Sermon given by Rev. Frank Clarkson, June 15 ,2025.
One of the things I’ve loved here is your openhearted spirituality. Your hunger for a lively and life-giving faith, your willingness to try on new perspectives and practices, to open your hearts and let down your guard and see what happens. It’s not always this way in church! Or in life—we humans don’t always welcome change. But this is what the spiritual life looks like to me—listening to your longing; seeking after that mystery that some of us call God.
Just making time to be still is countercultural. As is the act of opening yourself that which is larger than one’s own ego. These words from the psalms often come to me in my prayer time: “For You alone my soul in silence waits (Ps. 62:1), more than the watchers wait for the morning” (Ps 130:6).
Of course if you try too hard, or use too many words, the Spirit seems to run away. You need practices, and patience. And you need the stuff of this world, don’t you?: friends and flowers, the heart-stretching feelings of pain and joy, the grounding of earth under your feet and the solace of the open sky. To say nothing of soul friends, and spiritual companions, and people to sing with, right?
As my time here comes to an end, I want to thank you for being such good partners in our shared ministry—for showing up and helping out, being open and willing to stretch and grow. I have so much to be grateful for. And plenty of you have expressed your gratitude to me. It’s been my honor to serve here, with you.
But I want to say something I hope has been obvious all along. That it’s not about me. Ministry is always about you, the congregation, and the community outside these doors. And of course “the Spirit overseeing all,” as Whittier put it. So if you’re feeling any gratitude, you really should express that to my boss.
Eugene Peterson says “the pervasive element in our 2,000-year pastoral tradition is not someone who ‘gets things done’ but rather the person placed in the community to pay attention and call attention to ‘what is going on right now’ between people, with one another and with God—this kingdom of the Holy that is primarily local, relentlessly personal, and prayerful ‘without ceasing.’”
Today I want to point toward that thing which is difficult to describe, impossible to explain, but, I trust, all around us. That Presence often described better by poets than by theologians.
Several of our youth volunteered to be greeters here about six week ago. You know why? It was the first Sunday in May, and on that day (the 4th day of May) they wanted to greet folks coming to church with that line from Star Wars: “May the fourth be with you.”
Whatever you call it, however you imagine it, there is a Presence moving in us and around us. The poet Dylan Thomas called it “the force that through the green fuse drives the flower.” We heard Norbert Capek’s prayer in which he called these flowers “your messengers of fellowship and love.”
I wonder what you have experienced as messengers of the Holy.
This morning we heard a version of the story that Jesus told, about a father and his children—one who left and one who stayed home. Prodigal means free spending, wasteful and to excess. But in this story it’s really the loving parent who’s the extravagant and free-spending one. Not keeping score of pain or disappointment, not holding on to grudges or counting the cost, but rather, welcoming his child home with open arms.
Jesus told this story, and others like it, to show people that God wasn’t who they thought God was. Not angry or punishing, but rather, like a loving parent, forgiving what’s past, wanting only to embrace their lost child and welcome them home. And throw a party, of course!
One of the blessings of community is that we sometimes get to witness these moments of homecoming and resurrection: when what we thought was lost is found, when what seemed to be dead is now very much alive. Friends in recovery programs tell me they see this all the time. Aren’t we fortunate? We get to companion each other through sorrow and joy, and celebrate with one another too. And here, with our diverse perspectives and theologies, we gather alongside one another to apprehend the mystery.
However you understand it, or not; whatever names you use, or none: I want to encourage you to keep on the journey, making the spiritual connections that will bless and sustain you. Traveling with companions, of course; in touch with the Spirit, helping to heal and bless our world.
“What lifts the heron leaning on the air I praise without a name,” John Ciardi wrote.
“… Saint Francis, being happiest on his knees,
would have cried Father! Cry anything you please
But praise. By any name or none. But praise…”
There’s the invitation, this day and every day. To be in touch with that Force, that Source, that Spirit, what ever you may call it; to lift up your heart in thanks and in praise for all these gifts: this moment and this day, these messengers of life and love, this broken and beautiful world,
Now and forever,
Amen.