Horse Gentling -- The Center Line

Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas
August 21, 2010; 13 Pentecost; Proper 16, Year C
Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

    (Luke 13:10-17) – Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, "Woman, you are set free from your ailment." When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, "There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day." But the Lord answered him and said, "You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?" When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.
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Stanford Addison is an Arapaho Indian living in Wyoming.  Stanford was a rebellious teenager.  He worked as a bronco buster, and he dealt drugs.  When he was twenty years old, Stanford was paralyzed in a car accident. (1)

There followed a decade of despair, during which he began to receive "unwelcome visits from spirits intent on endowing him with unwanted gifts."  Though it took him ten years, eventually he accepted both what he had lost and what he had gained.  He relaxed into a new role.  Instead of busting broncos, he became a horse gentler – some call them horse whisperers.  He also became a traditional healer. 

Stanford lives in a manufactured home and gets around by an electric wheelchair.  It was in the confinement of that chair that he developed the method that earned him the reputation of being a remarkably efficient non-violent horse gentler.  From the confines of his chair, he watched his brothers break horses in the old fashioned, bronc busting way.  He watched what worked and what didn't work. 

Stanford recognized how horses need a strong sense of safety.  They need structure and a dependable predictability in order for them to develop a sense of trust.  Stanford created a method for trust-development, using what he calls a center line.  He calls his method "finding your center." 

Stanford threads a rope through a secure apparatus hanging above the horse.  He clips the rope to a ring on the horse's halter.  Once the horse is clipped to the center line, there is only one place – directly below the ring – where the horse can stand without having its head pulled at an uncomfortable angle.  Stanford sends everyone away from the corral so the horse can learn on its own, without blaming any onlookers, blaming anyone else.

Then the horse will start to test the center line.  The horse will protest the limits – whinnying, fussing, trotting in place, contorting.  Alone in the corral, the horse will try to figure an escape from the confinements of this reality.  Eventually, inevitably, the horse realizes that the center line is something that can't be argued with.  Despite the obstacles, the horse finds a way to be calm – learns to be calm.  The horse accepts the reality of the center line, and relaxes.  That's the key to Stanford's trust-training regime.  Finding your center.  That's also the key to Stanford's entire existence. 

So many of us live like the woman in today's Gospel – chronically weighed down, bent over and burdened.  We may live that way for so long that it seems normal.  Eighteen years and she's still stuck, unable to look up, unable to stand tall and strong.

Jesus comes to her, and without asking whether she wants any help, he frees her.  He liberates her from her bondage.  He lifts her burden and restores her to strength.  He becomes her center, and she is free.

I visit with people who go through terrible times of burden and bondage.  Part of my work is to visit with people when they are going through crippling times.  So often I am amazed at the resilience and peace that I witness in so many people.  It's not unusual for them to give voice to the source of their strength.  "If it weren't for God, I couldn't make it through this.  If it wasn't for Jesus, I don't know how I could stand it."  You can sense that they are connected to some kind of center line, a secure reality that can't be argued with.  There is trust, security, peace, even within very disturbing circumstances. 

Everything we do around here at St. Paul's seeks to connect us with that center line – the experience of our inseparable bond to an infinite love that is also ultimate mystery. 


I heard a report on our public radio KUAF – "Science Friday" on "Talk of the Town."  Host Ira Flatow was interviewing a scientist about experiments showing that students who practice a form of meditation for just eleven hours over a period of weeks experience lower measurements of the stress hormone cortisol, better stress regulation, lower anxiety, depression, anger and fatigue, as well as changes to brain connectivity that last for weeks.  Just five days of practice makes measurable changes.

We could have told them that.  Around here we teach "Centering Prayer," a way of connecting with the source of life, which opens us to the divine presence and healing that liberates us to be able to bear our burden lightly, as Jesus says. 

In Centering Prayer we teach people to let go of their attachment to their thoughts and feelings, and to consent to God's presence and activity in our lives.  We teach them to symbolize that consent through a sacred word, to sit erect, with eyes closed, and very gently to introduce their sacred word as the symbol of their consent to God's presence and activity.  After that, there is no need to do anything at all.  The only time you use the sacred word is when you discover you are distracted by any thought or feeling.  Then, very gently, reintroduce your sacred word as a symbol of your consent, and be present for whatever time you give yourself for the prayer.  Twenty minutes can open you to a deep place of quiet.

Practices like this help connect us to the reality of our center, our eternal, unbroken connectedness with God. 

There are other practices.  We encourage people to read the Daily Office, the Prayer Book services of Morning or Evening Prayer, reconnecting us with our story and identity through scripture and prayers.  We share little practices of mindfulness – the three breaths: one to let go of the past, one to be here and now, one to be open to whatever will be. 

Most of all we share Eucharist.  We gather in a celebration of praise and thanksgiving.  We hear and reflect on scripture.  We pray.  We break bread and drink wine as the sacrament of Christ's death and resurrection made present for us as the food of resurrection life.  We reconnect with our center, our unity with God, ourselves, our neighbors and all creation.

There is something relaxing about these practices.  When we know ourselves connected to the center line of the reality and presence of God, we can accept our reality with enough healthy surrender that we can trust, and experience freedom – release from the crippling burdens of anxiety, fear, depression, anger and fatigue. 

Just like Stanford Addison is a horse gentler who establishes trust by creating an unbreakable connection with a center line that cannot be broken, so Jesus is our human gentler, who establishes trust in us by creating an unbreakable connection with an infinite love that cannot be broken.  We may buck and whinny, fuss and prance in place, rebel and complain for years, but the reality of the God who loves us will not let go of us – even unto death, Jesus teaches us in his cross.

Life blossoms when we just relax – when we accept the fact that we are loved and accepted.  We don't have to buck and prance any more.  God loves us, and that is all.  When we close our eyes and relax into that reality, surrendering into the mystery of reality itself, even the scientists say they can tell we change for the better.  We become less anxious, less burdened with depression, anger and fatigue.

We are here today to renew that connection, that union, that relationship.  Let yourself surrender to the unbreakable connection that is your center line to the sacred.  Let go of your burdens.  Breathe.  Sit up and stand up straight.  Be filled with divine light and love.  Then let light and love flow out through you into the world.  Jesus calls us to share in his work of world-gentling. 
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(1) the story comes from Lisa Jones, "The Heart's Original Position" in "Spirituality and Health" May/June 2010, p. 44f.  Her book about Stanford Addison is "Broken, A Love Story"
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The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church  

is to explore and celebrate God's infinite grace, acceptance and love.

For information about St. Paul's Episcopal Church and it's life and mission, please contact us at
P.O. Box 1190, Fayetteville, AR 72702, or call 479/442-7373
More sermons are posted on our web site: www.stpaulsfay.org
Visit our web partners at www.explorefaith.org

The Fire of Jesus

Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas
August 15, 2010; 12 Pentecost; Proper 15, Year C
Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

(Luke 12:49-56) – Jesus said, "I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; they will be divided:

        father against son
        and son against father,
        mother against daughter
        and daughter against mother,
        mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law
        and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law."

    He also said to the crowds, "When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, `It is going to rain'; and so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, `There will be scorching heat'; and it happens. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?"
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"I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!"

I wonder how these words might have been heard.  There were some apocalyptic expectations in the air.  John the Baptist had spoken of the coming of the anticipated Messiah, saying "He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.  His winnowing-fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing-floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire."  Anybody who shared John's expectations might have heard these words of Jesus and looked for some pyrotechnics. 

A few weeks ago we read about the time when Jesus and his fellow travelers were rudely treated while passing through Samaria.  James and John asked him, "Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?"  They thought it was a reasonable expectation.

You could visit a number of churches this morning where you might hear preachers who are eagerly awaiting Jesus' return as an event of fire and blood and genocide. 

But Jesus never acted that way at all.  Jesus rebuked James and John's fire-breathing passions, and proceeded to make friends with Samaritans, using one of them as his illustration of what it means to be a good neighbor – his ultimate illustration of compassion and generosity – the Good Samaritan.  Later when another of his disciples brandished his sword and struck one of the arresting party in the garden, Jesus stopped him sternly, saying, "No m0re of this," and he healed the injured enemy.  One account says he had access to legions of angels to fight for him, and he did not use them.

Jesus never lived up to John the Baptist's fiery expectations, causing John such perplexity that he called from prison to ask, "Are you the one, or should we wait for another?"  Jesus' answer, "‘Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them."  No fire.  Just healing.

Sometimes I will say to those who repeat bizarre second-coming fictions of rapture and "left behind" and war and holocaust, "What if the Jesus who returns is the same Jesus who came?" 

The fire Jesus brings is not the fire of brimstone, violence and destruction.  The fire Jesus kindles is the fire of passion.  The fire of the Holy Spirit uniting people of many tongues and enlightening us for ministry.  Some people interchange the term the "kingdom of God" with the term the "passion of God."  The fire of Jesus is the fire in the eyes, the impassioned energy of one who is committed to action.  Committed regardless of potential conflict, controversy or division.

I like to quote Frederick Buechner who said, "The place God calls you is where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet."  That meeting is a place of fire and passion.  It is that fire that motivates the worship, work and ministry of this place.  Next week is our annual Ministry Fair, and you will have a chance to sample the fire and passion that is behind some sixty-plus ministries that invigorate our life here at St. Paul's. 

Because Jesus was on fire to feed the multitudes, we are passionate about feeding people through our Community Meals and Angel Food ministries.  Because Jesus worked with ceaseless energy to heal people, we reach out with profound effect through the network of health and dental Community Clinics that started here as St. Francis House and through our energized ministries of Healing Touch and visitation.  Because Jesus' heart reached out to the poor and outcast, we started the Seven Hills Homeless Center.  Because Jesus enlightened the minds of his disciples and fired their imaginations, we offer scores of classes and formation opportunities for all ages, including our Sunday morning 10:00 hour and things like EFM (Education for Ministry) and the Servant Leadership School of Northwest Arkansas.  Because Jesus told us to visit those who are in prison we take Eucharist to a congregation behind bars, and I can tell you that they are on fire in that place.  Because Jesus embraced his friends in a warm fellowship of love, we play and feast and celebrate together in various groups of friends.  Because Jesus broke the bread and poured out wine in the body and blood of his passion, we worship and pray here with energy and deep intention.  I want you to know that we have people who serve with passion in all of these ministries, and I want you to know that I am passionate about them too.  There are fires that are already kindled in this community, and we intend to keep stoking the flames.

But there is something else that God is passionate about, and we hear it especially from the prophets, today from the prophet Isaiah.  God is passionate about love and justice. 

God is love, and God commands us to love – love God, love neighbor, love self.  Justice is love extended corporately.  Justice is how love structures society.  Justice happens when everyone has a viable opportunity for things like life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  It is injustice that ignites God's passion whenever some are ground down by poverty, violence or greed.

God's passion is inflamed when justice fails.  When some get rich while others get poorer.  When some live threatened while other lounge content.  That's what inflamed the prophets who spoke out in God's name. 

"What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it?" says God through the prophet Isaiah.  There is enough for all.  Why are some of my people suffering?  Why are you producing rotten grapes?  I will remove my hedge of protection and let you suffer the consequences of your rot, says the Lord.

I can hear Isaiah speaking to us today.  "You who market sub-prime derivatives and yield the grapes of greedy iniquity, I will remove your hedge fund and it shall be devoured.  I will break down its wall and make it a waste." 

The witness of scripture is the witness of a God who takes sides.  God creates division.  Throughout scripture God intervenes on the side of the poor, and expects the rich to make sure the poor are raised.  God intervenes on the side of the weak, and expects the powerful to treat the weak with merciful compassion.  God intervenes on the side of the broken and outcast, and expects us to bring them healing and hospitality.

God expects us to take sides, even if it creates division, "father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother."  If there is a way to extend healing to all, the way Jesus healed so extravagantly, God expects us to take sides on behalf of healing.  If there is a way to extend hospitality and generosity to the outcast the way Jesus extended himself toward Samaritans and Gentiles, God expects us to take sides on behalf of hospitality.  If there is a way to avert violence, God expects us to be courageous peacekeepers and to take sides to protect those who are oppressed.  If there are those who are poor or unemployed, God expects us to take sides on their behalf. 

If we are relatively comfortable and secure, God calls us to reach out of our comfort zones with passion on behalf of those who do not enjoy the comforts we possess.  That's the passion of God, and God expects us to be passionate too. 

Get fired up, with the passion of Jesus, with the passion of God.  For healing and reconciliation, for feeding and advocacy, for spiritual growth and hospitality.  For love and justice.  If Jesus came to bring fire to the earth, let his fire burn in us.  

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The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance and love.

For information about St. Paul's Episcopal Church and it's life and mission, 
please contact us at
P.O. Box 1190, Fayetteville, AR 72702, or call 479/442-7373
 
More sermons are posted on our web site: www.stpaulsfay.org
Visit our web partners at www.explorefaith.org