| Mark 2:1-12 "The Butterfly Effect" |
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| Written by Rev.Don Lee | |
| Sunday, 09 March 2008 | |
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Sue Monk Kidd, author of The Secret Life of Bees tells the story about a woman named Sweet, hired by Sue’s parents to care for her and her two brothers. One day the children were at their grandparents’ when they discovered a wheelbarrow full of rain water and hundreds of tadpoles. When the children asked Sweet for mason jars to catch tadpoles in, the grandmother announced that girls did not catch tadpoles and redirected Sue to the piano. A few days later Sue and Sweet were walking to the park, when Sweet announced they were taking “the long way round.” (the long way around meant doubling the distance). Sue made a scene but Sweet was adamant. On the way, they came upon a ditch swollen with water and tadpoles. Pulling out a mason jar from her pocket with nail holes in the lid, Sweet chimed, “Now aren’t you glad we took the long way round? Ain’t no tadpoles the short way.” Sue was soon elbow deep in brown water, chasing after the darting fish and having the time of her life! She writes, “That day I learned to challenge the tight, tidy categories of what was expected and possible in my world. Like the tadpoles, I was molting into a new being!” “The long way around.” Jesus describes the journey of faith as the road “less traveled,” whose destination is life! –Matthew 7:14 We’ve been talking about the spiritual habits of the “long way around.” • The courage to be the bait of God’s grace. • The decision to live from a deeper center, • rediscover childlike simplicity, • And live prayerfully. There is one last spiritual habit I want to talk about: The Spiritual habit of Engaging. How engaging our own need for transformation leads to World transformation. Our reading comes from the Gospel of Mark, chapter 2, verses 1-12. Prayer: Everlasting God, in whom we live and move and have our being; Your have made us for yourself, so that our hearts are restless until they rest in you. Amen. –A prayer from Saint Augustine’s autobiographical “Confessions.” V. 1, When he returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home. When I think of Jesus in the Gospels I think of: • purposeful movement; • locomotion; • kinetic energy (with skin on it); • A force of nature in perpetual motion! And Jesus reinforces this perception in Matthew 8:20 when he says: "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head." But our Gospel narrative paints a different picture: Jesus at rest, at HIS home in Capernaum. Now imagine some evening sitting in your favorite chair/recliner, watching your favorite episode of “Lost” when debris starts raining down on you. Suddenly four strangers are starring at you from the hole they’ve just tore into your ceiling. Is your response going to be: A. “Hallelujah, an opportunity for grace?” or B. You crazy lunatics just tore a whole in my roof! Verse 5, “When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven.’” Jesus’ response sounds a lot closer to A, “Hallelujah, an opportunity for grace.” Why? • Jesus sees creativity, instead of demolition. • Superheroes, instead of a four man wrecking crew. • “Faith-full-ness” instead of intrusion. Inspired by compassion for their friends’ paralysis and believing that Jesus could do something about it, this Fantastic Four literally tear through the one barrier blocking access to their friend’s healing allowing Jesus to prove himself the God who, “forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases.”(Ps. 103:3) So Jesus has his priorities straight (i.e. a roof is never more important then a human being). There’s a lesson in that. But I think there is something much more profound going on here. Jesus is saying, “If you are going to bring healing to the broken; a better lot to the poor (and the story confirms the paralytic’s poverty), then it will require a radical faith. The kind that: • Rips through barriers; • Breaks through ceilings to aggressively and creatively expose Christ to the brokenness of our world; • We need a faith that literally “razes” the roof so that heaven and earth can meet. “The dream of God is a vision of shalom…”claims Theologian Marcus Borg. But Shalom, well being in a comprehensive sense, cannot take place without internal transformation. God changes us so we can change our world. I want to talk about 2 stages of the spiritual lifecycle that lead to transformation. Chrysalis and Imago. Prior to cocooning, a caterpillar exists in a juvenile state. It is a bundle of appetites! Its sole preoccupation appears to be eating, consuming; satiating its appetites. According to SanDiegoZoo.com, when a caterpillar seals itself into a chrysalis, chemicals are released from its body that change and rearrange all the cells giving the butterfly its new shape. What sets off this process? As the caterpillar’s "juvenile hormone" level drops, its appetite wanes and the instructions written in its DNA kick in. We are a bundle of appetites, aren’t we? We are constantly upgrading our cars, our relationships, our housing, our jobs, our churches, our lifestyles. According to Paul Escamila, author of Longing for Enough in a Culture of More, appetites are hand to mouth sort of urges such as eating, resting, and finding immediate pleasure. Longings have a more enduring quality; they are the stuff of dreams, hopes, memories, relationships, and spiritual and vocational direction, and have more of an enduring quality. And he concludes we often confuse the two. Like the bumpersticker slogan, “When I’m trying to make a decision, I always listen to my gut. And it usually tells me to eat chocolate.” Truth is, most us have been listening to our “gut” way-too-much …and its beginning to show, (metaphorically speaking). Chrysalis is about longing. It grows out of our hunger for something more; something substantive; something worth living for. Chrysalis is also a stage of waiting. Jonah’s ride in the belly of the Great Fish is a story about Chrysalis and how the unfolding of God’s grace pushes us to the margins. “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain,” writes the Apostle Paul in Philippians 1:21. He’s describing spiritual metamorphosis! In the child’s book, Hope for Flowers, a caterpillar named Yellow asks a caterpillar busy spinning a cocoon what a butterfly is. "It's what you are meant to become,” he responds. “This may look like dying but actually you will still live. Life is changed, not taken away…the change is so slow that anyone who might peek in may feel that nothing is happening. But the butterfly is already becoming. And once you are a butterfly, you can really love: the kind of love that makes new life." When I stretch and wrestle, breaking free of those things that are binding me up, then MY SOUL is given wing and strengthened for flight! Anne Lamott puts it this way, “You…have to get rid of so much baggage to be light enough to dance, to sing, to play. You don't have time to carry grudges; you don't have time to cling to the need to be right. She’s talking about “metamorphosis.” When Jesus says “Repent, for the Kingdom is at hand,” he uses the word “metanoia” which in the Greek means “transformation,” from the root of the word “metamorphosis.” Imago is the stage of Adulthood. The chrysalis has been broken and the butterfly, set free. Instead of living to consume, the transformed caterpillar lives to create; it pairs, lays eggs, and births the next generation. That’s a helpful image for Discipleship! Disciples do not live to consume, but to birth the next generation of those who will respond to Jesus’ “Follow me.” As many of you know our church was instrumental in birthing the interfaith ministry called Community Homeplace Assistance Program. CHAP began when a group of people became aware of the growing problem of homelessness in our communities and shared the belief that God wanted them to do something about it. CHAP targets families who are losing their housing but need longer term assistance then MSS was set up to provide. And since its inception, CHAP has been filling this gap in services to the poor. 1st, the bad news. The board of directors for Community HomePlace has decided to shutter CHAP. Shut it down. That’s the bad news. The good news is we did so after learning that MSS is now expanding their services to work more long term with families in crisis, which is great because MSS is so much better positioned to provide this kind of assistance to the poor. CHAP has agreed to turn over its resources to MSS to continue this work. Guess what name MSS has chosen for this new extended assistance program? CHAP! Now, that’s Metamorphosis! This ministry is being set free and I’m so excited to see this ministry being transformed into this next state of maturity. Imago: The adult stage of faith where the focus of our existence moves from consuming to creating. Here’s the thing: I don’t think Imago is something that happens all at once! John Westerhoff, professor at Duke Divinity writes, “Conversion is a continuous and lifelong process. Conversions proceed layer by layer, relationship by relationship, here a little, there a little-until the whole personality, intellect, feeling, and will, have been recreated by God.” The theological term for this is “imago dei” meaning, “image of God.” If we want it badly enough we can change; not by sheer will, but by cooperating with God’s unfolding grace already at work within us. In the book “Spring Moon: A novel of China,” a mother says goodbye to her reluctant young daughter, who is being sent to a boarding school for her safety during a time of national turmoil. Bette Bao Lord writes, My daughter, the lessons we studied together…do you remember what must happen before a caterpillar can become a butterfly?” The child nodded. “Then tell me. What must take place before the magic transformation?” The girl’s shoulders began to shake and tears again filled her eyes. But they did not fall, and her voice was clear and steady as she recited what she had learned. “The caterpillar must weave a cocoon, and live within it alone. It becomes a chrysalis, always changing, waiting until the proper time. Then the cocoon is broken.” “And…” “The butterfly escapes.” “It is…” “Beautiful.” “And it…” “And it flies.” “Good. You have learned your lessons well, my daughter.” Again, the mother wiped away the tears. Change is painful. But if we do not take up our mats and walk we deny God’s healing in our lives! Mathematician Lorenz Attractor hypothesized the “butterfly effect,” the concept that one seemingly insignificant action has unimaginable power. While I have doubts that a butterfly’s wings in Uganda can really set off a tornado in Texas, my heart believes that when people begin to love, find balance, simplify, pray, and engage their own need for transformation, change happens, not only are we changed but God also begins to change the world through us! Several of us had the opportunity to hear poet Maya Angelou speak last weekend at a gathering at the Meyerson. If you’ve read her autobiography, you know hers is a story of transformation; a childhood history of abuse and abandonment becoming one of the most prolific speakers and writers of our time. Maya spoke of the power to see beyond complexion to community. It’s a quote from one of her poems. And I’d like to close by reading from a portion of that poem: We, Baptist and Buddhist, Methodist and Muslim, say come. Peace. Come and fill us and our world with your majesty. We, the Jew and the Jainist, the Catholic and the Confucian. Implore you to stay awhile with us So we may learn by your shimmering light How to look beyond complexion and see Community. …To translate ourselves to ourselves and to each other. …We Angels, and Mortals, Believers and Nonbelievers, Look heavenward and speak the word aloud. … Peace, My Brother Peace, My Sister. Peace. My Soul. |
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