Mind Boggling and Fantastic

Mind Boggling and Fantastic

Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas

November 2, 2014; All Saints' Sunday, Year A

Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

Matthew 5:1-12 – When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

"Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

"Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

"Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

"Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

"Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you."

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At least since 1997, scientists have been exploring evidence that describes nature as a kind of hologram. The idea is that the information about what happens in our three-dimensional world is encoded in quantum equations on the two-dimensional boundary of three-dimensional space/time. (I hope I get this right.)

Imagine the universe shaped like a can of soup with a boundary of light-energy-information. Inside the can-shaped boundary are all of the galaxies, stars, black holes, gravity, and us – everything in what we call the universe. The information describing all of these realities resides like a label on the outside of the boundary, on the outside of the can. From that two-dimensional boundary our three-dimensional world exists like a physical 3-D movie projected from the two-dimensional boundary of the universe. All of the information that is us – our universe – resides at the cosmological horizon and is universally accessible.

Now, I don't know if I got that right. I know I can get Art Hobson or Lothar Shafer to correct my science. I may be wrong in my details, but I know I'm correct in spirit. The nature of the universe, as scientists now explore it, is mind-boggling and wonderfully fantastic. We'll come back to this.

The Beatitudes that we just heard from Matthew's gospel are also mind-boggling and wonderfully fantastic. Matthew beautifully summarizes Jesus' spiritual teaching in these ten "Blessings." The word here translated "Blessed" can also be translated "Happy." How blessed and happy are the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, the reviled and persecuted, and so forth.

But at first glance, it doesn't make much sense, does it? I'm not about to go up to someone overwhelmed with grief because their loved one has just died tragically, and say, "How blessed and happy are you, for you will be comforted." I'm not about go up to someone whose life is so meek and marginal that they don't know where the next meal will come from, and say to them, "How happy and blessed are you; you are going to inherit the earth."

But Jesus says all of these things, and they turn our minds inside out. It is like he is saying that life is radically different than our experience of it.

When we experience spiritual poverty, he is saying that we are already embraced by the kingdom of heaven. When we mourn our losses, he says we are already living within a comforting reality transcending all we can lose. He tells us we need no merit or status to be given the whole. Our deepest frustrations and yearnings can and will be satisfied. We can relax. So can everyone else. Jesus tells us that when we let go of all the distractions, we experience God. And when we live in God's energy, we discover we are God's beloved children. Therefore, if others attack or hurt or punish us for acting out of loving compassion, they can't really hurt us. We are always and everywhere embraced within the eternally loving vitality of God.

Jesus poses these wild assertions as facts. Facts as real and true as the law of gravity. The Beatitudes are spiritual realities of a universe breathed into being by the wisdom of divine love. That's mind-boggling and utterly fantastic.

So, back to our universe shaped like a can with all of the information of the galaxies and every living thing residing on the edge of the boundary. Remember, scientists talk in metaphors like this.

James Finley is a writer and retreat leader who was a student of Thomas Merton. Finley uses a different metaphor – a magician. When a magician says, "Pick a card, any card," you already know, it doesn't matter which card you pick, the magician will inexplicably find it in your pocket or behind your ear.

Now, Finley says, imagine you are out walking on the beach and God says, "Go ahead, pick a grain of sand, any grain." No matter what grain of sand you choose, God is present in it. Since God is not subject to division or diminishment of any kind, God is completely present in that one little grain of sand. Furthermore, since the whole universe flows from God, is sustained by God and subsists in God, you are holding in your hand a grain of sand in which you, along with the whole universe and everyone and everything in it, is wholly present.

Mind-boggling and utterly fantastic.

Finley goes on to imagine God inviting you to pick a place, any place; pick a circumstance, any circumstance where you might find yourself. Wherever you are, God is there. God invites you to choose something like that grain of sand – anything at all – an autumn leaf, a chair, a shoe – "No matter what you might choose, you realize you are choosing something in which God is wholly present, loving you, and all people and all things, into being."

Then God invites you to reflect on any aspect of yourself. Your spiritual poverty, your grief, your smallness, your yearnings, your most generous self, your heart's desire, your goodness, your fears, your most threatening circumstances. That's just the list from the Beatitudes -- parts of us that are always with us.

God invites you to reflect on any aspect of yourself. No matter what aspect of yourself you focus on, God is there, wholly present in each breath, each thought and feeling, each turn of your head. You realize, as you sit, that God is present as the ungraspable immediacy of your sitting. As you stand, God is there as the ungraspable immediacy of your standing. As you laugh, God is there as your laughter. As you cry, God is wholly present in each tear that falls from your eyes.

It does not matter what little thing you might choose, within or around you. It might just be the thing that awakens you from your fitful dream of being separate from God, who is the reality of yourself and all that is real. May each of us be so fortunate as to be overtaken by God in the midst of little things. May we each be so blessed as to be finished off by God, swooping down from above or welling up from beneath, to extinguish the illusion of separateness that perpetuates our fears. May we, in having our illusory, separate self slane by God, be born into a new and true awareness of who we really are: one with God forever. May we continue on in this true awareness, seeing in each and every little thing we see, the fullness of God's presence in our lives. May we also be someone in whose presence others are better able to recognize God's presence in their lives, so that they, too, might know the freedom of the children of God.[i]

The scientists say we are inseparable from the information at the edge of the universe. Jesus and the mystics say, Blessed are those who know that they are inseparable from the love and grace of God immediately present within us and all creation. Blessed are you, beloved children of God.

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[i] James Finley, Epilogue, from Oneing: The Perennial Tradition, Center for Action and Contemplation, 2013

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