“But Jesus said to them, ‘Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you.'” – Mark 10:5
The wreckage left by hardened hearts includes the charioteers of Pharaoh, swept away by churning waters of the sea. The murmurers of Meribah, the fallen kings of Canaan, even Babylon the proud, lie in the rubble of their stony hearts.
How curious that there should be a law accommodating a so-painful thing as calcined cardia. How strange to say this pain, this hurt, will come, and we cannot avoid the fault lines of a marriage. Let crevasses divide.
But Jesus called it out for what it was, for hearts go cold to set aside the pain, and so inflict the hurt upon the other. Then we must admit that Moses had it right, that weeping lovers walk away in order that old wounds might heal, new wounds avoid.
Yet wounds they are and still remain, inflicted in the adamant of soul, and rising emerge as grieving tears, while Jesus weeps for what, with open heart, need not have been.
A poem/prayer based on Mark 10:2-16, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel Reading for Year B, Proper 22 (27).
I would not blame you, God, If you refused to hear the prayers Of any but the grieving and the wounded Until we lay our weapons down And beg forgiveness on our knees.
It’s a funny thing about people. Sometimes people choose leaders without getting them ready for leadership first. You’ve probably seen it in school sometimes. The teacher asks someone to lead the class in a song or a reading, but it turns out they hadn’t learned it yet.
That can be pretty embarrassing.
As it happens, it’s not just humans who do such things, although it turns out that for a lot of those creatures, a school is also the place to do them. A school of ta’ape, or “Bluestripe Snapper,” selected a relatively young fish to be the leader of their school one season. He was pretty big, he seemed pretty smart, and as far as anyone could tell without asking, he seemed to know what he was doing.
He… didn’t know what he was doing.
The first hour was a disaster. He tried calling out from the front of the school, “Everybody turn right!” And everybody turned right. Everybody who heard him. That wasn’t all that many of them. It was a big school, and his loudest voice didn’t carry all the way to the back, or even to the middle. Fish swam off in all sorts of different directions. It was quite a muddle.
Fortunately, he was a smart ta’ape, and one thing about being smart is knowing when you need to learn something. Clearly there were things he needed to learn about leading the school, and he needed to learn them quickly. So when the school was feeding quietly on some beds of algae, he sought out some of the ta’ape kupuna and said, “I need some help. How do I get the school to follow?
The kupuna were gracious. One or two of them did think he might have learned this before, but they kept quiet about it. They told him the secret.
“You need to choose fish to lead with you.”
“The school is too big for one fish to lead,” they said. “As you’ve found, it can’t be done by one fish. So you appoint other leaders, and space them throughout the school. The ones closest to you listen for what you’re doing, and the ones farther away listen for what they’re doing. When you turn, they turn, and the other leaders turn, and the school turns.”
The leader was relieved. He didn’t have to do this alone. He would have help. He promptly asked as many of the kupuna as were willing (some of them thought it was time for some new fish to learn) to become the other leaders, and he found a few more fish and taught them what. They needed to know.
The next time he directed the school toward clearer water they turned in a flash. He laughed for joy, and so did the other leaders, and so did the whole school full of fish, because he’d led them all in joy.
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Story
I write these stories ahead of time, but I tell them from memory. And sometimes I don’t remember the names of the fish.
“[Moses said,] ‘I am not able to carry all this people alone, for they are too heavy for me.’ So the LORD said to Moses, ‘Gather for me seventy of the elders of Israel…'”
They wept for food, the wandering people did. Their palates had grown weary of the miracle, which sounds ungrateful. I suppose it is. But who does not grow weary of life’s wonders?
Then Moses was displeased, and not with weeping people, but with God, whom he accused of treating him so badly. “Why do you lay the burden of these people upon me?” For Moses, too, had wearied of the wonder.
And God – the singular, the Trinity not yet imagined, whose powers had rained flies and hail and pestilence and death upon the wailing people of the Pharaoh – said,
“You shall not lead alone. You never have. Did you forget? We’ve been a team, we have, with you and me and Miriam and Aaron. The team will grow by seventy today.
“They say too many cooks will spoil broth. Sometimes, you know, that’s true, if they neglect to speak and listen to each other. Now my Spirit shall be given to these elders.
“They shall prophesy, including those who missed the memo in the camp. And you, my harried, whiny Moses, shall at last be glad for helpers on the road.
“As for these weeping people, now: Let them eat quail.”
A poem/prayer based on Numbers 11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29, the Revised Common Lectionary Alternative First Reading for Year B, Proper 21 (26).
Everyone thought she was one of the best singers among the ‘apapane. Her notes were clear, her improvisations were delightful, and she had the breath to sing long bubbling musical runs. Other ‘apapane used to listen for her in the mornings, and if they heard her, they’d take off in her direction.
It turned out that she used to sing loudest and longest when she found a grove of ohi’a with lots of blossoms, so everybody who flew into the neighborhood got a good meal. She’d sing, however, even in a tree between flowering times. When she did, the other ‘apapane – and the akepa, and the ‘alawi, and the ‘amakihi, and even the i’iwi – settled into nearby trees to listen.
It was like having a great concert every day.
She couldn’t help noticing that a fair number of birds got a free lunch, or breakfast, or dinner out of her songs. At the start she didn’t mind – she was pretty flattered that everyone flew to hear her sing – but as time went on it started to rankle. “Can’t they find their own trees?” she grumped to her brother one day, and if he had anything useful to say, she didn’t listen.
Then she had a bad scare. She’d landed on a branch near to the ground, which she rarely did, and began to sing. Suddenly the branch heaved with a heavy weight. She fluttered into the air, taken by surprise, and only then noticed the hunting cat which had leapt onto her branch and only just missed her.
She flew higher into another tree, whistling with alarm, and watched while the cat climbed back to the ground and disappeared into the forest.
The next day the sun rose, but her voice didn’t rise. The day grew brighter, but nobody heard her song. Other ‘apapane and ‘amakihi and mejiro and the rest begin to sing, but she remained silent.
She found a place deep within some leafy ohi’a branches and hid from the world.
They noticed that she wasn’t singing that day, the other birds did, but they mostly thought she’d gone to another part of the forest and would be back soon. But one day became two, and two became four, and four became over a week and nobody had heard her song. They began to look around, hoping to find her well, and terribly afraid that something bad had happened.
Her mother found her – mothers often have a talent for finding their children – still huddled in her ohi’a tree, silent and afraid. She told her mother about what had happened with the cat.
“I don’t want to sing ever again,” she said.
“Your songs are beautiful,” said her mother. “Everybody loves you for them.”
“Everybody follows me because they think they’ll eat well,” said the daughter. “Somebody else can do that. Not me.”
“Listen for a moment, daughter,” said the mother, and the two were quiet. The forest, however, was not. The calls and songs of the forest birds sailed out over the trees.
“Listen to that,” said mother. “It’s everybody’s song.”
“Won’t they attract cats?” asked the singer.
“They might,” admitted her mother, “but there are ways to sing beyond their reach. Mostly, though, realize that it’s your voice, and your melodies, but it’s not really your song. It’s everybody’s song when you share it, greater and more wonderful than you know.
“What do you think, daughter? Can you sing with everybody’s song?”
In answer, the young ‘apapane opened her beak and sang.
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Story
I write these stories in advance, but I tell them in worship from memory and from improvisation. What you’ve just read will not match what you watch.
“Then they came to Capernaum, and when he was in the house he asked them, ‘What were you arguing about on the way?’ But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest.” – Mark 9:33-34
Sitting in your house, you catch my eye. I see the smile play upon the corners of your lips. “That argument you had along the way. Now tell me: What were all those snarling words about?”
Now, I don’t want to tell. You see that, right? Your eyes move on from mine to James, and John, to Andrew, Philip, Matthew, Simon, James, Bartholomew and Thaddeus, Thomas, Judas, too.
“So tell me!” you repeat and smile, still. You know, I know, because my frozen face declares it. So do all the faces of the twelve. You shake your head at our embarrassed silence.
“Would you be great?” you ask me, and I need not answer. Yes, I would! I’d be the warrior at the side of Christ, to fight and even die if need be. I would live in glory.
“If you’d be great,” you say, and lift the ragged cuff of my left sleeve, “you won’t be first, but last. You’ll be the servant of the least of these.”
All right, you’ve said such things before, and we had nodded, for your words were wise. I somehow never thought that they’d apply to me. I somehow never thought I’d die in poverty.
I may have held my tongue since your rebuke of “Get behind me, Satan!” but I do not yet accept your forecast of betrayal and a cross. I’d overcome those evils, not embrace them.
I see again, however, you and I have taken sides in opposition here. My greatness is not yours. Your greatness is not mine. I can’t think what to do.
Whatever happens, I will not abandon you. I’ll wrestle with these things I do not want to understand, and maybe one of us will change their mind. In honesty?
I hope it’s you.
A poem/prayer based on Mark 9:30-37, the Revised Common Lectionary Second Reading for Year B, Proper 20 (25).
He was her brother. She was his sister. They’d been raised in the same ‘apapane nest up in the ohi’a forest. They’d been fed by the same parents. They’d learned to fly together. They’d learned how to forage in the trees together. They both wore bright red feathers and black wings with white feathers underneath. They were…
Completely different from one another.
He was a complainer. No ohi’a blossom ever had enough nectar. No bug was ever crunchy enough. If he ate a caterpillar, it wasn’t soft enough. The sunny days were too hot. The rainy days were too… well, too wet.
Worst of all, in his opinion, were all the other birds. I’iwi were too obnoxious. ‘Amakihi were too yellow. Mejiro were too green. ‘Akepa were too orange, unless they were female ‘akepa, in which case they were too green. ‘Io were too hungry.
I grant you that, since ‘io like to eat ‘apapane, he may have had a point with that last one.
His sister, on the other hand, was a celebrator. She savored the taste of the nectar in the smallest ohi’a blossom. She enjoyed the crunchy bugs and slurped down the soft caterpillars with the same enthusiasm. She let the rain cool her and she spread her wings to dry in the heat of the sun.
As for other birds, well. She sang with other ‘apapane, chirped with the i’iwi and the ‘amakihi and the mejiro and the ‘akepa and everyone else she met. She was sure there something good to say about the ‘io, but she’d have to find a safe way to chat with one to find out what it was.
Her brother perched in an ohi’a tree dripping with blossoms and moaned. His sister sang joyful songs in a tree with a single flower. Her brother insulted birds that came by about their feathers, their songs, and their diets. His sister complimented their flight and their colors and their voices.
Now, not every day is a good day for an ‘apapane. It can get pretty cold on a rainy night, and they’ve got to watch out for hunting ‘io. Sometimes lots of trees are in blossom, and sometimes there’s just a few. She wasn’t always happy. Sometimes it took time to find food, or a dry place, or to get through a long cold night.
But in the good times, on the good days, she celebrated the good things, whatever they were. Other birds joined her to share in the nectar or the sunshine and always in the joy of being in her presence.
Her brother went through bad times with grim satisfaction that all his woeful predictions had come true once more. And when bad times turned to good, he… sat glumly in the tree and complained about the nectar, and the bugs, and the sun, and the rain, and the way that nobody seemed to want to be around him.
He made his bad times harder, and his good times glum. She made her good times better, and her bad times easier. Given the choice, my friends, I think I’d rather be like her.
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Story
I write these stories in advance, but I tell them from memory. And I improvise. So what you’ve just read will not match the way I told it.
“If we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we guide their whole bodies… And the tongue is a fire.” – James 4:3, 6a
My tongue has been trained, yes it has. It has been trained in true and righteous speech, through the best efforts of parents, teachers, friends. I am a credit to them when I speak well.
Well.
My tongue has been inflamed, yes it has. It has sputtered sparks and spat forth fire. When furious clamor has arisen from my foolish words, I am a credit only to myself.
Well.
What bit will serve to govern streams of fire? What governor will guide a flaming tongue? A pity that there is no quick solution, though silence, at the least, constrains the blazing word.
A poem/prayer based on James 3:1-12, the Revised Common Lectionary Second Reading for Year B, Proper 19 (24).
I don’t know what I did to offend a couple of our local mynas, but I have clearly disturbed one or two them. They screech at me as I’m walking along outside the church buildings. Maybe I’m breathing too loudly for them?
Mynas are somewhat quarrelsome among themselves, and when nesting spots are scarce they’ll chase anyone and everyone away, but they typically share feeding spots with anyone around. Kolea, saffron finches, house finches, doves, and others eat their seeds and bugs alongside flocks of mynas.
One mynas flock, however, chose a feeding spot to be their very own, and only theirs. They wouldn’t accept other birds in it. They screeched at them, they advanced threateningly at them, and if they didn’t take the hint they’d jab at them with their beaks.
“No finches allowed!” they’d screech, and then, “Get out of here, dove!”
“Kolea go home!” they said, which seems pretty unfair, and “No room for cardinals here!”
It was pretty ugly, and pretty selfish.
It was also remarkably foolish.
You see, having chosen their ground, they’d also chosen to protect it. There’s a limit to how much ground a flock of mynas can protect, and in this case, it wasn’t big enough for them. Ordinarily, when a patch of land gets picked over for seeds and bugs so there’s not much left, they’d move on to another place. The old place would get some rest for new seeds to form and new bugs to move in. But they’d picked their ground, and they weren’t moving, and the seeds began to get scarce and the bugs harder to find.
Even with the spot limited only to mynas, it wasn’t quite enough.
If they hadn’t driven other birds away, they might have noticed when other birds started looking somewhere else, and they might have followed them to a better spot. They didn’t. If they hadn’t driven other birds away, they might have moved about more freely themselves. They didn’t. If they hadn’t driven other birds away, they might have given their chosen piece of land some time to pause and replenish.
They didn’t.
The flock began to dwindle. One day a myna flew away because she was hungry and there wasn’t enough there. The next day two mynas flew away. The area they could protect got smaller, so even with fewer mynas there still wasn’t quite enough food.
When the flock got down to two or three hungry birds, they looked at one another on the thin grass of their chosen ground, and said to a curious nearby kolea, “This is ours. Not yours.”
“You can have it,” said the kolea. “I’ll be better elsewhere.”
And you know what? The kolea was absolutely right. He did much better elsewhere than these stubborn mynas did in their chosen spot.
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Story
I write these stories in full, but I tell them from memory and improvisation. Therefore the story you just read will sound different from the one that I told.
“Now the woman was a gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. He said to her, ‘Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.'” – Mark 7:26-27
I had no illusions, Jesus.
I almost didn’t spot you, though I looked. A neighbor mentioned casually that “a healer Jew from Galilee” was near as if it made no difference to me.
You know it did, Jesus.
I left my wailing daughter with a friend and searched the streets to find a face I did not know. Despite our sorrows, I know every face upon our streets.
I knew you from not knowing you, then, Jesus.
You’d made no effort to declare yourself so I could not believe you’d come to help the sick and demon-burdened in our village here, but help you would, if I could have my way.
I had to have my way, Jesus.
I found your stranger’s face. I bowed upon your feet. I begged you for your healing touch to soothe my child’s rage, assuage her fear, give to her peace.
I knew that you’d say, “No.”
You said it with a cruelty that nearly stopped my breath, though I had no illusions, none. I stammered out my need’s reply: “The dogs can eat the children’s crumbs.”
I was not after crumbs.
No, Jesus, I would have it all. Not all or nothing, I would have it all, because what use is partial banishment of demons burdening the human soul?
No crumbs, Jesus. All. And I mean all.
You gave it all to me, you know. You gave me all your cruelty (I hope you used it up). But then you gave me all the healing power of your anguished face.
My daughter got it all.
She’s never seen you, Jesus, as you know. You took your shattered heart, remade it new, to heal and heal again, and left behind a girl once more herself,
And your illusions cast aside.
A poem/prayer based on Mark 7:24-37, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel Reading for Year B, Proper 18 (23).
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