Karen Hollis | June 18, 2023
Spirituality 2
Genesis 32:25-32 And Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until the break of dawn. And he saw that he had not won out against him and [the man] touched his hip socket and Jacob's hip socket was wrenched as [the man] wrestled with him. And he said, "Let me go, for dawn is breaking." And [Jacob] said, "I will not let you go until you bless me." And he said to him, "What is your name?" And he said, "Jacob." and [the man] said, "Not Jacob shall your name hence be said, but Israel, for you have striven with God and men, and won out." And Jacob asked and said, "Tell your name, pray." And he said, "Why should you ask my name?" and there he blessed him. And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, meaning, "I have seen God face-to-face and I came out alive."
Matthew 14:22-33 Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them. And early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea. But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.” Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus. But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” When they got into the boat, the wind ceased. And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be reflections of your word to us today, in Christ’s name we pray. Amen
Teaching Time: I’m going to talk for a few minutes about different spiritual sensibilities. What I most want you to hear is that everyone is different – we all approach, practice, and experience spirituality differently because we are made differently, formed differently. And whatever your unique approach, you are welcome here and affirmed. There are different ways of breaking down the breadth of spiritual sensibilities.
This is one way:
2 Continuums: - Mind and Heart
- God as Mystery and God as Revealed
(based on the spirituality typology by Urban T. Holmes)
Myers-Briggs assessment tells us some of us are thinkers and some are feelers (or somewhere on the continuum).
- Mind: engage first by thinking, ideas, rationality
- Heart: engage first with our emotions, emotional connection, deep feelings.
God as Mystery and Revealed are a continuum: I already spoke about this in my sermons a few weeks ago: the nature of God as both manifest/present in the world and other/mystery. Depending on many factors, we default to somewhere along this continuum of Mystery and Revealed.
So if we map these continuums, we come up with these quadrants:
1. Mind/Revealed – this “thinking” spirituality favours what it can see, touch, and vividly imagine. Corporate worship, Study groups, good preaching, theological renewal, spoken word.
2. Heart/Revealed – heart combined with what we can see, touch. A more animated worship style, grounded in the world and what God is doing in the world, “God is real; I can feel God in my soul.”
3. Heart/Mystery – mystic spirituality. Hearing from God more than speaking to God. Union with the holy, contemplative, introspective, intuitive, inner world. God said to Moses “I am who I am.”
4. Mind/Mystery – mind combined with mystery, one aims to obey God and witness to God’s coming kindom. Share God’s vision and takes responsibility for the change needed to realize the vision. Assertive in implementing.
When we think about how we approach spiritual practices or even which kind of practices we might like to try or develop, it can be helpful to first identify where we default on this diagram. There are assessments if you’re interested.
We all find a spiritual home somewhere . . . AND especially when worshipping in community, learning together in community, we are invited to spiritual wholeness by stretching beyond our favourite quadrant toward the opposite quadrant. Expand our spiritual container for additional ways we might relate to God. You might consider if you’re more of a head or heart person and whether you connect with God as revealed in the world or beyond us as mystery. Let us prepare ourselves to hear our readings from scripture.
Sermon:
Spiritual practices . . . there are so many I hardly know where to begin . . . so let’s take a step back and seek a wider view. What are we doing when we engage a spiritual practice like coming to worship or centering prayer or studying scripture or marching for justice? Think about your own practice or form of prayer . . . what is at the core of it? Hopefully something to do with connection with God, the presence of God – perhaps acknowledged internally or witnessed externally.
Whether we are most comfortable practicing with our minds or hearts, alone or with others, with God revealed or with God beyond us, we’re about practicing the presence of God. Just about anything can be a spiritual practice if we involve God, if we acknowledge and respond to God’s presence in the midst of it . . . gratitude when picking out veggies, kindness to neighbours, standing in solidarity with someone being unfairly treated, a walk in the woods.
The word practice is important here. I like to think of it like practising a musical instrument. We start out kind of wobbly – the music doesn’t sound great, you feel like you might drop or break something, and you need some encouragement. As you put the hours in, as you practice, you accumulate some meaningful moments, gain confidence, find a flow. Having a regular prayer practice means we work at it . . . we practise the presence of God in silence, in the vibration of our collective voices singing lustily and with good courage, in words on a page that were inspired by God’s presence and continue to carry God’s presence today, in a crowd of people calling for justice with their bodies and their action. One can even cultivate a continual practice of God’s presence.
In the stories about Jesus, he is portrayed practicing the presence of God both with people and away from the crowds. He is a model for a balanced spiritual practice that theologian, Fr. Richard Rohr calls Action and Contemplation. It describes this movement of going out in the world to serve – in the story we heard this morning, Jesus has just been teaching crowds of people about God’s love and abundance . . . and then instead of sending them away to get food to eat, he gives them an experience of the abundance he’s been talking about by blessing a small amount of food and watching it grow in volume as perhaps others follow his lead by sharing what they have . . . until all are filled and there is still plenty left over. Having given all he had to give that day, Jesus dismisses the crowds, sends the disciples across the water in a boat and takes his experiences back to God in prayer . . . to reflect, to commune with God the mystery, to get filled up before continuing on his travels. When I think about him on the mountain, I remember an interview Bill Moyers did with Mother Theresa many years ago, where he asked, “when you pray, what do you pray for?” She responded “I just listen.” Confused, Moyers pressed further, “what does God do?” “God just listens”(pause) “If you don’t understand that,” she continued, “I can’t explain it to you.” I suppose I imagine Jesus communing with God . . . no words shared, just a mutually open presence in the context of Jesus’ ministry. Jesus engages this pattern of Action and Contemplation throughout the gospels.
While Jesus is portrayed to have a patterned practice of maintaining his spiritual health, we see Jacob with a wildly different spiritual practice of meeting God in critical moments of his life. These early Genesis stories have a mythic quality to them; God has called Jacob back home after he spent years away . . . years avoiding his brother Esau after stealing their father’s blessing that was meant for Esau. It feels like this encounter with God is a long time coming, like it was always going to happen, there wasn’t really any way around it, but how it would finally come together was until now unclear. Jacob sends his household across a tributary of the Jordan river and remains behind, where he wrestles with God. This figure appears, but the writing is vague . . . is it a representation of God . . . perhaps as some of the Midrashic writings (writings from Rabbis going back thousands of years that flesh out the Hebrew Bible stories) it is the spirit of Esau with whom Jacob wrestles . . . and with whom Jacob will reconcile the next morning, or perhaps a representation of the darkness inside of Jacob . . . the long-coming reckoning with his previous choices. Wrestling is Jacob’s way in life – beginning with his birth, where he held onto the heel of his brother. [how often does someone’s birth story relate to the way they live?] He wrestles for Esau’s blessing, rolling away the huge stone from the mouth of the well, and in his multiple contendings with his father-in-law . . . all of his wrestling in life culminates here. As the threshold of morning approaches, the intensity increases . . . this strange visitation holds its power only in the night, so it must depart by daybreak, but will it have fulfilled its function? Through this deeply physical and spiritual struggle, Jacob comes through his dark night of the soul and receives his blessing, but with a physical reminder of this encounter – a limp from being touched in the hip – and proceeds to face brother.
We bring ourselves to every practice, however regular or critical our practice. God also invites us to stretch and grow beyond our natural approach to relationship with God. For those of us more comfortable in the mind, we’re invited to practice engaging the heart. And for those of us who live in that space of the heart, practice engaging the mind in prayer. As I took a deeper look at spiritual practices, I found that many contemplative ones invite engagement with the head and the heart. I invite us to try one now that we’ve done before.
We’re going to do a short lectio divina, which means divine reading. I’m going to read the scripture 3 times.
1. Listen with mind – speak aloud word or phrase
2. Listen with heart – speak aloud word or image
3. Listen for an invitation from the text to engage with God. This invitation is just for you to consider in silence.
The invitation to engage with God is for you to do with what you wish.
At some point this summer I’ll provide a list of suggested spiritual practices. We’ll be offering some to learn and practice together throughout the program year beginning in the fall.
Lectio Text: But when the disciples saw Jesus walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.” Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus.
But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”
