Shed
a Little Light
Rev. Alison Longstaff, Jan
18, 2015
Bath Church of the New
Jerusalem
2 Kings 4:1-7; Matthew 14:13-21; New Jerusalem’s
Heavenly Doctrine 151-2
Elisha said, “I
wonder how I can be of help. Tell me, what do you have in your house?”
“Nothing,” she said. “Well, I do have a little oil.”
On this Martin Luther
King Sunday, I wanted to talk about what it takes to be a hero, and it might
not be what you think.
I first saw Joe Black in
the line at Café Crème down here on Front Street. My immediate impression of his mustache and
tattoos and piercings was, “Scary. Give that one lots of room!”
I happened to be in line
with Carolyn Lockwood. What she said to
me next dragged my needle right off that record. She said with a big smile, “Have you met Joe
Black? He is such a great guy. Everyone loves him!” I then learned about his daily Facebook “Message
of Awesomeness,” and of the many other ways he brightens the lives of many in
this community just by showing up in life with optimism and words of support
and encouragement. Jaded cynics
beware. Joe’s light shines on through
the darkest days. He is a local hero.
Here I sat down with Joe and asked him the following questions. He answered with his heart. I have included some summations of his answers. His words encouraged us all to make what difference we can with what we have. He revealed how we never know when kind words from us might save someone's life. His words of kindness and way of being loving has inspired at least one person and probably more not to commit suicide.
Tell
us a bit about your background, where you grew up and went to school. How would you describe your childhood and
teenage years? Joe grew up in Bath, attending the local schools.
You
got an award from Maine Street Bath, what was it for? It is for being a good citizen---for his Messages of Awesomeness and Hugs and contributing in many ways, such as the reading program and youth program.
You
post daily messages of awesomeness on Facebook and have a commitment to being
positive and loving. What else do you
do, and why do you do these things? He helped see that a skate park was built and he promotes literacy in the schools.
So,
do you feel positive and loving all the time? Not at all. Sometimes he is writing his positive messages to remind himself to stay positive.
Tell
me about a few favorite memories or moments that have happened because of your
commitment to being positive and loving and real. A woman told him she was still alive because of his words of encouragement. Just seeing him stopped her from killing herself.
It
sounds very rewarding. What does it cost you to put yourself out there the way
you do? He said it costs him nothing. He just tries to be himself every day.
We applauded Joe. He sat down, and then I tied the interview and Scripture together with the theme.
Our Scripture readings
pointed us to the way God can take the few resources that we have and make them
more than enough for us to accomplish good in the world. God works through
what we love, which is represented by the oil in the widow’s house. All she had was a little oil, and she thought
it was nothing. But oil represents
love. Oil represents the best in us, it
is the spark of joy that can make us serve for hours without fatigue because we
are so full of love. That spark is
different for each of us. It is a spiritual love that shows up in physical
ways.
When we tap our inner
love, we discover that it is something that never runs out.
That is the message in
today’s Scriptures. That there is always
enough when we focus on what matters spiritually.
Who among us has not experienced that timelessness and inexhaustible focus
that can come over us, when we are engaged in something that truly calls to us?
Our deep spiritual love
is bigger and harder to define than the ways it shows up in what we do on earth,
but we can get glimpses into what it is by what we love to do.
Some understandings of
Swedenborg say that we have a “good” love and an “evil” love, and that we have
to “shun” the evil love and try to let God put the good love in us more. But there is another way to look at it that
is simpler and easier to work with.
Let’s picture us as different parts of one body, and I might be, say,
part of the liver, and you might be part of a muscle on the right arm, or a red
blood cell, or maybe a brain cell. There is so much possibility, and every
single cell is needed. I can be a
healthy liver cell, or an infected one.
I might be disease-free or covered in cancer. But I remain a liver-cell. I am neither evil nor good, I am a potential
useful contributor, but my usefulness is impaired or not by the darkness or
disease that is attacking me. I am what
I am. The problem is the disease or
imbalance that affects me. My job is to become aware of and work to remove the
diseases or imbalances, not shun my very nature. This model takes a lot of
shame and blame and self-loathing out of the picture. It recruits us in being
strong against the blocks, or “cancers and diseases” that stop us from living
our love. Do you see the difference in
the model?
It is like the difference
between a healthy rabbit and a rabbit with rabies. The rabbit isn't “evil”. But the rabies will cause the rabbit to do
harm until the rabies is removed from it. That is how good loves can be
hijacked for harm. We are made to be
expressions of good love. We can learn
about the things that twist our good love and do harm through us by learning
about the “hijackers” and protecting against them.
In any case, our good deep
spiritual love can show up in all sorts of diverse natural expressions. For one person, it might show up as rescuing
cats; for another, volunteering many hours for a hospital. For you it might be helping one person at a
time with a kind word or an errand; for me it might be making people smile and
chuckle in the grocery checkout line.
The speaker at Rotary two weeks ago went to Cambodia to work on a clean
drinking water project! But for someone
with massive health challenges it might be all they can do to be patient and
kind with their caregivers. But each one,
no matter what the scale, is making a difference in the world towards greater
ease, greater peace, and a better life for each other.
It isn't size or scope
that matters. It is what we do with what we have at hand no matter how small that
matters, and God promises that whatever that is, it is enough.
And it isn't a
competition. It is good that we give
awards to thank the ones who make a difference. I loved witnessing the standing
ovation offered to Joe when he won his Main Street Bath Award. But most of us will go unrecognized, and that
is okay, because when we are truly living our love, we don’t really care about
being recognized anyway, we are having too much fun living our love.
In our Hebrew Bible
lesson the widow was also advised to “sell” her oil. This means that she was commanded to value it
and to allow others to value it. This is
not a lesson in capitalism but in self-respect.
It is we who can fail to
recognize the value of what we have to offer and can have a hard time accepting
love and respect and praise from others for what we bring to life. One woman in
this congregation whose initials might
be A.S. regularly dismisses her kindness and gentleness and sweetness as being
not worth much, and yet there isn't a soul in this congregation who doesn't see
her as a treasure beyond words. (And by
the way, before I was married, my
initials were A.S. and I still struggle to see that what I bring to the world
is valuable, so I am preaching what I need to keep learning. Why is it is so much easier to see
the lovability and worth of someone else,
while I struggle to give it to myself?)
So, no matter what your
initials are, if you are a self-dismisser I encourage you to rethink and
realize the worth you bring, yes, just by being you. It is no big and great and hard task. It is like brushing the dirt and stones off a
beautifully planted garden, and letting God’s love do the rest. You are the garden. You are the seeds. You are the beautiful plant just needing the
right conditions to blossom.
Swedenborg teaches that
our very nature is love, and he calls us to “repent.” “Repent” is an old fashioned word that means
“use God’s help to remove the things that block you from being more
loving.” Our job is “repentance”. God’s job is to do all the rest. God stands ready to help us battle the weeds
and insects and (switching metaphors) spiritual cancer cells that may attack
along the way. Those things are not our
fault. They just are, from years of
human darkness on this planet.
Yes, there will be
weeds! There will be nasty creatures
that try to stunt our growth, block our path, and eat our happiness. But God is bigger and stronger than any weed
or insect or spiritual cancer cell. And
God made us to grow and bloom and spread joy.
The hero’s journey is not
an easy one, but it is the only one worth travelling. The path to love, the path to you becoming
your best self is the path to more joy than you can imagine. Even death is no enemy when your deepest love
is the goal. Just ask Jesus. So even though you may feel sometimes like
you are walking through the shadow of death, fear no evil. The God that made you—the God of Love—is with you, and the angels, and all
these people around you too.
And all are whispering, “Grow!”
Amen.
Shed a Little Light by James Taylor
Let us turn our thoughts today to Martin Luther King,
and recognize that there are ties between us—all
men and women
living on the earth—ties of hope and love, of sister and brotherhood.
That we are bound together in our desire to see the world become
a place in which our children can grow free and strong.
We are bound together by the task that
stands before us and the road
that lies ahead.
We are bound and we are bound.
There is a feeling like the clenching of a fist
There is a hunger in the center of the chest
There is a passage through the darkness and
the mist
And though the body sleeps the
heart will never rest
Shed a little light, oh Lord! So that we can see—just a little
light, oh Lord.
’Want to stand it on up, stand it
on up, oh Lord.
’Want to walk it on down. Shed a
little light, oh Lord.
Can't get no light from the dollar bill. Don’t give me no light from a TV
screen.
When I open my eyes I want to drink my fill from
the Well on the Hill.
Do you know what I mean?
Shed a little light, oh Lord! ….
Oh, let us turn our thoughts today to
Martin Luther King,
And recognize that there are ties between us—all
men and women
living on the earth—ties of hope and love, of sister and brotherhood.
Readings:
2 Kings 4:1-7
One day the wife of a man from the guild of
prophets called out to Elisha, “Your servant my husband is dead. You well know
what a good man he was, devoted to God.
And now the man to whom he was in debt is on his way to collect by taking my
two children as slaves.”
Elisha said, “I wonder how I can be of help.
Tell me, what do you have in your house?”
“Nothing,” she said. “Well, I do have a little
oil.”
“Here’s what you do,” said Elisha. “Go up and
down the street and borrow jugs and bowls from all your neighbors. And not just
a few—all you can get. Then come home and lock the door behind you, you and
your sons. Pour oil into each container; when each is full, set it aside.”
She did what he said. She locked the door behind
her and her sons; as they brought the containers to her, she filled them. When
all the jugs and bowls were full, she said to one of her sons, “Another jug,
please.”
He said, “That’s it. There are no more jugs.”
Then the oil stopped.
She went and told the story to the man of God.
He said, “Go sell the oil and make good on your debts. Then both you and your
sons may live on the rest.”
Matthew 14:13-21
When Jesus heard that John had been killed, he went away from
there by boat for a deserted place. But when the people heard it, they followed
Him on foot from the cities around the lake. When Jesus went ashore He saw the
huge crowd. And He was moved with compassion toward them, and He healed their
sick.
When it was evening, His disciples came to Him, saying, “This is a
lonely place and the day is now over. Send the crowds away to go into the
villages and buy themselves food.”
But Jesus said to them, “They do not need to depart. You give
them something to eat.”
They said to Him, “We have only five loaves here and two fish.”
He said, “Bring them here to Me.” Then He commanded the
crowds to sit down on the grass. He took the five loaves and the two fish, and
looking up to heaven, He blessed and broke and gave the loaves to His
disciples; and the disciples gave them to the crowds. They all ate and
were filled. And they took up twelve baskets full of the fragments that
remained. Those who had eaten were about five thousand men, besides women
and children.
New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine 151, 152 portions
151. To do good to the neighbor which is actually good, it must
be done from a good love—that is, for the sake of helping or serving others.
Those who truly love serving others are not eager to hear of reward, for they
simply love to help others, and they get satisfaction from making a
difference. In fact, they are sad if
they consider that what they do might be for selfish reasons.
152. Those who do good because they want something for themselves
out of it do not do good in service to the Lord, but in service to
themselves. For their first motivation
is self-serving—they are looking out only for themselves. Meanwhile they view
the good of the neighbor, which is the good of fellow-citizens, of their
community, of their country, and of all humanity as nothing but a means to an
end. This means that a short-sighted
attachment to self-service and gain at others’ expense can lie hidden inside
good deeds, and so far as self-service and selfish gain lie hidden within a
good deed, it is not actually good at all.
