
and every common bush
afire with God;
And only he who sees,
Takes off his shoes –
The rest sit round it
and pluck blackberries.
There is trouble a plenty in our world, but we can, in the spirit of the films “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “Life is Beautiful” proclaim that beauty trumps ugliness, love transforms hate, and imagination creates a new world even in the midst of violence, greed, and hatred. God’s patient love will outlast all the tyrants and oppressors. As Ephesians notes, the cosmic and intimate Christ will gather up all things in earth and heaven. All things!
In our spiritual lives, we need to pause and notice God’s wonderful and lively world in the micro and the macro realms, through practicing spiritual disciplines such as: gentle meditative prayers, spiritual affirmations, healing touch, and generous listening to the wind and the birds.
David continues has celebration by sharing. The ecstasy that takes him out of himself and places him in relationship to God inspires him to feed the people. David, and ourselves are called to celebration in a world of action, to paraphrase Thomas Merton. Rejoicing in God’s wonder, we want others to experience that same delight. We share our faith and personal story, we pray on their behalf, we rejoice in the humor of life, and we provide bread for hungry and homes for homeless. While affluence does not insure joy and ecstasy, security, safety, and sustenance are foundations of creativity, delight, and wonder. We need to live simply so others simply live, but we also need to remember that we – and those persons who we believe are in need – also need song and dance and poetry, beauty and wonder and love. In this spirit, I think of an evangelical youth leader who takes inner children camping in the woods so they can see the night stars, perhaps, for the first time and “encounter the face of God!”
Today’s readings speak of two different celebrations, one of life, the other of death. Ecstasy flowing into generosity gives love and life. Celebration that extends no further than the self and its egoistic passions ends in death – to the spirit, the community, and the environment. Surely, Herod’s celebration leads to the death of John the Baptist because its focus is pleasure without community, and ecstasy without generosity. In his Living from the Center, Jay McDaniel contrasts the “joy” of those who temple is the shopping mall and the “joy” of those who seek God’s presence in the non-human as well as human world. Authentic joy joins us with others and the ambient cosmos in deep songs of praise.
Herod’s celebration leads to a guilty conscience and eventuates in fearful speculation when Jesus comes on the scene. “John, whom I beheaded, has been raised.” In contrast, authentic celebration widens our experiences and joins us with others. While celebration awakens us to others’ pain and suffering, it places our lives in the larger context of God’s infinite love. Spiritual celebration casts out guilt and fear and awakens us with anticipation of a new day of joy and generosity. We awaken with a clear conscience, knowing that we are in tune with God’s melody in our lives.
Herod’s response reminds us that the while prophet may be slain, the message is eternal. God’s aim at beauty, justice, and love will not be silenced by tyrants, terrorists, or assassins! Trusting that God is faithful in bringing forth new possibilities for joy and social transformation, how can we keep from singing!
My life flows on in endless song
Above earth’s lamentation,
I hear the clear, though far off hymn
That hails a new creation.
No storm can shake my inmost calm
While to that rock I’m clinging.
Since love commands both heaven and earth
How can I keep from singing?
When tyrants tremble, sick with fear,
And hear their death knells ringing.
When friends rejoice, both far and near,
How can I keep from singing?
In prison cell and dungeon vile,
Our thoughts to them are winging.
When friends by shame are undefiled,
How can I keep from singing?
I lift my eyes, the cloud grows thin;
I see the blue above it.
And day by day, this pathway smooths,
Since first I learned to love it.
The peace of Christ makes fresh my heart,
A fountain ever springing;
All things are mine since I am Christ’s
How can I keep from singing?
(Robert Lowry, with Doris Plenn’s “When tyrants tremble….In prison cell….”)
For more on celebrative spirituality:
Bruce Epperly, The Power of Affirmative Faith (Chalice Press)
Bruce Epperly and Lewis Solomon, Walking in the Light (Chalice Press)
Patricia Farmer, Embracing a Beautiful God (Chalice)
Jay McDaniel, Living from the Center
Bruce Epperly is director of continuing education and professor of practical theology at Lancaster Theological Seminary. He is the author of God’s Touch: Faith, Wholeness, the Healing Miracles of Jesus and The Power of Affirmative Faith; and co-author of The Call of the Spirit: Process Spirituality in a Relational World. These titles are available from the Process & Fatih bookstore.
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