CEpiphany5

Isaiah 6:1-8; Psalm 138; 1Corinthians 15:1-11; Luke 5:1-11

February 7, 2010

I remember the first time I drove up to Kanuga Conference Center

in Hendersonville, North Carolina.

It was in 1993 and I was going to to hear Madeline L’Engle.

When I began the trip from Jacksonville,

the medians on the interstate were white sand,

tall sparse grass, and, I’m sure, plenty of sandspurs.

Going through Georgia the sand and grass turned to red clay and pine trees.

And as I got into North Carolina, I went through a stretch of highway

where the medians were filled with wildflowers.

All shades of pink and lavender with a sprinkling of yellow.

You’ve probably seen them when you have been driving.

I remember the music coming out of the cassette player

was the acoustic guitar and the clear vocal tones of John Michael Talbot.

The wind was blowing over the bright and delicate looking flowers,

moving them in gentle waves.

All of a sudden it all washed over me

and for a few moments I felt like I was witnessing

the flowers in the act of praising God.

If I hadn’t been on an interstate I would have pulled over and watched them.

It’s funny, I remember knowing that even if I could have pulled over

I would’ve stayed to the side, so as not to disturb them

or cause this dance of praise to stop.

After awhile when the flowers were far behind

and the music was off and the elation had subsided,

I remember a feeling of awe

and then a sense stiffness –

that my experience of God was a far cry

from the beauty and freedom that I had seen in that median.

Later I came to learn to call that experience a thin place.

Thin places are where the curtain between heaven and earth

becomes transparent.

Where divine call and human response are in sync.

Where the Divine calls to a particular person

in a particular moment

in a particular place.

Thin places occur anytime your heart is open.

And in that very finite moment,

it opens that person to everything that is infinite and filled with possibility.

It reminds me of a poem by ee cummings:

[paraphrase]

i thank you god for most this amazing day today

i thank you god, well, god thanks a lot

for the leafly greening spirit of the trees

and the blue true dream of the sky

and for everything that is natural,

that is infinite

that is yes

Yet, when I got to Kanuga and shared what I saw with someone there.

She said, oh yeah, they’ve been doing those wildflowers for a few years now

and looked at me like I was way too ‘out there.’

Let’s add Isaiah’s and Peter’s experiences to mine.

Isaiah wasn’t driving up the interstate.

He was in the temple praying and in his prayer he came to a thin place

where the glory of God became a man seated up on a throne,

his robes draping down from the throne and over the floors,

filling the temple with God’s presence.

And, Isaiah, awed by the extravagant fullness and beauty of the vision,

felt like his life was small and dim in comparison

and that he could not begin to speak of it.

Peter was on a lake in a fishing boat

and he entered a thin place where the abundance of God

became known to him through Jesus.

After a night of fishing he comes home with empty nets.

After he has let Jesus sit in his boat in the shallow waters

and teach the crowds who were on shore,

Jesus tells him to go out to the deep water, and let down his nets.

When he pulls them back in, they are full,

brimming over with so many fish wriggling and glittering in the morning sun

that the boats start to sink.

And Peter falls before Jesus as though such abundance

is too large for his small and ordinary life.

Too much for his nets to hold.

He has witnessed something he can’t possibly live into.

And the great 20^th century Trappist monk, Thomas Merton…

He found a thin place where the love of God shone through ordinary people.

As he was walking around downtown Louisville

he was standing on a street corner

and looked around him and across the street.

As he watched the people crossing the street

he had a mystical experience

in which he felt this overwhelming love

for all the people around him.

He wanted to shout out to them that they were all one,

all brothers and sisters,

connected by God’s unconditional love and grace.

Immediately Merton felt shame

and realized what snobs he and his brother monks were,

thinking somehow that they had a better connection to God

than those that did not dedicate their lives to the monastic life.

And yet, here in the hustle and bustle and noise and commotion

of a downtown street corner

he had witnessed God’s large palpable love washing over everything.

He went back to his cell at the monastery and wrote:

Life is this simple.

We are living in a world that is absolutely transparent,

and God is shining through it all the time.

This is not just a fable of a nice story.

It is true.

If we abandon ourselves to God and forget ourselves,

we see it sometimes, and we see it maybe frequently.

God shows himself everywhere, in everything –

in people and in things and in nature and in events.

It becomes very obvious that God is everywhere

and in everything and we cannot BE without God.

It’s impossible.

The only thing is that we don’t see it.

I remember assuming, when I passed by those flowers

in their lively praise of their Creator,

that their praise was ongoing and I had simply had the pleasure

of stepping into it for a moment.

God’s glory is always filling Isaiah’s temple - and this space.

God’s abundance is always brimming over -

maybe we just need to listen to Jesus and go a little deeper.

God’s love is always connecting us and

making it possible for us to love one another –

on a street corner as well as in a monastery.

And when our hearts are opened to this ongoing transparency,

we inevitably see ourselves in the light that the thin place offers.

And we are usually shown in what ways God is calling us to grow,

perhaps so that we, too, may become a thin place for others.

I felt God’s encouragement to let my life move in praise like the flowers.

Isaiah felt God preparing him to speak to a people

whose minds were dulled, whose ears and eyes were closed to God’s word.

Peter heard Jesus’ call to a life so much larger and more full

than the one he was living.

Thin places – we can come upon them anywhere,

most often right in the ordinary places of our lives;

Sometimes in special places where we go

to be intentionally still and open to God’s presence.

There are disciplines that can help us to be more open to thin places –

Learning to pray, to be still, to be receptive.

And, yet, they come as a delightful – or awesome – surprise.

They are a gift.

They sustain us through the thick times.

They call us to a deeper walk with Christ.