Circulating Love

Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31 John 16:12-15
May 30, 2010 Alan Claassen

Little darling, it’s been a long cold lonely winter.
It seems like years since it’s been clear.
Until Friday.
Here came the sun!
And as George Harrison wrote so many years ago, It’s all right.

And so on Friday, Betsy and I,
as well as my father and our son, who are visiting from out of town,
went to Yosemite Valley.

As we all know, Yosemite Valley is a sacred place.
It inspires reflection, humility, joy, and gratitude.
It also inspires deep questions, such as the one I asked Betsy,
while were looking up at one the waterfalls,
water cascading over the cliff hundreds of feet above us.

I asked, “When does a river know that it is about to become a waterfall?”
To which Betsy quickly replied, “Too late!”
And then she took the question to another level by asking,
“When do the fish know, that their river is about to become a waterfall?”
We didn’t have an answer for that one.
Though I did have this image of a trout, going the edge of the cliff,
Aggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh!!

Maybe that’s why fishes mouths are so big,
it comes from years of evolutionary adapting
to going over rivers-become-waterfalls.

Yosemite Valley is a sacred place.
It inspires deep questions like that,
and humility, wonder, and awe,
and wisdom for questions like...

“What do I do when my life suddenly changes
from stream to waterfall?”
Will I become a stream again,
or has life forever changed?”

All four of us enjoyed our day in the sacred Yosemite Valley,
but unknown to the rest of my family,
I was also working.
What better place to do sermon preparation than Yosemite Valley?
Especially when we have such a passage
as the one today from Proverbs
that imagines Wisdom
by the side of God delighting,
as each moment of creation,
The seas, the fountains, the springs of water,
the heavens and the horizon
the hills and the horizon
were each born.

So as my family and I walked through Yosemite Valley,
Got baptized by the mist of the dispersed water
At the foot of Bridal Veil Falls;
Watched children play with sticks and rocks
along the bank of the river,
Saw the dogwoods in bloom,
A wedding about to begin on the beautiful grounds of the Awahnee Hotel
I was thinking about today,
Which in the church calendar year is Trinity Sunday,
The day when we are asked to contemplate the mysterious relationship
Between God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.
Thinking about the river,
That becomes waterfall,
That becomes river again on a new level.
Gave me a new way to think about the Trinity.

But to share with you why a waterfall made me think of the Trinity,
I need to share with you what Huston Smith,
The great teacher of Comparative Religions,
Had to say about the Trinity.

Huston Smith’s understanding of the Trinity,
Is in fact the title of today’s sermon, namely,
Circulation of love.

Huston Smith’s image of the nature of God
as described in the Trinity,
is the inseparable circulation of love,
that flows from God, to the Holy Spirit, to Jesus.

In his book, Why Religion Matters Huston Smith
writes about the nature of light as described by quantum physics,
where light can be both particle and wave,
can be in two places at once without dividing itself.

He notes
1) that being both particle and wave is outside of the normal way that we understand the realm of space and time,
AND 2) how fitting it is that light is a universal image for God.

And then Huston Smith says,
as different is the language of quantum physics
from our normal language for describing
our day-to-day existence,
so is the language of the spirit,
the language of the world’s religions,
different from the words and concepts
we use to describe our normal existence.

And both explanations are real. Are true.
Newtonian Physics is true, with limited applications,
as is quantum physics,
as is the wisdom of Proverbs,
as is the teaching of Jesus when we he said
consider the lilies of the field.

Just like space and time and energy are inseparable,
God, the Holy Spirit, and Jesus are inseparable,
Not because they are special individually,
But because their relationship to one another is their essential quality.

Does this help you see why I saw an image of the Trinity
While watching a waterfall in Yosemite Valley?

Let me share with you another thought on the Trinity
that was in the back of mind as we were walking the Yosemite Valley on Friday.

This is from a book entitled The Wisdom Jesus, by Cynthia Bourgeault.
In the chapter entitled, The Path of Self-Emptying Love,
She shares this wonderful image of the Trinity.

She imagines a great waterwheel of a grain mill, with three buckets,
Going round and round,
Constantly overspilling into one another.
And as they do so, the mill turns,
and the energy of love,
Becomes manifest and accessible. (pg 71)

This intercirculation of love is reveals
God’s innermost nature
through a continuous round dance of self-emptying. (pg 72)

On the great watermill of the Trinity,
The statement, God is love, brings itself into reality.

And that reality is best understood, as always giving oneself away,
Always, letting go and letting be.

As the waterwheel turns and the buckets filled with water empty themselves,
Their water fills the bucket below them,
And the waterwheel turns.


My bucket is filled with love and I empty it into yours,
God says to creation.
Let there be light.
And it is good.

My bucket is filled with love and and I empty into yours,
Jesus says to humanity from the cross,
Let there be peace.
And it is good.

My bucket is filled with love,
The Holy Spirit says to the lost disciples,
Let there be community, and it is Good.

Do you see the Trinity in the waterfall now?
God as complete unknowable mystery is the Yosemite Valley.

God as when we name God is the river before it becomes waterfall,
High above the Valley floor.

Jesus the Christ is the complete act of trust in God,
Self-emptying love, to bring love to the valley floor.

The Holy Spirit is the water become river again,
Nourishing the meadow,
And the animals,
Providing a place of joy for the children,
And place for the fish to relax.

And do you see how this image of the Trinity also becomes for us
a way to prayer our way into an answer to the question
I asked earlier in this sermon,
“What do I do when my life suddenly changes
from stream to waterfall?”
Will I become a stream again,
or has life forever changed?”

The great novelist Alice Walker provides an answer to this question
when she describes the circulation of love this way…
“What I have noticed in my small world
is that if I praise the wild flowers growing on the hill in front of my house,
the following year they double in profusion and brilliance.
The universe responds.

What you ask of it, it gives.

I remember I used to dismiss the bumper sticker, “Pray for Peace.”
I realize now that I did not understand it,
since I did not understand prayer;
which I know now to be the active affirmation of our inseparableness from the divine.”

Prayer is a force of energy just as real as gravity, light,
or the breath of God hovering over the waters
at the beginning of creation.

Prayer is taking all of the random energy
that is everywhere and everywhen
present in the universe and focusing it one particular spot, or person.

Our concern for a person, or a nation, or a church
focuses the love of God into a particular point,
and says, let there be light.

We cannot know or direct the outcome of this loving energy focused on one place.
But we can join our love and with God’s love and keep the love circulating.

We can empty our water bucket,
Filled with love, and regret and brokenness, fear and confusion,
Trusting that we will be filled again,
Trusting that our life,
Will once again be one that nourishes others.

This is promise that Jesus offered to his disciples
that was our Gospel reading for this morning, when he said,

“I have much more to tell you,
but you can’t bear it now.
When the Spirit of truth comes,
She will guide you in all truth.” (John 16:12)

This is the faith of the water-falling, self-emptying love of God
There is a truth that we cannot now bear or understand,
Alone.
But we are not alone.


The promise that Jesus offers,
Is that Wisdom will come,
That guidance will come,
And will move out of that winter that lasted too long,

That will move from that not-knowing-what-was-next that lasted too long,

That will move out of that feeling of helplessness that lasted too long and say,

Here come the sun, it’s alright.

Let the people say, it’s alright.

The Love That Remains

Easter Sunday, April 4, 2010
John 20:1-18

I went looking for God this morning.

I went looking for God in the transformation of darkness into sunrise.

And cold into warmth.

I went looking for God in a plate of pancakes and eggs
and eating with friends and strangers.

I have been looking for God a lot in the past 40 plus days.

Looking for God when a small group of people sat in a circle and shared prayers
and a willingness to remember that we come from dust and stardust
and to dust and star dust we will return.

I went looking for God with a small group who ate soup together
and shared stories of meeting God in nature and
meeting God in pain and
meeting God in the act of creating and transforming mud into art.

I went looking for God in the heartbreak of Good Friday
and the grieving silence of Holy Saturday.

Ever since Lent began 46 days ago, I have been looking for God,
looking for resurrection.

The first time I experienced Easter
was during the Children’s Moment 6 weeks ago.
I said to the young ones that I went looking for God this morning.


And the clues to use in looking for God
were to find something that filled me awe, wonder, gratitude.

And I showed them a branch of a tree.
No leaves yet, no blossoms,
just the tiniest evidence of a bud,
that was weeks away from blossoming.

I said to the young ones, this is where I found God this morning.

So I asked them, “How do you think I could see God in this branch with no leaves or blossoms?”

What in this branch would make me feel awe, wonder and gratitude?

First response: Awesome in the buds knowing that they are about to become flowers.
Second response: I wonder where you found the branch?
Third response: Thankful that the tree is there in the first place.

Well, that was when I saw God again that morning.
Because that third response,
grateful that there is anything here at all,
is something that Albert Einstein said.
There I was sitting on the floor of the church on a Sunday morning surrounded by budding geniuses.

So I told them that.
I told them that I was in awe of their responses.
I told them that I wondered what they were going to blossom into.
I told them that I was grateful to be with them.

Thinking back on it, I wish I had said, you must have awesome parents.
And I felt myself get a little choked up then, thinking back on that children’s moment.


I felt myself wanting to walk out the church with them while everyone is singing.
Go now in peace, go now in peace, may the joy of love surround you, everywhere you go.

Thinking back on this moment as I was preparing
for this sermon made me realize something that I had always feared as a parent had actually happened.
My children were gone.
Not dead.
Just grown up.
They no longer run and jump on our bed in the morning to wake up Betsy and me.
They no longer run to greet us at the door when we come home.
They grew up.
And I miss their being children.

And then I wondered,
What remains constant as they grow up,
through childhood through youthhood, to adulthood?

What remains is the way that we raised them.
The love that we gave to them
The confidence, the dreams, the support,
As best as we were able to give.
As best as we are able to forgive and receive forgiveness.

And that brings me to this morning, Easter morning.
What remains after Good Friday?
What remains after Jesus is gone?

The love is what remains.

Just as the love for the child remains in the adult
So the love of Jesus, remains.

The love that Jesus shared in his teachings and healings remains.
The love remains with the disciples, the children of God.

The love remains so that we become co-creators with our children,
with our church friends, with our community,
In raising another generation of young ones who will look for God.

We can look for God…
In awe, wonder, gratitude,
In Silence, letting go, grieving
In Creativity, imagination and celebration
In Transformation, building communities of compassion.

And all the while I have been looking for God
I have to remember the one of the messages of Easter
is that we don’t recognize resurrection when it is happening.

We think we are looking at the Gardener and it is actually the messiah.

We think we that we are looking at the end of our hopes and fears of all our years and we are actually looking at the beginning of a new stage of our life journey.

We think we are looking at rejection and it turns out to be an invitation to a party we didn’t plan.

We think we are looking at failure and it is actually God’s way of getting our attention.

Wake up! Get up! Get going!

God loves us and there is nothing we can do about it.
Love, once given and received, is eternal.
Love remains. God loves us and there is nothing we can do about it.
Except for share it with others and
Keep looking for God in the morning, in the afternoon, and the evening.