The Rev. Fred G. Garry - July 29, 2001
Texts: Hosea 2 and Colossians 1
Arcturus is his other name,
I'd rather call him star!
It's so unkind of science
To go and interfere!
I pull a flower from the woods,
A monster with a glass
Computes the stamens in a breath,
And has her in a class.
Whereas I took the butterfly
Aforetime in my hat,
He sits erect in cabinets,
The clover bells forgot.
What once was heaven is zenith now.
Where I proposed to go
When time's brief masquerade was done,
Is mapped, and charted too!
What if the poles should frisk about
And stand upon their heads!
I hope I'm ready for the worst,
Whatever prank betides!
Perhaps the kingdom of Heaven's changed!
I hope the children there
Won't be new fashioned when I come,
And laugh at me, and stare!
I hope the father in the skies
Will lift his little girl,
Old-fashioned, naughty, everything,
Over the stile of pearl!
-
Emily Dickinson
I am partial toward a certain breed
of dog. Most people are. Some enjoy the small dog; there those
who are convinced that a mutt from the pound is always the way
the to go. You have your fancy dogs, service dogs. For myself,
though, I have to confess a partiality toward Labradors.
Labradors work for me. Faithful to the
end and hearty, a lab is big enough so I wont break the creature,
but not so large that they require two seats in a car. Most important
for our family right now, labs pass the kid test. We have a family
dog, Oliver, a lab. Oliver has had every appendage and part of
his body pulled, squashed, and checked to see if it would come
off. For all die wear he is none the worse. He is very faithful
to the little ones, which he should be considering he is fed
well beneath the high chair.
More than this though is the joy of seeing
the dog outside. I've had two labs and both have considered any
standing body of water a second home, any trail leading off into
a wooded area a standing invitation. This is a sight to see and
a great joy. Labs don't walk in the woods they seem bent on becoming
one with every bush, hole, or unsuspecting critter. Before I
wax too romantic here though I feel obliged to mention this is
also their most annoying trait. They run off, seemingly hearing
the call of the wild, at the least opportune times and with the
least amount of consideration they run.
There is a kind of wild took that comes
over them, something deep is triggered in them, and they just
need to run, I don't blame a Labrador for this. I believe this
is how God made them. In the grand scheme of creation all Labradors
were intended to come complete with no less than thirty acres
and a pond. There is something in them that is never able to
be leashed, to be controlled. At some point, no matter the training,
a lab is going to run, usually when you are just about to leave
for a social engagement requiring attire not meant for brush
and bog. It is a genetic sort of thing most likely.
I am not quite sure if this part of the
Labrador could ever be determined and quantified. Like Emily
Dickinson and her poem, I don't know if science could ever truly
capture this necessary desire to explore. But it is there deep
inside the Labrador. I see this in children too. Sometimes in
adults, but almost always in children. Most children have the
same response to thirty acres and a pond that a Labrador does:
it is as if the kingdom of heaven has come.
When we lived in Ohio we had twenty acres
and a creek. Not quite the total bill, but no one seemed to complainspecially
the children and certainly not the dog. They could not get out
of the car fast enough to run and explore what most would see
as just farm fields and woods. But it was something more to them,
something that rang true deep inside of them. There was something
that came to them in that place, a kind of joy and unbridled
freedom. They had room to explore, throw things you could never
throw in a house, look at things that had lots of bugs, and crawl
under and inside places that were certain to get you dirty.
Now there comes a time in life when such
places don't have the same appeal. I have to admit as they tromped
through the brush I cut a path so I would have an easier time
getting to where I like to sit. As they explored the houses made
by large limbs felled by the last storm, I considered where it
would be good to actually build a house. Yet I too found myself
laying these aside and simply just exploring and enjoying the
fact that this place was not developed, not built. Always in
that moment where I explored like the dog, like the kids, there
was a sense of freedom and peace wafting over me.
Although Henry David Thoreau actually
went and lived in this place, this sense of freedom, I have yet
to hear someone who seemed to understand it better than Emily
Dickinson. It was as if she looked at life through an opening
in the woods, rather than the other way around. So many of her
poems belie an intimate knowledge of the woods in Massachusetts
where she lived her life. She knew the flowers that came beyond
the garden, the song of birds in their season, and stars by their
luster. Mostly though she knew the sense of wonder and the freedom
it brings.
Emily Dickinson lived in the century
before last from 1830 till 1886. She would have known the abolitionist
movement in the churches and the college her father founded;
she lived through the reports of the civil war that came to the
North; and, as she describes in her poem, the rise of science
in America. It would not be a stretched to determine that she
was less than enamored with laboratories and microscopes. Throughout
much of her poetry there is a kind of visceral reaction to the
attempt to figure out nature, to calculate it, to control it.
There was something in Emily Dickinson
that wanted to let life come to her, to receive the stars, the
flower, the butterfly, and heaven simply as a gift to be enjoyed.
'Me idea of categories, computations, control, and charts was
anathema. These were all doomed to the never-ending quest of
humankind to shape the world, make the truth rather than live
in the mysterious gift of creation. Emily knew there was a price
for this, worrying if living life in such a way would make her
laughable. "I hope the children [in heaven] won't be new
fashioned when I come, and laugh at me and stare."
Yet her worry didn't have enough strength
to undo what seems most beautiful in her. The unbridled sense
of being a child in the midst of God. So often in her poetry
she would speak of heaven as a "home" she longed for,
but held at bay so she wouldn't miss the play of creation, the
dance of wild flowers. With imagination and love she let hope
carry the day. "I hope the father in the skies will lift
his little girl, oldfashioned, naughty, everything, over the
stile of pearl."
In poems tied in lace kept in boxes till
after her death Emily Dickinson changed the landscape of America
literature. She didn't change science, or, she hasn't truly changed
science yet. Perhaps someday. But she did change the way we look
at life, at the unharrowed ground, at clover bells, and indeed
the kingdom of heaven. Her poetry broke aft the rules and created
a new place to explore. It was as if she unleashed a Labrador
into the woods.
I have all confidence that the Apostle
Paul was not as enamored with the color of Spring flowers, I
have it with good authority that he never chased a Labrador through
the woods, and most likely he may have been a bit impatient with
a person like Emily Dickinson and her curious habits. But one
thing is for sure they walked 'a similar path: the path of freedom.
For each there was only one way to live and that was free from
the impulse to control, to chart, to determine. They were each
imbued with a restless spirit ever exploring the riches and beauty
of God's mercy.
For Paul this was not always the case.
He had lived a good portion of his fife fully convinced that
the human spirit could be controlled, could be tamed, could become
an ordered rule of conduct. And then on a fateful day on a Damascus
road the truth came to him, the Spirit of Christ called to him,
blinded him, and in essence took away every fiber of his former
life. For on the Damascus road Paul discovered that the truth
is not what you find, but who finds you. Having lived a life
of rules and regulations, a life controlled by laws and fractions
of infractions, he lost it all when the Spirit of the Living
God found him.
Like Emily Dickinson, he became convinced
that the truth was not something you compute or determine. The
truth is the spirit of God that comes to you, breathes a freshness
of life changing freedom into your very soul. Truth is being
in the midst of love not determining the proper course of action.
God could not have chosen a man who was farther from freedom
than Paul. Hence God could not have chosen a better person to
defend the freedom of the Holy Spirit once he had experienced
it. For in all his days, in each moment of ministry, there was
never a time when Paul was seduced by the desire to control the
truth. He erred ever on the side of freedom.
In our passage that we read today we
have this before us. The Colossians were a young church who were
being led to put aside freedom for the control of Gnosticism.
Gnosticism was a contemporary philosophy that argued: through
selfenlightenment we can discover the truth and be freed from
all worldly entanglements. Some would say Gnosticism is very
much alive and well today. And its great challenge is that it
sounds so good. Yet at its very heart is a grave rejection of
freedom. For those who have been set free in Christ have experienced
the truth, the gospel, that comes to us. The gospel is what discovers
us; Gnosticism suggests the truth is what you come to, what you
discover.
In true Pauline fashion he begins his
letter to the Colossians imploring them to remember the basis
of their faith: "the word of truth, the gospel that has
come to you." Like Emily Dickinson Paul believed that the
saving truth, the truth that sets you free is the one that comes
to you. We can learn, grow in knowledge, even seek out new understandings,
but as soon as we seek to gain control of the truth, as soon
as we seek to determine the truth, to place it in a cabinet clover
bells forgot, we have lost it. And it was this sense of truth,
this place of freedom that was the church for Paul.
In each of his letters just as we are
seeing in Colossians today Paul sought to protect the freedom
of the Church. It would have been very easy for Paul to lead
the churches he founded to become synagogues based on the law.
Many would come after him and try to do this, Galatians being
the greatest example. It would have been simple for him to institute
a rigid set of rules. Yet instead of rules, laws, and controls
Paul wrote to the Colossian church to remind them they were borne
of freedom. And that the unique quality that is the church is
freedom. It is the place wherein God is crafting freedom. Like
the fields bring forth grain and the trees their fruit: the church
is meant to bring forth freedom.
There is something deep inside each of
us, a soul led by a spirit that is ever seeking freedom. We unleash
this part of us in places that are unfit, in ways that hurt us,
in philosophies that ultimately destroy all that is good in us.
To the Colossians Paul wrote reminding them that God had begun
a miraculous place in their midst, a place of freedom. In this
place the soul could be set free, we could explore and wander
through what is best in life. This place is a church.
When Paul wrote the Colossians he could
have said many things. In his opening words though, he gently
tries to remind of the glory God had crafted, saying, "you
have heard of this hope before in the word of the truth, the
gospel that has come to you." By this gentle word he sought
to remind them of the remarkable joy they have been given, that
has come to them. It is so easy to fall into the belief that
we can control life, the truth, what is best. It is so easy to
become convinced that we can determine our own course. Thanks
be to God we have this word still, this truth, this gospel that
can call us back. Thanks be to God we have word to remind us
that in this place we can be found by the Spirit of God; we can
be free. Amen.
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