Scout Sunday...and Groundhog Day, all rolled up into one. I
was intrigued at the news stories this week about Groundhogs.
They asked, "Why do groundhogs wake up each year in early
February?"(1) A Penn State researcher says they might emerge from
their dens in February, not to see how much more winter awaits,
but in order to meet members of the opposite sex prior to mating
season in March. The report is that boy groundhogs and girl
groundhogs are not too much interested in one another for most of
the year, but after a long winter's hybernation, well... So, the
reason we have all this Groundhog Day hoopla has nothing to do
with forecasting the weather. It is simply Punxatawney Phil
looking for Punxatawney Phyllis. Hmm.
Perhaps it is providential that Groundhog Day and Scout
Sunday share a date this year. After all, there is no
organization I can think of that better encourages an
appreciation of the natural world. As we gather for worship, we
hear our lesson from Psalm 19 singing that nature introduces us
to God. "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies
proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth
speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no
speech or language where their voice is not heard."
You Shakespeare scholars will recognize the source of our
sermon title this morning. The banished duke seeks to reassure
his companions in As You Like It, saying "And this our life,
exempt from public haunts, finds tongues in trees, books in
running brooks, SERMONS IN STONES and good in everything."
Sermons in stones. Do you find them there? You can, you
know. Or in the towering trees or fragrant flora or starry
nights. At this time of year, words of Joyce Rupp come to mind.
Listen:
One winter morning, I awake to see the magnificent
lines of frost stretching across my windowpanes. They
seemed to rise with the sunshine and the bitter cold
outside. They looked like little miracles that had
been formed in the dark of night. I watched them in
sheer amazement, and marveled that such beautiful forms
could be born during such a winter-cold night. Yet, as
I pondered them, I thought of how life is so like that.
We live our long, worn days in the shadows, in what
often feels like barren, cold winter, so unaware of the
miracles that are being created in our spirits. It
takes the sudden daylight, some unexpected surprise of
life, to cause our gaze to look upon a simple, stunning
growth that has happened quietly inside us. Like frost
designs on a winter window, they bring us beyond life's
fragmentation and remind us that we are not nearly as
lost as we thought we were, that all the time we
thought we were dead inside, beautiful things were
being born in us.(2)
A sermon on a window pane. Sermons in stones. Or flowers,
perhaps. As a very wise preacher once suggested, "Consider the
lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin,
yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed
like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field,
which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will
he not much more clothe you..."(3) To put it the way that our
Scouts and other youngsters do these days, "awesome" sermon.
One lovely moonlit night, a young girl and her grandmother
went for a walk. The sky was magnificent. As grandmother named
individual stars and constellations, the granddaughter exclaimed,
"Grandma, if the bottom side of heaven is this beautiful, just
think how wonderful the other side must be."(4)
Awesome. Good word. Near the end of his life, Tuskegee
Institute's brilliant teacher and researcher George Washington
Carver was asked by an interviewer what he thought was the most
indispensable thing for science in the modern age. Dr. Carver
replied, "The capacity for awe."(5)
Indeed. Awe is what opens our finite minds to the infinite
intelligence of God. Awe is what connects our limited hearts to
the limitless love of the Lord. Awe is what helps us to see
God's glory in the sea and the land and the moon and the sun.(6)
To be sure, the natural world is not the only place we
encounter God. As the psalmist insists, "The law of the Lord is
perfect, reviving the soul. The statutes of the LORD are
trustworthy, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord
are right, giving joy to the heart. The commands of the Lord are
radiant, giving light to the eyes." Yes, God is revealed in a
general way in the glories of nature, but God is revealed in a
very specific way in the revelation of the Word. That is why we
gather for worship from week to week - yes, we get a glorious
glimpse of God out in the world, but, in here, we get, in Paul
Harvey's phrase, "the rest of the story."
Has your religion become routine? A bit commonplace? Even
a little blah? Take a lesson from our Scouts as they explore
nature and cultivate again your capacity for AWE. If you do, it
will be like a homecoming for a Presbyterian. We whose ancestors
in faith were the Celts of Great Britain and Scotland in the
second and third centuries look back on a tradition that
emphasized the goodness of creation and the gracious goodness of
God, which can be seen both in the natural world and in the life,
death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Historians of religion
tell us that the Celtic way of perceiving things was pushed aside
in the fifth century by orthodox Roman theology, which emphasized
original sin and the fallenness of creation. Much of the
church's discomfort with the world to this very day - with
humanness, with sexuality - comes from that theological conflict.
Can we get back to our roots, please? Scottish theologian George
McDonald writes, "We should look not only to the scriptures and
the church to know God, but to creation as well."(7)
There is a wonderful Hasidic story about the child of a
rabbi who used to wander in the woods. At first his father let
him wander, but over time he became concerned. The woods were
dangerous. The father did not know what lurked there. He
decided to discuss the matter with his child.
One day he took his boy aside and said, "You know, I have
noticed that each day you walk into the woods. I wonder, why do
you go there?"
The boy said to his father, "I go there to find God."
"That is a very good thing," the father replied gently. "I
am glad you are searching for God. But, my child, don't you know
that God is the same everywhere?"
"Yes," the boy answered, "but I'm not."(8)
Sermons in stones. In a moment, we will hold a morsel of
bread, sip the fruit of the vine. Will there be a sermon there?
I'll bet the Scouts know.
Amen.
1. "Groundhogs might be looking for love, not their shadows," Associated Press, Warren
Times-Observer, 1/29/03, A-9
2. Joyce Rupp in Praying Our Goodbyes, cited in Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spiritual
Literacy: Reading the Sacred in Everyday Life (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), p. 134
3. Matthew 6:28-30
4. Clara Null, Christian Reader, Mar/April, 1996, p. 50
5. Peter J. Gomes, The Good Book, (New York: William Morrow, 1996), p. 321
6. "Lessons from Arabella," http://www.homileticsonline.com, 10/3/99
7. John Buchanan, "Doxology," http://www.fourthchurch.org/112402sermon.html
8. David J. Wolfe in Teaching Your Children About God, cited in Spiritual Literacy, p. 128
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