Cain slays Abel.  Within the first few chapters of the Bible, our penchant for violence is captured in the story of one brother slaying another.

From a New Church perspective, this murder captures a spiritual penchant as well, the penchant for “truth” divorced from love to kill.  The math is simple – divorce truth from a kind and loving heart, and it becomes a weapon and salvation becomes a matter of faith alone – only of the head, not of the head and heart.  Anger, hatred – the very bases of the homicidal urge – then grow.  It is why, as one pastor noted, “only love can be entrusted with the truth.”

… and the good news 

The good news is that we are placed within a life that calls us out of our heads into the exercise of faith.  Against a homicidal tendency a yearning for community and connection stands as a strong force.

Emanuel Swedenborg wrote of picturing heaven as picturing a choir – a community in miniature..

In a choir, people allow themselves “to be led mutually by each other, therefore each one individually and collectively by the Lord.  All the good people who come into the other life are brought into this harmony… distinctly and perfectly…..” (Secrets of Heaven 3352)  So in allowing ourselves to be led by others, by the whole – as occurs in a choir – we mirror God’s leadership.  Community is a form a leadership in much the same way a choir “surrenders” to the music.

So those are our choices.  And it is why inviting in a such a wide variety of voices to one’s life is critical – not only critical but incredibly fun!

Welcome dear friends and family, here and online, to Joanna Cole Wade’s memorial service. Joanna told her daughter laughingly “You’ll be shocked to see how many people you will see at my funeral.” So on behalf of her family, thank you for joining us in memorializing a life a lived well.

Joanna was born July 4th, 1941 to David and Serena Cole. The rest of her life she enjoyed the simple fact that her birthday was celebrated annually with fireworks. Raised in Glenview Illinois with her two siblings Michael and Andrea, she went on to attend the Academy of the New Church and then spent two years at the Bryn Athyn College.

Following college, she married Marvin Wade. And three very significant loves joined her life – Forrest Cole Wade, Jennifer Ann Wade, and Matthew McFarlan Wade. Making a home in Alabama, she worked hard as a mother and as Advertising editor for Southern Living and Progressive Farmer.

Over those years she lived a life marked by Independence and Connection.

First, how did independence show up in her life?

No doubt one of her life’s hardest moments was the collapse of her marriage. In ways, not asked for, it was both heartbreaking and formative. And one can see that streak of independence – maybe growing from a life that had not unfolded to plan, in many areas of her life.

There were hobbies she lovingly pursed over the years – from wood burning, to painting, to drawing, to poetry (Valentine’s Day Cards), to Antiques.

There were even private hobbies her children were unaware of. She showed love of language that went unnoted. Her house held reference books on languages such as Portuguese.

And one story seems to get to that core of independence. She was aghast when presented with a bid for yard work to clear out brush when the bid came in at $800.00. Informing her son that for a with 140 years of combined experience, two  women could do this.  So she called her friend Cindy and they had at it, 2 seventy years olds clearing brush, and incidentally saving $800.00.

And that independence was not all sweetness and light. The children all noted how their mother’s Achilles heel was driving. She was a backseat, side seat, every seat driver, offering a running commentary on their driving acumen as well as that of others on the road, including language from the adjective “Niny” on up to words that do not belong in a sermon!

While independence was important maybe connection was even more so. That connection started with her deep ties to her children. Continually reinforcing these ties through phone calls and phone messages, she always wanted them to know how much she loved them.

She likewise saw value in placing them within connection. In recent years, she often pulled out pieces of Forrest’s, Jennifer’s, or Matthew’s youth to give to them – a little league cap, Hot wheels, Y-Indian Guide headband, drawings. And in that same light, she was forever reminding them of so-and-so relation to so-and-so who was “your first cousins third child.“ As Jennifer noted, speaking of family lineage with her ran closely parallel to the “begats” of Genesis.

And those connections grew. She loved sharing funny movies with them including such notables as “The Pink Panther” and “Waiting for Guffman.’ And there were the Swedish Meatballs and Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Given that love of connection, it is little wonder that she loved this church and its choir.

Did you notice the beauty of that line from AC? It read: But they allowed themselves to be led mutually by each other, thus each one individually and collectively by the Lord. Church like choir is about independence and connection. About each independent one being led in turn by everyone – by connection – and thus led by the Lord. That is God given grace indeed!

It appears one of those “God winks” – one of those moments of intentional grace – that while she faced death alone, her last gathering in this life was with the choir. I would imagine the last act of singing in a choir will be her first act as she wakes to life anew in God’s creation.

None of that of course immediately mitigates the pain and at what is an untimely passing.

One can think of that grief in light of the New Testament story of the Road to Emmaus. One can so easily paint the picture of what the two individuals in the story are facing. They have just lost a person they loved, a person they followed, a person they had given their very lives too. That person was Christ. Picture how they would have been walking that path – a path filled with pain.

And yet even though that pain blinds them to God’s presence, God’s presence is still there, literally walking with them as they navigate their way home. His presence is finally revealed in a most startling way – Christ breaks bread and give thanks.

Breaks bread and give thanks. Breaking bread – such a powerful metaphor for life – a life in which we break ourselves open, as we love others just as Jo did. A life in which we give and share just as Jo did. A life in which we laugh just as Jo did. And a physical life that ultimately breaks just as Jo’s did. But there is thanks. There is thanks! There is gratitude that even in that all breaking, God is there to. Gentle eyes, gentle hands, breaking bread, giving thanks, welcoming us home.

That is why the speaker talks of “heart burning” within them. That is the call. To allows our hearts to burn with the presence of God. For many like Jo that was a quiet, steadfast, deeply committed burning. That is beautiful legacy.

So let us close with a celebration of that legacy in the midst even of this painful loss of a beloved friend, sister, and mother. Her physical life is now silent. And maybe Rumi’s words are then are most appropriate to close with, “When I am silent I to go to a place where all is music.”

Amen

Reading through the news recently, two countervailing stories sat side by side on the front page.  One was on the strains within the current economic paradigm of Communist China. The other story wrote of JP Morgan’s posting of a $2 billion loss in its banking business.

In regards to China, the article read, “With the recent political upheavals, and a growing number of influential voices demanding a resurrection of freer economic policies, it appears that the sense of triumphalism was, at best, premature, and perhaps seriously misguided. Chinese leaders are grappling with a range of uncertainties, from the once-a-decade leadership transition this year that has been marred by a seismic political scandal, to a slowdown of growth in an economy in which deeply entrenched state-owned enterprises and their political patrons have hobbled market forces and private entrepreneurship.”

That same sense of triumphalism apparently fueled the catastrophic losses at JP Morgan recently announced as well, even though the economic model is far different.  This was a nearly universally lauded bank that had charted the tortuous waters of the 2008 economic implosion and come out the other side the largest bank in the country.  The story now appears to be of triumphalism misguided.  The Chief Executive of JP Morgan stated that the losses stemmed from “Huge moves in the marketplace but we made these positions more complex and they were badly monitored.”

So both economic models – the Chinese and American – arguably failed within a certain context.  Triumphalism … misguided.  That is not to debate freedom or open markets or the plusses and minuses of capitalism – concepts that have alleviated a great deal of human suffering.  It is however to say there is an unquestioned assumption underlying both systems that human minds can “figure it out”, that somehow there IS a perfect economic system and that if we create it all other ills of society will somehow dissipate.   And we believe we have “figured it out” – triumphalism reigns.  Utopia.

Triumphalism inevitably however is misguided any time we become drunk on the “facts.”  For both systems.  There is little doubt that those responsible for the challenges in China and the challenges at JP Morgan are incredibly intelligent – maybe be even brilliant.  There is little doubt that they had and have at their disposal an almost unimaginable access to “facts.”    Pass the bottle please.

That is why faith for me is becoming increasingly uncomfortable   That discomfort is not from a spiritual crisis of faith but from from an aching alarm that “facts” – economic, religious or otherwise -are creating a numbing drunkenness.  Do Churches ever function under an assumption of “triumphalism” in ways that are every bit as costly as the JP Morgan debacle?  Yes.  Do those who have rejected church/ faith likewise at times function under an assumption of “triumphalism” that they have now “figured it out?”  Yes.

See there is a bigger picture here.    Of course, our proclivity is to fill in the disquieting “blank” with pious certainties – either economic, spiritual or rational.  However, I don’t that is the call here.  I think the call is again and again to return to the concept that truth is a form of love and as such those who are loving are the one’s able to most hold the truth.  But we would rather have “facts” unencumbered by any wider picture.   It may just be what we are dying of.   And it maybe where the God of surprises will work one spectacular miracle of rediscovery.

Here we sit on Mother’s Day. For some it stirs found memories of a mother – attentive and devoted. To others there is a void – a missing voice. Yet despite those differences we can celebrate on this day the positive experience of motherhood done well. Celebrating motherhood is celebrating attentive love.

Attentive love is largely self-defining. It is a focused love. A present love. My experience of a father’s love is more observational. In a division that is admittedly simplistic, fathers watch and care over the big picture. Mother’s are often times more attentive – more aware of details and daily needs.

At its best it is attentive and just that. “Attentive” with no “so that.” It is just attentive, accepting a child where they are as they are.

And that is where we can see how that attentive love is so reflective of God’s love. “As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you.” Isaiah 66. As such this love gives rise to possibility and permission.

Possibility means an attentive love that in its unconditional grounding speaks to the object of that love the sense that life is wide open, that the promise is great. And not only is life wide open, but that we have permission to explore that horizon. Possibility and permission.

And that kind of love is not Pollyannaish. Note – our text from Isaiah speaks to comforting, comforting that occurs when life inevitably fails. And how is that we hold that “comforting” to have it most reflect God’s love?

It starts with the simple trust, trust that they have an Intelligence – God given that will lead them. That includes an Intelligence – God given – that will lead through times when their life falls apart and possibility and permission apparently “fail.”

And as our agenda for our children falls apart maybe, just maybe God is opening “possibility and permission” for us as parents or caregivers. There is no way to “save” others from the difficulty of life. They have their own journey, everyone blessed with their own relationship to God. In that vein, parenting or caregiving is important but we can never make ourselves THAT important. None of you, in a sense, frankly are all that great as parents or caregivers! We all fall short. We all are less than what our loved ones need or deserve.

There is no way to really know what we are doing. Ego driven “Control” wants to arrive in the guise of being a “good parent.” And with that desire, comes our individual work of regeneration – a candid conviction of lives balanced on feet of clay. And maybe, within that acknowledged imperfection lays the perfect parent!

So the comforting of God has two things – the comforting of simple trust. And it likewise has the simple acknowledgement of surrender, of letting go.

So we learn over years to trust, surrender, and love. These three allow us to be attentive to our children or those in our care without needing “it” to be any particular way. That does not mean life without boundaries, which is the inevitable retort of false duality. There are boundaries. But those boundaries are shaped and cemented by love. Those boundaries and part and parcel of “The Pact.”

[The] pact is the Lord’s close connection with us through love or to put in another way, [it] is the presence of the Lord with us in love and charity. The Word calls the pact itself a pact of peace. This is because peace symbolizes the Lord’s kingdom, and the Lord’s kingdom consists of mutual love that is the only thing that affords peace.

For in the end, God created YOU to be the mother, father, sister, brother, uncle or aunt to THAT child. So fill the moments you do have with attentive love, knowing the imperfections add to the sweetness of the journey. It is the journey of the “good enough” – the “good enough” mother, father, sister, brother, uncle or aunt to THAT child. If you find yourself called to do more, of course do more. That may well be God’s call. But do it with selfless attentiveness, as an imperfect offering, trusting and surrendering at the same time.

God’s call in this life and the next is to “abide in His love.” The call is not to be perfect, to be right, to be in control. It is to live into that Love, that greatest of Loves. “When you see this your heart will rejoice.” (Isaiah 66:14) Possibility and Permission ABOUND in that place.

You are not here to verify,
Instruct yourself or inform curiosity
Or carry report.
You are here to kneel . . . .
TS Elliot

The legacy of the Kingdom tales through the Old Testament.  Read these words from Jeremiah 9: 23: 24.

The conflicted heart of God holds up for our observation in words thousands of years old two conflicting triads – one ours’ and one God’s – wisdom, strength, and riches in opposition to kindness, justice, and righteousness.

The issue of the ground in which we choose to plant is so small thing.  Faith that grows from love has a quality of grace and humble “unknowing” to it that is attractive but frustratingly hard to articulate.  As the Gospel of John poetically notes, “The wind blows wherever it pleases.  You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going.  So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”  (The words for “wind” and “Spirit” are interchangeable.)  Conversely, Faith that grows from knowledge develops a hard edged certainty to it, a “knowing” that is comforting and readily codified.   That latter tends to be heard well, heard strongly in never ceasing argumentation and debate among those who “know” exactly as matters stand.

We are all so uncomfortable with “the wind” or “the Spirit” I think, regardless of an orientation more toward love or more towards knowledge.  The Spirit is a disquieting force – so disquieting I will even pretend to pay it no mind as I gather my agenda for what love looks like.  Wind rustles the leaves.  It spreads seeds.  It drives the waves.   And it makes a complete mess of the well set picnic table of paper cups, juice, styrofoam plates and plastic silverware.  It makes the natives restless!

We all seem to stop short of really allowing the wind to have at us.  Of course there are those issues of great import and impassioned attention similar to the issue of same-sex marriage today.  Issues like that are important but it seems we never quite let the Spirit go all the way.  We arrest it, myopically focusing all our moral attentiveness solely on one issue believing its resolution to be the resolution, essential saying “the wind blows only here.”  But that is never the case. Slavery gave way to Suffrage which gave way to Civil Rights which will give way in turn to ….  God’s cause is beyond one issue but encompasses the whole shebang – the totality of LIFE.

In this denomination we speak of looking at the “mysteries of faith.”  I think that points towards speech willing to address “the paradoxes of faith” – of not always needing the well coiffed answer but being comfortable with the Wind.

I know there is a tad bit of that “voice” that is even necessary given the tumult of the times in which we live.  But only a “tad”  - an amount far less than the roaring monologue we often would choose to unleash if given our way.

Where is this voice for you?  The scary voice, the one used to “frighten” and “prove”?  The one which after we roar, we look to friends with the question, “Was that good?”  ”Did I sound scary enough?”

We have to wonder more and more how good any of that voice is.  The Third Way is so difficult to write about because it is not a solution but it is the solution. Cutting between the easy division of “liberal” and “conservative” it neither supplies “Safety” or “rightness.”  And I do think more and more it is one of the prized discoveries God places before before us.  Read this powerful reflection from Richard Rohr.

At this time in history, the contemporary choice offered most Americans is between unstable correctness (liberals) and stable illusion (conservatives)! What a choice! It has little to do with real transformation in either case. How different from the radical orthodoxy of T. S. Eliot, who can say in Little Gidding,

You are not here to verify, 
Instruct yourself or inform curiosity 
Or carry report. You are here to kneel . . . .

There is a third way, and it probably is a way of “kneeling.” Most people would just call it “wisdom.” It demands a transformation of consciousness and a move beyond the dualistic win/lose mind of both liberals and conservatives. An authentic God encounter is the quickest and truest path to such wisdom, which is always non-dual consciousness and does not take useless sides on non-essential issues.

Neither expelling nor excluding (conservative temptation), nor perfect explaining (liberal temptation) is our task. True participation in God liberates us from our control towers and for the compelling and overarching vision of the Reign of God—where there are no liberals or conservatives. Here, the paradoxes—life and death, success and failure, loyalty to what is and risk for what needs to be—do not fight with one another, but lie in an endless embrace. We must penetrate behind them both—into the Mystery that bears them both. This is contemplation in action. 

Spot on stuff.  New Church theology is cut right along those lines as well.  As Emanuel Swedenborg noted, “[The] pact is the Lord’s close connection with us through love or to put in another way, [it] is the presence of the Lord with us in love and charity. The Word calls the pact itself a pact of peace.  This is because peace symbolizes the Lord’s kingdom, and the Lord’s kingdom consists of mutual love that is the only thing that affords peace.”

Living into that place is hard because we are asked to give up being “right” and learn to just “kneel.”  Hard to do for the Lion King!

This is no small thing.  Warning bells sound constantly about the dangers of coveting.  Coveting however is not a glamorous sin.  It makes no list of the “hot sins.” There are no 12 Step program to address it.  It is rarely if ever preached on.

I believe that is because it is so deeply engrained in our very being that even acknowledging it takes a perspective a rare view can muster.  I watched this video and smiled knowing we may have evolved in some ways, but certainly not in others.

Cucumbers and Grapes are humorous.  Junior Seau’s suicide not.  A 12 time all-pro in the NFL he committed suicide this week.  The average NFL retiree is 6 times more likely to commit suicide than the average American.  6 times.   How much of that is somehow connected to the comparison trap – to a reaching and stretching to what our culture deems as success only to reach that pinnacle and realize the superficial hollowness of it all?

I don’t know if those were Seau’s reasons for taking his own life.  But I do know that the comparison trap does lead people, as Thoreau famously said to “lives of quiet desperation” as they chase after a phantom – a “ranking” as it were where they are now “ok.”  There is no such ranking.   The settling is when we gain a glimpse that only our journey will get us there – only our journey – who we are, where we are – will get us there.

Andy was a new minister serving in his dad’s church.  With the annual Gay Pride Parade approaching, Andy’s father, knowing that the parade organizers had routed the parade right by his church, timing its arrival to the same time as church was to let out, decided to end church early.

The parishoners poured out at the close of church, believing that in so doing they would rob the parade organizers the supposed satisfaction of a confrontation with the congregation.  However, the parade had actually arrived early.

Andy watched the somewhat awkward stand off.  And then he noticed.  He noticed the church across the street.  The church across the street had a table set up with glasses of water for those in the parade.

That is the Third  Way.

We talked Sunday of the danger of dividing the world all too easily into “boxes.”  That most often is the self centered endeavor of the human ego.  As we discussed, the reality is that we carry those boxes around in what we judge their most useful form – ammunition boxes packed with rationalizations for our positions.  It is not a posture from which one listens but often only a position from which one attacks.  In the story above, Andy’s father had an “ammunition box” as did no doubt some of those in the parade.

But water is the “universal solvent.”  By sharing simple glasses of water the neighboring congregation was refusing to pick up the weapon of words.  Did that congregation have members opposed to homosexuality on moral grounds?  No doubt.  Did the parade likewise include those who held similar judgements about Christians?  No doubt.  But by that simple act of water, a Third Way was opened.  The confrontation of “either” “or” gave way to something more profound.

Religious movements, from a New Church perspective, can figuratively be seen as gardens, gardens judged in the end by their fruit, by what that produce – by the effect of love.    Religious movements – institutionally or individually – that close down conversation and simple human connection are not bearing useful fruit.  Religious movements that open conversation and connection – “Come let us reason together” – in their own very simple way make a profoundly courageous stand for the Third Way.

We are to make stands.  We are be firmly unwavering at times.  Our question is what does that look like for us?  I vote “water.”

So much the way God works is asking us to create and hold.  We are actually part of the creation process.  It is blessedly beyond our control but none of it happens without us either.  And we are asked in turn to “hold” the fruits of that creative endeavor in a nurturing way.

Maybe, just maybe then God says the same thing to us – that we will never understand how much He loves us until we hold those creations.  For some that maybe children.  For others it may it be nature.  For others it might be an endeavor to love that has taken shape and form.  For all, it is the holding of LIFE.