|
Foundry United Rev. |
|
|
Meditation: “Intersections” Sunday, November 1,
2009 |
|
|
Ephesians 4:1-16
Rev. |
There are two Greek words—one that means “to
weave” and the other that means “to knit” and they appear together in the
same passage of Scripture only once: Ephesians 4:16. Ephesians 4:16 is one of the most difficult
verses of the Greek Bible to translate into English. Ephesians 4 compares the
body of Christ to the human body, and the gist of verse 16 is that members of
the body of Christ are knit and woven together the way the human body is knit
and woven together and that all the parts of the body need to move together
and grow together in order for the body to function well. The focus is on the ways that the parts of the
body intersect and intertwine with each other in the same way that the
threads of all woven and knitted things intersect and intertwine with each
other. I think it helps us understand what we are trying
to say on All Saints Sunday. There are people who have woven and knitted
themselves into my life in such a way as to profoundly shape who I am. Some
of them have died and they are no longer physically available to me. But they
are still knit and woven into me. They are my particular pantheon of saints. It occurred to me this week that DNA is a thread.
Physically and biologically there are generation, after generation, after generation
of people woven into each of our DNA who have helped to shape who we as
individuals are physically. Last year there was a news story about a small
town in For thousands of years our ancestors have
physically and biologically been weaving and knitting themselves into our
DNA. I believe that the spiritual and the physical
mirror each other. For thousands of years there are saints who have been
spiritually knitting and weaving themselves into us, and they have helped to
shape who we are spiritually and ethically and existentially. Some of them we know; many of them we don’t. They
are as really and truly woven into our souls as our physical ancestors are
woven into our DNA. On All Saints Sunday we pause to remember them
and to name the names of the ones we know about and are specifically thankful
for. We will name the names of saints who have died this past year who have
woven and knit themselves into us through this congregation. You will be
invited to name the names of saints who have woven themselves into your life,
whenever they lived or died. We will be thankful for saints we have never
known or even heard of who have spiritually knit and woven themselves into
us. And we will think, I hope, about who we can
spiritually knit and weave ourselves into. The important part of any weaving
is the intersections. Ephesians 4:16 says the most important dynamic without
our bodies is the places where things come together – the joints, the
connections. The most important part of your life and mine is
where we touch and are touched by others … where we weave and knit our lives
into the lives of others. To remember the saints, as we do this morning, is
always an invitation to live saintly lives. Saintly lives aren’t perfect
lives. They aren’t even particularly religious lives. They are lives that
weave and knit themselves into the lives of others. Someday every one of us will physically die. I
had a dream recently in which I was in a crevice inside the earth. I told it
to a psychiatrist who told me the crevice inside the earth was a grave. The
psychiatrist asked me how my congregation would react if I got up one Sunday
and them that they were all going to die. I told him that we say it in church
one way or another every Sunday. What happens to us after we die will take care of
itself. What will last of our days here on earth will be the ways we have
woven and knit ourselves into others. After we are gone from here, may
someone on All Saints Sunday think to mention our name. www.foundryumc.org |
|
|
|
|
|
|
