"Nones" As the New Gentiles?

5 Easter   C       April 24, 2016

Acts 11:1-18     Psalm 148

Revelation 21:1-6 John 13:31-35

Lectionary Link 

  How can a diet change represent a theological revolution?  What does food have to do with theology?
  Religious people can fight over food and one can say it was in part a "food fight" which divided the church from the synagogue.  How so?
  Religious persons have had their identity formed by their diet?   Observant Jews since the time of the law of Moses have had dietary restrictions.  Jews and Muslim do not eat pork.  Hindus do not eat meat.  Muslims do not drink alcohol.  Seven Day Adventists do not eat meat.  Mormons do not drink alcohol or caffeine.  People have practiced their diets as expressions of religious identity and as a deep belief that they are obeying God's law.
  So if you want to be an observant Jew, then follow the rules, don't eat pork.  Peter was an obedient observant Jew; he did not eat pork.
  But we have read the account of how Peter came to believe that observant Christians were those who did not have to follow the specific diet of Judaism.
  What was happening for Peter and Paul to allow religious people to neglect to follow the rules of circumcision, dietary restrictions and other rules of ritual purity?
  Gentiles in the Roman Empire were not circumcised.  They ate pork.  And they did not have practices of ritual purity.  When the message of the Gospel of Christ came to the peoples of the Roman Empire there were some new issues?  Should non-Jews be allowed to be followers of Christ?  And if non-Jews wanted to follow Christ, should they also conform to all of the rules of ritual purity practiced by observant Jews?
  Paul and Peter made a determination upon the ritual purity issue; they decided that even though the ritual purity was the required practice of people who came from a Jewish upbringing; it was to be an optional practice for new Gentile Christians.  Peter and Paul did not believe that Gentiles should be required to conformed to the ritual purity practices in food and personal hygiene of ritual Judaism.
  This concession to the Gentiles was very controversial.  Peter and Paul made a determination that the evidence of the Holy Spirit in the lives of people was to be the criteria for valid religious experience and identity.  Circumcision, ritual purity and dietary restrictions were not to be required practices for Gentile Christians.
  How could such radical changes be permitted and the followers of Jesus and the members of the synagogues stay together?  It is difficult for even a kitchen to be shared by kosher and non-kosher people since non-kosher cooking residue is hard to clean and keep from polluting the purity of a kosher kitchen in food preparation.
  So in part, the followers of Christ and the people of the synagogue separated over the issue of food.
  How could the early Jewish followers of Jesus dispense with the requirements of ritual purity which was so much a part of their religious identity?
  I believe that the essential issue was the question of success.  How does one handle success?  Some of the parables of the Gospel are about parties and banquets to which a target group is invited, but the people invited were not interested in coming to the party so the host of the party invited others who were not originally invited.
  The historical fact is that most Jews did not accept the message regarding Jesus.  The historical fact is that many Gentiles did accept the message of Jesus, but these Gentiles came from cultural habits which required too many changes for them to conform to all of the ritual purity requirements of Judaism.
  What did the Jewish leadership of the Jesus Movement do when they found the message of the Gospel more popular within the Gentile populace than with their fellow Jews?  They went with success.  They could not turn away from the people whose lives were being changed by message of Christ.
  So the Jesus Movement was going from being another rabbinical school within Judaism to becoming a departure from Judaism which borrowed the foundations of Judaism while becoming something new with an entirely different mission from Judaism.
  What makes a person's faith valid?  Following rules of ritual purity or having evidence of a Spirit which changed their moral and ethical behaviors?  For Peter and Paul, the evidence of spiritual change in the life of a Gentile person was an adequate sign that a person was a member of the household of faith.
  But one could also understand the consternation of the Jews.  If the Holy Spirit could convert the life of a Gentile person, could the Holy Spirit not inspire that person to follow and adapt to the rules of ritual purity?
  In this dilemma one can find the issue which separated Christianity from Judaism into different communities with different missions.  The Christian mission was to offer a style of living with a spirituality which could be adopted to the social and cultural diversity found with the Gentile peoples of the Roman Empire.  The Christian mission was not to live as a visibly separated group by living in segregated communities with visible signs of difference from the populace of the peoples in the cities of Roman Empire.  It was to be a spiritual practice which allowed more interaction in the public life of the cities of the Roman Empire.  The mission of Judaism included a commitment to visible separation while the Christian mission manifested a spirituality which made ritual Jewish practices into optional cultural choices.  This was unacceptable for those who wanted to maintain the purity of Judaism.
  Peter and Paul and others had to decide whether to go with the wildfire of success of the message of Christ within the Gentile peoples of the Roman Empire or remain isolated within the synagogue communities.  The New Testament really is a chronicle about how the message of Jesus was adapted to the Gentile peoples and the painful transition from the synagogue setting.  And so there is this confession recorded: "Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life."
  Spiritual traditions naturally get institutionalized and institutions tend to function for their own perpetuation.  So spiritual traditions by nature tend to be conservative, that is, they tend to "conserve the notion of how we're always done things."  "We can't move the altar away from the east wall, because that's how it's always been done.  Jesus must have said the Last Supper at an altar next the wall."  This is how religious institutions conserve their practices, by just assuming everything we do and believe and practice has been this way since antiquity.  When religious traditions conserve too much, they no longer become accessible to whomever the "new Gentile" people of society are.
  Who are the new Gentile people in our society today?  The pollsters call them the "nones"  They are the people who respond to religious polls by saying that they have "no religious" affiliation.  And now the "nones" have become the largest group of people in our society.
  One of the challenges for us today is ponder the relevance of how we practice our faith to the people in the world.  Why don't people find our message successfully relevant to their lives today?  Have we become so cloistered within our institutions that we find ourselves unable to make meaningful contact with people who will never darken the doors of a church building?  Have we become like the synagogues in the time of Peter and Paul who are more interested in maintaining separate identity rather than engaging the diverse people in our world?
  I think that the biblical revelation is based upon the understanding that God is always able to do new things in making the message of divine transformation accessible to people in all ages.  Is God doing new things in our time and in ways and in people different from ourselves and we are missing it?
  The writer of the Revelation understood God to be one who could make a new Jerusalem.  Why?  The old one had been destroyed by the Roman army.  God was one who could make a new heaven and a new earth.  Apocalyptic people like to limit this vision to some future end of time, as if, time could ever end.  Time could only end when there are no longer clock users.  God did a new thing in Christ and this Christ went beyond the walls of the synagogues to the diverse people of the Roman Empire.  The message of the Gospel is a message that is so spiritually adaptive that it can continue to create and make new things happens within the lives of anyone who is desiring transformation in excellence.
  The message for us today is that when we think we are conserving tradition, we need to be certain that we are not putting limitations upon God's Spirit to do new things in this world with people who are different than we are.
  Let us rejoice that the Gospel is a witness to God being able to do new things in new places in new times.  And let it also be a witness to us that God can do new things in and for us as we can know new energy towards excellence.  The Spirit of Christ is alive and this Spirit is always adaptable and creative in each new moment of life.  Amen
 
 

Sunday School, April 24, 2016 5 Easter C

Sunday School, April 24, 2016   5 Easter C

The disciple were friends of Jesus but they were also his students.  Jesus watched how his students were learning.

What did he notice about his student?  He noticed that his student argued about who could have the best seats in the kingdom of Jesus.  Peter was very sure of himself even bragged about how brave he was.  Jesus knew that Jesus was planning to help some people who did not like Jesus.

So what did Jesus think that his students and disciples needed?  They needed to know how to live together.  When Jesus hosted a meal for his students, he noticed that none of them washed the feet when they came to the meal.  In the time of Jesus, it was the custom to have one’s dusty feet washed when one arrived at a person’s house.  The disciples and students of Jesus believed that they were too important to do the job of a servant.  They only wanted to be important people.  So Jesus, decided to wash the feet of his disciples.  He said to them, I am your teacher but I washed your feet.  And you need to do this for each other.  Why?  Because all of the small courteous things in life are very important.  So Jesus gave the disciples the “11^th Commandment.”  “Love one another as I have love you.”  Jesus showed his love for his disciples by washing their feet and he said that they needed to practice the small deeds of courteous love for each other.

Have the children list lots of very small things which they can do to show that they love the people in their lives.

A Children’s sermon on the “11^th Commandment”

You remember that we have studied the rule book that God has given us to show us how to live our lives.  What are those famous rules called?

  The 10 Commandments: Love the One God.  Don’t let anything else be the god of your life.  Don’t use God’s name in a wrong way. Make time for God.  Don’t steal.  Don’t kill.  Don’t tell lies.  Be content with what you have. Respect the family.  Honor your father and mother.

    So we have the 10 commandments.  But today we read about a new commandment that Jesus gave to his friends.  So now we have 11 commandments.  What is that new commandment?  Jesus said, “I want you to love one another, just as I have loved you.”

  Jesus had watched his friends and some times he did not like how they behaved.  Sometimes they would argue about who should have the best jobs.  Some times they thought that they were better than other people.

  And that is why Jesus had to give them the 11th commandment.  Was Jesus an important person?  Yes he was.  And what did Jesus say that really important people do?  He said that they served other people.  How do we serve other people?  By being kind.  By doing nice things.  By helping with the chores. 

  Jesus said to his friends, “ you need to love and care for each other, just like I have loved and cared for you.  That is the only way that you will be able to stay together without hurting each other.”

  So loving one another as Jesus loved us.  This is the best rule of all.  This is what makes your family work well.  This is what makes our parish work well.  When we love one another, we are doing the best of all.

  So can you remember the 11th commandment, the new commandment?  Love one another as Jesus loved us.   And I will tell you a secret:  If you learn and practice this 11th commandment, then you will be keeping all of the other 10 commandments too.

St. John the Divine Episcopal Church

17740 Peak Avenue, Morgan Hill, CA 95037

Family Service with Holy Eucharist

April 24, 2016: The Fifth Sunday of Easter

Gathering Songs: I Am the Bread of Life, This Little Light of Mine,  Ubi Caritas, Soon and Very Soon

Liturgist: Alleluia, Christ is Risen.

People: The Lord is Risen Indeed.  Alleluia.

Liturgist:  Oh God, Our hearts are open to you.

And you know us and we can hide nothing from you.

Prepare our hearts and our minds to love you and worship you.

Through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Song: I Am the Bread of Life,  (Blue Hymnal, # 335)

1-I am the bread of life, they who come to me shall not hunger; they who believe in me shall not thirst.  No one can come to  me unless the Father draw them. 

            And I will raise them up, and I will raise them up, and I will raise them up on the last day.

2-I am the resurrection, I am the life, they who believe in me, even if they die, they shall live forever.  And I will raise them up, and I will raise them up, and I will raise them up on the last day.

3-Yes Lord we believe that you are the Christ, the Son of god who has come into the world.

And I will raise them up, and I will raise them up, and I will raise them up on the last day

Liturgist:         The Lord be with you.

People:            And also with you.

Liturgist:  Let us pray

Almighty God, whom truly to know is everlasting life: Grant us so perfectly to know your Son Jesus Christ to be the way, the truth, and the life, that we may steadfastly follow his steps in the way that leads to eternal life; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

First Litany of Praise: Chant: Alleluia

O God, you are Great!  Alleluia

O God, you have made us! Alleluia

O God, you have made yourself known to us!  Alleluia

O God, you have provided us with us a Savior!  Alleluia

O God, you have given us a Christian family!  Alleluia

O God, you have forgiven our sins!  Alleluia

O God, you brought your Son Jesus back from the dead!  Alleluia

A reading from the Revelation to John

And the one who was seated on the throne said, "See, I am making all things new." Also he said, "Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true." Then he said to me, "It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life."

Liturgist: The Word of the Lord

People: Thanks be to God

Liturgist: Let us read together from Psalm 148

Hallelujah! Praise the LORD from the heavens; * praise him in the heights.

Praise him, all you angels of his; * praise him, all his host.

Praise him, sun and moon; * praise him, all you shining stars.

Praise him, heaven of heavens, * and you waters above the heavens.

Litany Phrase: Thanks be to God! (chanted)

Litanist:

For the good earth, for our food and clothing. Thanks be to God!

For our families and friends. Thanks be to God!

For the talents and gifts that you have given to us. Thanks be to God!

For this day of worship. Thanks be to God!

For health and for a good night’s sleep. Thanks be to God!

For work and for play. Thanks be to God!

For teaching and for learning. Thanks be to God!

For the happy events of our lives. Thanks be to God!

For the celebration of the birthdays and anniversaries of our friends and parish family.

   Thanks be to God!

Liturgist:         The Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to John

People:            Glory to you, Lord Christ.

At the last supper, when Judas had gone out, Jesus said, "Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, 'Where I am going, you cannot come.' I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."

Liturgist:         The Gospel of the Lord.

People:            Praise to you, Lord Christ.

Sermon – Father Phil

Children’s Creed

We did not make ourselves, so we believe that God the Father is the maker of the world.

Since God is so great and we are so small,

We believe God came into our world and was born as Jesus, son of the Virgin Mary.

We need God’s help and we believe that God saved us by the life, death and

     resurrection of Jesus Christ.

We believe that God is present with us now as the Holy Spirit.

We believe that we are baptized into God’s family the Church where everyone is

     welcome.

We believe that Christ is kind and fair.

We believe that we have a future in knowing Jesus Christ.

And since we all must die, we believe that God will preserve us forever.  Amen.

Litany Phrase: Christ, have mercy.

For fighting and war to cease in our world. Christ, have mercy.

For peace on earth and good will towards all. Christ, have mercy.

For the safety of all who travel. Christ, have mercy.

For jobs for all who need them. Christ, have mercy.

For care of those who are growing old. Christ, have mercy.

For the safety, health and nutrition of all the children in our world. Christ, have mercy.

For the well-being of our families and friends. Christ, have mercy.

For the good health of those we know to be ill. Christ, have mercy.

For the remembrance of those who have died. Christ, have mercy.

For the forgiveness of all of our sins. Christ, have mercy.

Youth Liturgist:          The Peace of the Lord be always with you.

People:                        And also with you.

Song during the preparation of the Altar and the receiving of an offering

Offertory Song: This Little Light of Mine, (Christian Children’s Songbook, # 234)

This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine.  This little light of mine.  I’m going to let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

Hide it under a bushel, no!  I’m going to let it shine.  Hide it under a bushel, no! I’m going to let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

Don’t let anyone blow it out.  I’m going to let it shine.  Don’t let anyone blow it out.  I’m going to let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

Shine all over my neighborhood.  I’m going to let it shine.  Shine all over my neighborhood, I’m going to let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

Doxology

Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him, all creatures here below.

Praise Him above, ye heavenly host. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Prologue to the Eucharist

Jesus said, “Let the children come to me, for to them belong the kingdom of heaven.”

All become members of a family by birth or adoption.

Baptism is a celebration of birth into the family of God.

A family meal gathers and sustains each human family.

The Holy Eucharist is the special meal that

Jesus gave to his friends to keep us together as the family of Christ.

The Lord be with you

And also with you.

Lift up your hearts

We lift them to the Lord.

Let us give thanks to God.

It is right to give God thanks and praise.

It is very good and right to give thanks, because God made us, Jesus redeemed us and the Holy Spirit dwells in our hearts.  Therefore with Angels and Archangels and all of the world that we see and don’t see, we forever sing this hymn of praise:

Holy, Holy, Holy (Intoned)

Holy, Holy, Holy Lord, God of Power and Might.  Heav’n and earth are full of your glory.

Hosanna in the highest.  Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. 

Hosanna in the highest. Hosanna in the Highest.

(All may gather around the altar)

Our grateful praise we offer to you God, our Creator;

You have made us in your image

And you gave us many men and women of faith to help us to live by faith:

Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Rachael.

And then you gave us your Son, Jesus, born of Mary, nurtured by Joseph

And he called us to be sons and daughters of God.

Your Son called us to live better lives and he gave us this Holy Meal so that when we eat

  the bread and drink the wine, we can  know that the Presence of Christ is as near to us as  

  this food and drink  that becomes a part of us.

And so, Father, we bring you these gifts of bread and wine. Bless and sanctify them by your Holy Spirit to be for your people the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ our Lord. Bless and sanctify us by your Holy Spirit so that we may love God and our neighbor.

On the night when Jesus was betrayed he took bread, said the blessing, broke the bread, and gave it to his friends, and said, "Take, eat: This is my Body, which is given for you. Do this for the remembrance of me."

After supper, Jesus took the cup of wine, gave thanks, and said, "Drink this, all of you. This is my Blood of the new Covenant, which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Whenever you drink it, do this for the remembrance of me."

Father, we now celebrate the memorial of your Son. When we eat this holy Meal of Bread and Wine, we are telling the entire world about the life, death and resurrection of Christ and that his presence will be with us in our future.

Let this holy meal keep us together as friends who share a special relationship because of your Son Jesus Christ.  May we forever live with praise to God to whom we belong as sons and daughters.

By Christ, and with Christ, and in Christ, in the unity of the Holy Spirit all honor and glory

 is yours, Almighty Father, now and for ever. AMEN.

And now as our Savior Christ has taught us, we now sing,

Our Father: (Renew # 180, West Indian Lord’s Prayer)

Our Father who art in heaven:  Hallowed be thy name.

Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done: Hallowed be thy name.

Done on earth as it is in heaven: Hallowed be thy name.

Give us this day our daily bread: Hallowed be thy name.

And forgive us all our debts: Hallowed be thy name.

As we forgive our debtors: Hallowed be thy name.

Lead us not into temptation: Hallowed be thy name.

But deliver us from evil: Hallowed be thy name.

Thine is the kingdom, power, and glory: Hallowed be thy name.

Forever and ever: Hallowed be thy name.

Amen, amen, amen: Hallowed be thy name.

Amen, amen, amen, amen: Hallowed be thy name.

Breaking of the Bread

Celebrant:       Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.

People:            Therefore let us keep the feast. 

Words of Administration

Communion Song: Ubi Caritas (Renew!, # 226)

Ubi caritas et amor, ubi caritas, Deus ibi est.

Post-Communion Prayer

Everlasting God, we have gathered for the meal that Jesus asked us to keep;

We have remembered his words of blessing on the bread and the wine.

And His Presence has been known to us.

We have remembered that we are sons and daughters of God and brothers

    and sisters in Christ.

Send us forth now into our everyday lives remembering that the blessing in the

     bread and wine spreads into each time, place and person in our lives,

As we are ever blessed by you, O Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Closing Song: Soon and Very Soon (Renew!  # 276)

Soon and very soon, we are going to see the King.  Soon and very soon, we are going to see the king.  Soon and very soon, we are going to see the King.  Alleluia, alleluia, we are going to see the King.

No more dying there, we are going to see the King.  No more dying there, we are going to see the King.  No more dying there, we are going to see the King.  Alleluia, alleluia, we are going to see the king.

Dismissal:   

Liturgist: Alleluia!  Alleluia!  Let us go forth in the Name of Christ.

People: Thanks be to God!  Alleluia!  Alleluia!

Merely Anthropomorphizing in the Best Possible Way

5 Easter   C       April 28, 2013

Acts 11:1-18     Psalm 148

Revelation 21:1-6 John 13:31-35

 Lectionary Link

  Do you ever talk to your plants?  Do you talk to your pets?  Why do you do it?  Do you understand your pet’s language?  Do you understand your plants?  Do you believe in animal whispering?  Plant whispering?  Can you do this without your sanity being called into question?

  We do lots of things in this life that are meaningful to us and yet we do not have the full scientific justification for doing them.

  We are but prisoners of human experience?  I am but a prisoner of Phil’s human experience?  How can I know non-human experience as a non-human? A dog’s life as a dog?   How can I know non-Phil human experience as non-Phil persons?  Your life and as you know it?  Even if I have “whispering” gifts, I end up translating the assumed experience of others into my own language of understanding.

  What is the nature of inter-species relationship?  What is the nature of inter-personal relationship?  What is the relationship between differences?

  From our prison of human experience and from my particular prison of Phil’s personal human prison, we confront the world with some questions.  Should the world feel what I feel or should I feel what the world feels?  Are both impossible?   The impossible assumption is that I can know what you experience and how you experience or that I can know how a dog feels or how my plants feel.  Yet the experience of faith is to live by the impossible; by believing and acting as though we can know how another being actually lives and feels.

   I love the expression of this assumption in the 148^th Psalm.  This Psalm is an expression anthropomorphism gone wild.  The Psalm is conducting the orchestra of all Nature and imploring everything in heaven and earth to “Praise the Lord.”  Sun, moon, stars, wild beasts, wind, rain, fruit-trees, hills, mountains, young, old, men and women, kings and people of all kinds, Praise the Lord.  Can there ever be any more presumptuous anthropomorphism than this?

  But we live by this meaningful presumption all of the time.  And when we really do the impossible we live the very best.   Compassion and love represent the extreme faith event of empathy, presuming to walk a mile in the shoes of another person in such a way as to be able to honor their life with the high sense of adoration, veneration and care.  And all of this is based upon this impossible presumption, of being able to live beyond the limitation of Phil’s human experience.  Projecting myself as being in the skin of another.

  In the Gospel lesson, there is a reference to glory.  Glory is the kind of intensified fame, adoration, regard, or veneration that is given and received between different beings.  We give glory when we confront excellence and greatness.  When we can say, “Wow, this is so wonderful that I must confess its greatness.”  In the experience of praise or adoration, checking the ego at the door is not difficult.  These experiences happen to us when we have a brush with what we call the sublime; it happens in artistic performance, it happens in the experience of love, it happens at the oceans, in the mountains, in the forms of beauty in this world, in extraordinary performance, in heroism and in myriads of moments of the ego being caught off guard.  When we encounter the sublime, our egos are checked, we can offer voluntary praise and worship and adoration.

  Sometimes we are forced to check our egos through oppression, through suppression or through humiliation; but the best way for our egos to get checked is through an encounter where we can naturally confess excellence as it casts a spell over us wins us and whispers our ego to forget itself.  And in that moment we make room truly for another person and other beings in our life.

  Jesus gave an eleventh commandment, a new commandment, the commandment to love one another as a new standard of living.  The standard of love is the invitation to the impossible.  It is the invitation to live as though we can actually walk in the shoes of someone else and feels as they feel, even though we know the sheer impossibility of complete coincidence with the consciousness of another being.  What is the mystical event of passing over into the experience of another such that we can treat them with a different sense of care than we would if we did not experience this sense of empathy?

  I believe that what makes the biblical wisdom tradition an impossible scientific tradition is this impossibility of empathy; this sense of going out of ourselves into others and being with them in such a way that lets them know the experience of care.

  We certainly agree with science about the validity of empirical experience but in our mystical tradition we marvel that there is any ability at all for beings to have mutual experiences conducted between us.  And not only conducted between us but done so in a way that has generated words from experience such as sharing, caring, empathy and love.

  There is something about the ego and sense of self that often would like to make the epidermis an impenetrable barrier of separation, but there is something about the experience of greatness that can massage the ego to admit connection among all orders of being.  In this great order of being from the sub-atomic and molecule to all the unseen orders of the imagination we are able to experience the belonging of togetherness.  We assume that we are enough like each order of being enough to speak on behalf of all orders of being, and so as human, and in being human we speak on behalf of other orders of being.  We speak on behalf of animals and plants and angels and demons and God, and we do so as human beings, because we believe that connection is basic to our lives.  And we extend this relatedness to all orders of being; why indeed do we go to Mars and to the moon and send our eyes into outer space as far as we can reach..  We are curious about the full reach of how we might relate to all things.

  That is how we are made; we are made for the impossible to believe that we can speak for all things because in some way we are like all things and all beings. We believe that all things and beings are like us in some way.

  And that is where God comes in; we need a confession of a great Totality to exorcise the individual egos of all things and to convince us that we are not separate but all together and that we live best in living together well.

  So the Psalmist anthropomorphizes all Nature as we all do because we believe that we share enough in common with all of creation.  And we as people of faith believe that for all of nature to recognize God through worship and praise is the very best way for all of us to check our tendency towards separation before God’s greatness and believe that we are called to be together in the mutually beneficial ways of love and creativity.

  I believe that we can anthropomorphize, that we can treat everyone in a humanly way, because we share enough in common with all orders of life.  We as Christians, believe that God, theomorphized in the Jesus Christ, that is, God treated humanity as though it could be seen through the divine point of view.  In Jesus, we believed that God walked in human shoes so as to allow us to be merely human, but call us to be merely human in the very best way that we can.

  And we are human in the very best way when we do the impossible, when we have the creative imagination to go out of ourselves and into each other and into our world with empathy, compassion and that great eleventh commandment, Love one another.

  Let us continue to keep at doing the impossible; for me, it means escaping Phil’s world to be in your world, with you and for you.  Escaping our individual worlds to reach the impossible but mystical state of empathy and compassion.

  It begins when we can all encounter the greatness of the sublime and when humility comes easy when our adoration is won by the experience of One who is greater.  The greatness of God gives us reason to do the impossible; to go out of ourselves and into the realm of empathy and love.

  Let us go forth and anthropomorphize…I’ve got news for you.  That all we can do, be merely human, but let us do it the best way, let us do the impossible.  Love one another.  Amen.