God, it is so easy to get caught up in the cheers of the
crowd. It’s not so easy to stick around
for the tears and agony. Teach us the
way to be soul friends to each other.
Show us how to be present for each other in the way you are present to
us. Amen
As Sophia used
to say, “Picture this: Jerusalem,
Passover week: suddenly there is a
parade. We’re all running to see what is
happening. People are shouting,
‘'Hosanna, blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord’. They’re waving palms and throwing their coats
on the ground. We watch and wait; and,
then, there he is. He’s not much to look
at, just a common man; but, there’s definitely something about him. People are beside themselves. The crowd is growing with hysteria. I’m getting out of here while I can.” We can all get caught up in this story. Why, here in The Villages, there are parades
for every imaginable holiday and people get pretty caught up in them no matter
how silly they might seem to people who weren’t there.
People love
parades. And the folks in Jerusalem that
day were no different. I’ll bet even
some of you, if you’re honest, felt a little rise in excitement as our own
choir processed waving their palms and singing, “God has made me glad”. We love to rejoice, it lifts our spirits,
makes us feel good, brings us closer to each other as we celebrate
together. But, this week does not end at
the parade. And, we must travel on with
Jesus after he dismounts from the donkey and walks—almost unnoticed—around
Jerusalem. There’s no real agreement
about what Jesus did from the time of the parade to the time of the so-called
‘last supper’. Each of the gospel
writers tell different stories. It would
appear that he continued what he had been doing all along—teaching to whoever
was present to listen. Only this time,
he did it in Jerusalem. Jesus is upping
the ante. It may be that this is when he
overturned the tables of the money-changers in the Temple. He certainly continued to heal people and the
crowds gathered. It became impossible
for the ‘powers that be’ to ignore what this man from Galilee was doing right
under their noses. The disciples also
continued to be with Jesus, spending time with him and learning from him.
Before you
know it, it is the eve of the Passover Meal.
Again, we can imagine a somewhat rowdy crowd of rough and tumble men and
women, still completely unaware of what lies ahead. They quiet during the supper when Jesus says
those strange things about the bread and wine.
And then comes the prediction of the betrayal with the self-questioning. Judas is sent to ‘do the deed’ and Peter is
warned that he will, himself, betray Jesus during the trial that is to
come. They sing a song and go out.
Jesus takes
the disciples with him to the Garden of Gethsemane. All he asks is that they stay awake with him
while he prays. Not only do they not
stay awake, they never realize the agony that Jesus now carries with him in
prayer. Three times, Jesus comes back to
see if his friends are standing watch in prayer for him and three times he
finds them sleeping soundly. He bears
his agony alone when even his best friends cannot stay awake after a good meal
to be with him. There is so much to
focus on in the hours that follow; but, today, I want to focus on what Jesus
was asking from his disciples—their presence with him during the sobbing,
pleading, hard time. I want to suggest
that we might call that gift—the gift that Jesus failed to receive at his
neediest point—the gift of presence.
It’s a gift
that we all can and do give; but, it’s not always easy. Like many of you, I was an extremely lonely
adolescent. Nobody, and I mean nobody
wanted to listen to me whine one more time “Nobody likes me. I don’t fit in anywhere.” When I
was about fourteen, I happened on to a book by Taylor Caldwell called “The
Listener”. It wasn’t written for kids,
so, I must have lifted it from my mother’s books. I
don’t remember the whole premise but I remember that a man, after his wife
died, built a monument to her where he sat day after day. Across the top of the monument it said, “The
Man Who Listens”. People could come in
and talk to him though he sat behind a veil and was unknown to them. The story follows several people whose lives
were changed because of this listening presence. People who were suicidal, bankrupt,
broken-hearted, all these had their lives changed. Somewhere, somehow, a lonely adolescent hung
on to the hope that somewhere, someday, there would be someone who would listen
to her pain. And, of course, eventually
there was, or I would not be here today.
When I hear of our LGBT young people dying at their own hands, all I can
think of is that no one was there to listen.
That book, though I did not realize it until recently, played a huge
role in my wanting to become a minister, to be a person who could be counted on
to listen.
Why does the
gift of presence seem so hard? It would
seem that Jesus did not ask much of his disciples—just “stay with me”. Most of the time when people come to see
me, all they want is for me to listen—really listen. We are a multi-tasking, make everything
better, rush to the next job world. The
gift of presence requires us to change every one of these orientations. When our friends ask us to listen, I can
guarantee you that they need our full attention; and, more than likely they are
not asking us to fix whatever is going on for them. Unless we have worked on increasing our
sensitivity to the need of people to be listened to and our need to dispense
answers, we will rush in with advice—we don’t do well with feeling unable to
help. Perhaps it is also because of our
need to move on to our next task of the day or hour.
The gift of
presence is pure love. By giving the
gift of presence, we are allowing the love of the Universe, indeed the love of
God, to flow through us and flood the other person with peace. The Celtic tradition speaks of “soul
friends”, people to whom we can completely unburden our hearts and souls and
know, without a doubt, that they will sit quietly and listen. For many of us, it requires great discipline
to remain completely focused on what this one person is saying. But, the gift that you are giving to another
is well worth the price of practice. I
find that the more I am able to sit in God’s presence quietly, the more I am
able to sit with complete focus on another.
This single focus calls us to hear and experience pain, conflict,
suffering. But God—the very source of
this love—will guide you in your growth.
This soul
friend, this anam ċara provides the
place where we can be completely understood.
To be understood is to be loved. John
O’Donohue, Celtic poet and priest, said, “to be understood is to be home”. There is no greater feeling that to come
‘home’ and know that you are there—at home, at peace. There is much sadness in this world, no
matter what the advertisements say about living or retiring in Florida. We don’t shovel snow like our northern
friends, but we suffer the same losses and grief, the same disappointments and
estrangements and the same need to be understood. What an opportunity we have to give this free
gift to others.
This is what
Jesus needed from his friends on tis night of great suffering. They failed him, perhaps because they were
still completely unaware of what was happening, perhaps because they could not
face the pain of seeing Jesus as he was that night. No matter the cause, the lesson is that there
is no need for us to ever fail those whom God has placed in our lives in the
same way as the disciples failed Jesus.
When we provide for others this ‘coming home’ experience, when we know
this profound desire to listen with full attention, we are standing on sacred
ground. This sacred ground is ours for
the experiencing by our steadfast attention to being present to all who come
into our presence. This sacred ground,
the same as when we come fully into the presence of God, is where we are
‘church’. And ‘where we are church’ we
are love. May it be so. Amen and amen.
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