Ruth Portela’s 2018 Stewardship Reflection

There are some hymns that I have trouble singing.  There are certain words or phrases within these hymns that for some reason touch me to my core.  Frankly, I get a bit choked up or “verklempt”. Despite my emotional reaction, these are my favorite hymns because they speak to me.  Last Sunday we sang one of these, Hymn 302, “Father, we thank thee who hast planted thy holy Name within our hearts.” It got me thinking about why this hymn resonates with me, and are there any common themes among my favorite hymns.  So I decided to pull out my list and make some comparisons. Here are three of my favorites, and the phrases that resonate with me:

Hymn 302, verse 2: “Watch o’er thy Church, O Lord, in mercy, save it from evil, guard it still, perfect it in thy love, unite it, cleansed and confirmed unto thy will.”

Hymn 686, verse 3:  Come thou fount of every blessing:

“Oh, to grace how great a debtor daily I’m constrained to be! Let thy goodness, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to thee: prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love; here’s my heart, oh, take and seal it, seal it for they courts above.”

Hymn 370, verse 6:  I bind unto myself today…

“Christ be with me, Christ within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me, Christ beside me, Christ to win me, Christ to comfort and restore me.  Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ in quiet, Christ in danger, Christ in hearts of all that love me, Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.”

Then I got to thinking about which phrases from scripture speak to me as well:

Psalm 23, verse 6:  “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

During the Baptism service: “You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ’s own for ever.”

So what does this mean?  Is there a common theme? What do words like “surely” and “sealed”, and “bind” and “forever” say to me?  I find comfort in these words. Because I am “prone to wander”, and “prone to leave the God I love.” There are hours, days, weeks, when God is just a fleeting thought.  I forget that I am one of God’s children, and I let the everyday distractions, busyness, and worries get in the way of my relationship with God. But God does not forget me.  He is “watching o’er our Church”, he is “with me, within me, behind me, before me, beside me…”. He is in “mouth of friend and stranger”.

I was reminded of this the other day when I was in the post office.  I had a simple letter to send, but it needed to be weighed and needed extra postage.  Usually I use the machine in the lobby but they’ve replaced the perfectly fine machine with a new one that didn’t work the last time I tried it.  But I decided to give it another shot, maybe they’ve fixed it? Alas, it still didn’t work. And in the meantime I lost my place in line as many people streamed in after me while I was trying to use the machine.  So I got in a very long line. Of course there were only 2 people working the counter, time was crawling, and I was getting more and more annoyed. (I kept thinking of the sloths from Zootopia!) When it was my turn I presented my letter, paid for the extra postage, and rather huffily told the clerk that “Your machine in the lobby doesn’t work.”  He looked at me and said something like “If it had, then I wouldn’t have gotten to see your lovely face”. My hostility was completely disarmed. He changed the course of my mood immediately. “Christ in mouth of friend and stranger” indeed.

At my baptism I was “sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own for ever.”.  Not just the times when I come to church. Not just in times of danger or sorrow when I offer a fleeting prayer to Him.  He is “surely” with me “for ever”. So the least I can do is share my time, talent, and treasure, and give back to the One who has given so much to me, and is always and forever with me.  I give my time by participating in the life of the church, and coming to church on Sunday mornings to be welcomed by my church family, embraced by the spirit of this place, and uplifted by the service, music, and words of scripture and whatever pearls of wisdom Elizabeth graces us with.  I give my talent by becoming involved in church programs like outreach, vestry, choir, our new storytelling initiative, fellowship opportunities, diocesan programs, thrift shop, and wherever I feel I am called to help. I give my treasure so that this place can continue to provide refuge, peace, and inspiration to those who are here with us now, and for those future “church family” members whom we have yet to meet.  It would be amazing if we could just ignore the dreaded buildings and grounds problems and just focus on the more meaningful aspects of church life, but these buildings are old and showing their age. Many issues need to be addressed now, before they continue to get worse.

I ask you to think about which words in church music or scripture speak to you, think about why they are speaking to you, and what they are trying to tell you.  That’s your homework assignment. In addition, think about your role in this church, and how you contribute your time, talent, and treasure.

I decided to end this talk by reading a poem that also speaks to me.  I was inspired by reading one of our fellow parishioner Kim Read’s favorite poems* that she posted on Facebook recently, entitled “The Word of God”, and it reminded me of this one.  I found it among my mother’s papers. It’s entitled “God” and it’s attributed to Max Ehrmann, but when I googled the title and author I could not find it, so it’s a bit of a mystery:

Somewhere, once, I expressed a belief in the certainty of God.  And I was challenged to tell what God is. But I could not. Much less could I tell what he is than an insect could tell what I am.  But there is something in this universe which is more than we, oh very much more than we—

painter, architect, inventor, consummate genius, who built the house of the universe, and overlaid it with emerald, gold, and sapphire.

who garnished the dome with the starry tapestry of the night;

who planned the course of the sun and of the moon;

who built the iris temples of the sunset clouds;

and planted the longing for love in the heart of the world;

who made the sea and the moan of the sea;

and made the laws of his house—honest, unchanging laws for man to learn and labor by, in gladness and pace.

And this is something more than we—oh very much more than we—

*Here is the Facebook post from Kim Read:

One of my favorite poems, originally found on The Wondering Minstrels:

 

(Poem #803) The Word of God

From desert cliff and mountaintop we trace the wide design,

Strike-slip fault and overthrust and syn and anticline…

We gaze upon creation where erosion makes it known,

And count the countless aeons in the banding of the stone.

Odd, long-vanished creatures and their tracks & shells are found;

Where truth has left its sketches on the slate below the ground. [1]

The patient stone can speak, if we but listen when it talks.

Humans wrote the Bible; God wrote the rocks.

 

There are those who name the stars, who watch the sky by night,

Seeking out the darkest place, to better see the light.

Long ago, when torture broke the remnant of his will,

Galileo recanted, but the Earth is moving still [2]

High above the mountaintops, where only distance bars,

The truth has left its footprints in the dust between the stars.

We may watch and study or may shudder and deny,

Humans wrote the Bible; God wrote the sky.

 

By stem and root and branch we trace, by feather, fang and fur,

How the living things that are descend from things that were.

The moss, the kelp, the zebrafish, the very mice and flies,

These tiny, humble, wordless things — how shall they tell us lies?

We are kin to beasts; no other answer can we bring.

The truth has left its fingerprints on every living thing.

Remember, should you have to choose between them in the strife,

Humans wrote the Bible; God wrote life.

 

And we who listen to the stars, or walk the dusty grade [3]

Or break the very atoms down to see how they are made,

Or study cells, or living things, seek truth with open hand.

The profoundest act of worship is to try to understand.

Deep in flower and in flesh, in star and soil and seed,

The truth has left its living word for anyone to read.

So turn and look where best you think the story is unfurled.

Humans wrote the Bible; God wrote the world.

— Catherine Faber

 

Notes:

Lyrics and melody © Catherine Faber, 1994

[1] Pun on slate, kind of obvious but I wanted to point it out explicitly.

[2] Galileo was reputed to have said after his recantation, “and yet it

moves!”

[3] i.e, on the moon.