Living Stones. June 3, I Peter. Does anyone recognize the picture on the front of the bulletin? Not what it is but from where it was taken?

Transcription

1 Living Stones June 3, 2018 I Peter Does anyone recognize the picture on the front of the bulletin? Not what it is but from where it was taken? Right, this is the view from La Foret, the church camp owned by the Rocky Mountain Conference of the UCC. Who has been there? I should have asked that while the kids were still here, be sure to tell them your camp stories after church. Most of you know that I grew up going to church camp. Church Camp was the first place I met a woman in ministry, I heard my call to ministry at church camp, oh yeah and in 7 th grade I met a nice boy named Pat, who liked to howl at the moon. At theology on tap last month we were talking about the spiritual significance of the out-of-doors and I shared about my love of church camp. It is a time that is intentionally about spiritual growth but also about experiencing God in the outdoors, being in nature, discovering in nature. The camp that 9 of our kiddos are going to with me is actually called Discovery camp. It is a time to discover God in the wilderness for the first time since these are our youngest campers. The landscape of La Foret is a sacred space to me, as much as any sanctuary, maybe more so. Like a church sanctuary it holds memories of significant experiences, of encounters with God and with people, moments of discomfort and a depth that is beyond words. It is one place I would place a cairn. Do you know what a cairn is? You have seen them, it is a stack of rocks that mark a location. This tradition roots back to Jacob stacking stones after dreaming of the

2 ladder to heaven, he stacks rocks to mark his encounter with God. I would mark La Foret, as a place I encountered God. And I am not the first to mark it as such. A few years ago we found out that there are sacred Ute Prayer Trees at La Foret. It turns out La Foret was sacred ground to more than just the UCC, it was holy ground for the Ute People as well. About 10 years ago a medicine tree was discovered and then after that more sacred prayer trees were found. These prayer trees are much older than the rest of the trees in the forest. Turns out all the trees were cut down the early part of the 20 th century but these trees were manipulated in various ways, to point toward Pikes Peak or to have a circular trunk, were spared. They cut down the trees for railroad ties and since these trees were not straight, they were useless. Thank God. I have many friends who Pat and I met at church camp that no longer are a part of the church. They fit into the SBNR category we talked about last week, those folks that would say they are spiritual but not religious. They say they have no need for the church. While almost all of them will agree that they encountered God while we were at church camp, they do not see the connection to religion. And they are not alone. SBNR is the fastest growing faith identity in our country right now and this discussion will guide us into our own discovery of the intersection of spirituality AND religion throughout our summer season. Last week we also spoke of Rev. Lilian Daniels, a UCC pastor who wrote with much impatience a book entitled When Spiritual but not Religious is not enough. And in it she spends a more than adequate amount of time talking about the SBNR folks love of sunsets. She fires back at them, seriously, do you think you are the first person to delight in the beauty of a sunset? That somehow those of us who

3 are religious have never thought of that? But she does address a real part of the SBNR reality a love and deep connection with nature. This is particularly true in Colorado where you will hear people saying that their church is on the ski slopes or on a hike or at the top of a 14er. At a recent theology on tap we discussed this meme: This is almost doctrine for most SBNR folks that I have talked to. And you know they are not wrong, limited maybe, but not wrong. I often bring up ancient Celtic Christianity as it seems like a good fit with the Scottish name of our church. And originally spaces of worship in the Celtic Christian tradition were outdoors. There was a structure but it was not enclosed, as their theology was deeply connected to the earth, so too was their worship. And what if we treated the earth as our temple. What if we tended to it as we tend to our building, taking care to preserve and renew it regularly? And then the other aspect, nature is my religion. It was only a month ago on Earth Day that I stood here and encouraged all of us to listen to the lessons the earth has to teach us, like the lessons of the Aspen tree about connectivity and hospitality, or the lessons of the seasons about growth and death and renewal. In that way nature is one of our teachers, it offers us wisdom that expresses truth that runs deep, deeper than all the things that divide us. Well almost, we will get back to that in a minute.

4 But I want us to look at today s scripture. When we began having this conversation about the intersection of spirituality and religion this scripture jumped up at me. This scripture addresses spirituality and religion through the metaphor of a living stone. Come to God, like living stones, it says, After speaking of the spiritual longing we touched on last week. Last week we heard from the psalmist, as the deer longs for flowing streams so my soul longs for you O God. This week from Peter we hear of longing for spiritual milk, as an infant longs for her mother s milk, with this little added line in verse three if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. I find that line so striking because that is a big part of what is happening with folks who identify as Spiritual but not Religious. They have tasted that God is good, they have encountered beauty and connection and the presence of God that is bigger than themselves and they long for more of it. Often these encounters have taken place in the wilderness, in nature, and so nature becomes the whole of their religion. I think we can all fall into this trap, we encounter God in one way and we convince ourselves that that is where God is to be found. Maybe it was when the preacher stood up there in the pulpit and said something that changed the way you looked at the world. Maybe it was a song, sung with the organ. Maybe it was in the contemporary service that happened in the community room instead of in the sanctuary. Or maybe it was outside of church, maybe your experience of God was on a hike, or snow shoeing through the wilderness or on the top of a mountain or during church camp. That was the place you knew God to be, you have tasted that God is good and you want to fill up on it, you want more.

5 I remember wanting to spend my entire summer at church camp when I was younger. I also remember asking my 7 th grade self how I could get paid to go to church camp for the rest of my life. Looks like I figured it out! But this limiting assumption that God is found only where God has been found, seems to be as old as our faith. Throughout the ancient stories of scripture when people encounter God they want to stay there, to find a way to return to that experience. Even the disciples when they were on the mountain top after the transfiguration tried to build shelters to move in but Jesus reminded them that they could not stay. Jesus said to Mary Magdalene when she saw that he had risen from the grave, do not hold on to me. And the story of Jesus leaving the earth, the disciples watch him go like watching a balloon until it is beyond view and they just stayed until someone came to challenge them, what are you looking at? Let s get going. Because the movement of God is not static or predictable. That is why Peter calls us to be living stones. In this metaphor there is both grounded-ness and movement. There is life and there is mass. Living Stones. The stone is where you have been living is where it is going But not where you are going on your own. This text is about spiritual seeking but it provides a framework for that. A framework for spirituality, kind of sounds like the definition of religion: Verse 5 says Like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ And then Peter says:

6 Once you were not a people, but now you are God s people; This text is a call to weave our spirituality in with others. To be a people together, not people wandering around on our own, but to build a spiritual house, which I don t think has to be a church as we typically think of it, but it does mean a community. Living stones, built together, not stuck in what used to work, or in the ways we experienced God in the past, but living stones, grounded yet movable, firm yet flexible, Weathered yet being created. And the part of the text I just jumped over speaks of the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This is understood as referring to Jesus but it is important for us to remember. What seemed useless, was actually the most essential. I was reading this book this week, to try to listen to the wisdom of those for whom nature is religion and I stumbled upon a story. I read it once and didn t really understand it, but then I read it again and was in awe of the message it offered. As you listen think back to those trees that were spared at La Foret, those sacred Prayer Trees, and the Cairns for the Ute people that only survived because they were deemed useless In the 4 th century Chuang Tsu told a version of this story: Hui-tse said to Chuang-tse, I have a large tree which no carpenter can cut into lumber. Its branches and truck are crooked and tough, covered with bumps and depressions. No builder would turn his head to look at it. Your teaching are the same useless, without value. Therefore, no one pays attention to them.

7 as you know, Chuang-tse replied, a cat is very skilled at capturing its prey, crouching low, it can leap in any direction, pursuing whatever it is after. But when its attention is focused on such things, it can be easily caught with a net. On the other hand, a huge yak is not easily caught or overcome. It stands like a stone, or a cloud in the sky. But for all its strength it cannot catch a mouse. you complain that your tree is not valuable as lumber. But you could make use of the shade it provides, rest under its sheltering branches, and stroll beneath it, admiring its character and appearance. Since it would not be endangered by an axe, what could threaten its existence? It is useless to you only because you want to make it into something else and do not use it in its proper way. Camp and church were never in competition for me. Nor was the outdoors with inside of the sanctuary. They build on each other. We need them both. Used in their proper way. They both have lessons to teach us. When will we realize spirituality cannot exist in a box, the box of the church or the box of individual nature? It is as God is, always more. And we will go the farthest and deepest and build our lives the sturdiest when we do so together. Amen