“[Jesus said,] ‘So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.'” – Matthew 18:35
I’ve done it, Jesus. I have granted my release to people who have hurt me. They confessed their fault, they offered restitution. I said, “I forgive you,” and I meant it. We reforged our peace.
I’ve done it, Jesus. I have bade farewell to consequences that I might have asked. Though truthfully, I’d never have received them from these ones who never owned their harm.
I’ve done it, Jesus. I have asked for true confession from the ones who’ve hurt me, though they’ve offered only their excuse and not acknowledged any harm.
And I wish that I could do it, Jesus. I wish that I could set aside the hurt that aches within, despite the glib assurance that they hurt me, “for the best.”
What is forgiveness offered when I’m told my hurt was for my good, my harm a temporary thing, when it has lingered on and on and on?
I’ve done it, Jesus. But I do not think I can do this.
A poem/prayer based on Matthew 18:21-35, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel Reading for Year A, Proper 19 (24).
We’re back to flight school today. Nene flight school.
The first part of the day had been occupied with eating lessons, because nene believe very strongly in the virtue of a good breakfast. And lunch. And mid-afternoon snack. And don’t get me started on dinner, because a nene is pretty much always ready to start on dinner.
Now, however, the young goslings were ready for some flying time. They were very young, and they hadn’t been going to school very long. In fact, they were still on the first lesson, which is:
Taking off.
That’s kind of an issue for a nene. It’s a good-sized bird, and relative to some similar looking geese, it’s got smaller wings. A nene will fly better than you or I, but there’s a lot to know about getting started.
A nene has to get the hops right, and the wing downbeats right, and the leap and the downbeats timed right, and most important of all: face into the wind.
Face into the wind.
One of the young nene was having a lot of trouble facing into the wind.
Do you have friends who are distracted easily? Any little noise or movement draws their eye? Well, he was distracted by everything. A stray ‘ohelo berry. An unfamiliar noise. A familiar noise. A puff of wind. A stillness of wind. A bug. A waving blade of grass.
So when the teacher lined everyone up, had them face into the wind, led them through a couple of practice hops and a couple of practice wingbeats, she also turned into the wind with them and called out, “Ready?”
There was a chorus of “Ready”s behind her, except for one voice that said, “For what?”
He’d been distracted by a sunbeam on some lava glass.
She got him turned in the right direction, led the practice hops and the wingbeats, and called out, “Ready?”
She got the expected reply. Several nene “Ready”s and one nene “Oops.”
She dismissed the rest of the class back to eating lessons, but asked the ever-distracted-one to stay. “I know you’re easily distracted,” she told him, “but the problem is, you have to get everything ready before you take off.”
“Are you sure?” he asked. “Can we try it?”
“Yes,” she said, “we can try it.”
They tried it. It was a disaster. When he didn’t focus, he didn’t time his hops and his wingbeats, and he fell forward. When he forgot to hop at all, he stayed firmly on the ground. When he didn’t face into the wind and stay that way, he’d tip himself right over.
“How about we try it with me paying attention?” he asked.
A few minutes later his classmates looked up from their mid morning snack to see their teacher and their friend flying gently through sky above them. They cheered.
He paid a lot of attention when it came time for landing.
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Story
I write these stories first (it’s what you’ve just read) but tell them from memory. Memory and creative inspiration, that is.
This is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it hurriedly. It is the passover of the LORD. – Exodus 12:11
They tell us that the night for which we’ve longed has come. The days of bondage reach their end. The day is marked in blood and death, for which I sorrow. Blood besmirches my door frame, and spots the threshold where the lintel drips. But first: we eat.
We did not have a massive flock to search. Our neighbors had no flock at all. We sit together at the table laid in haste. A meal of meat is hardly everyday, but we will eat tonight in deadly haste. Yes, first: we eat.
Someday I’ll have the time for roasted lamb, to savor and rejoice in sensory delight. Tonight the flavor that I seek is freedom’s sweetness dropping from the chin, and so my staff rests by my sandaled feet. But first: we eat.
A poem/prayer based on Exodus 12:1-14, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel Reading for Year A, Proper 18 (23).
The image is “The Feast of the Passover” by Charles Foster – from Charles Foster: The Story of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation Hartford, Conn., 1873., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=59186517
‘Apapane are known for their singing – the ohi’a and koa forests echo with it during the cooler parts of the day. ‘Apapane are sensible creatures and when it’s hot they save their breath for breathing.
They are also known for the complexity of their singing. They sing high and they sing low, they squeal and whistle, they making clicking sounds, and my goodness can they trill. An ‘apapane concert is often a trilling experience.
Sorry about that.
There was one ‘apapane, however, who didn’t seem to have received the word that he could sing high, low, middle, whistle, trill, click, and squeal. Instead, he sang one very simple song. It was pretty, to be sure, a low note that rose and then flourished into this marvelous little trill. Other ‘apapane really enjoyed his song, and so did ‘akepa and ‘amakihi so on. It was so lovely that it would soothe a grumpy ‘i’iwi, and when an ‘i’wi is grumpy, they usually stay grumpy.
His parents and brother and sister and miscellaneous aunties and uncles and cousins and tutus all waited for his second song. They were expecting something else to thrill the ears – I’m sorry, that should have been “trill the ears.”
But it didn’t come.
When he found ohi’a in blossom, he sang a low note that rose and flourished into a marvelous little trill. When he had just filled up on insects, he sang a low note that rose and flourished into a marvelous little trill. When the sun was bright and warm on his feathers he sang a low note that rose and flourished into a marvelous little trill. When he was just feeling content with life he sang a low note that rose and flourished into a marvelous little trill.
Nobody actually became bored with his song, but they did become concerned.
Parents, grandparents, friends, aunties, uncles, and so forth began to ask him about his one single song. He’d just smile in an ‘apapane way (they don’t have lips to curve up, so I think it’s got something to do with the way they move their head, but to be honest I don’t know), and he didn’t say anything about it. They’d ask about his next song, and he’d smile. They’d ask if he was all right with only one song, and he’d smile. They’d ask what it meant for him to have only one song, and he’d smile.
It was his sister who figured it out. She didn’t peck him with questions (or with her beak, which brothers and sisters sometimes do and they shouldn’t). She just hung out with him, flying from tree to tree, talking with him about nothing in particular, and enjoying his company. He enjoyed hers as well.
She watched as he sang his one song when the sun rose, and when the sky was clear, and when the hot sun went behind a cloud, and when there was lots of nectar, and… that’s when she realized it.
“You sing a song about being happy,” she said. He smiled.
“Nobody else has figured that out,” he said, and smiled again.
“They’re all waiting for you to sing about something else,” she said.
He smiled. “I like to sing about being happy,” he told her.
She smiled back. “That’s a song about everything,” she said.
“And nothing,” he said.
“Everything and nothing,” she said, “is a good thing to sing about.”
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Story
I write these stories ahead of time, and then tell them without notes. Sometimes that means that the pre-planned puns don’t make it in, as was the case today. You can decide whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing.
“God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM.'” – Exodus 3:14
I don’t usually indulge in the histories of the shepherds who keep us. What matter to me or to ewe as long as they lead us to grass? As long as they guard us from wolves? As long as they don’t get us lost?
But Moses, for all of his protests to God, did not keep his silence from us. How often we heard how he lived dual lives, one family held by the other as slaves? How often we heard he had ruled as a prince and fled as a criminal here to our hills?
Though I’ve not known a sheep with two hearts, poor Moses had two in his breast. One beat to the rhythms of royalty. One pulsed with the sorrow of slaves. He wept when he called out his orders. He knelt when he tended our hurts.
I’m not one to linger by fire – it burns – but when Moses turned aside to the flaming bush, I followed, and listened, and chewed on the grass. The voice challenged Moses to merge his two hearts, to step up and lead, not as prince, but as prophet, to commit his one heart to deliver his people.
He sidestepped and soft-shoed, did Moses. “Who am I?” he demanded, “to set people free?” No sheep ever asked, “Who am I?” but of course, no sheep ever lived with two hearts in its chest. “You are the one I have chosen,” said God. Just one, said God. One man with one heart.
“Well, then, who are you?” asked the twin hearts of Moses. “Who shall I say has given this command?” A soul who couldn’t be sure of himself asked another for certainty. An echoing silence greeted the question awaiting an answer. “What is your name?”
“I AM WHO I AM.” the voice softly declared. “I am who I am” is all I could say if asked to account for my being, my name. “I am who I am” reveals my one heart, my undivided soul, my unified self. “I am” is enough for a human, for God, for sheep.
Are you listening, Moses? Do you understand? “I AM WHO I AM,” is the living Divine, but is also the nature of all living things. Let your hearts be united now, Moses, and see. You are who you are. You are made in the image of God.
When he put on his sandals, returned to the flock, I followed, and knew I would see him no more. His separate hearts were not healed, no not yet. They were healing, however. “I AM” had begun. He called us together this time without tears. He led us on home. He led us to home.
A poem/prayer based on Exodus 3:1-15, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel Reading for Year A, Proper 17 (22).
This story is not about a Hawaiian bird, although this bird does have relatives in Hawai’i. She was a black-crowned night heron. Black-crowned night herons live all over the world – they’ve been seen on all seven continents. They live here in Hawai’i, where you can find them in the shallow waters hunting for fish. The Hawaiian name is ‘auku’u.
I’m not sure what this bird called herself, partially because she lived a long time ago and languages change, partially because she lived in Egypt and I don’t know the Egyptian name for an ‘auku’u, and partially because I strongly suspect that birds don’t call themselves by the names people use for them anyway. She lived up to the name “night heron,” though, because she slept through most of the day and hunted the shallows of the Nile River at night. Hawaiian ‘auku’u, by the way, sleep and night and fish during the day.
This ‘auku’u, however, had had her sleep interrupted by the sounds of soldiers marching by. Although she hunted fish, she had no trouble concluding that they were hunting something. They went into little homes with their swords and spears ready, frightening the poor people within, most of whom worked hard all day with other people standing nearby with whips. Sometimes the ‘auku’u had seen the whips used on those poor people and she’d felt very sorry for them.
The soldiers didn’t seem to find what they were looking for, so they gathered together and marched away. A few minutes later, the heron heard voices from one of the little huts. A young girl rushed out, dashing from house to house and asking those within for things. When she returned, she had jars of sticky oil and pine pitch.
The ‘auku’u settled back to sleep again, but then the door to the hut opened again and the girl returned, this time accompanied by her mother. The mother carried a shallow bowl that glistened with newly applied oil and pitch. The two walked down to the riverbank, where the ‘auku’u watched unnoticed in the reeds.
The bowl wasn’t a bowl after all, but a woven basket, and the ‘auku’u was surprised to see that the oily pitchy coating worked to keep it afloat as they laid it in the water. The ‘auku’u was even more surprised to see that the improvised boat held a baby, a human baby. The mother and daughter cried as they pushed it out to where it could be caught in the current. It began to float slowly away.
The girl followed along on shore, moving slowly among the reeds to hide as best she could. The ‘auku’u was too curious to go back to sleep. She followed the girl and the girl followed the basket, rocking gently on the water.
They all three – baby, girl, and bird – heard the splashing ahead. Another group of women were swimming in the river. One saw the basket get caught in the reeds. Another went to fetch it. They gathered around the child, who was awake and yawning.
The ‘auku’u watched as one of the women adopted the baby as her own. She watched as the girl emerged from hiding, offering her mother’s services to care for the child. She watched as they all left the riverbank together.
The ‘auku’u didn’t understand all of what was going on, of course, but she recognized this: those soldiers had been a danger to this infant, one which would only get worse. The mother and sister had done their best to get him to place of safety, and they had succeeded. This new woman in the baby’s life had given him a home in which to grow.
The ‘auku’u didn’t know it, and frankly neither did any of the women, but the baby whose life they’d saved that day would grow up to deliver those enslaved people and lead them to a new home. We know him as Moses. He lived because of what those women had done.
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Story
I write these stories first, then tell them from what I remember of what I wrote. That process includes both a certain amount of, well, misremembering, and somewhat more improvisation.
But the midwives feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live. – Exodus 1:17
Learn, baby, learn.
All you know of the harshness of living on Earth are the infant’s discomforts, the hunger, the wetness, the missing embrace, the blanket unwrapped. There are forces unknown which will end your discomforts. They would open your veins. They would have you breathe the Nile.
Learn, baby, learn.
There are some who bear swords and will use them on you. There are some who will tell them to slaughter and kill. There are some who will rotate their heads in their shame. There are some who will watch and will nod in approval. There are some who will believe that their silence is speech.
Learn, baby, learn.
Learn of the men who build power through fear. Learn of the women they threaten with terror. Learn of the ones who will not tread the path of violent obedience, life-stealing loyalty. Learn of the midwives and of your own kin.
Learn, baby, learn.
Your mother has given your life to the Nile – a desperate step, a foolhardy plan – the river’s rough reeds, woven in pitch, are all to preserve you from Pharaoh’s desire, to stop up your breath with the waves and the flood.
Learn, baby, learn.
A woman retrieves you from your fragile ark. Though raised up in power, it’s pity that rules her. Compassion and courage have saved you, small one: Bithiah’s mercy, Miriam’s courage, Jochebed’s thoroughness, Puah’s fear of God.
Learn, baby, learn.
Learn the mercy, the courage, the constant attention. Learn the creative ways to harbor the innocents. Learn the eyes that perceive the power of pity. Learn the power of pitch against the waters that drown. Learn, budding prophet, to be faithful to God.
Learn, baby, learn.
A poem/prayer based on Exodus 1:8-2:10, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel Reading for Year A, Proper 16 (21).
The two midwives are identified as Shiphrah and Puah in Exodus 1:15. Moses’ sister Miriam is first named in Exodus 15:20, where she is described as “the prophet Miriam.” Mother Jochebed’s name is revealed in Exodus 6:10. The “daughter of Pharaoh” is not named in Exodus. 1 Chronicles 4:17 calls her “Bit-yah,” or “daughter of the LORD,” and is the source of the name I’ve used here.
When the young myna was a fledgling, he didn’t pay much attention to other birds around. As he grew he took more of an interest in the little flock and those around.
Mynas don’t typically pay a lot of attention to other birds – they save most of their squawks and shrieks for other mynas – but this young myna was a little more territorial. He thought the grasses and seeds and bugs and worms on his turf should be for the mynas, and pretty much only for the mynas. Other birds weren’t worthy. They could go wait in a corner until the mynas were done.
He would fly and shriek at the cardinals and finches and waxbills that settled on his flock’s patch of grass until they flew off to find a quieter place for lunch. The other mynas mostly ignored this; some birds go through this stage, they told one another. He’ll grow out of it.
To their surprise, there was one bird he was particularly mean to. He didn’t actually peck at this bird, but he’d get closer and scream louder and flap his wings harder at the kolea than any spotted dove. It might be because the kolea was actually slightly bigger than he was, so he put more effort into his, well, I guess we’ve got to call it bullying, don’t we? than he needed to for a little yellow-beaked cardinal. And I’m afraid the other reason was that the kolea was always alone. The saffron finches usually fed in pairs, but the kolea was always alone.
To this bully of a myna, that just made him vulnerable.
He’d scream and flap and chase and generally make himself obnoxious. The kolea never said a word, just hopped or flew aside until the myna was satisfied. And he always came back.
Until one day when the kolea wasn’t there, and the myna thought he’d won.
“I drove that one off for good!” he exclaimed, but there was a big myna argument going on so nobody heard him to correct him.
Months passed, and one morning he landed on his flock’s favorite grassy area to find the same kolea, resting peacefully and feeding on grasses and bugs and worms. The myna was furious.
“How dare you come back?” he shrieked. “You’ve no business here, you coward. I drove you off once, I’ll drive you off again!”
“Hold on a minute,” said an older, somewhat wiser myna. “What are you talking about?”
“I drove this pest away months ago. He hasn’t dared to show his beak since.”
“You didn’t drive him off,” said the older myna. “He spends the summers in Alaska.”
“Where?” said the bully myna, who’d never heard of Alaska, and of course the older myna had never been to Alaska, so it took some time to explain that the kolea had flown 3,000 miles over the ocean to get there, and another 3,000 miles to get back.
“That kolea’s no coward,” said the older myna in conclusion. “Nor are the saffron finches or the northern cardinals or the spotted doves. They just don’t like all the noise while they eat.”
The bully myna was silent. He couldn’t fly 3,000 miles and back, and he knew it.
“The kolea’s more worthy of eating here than I am,” he said.
“Everyone’s worthy of eating here, youngster,” said the older myna. “’Worth’ has nothing to do with being hungry and needing food.”
After that the young myna still had to be reminded to let other birds alone from time to time, but that was OK, because it usually meant that he got to screech at other mynas instead, and that, as we know, is just what mynas love to do.
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Story
I tell these stories live without notes – so they will always be different from the text I’ve prepared.
“Then the disciples approached and said to him, ‘Do you know that the Pharisees took offense when they heard what you said?'” – Matthew 15:12
I’m having a bad day, Jesus. I’d like to roundly curse the next sad soul who crosses me – or simply falls in front of me. I don’t much care if they have given me offense or not. I’m just a sharing guy – sharing my bad day.
I see you know the feeling, Jesus. Did you care you’d irritated anyone that day? They’d asked about your followers and why they didn’t wash their hands (I’d like to know myself). Was that so bad?
You counter-punched, and hard. You charged them with a greed that left their parents sunk in poverty. Okay, I’m sure that some had done precisely that, but all? Oh, no. Though… they had not corrected it.
You called the crowds, and told them all their leadership spoke excrement. No wonder they were angry, Lord! You added extra measure, calling them “blind guides,” when you knew well the blind can understand.
It’s good to step away from these things, Jesus, You had said enough and more. You’d demonstrated all too well the truth that what comes from the mouth defiles. These leaders and your friends have heard it all.
I hear the cry for mercy, now. A desperate soul, whose love has brought her to a foreigner to bring her daughter to herself. And you – you treated her far worse than you would treat a dog.
Now do you blush to hear the words again? Now do you soften softly your hard heart? Now do you praise the woman’s sharp perception and persistence and bring healing to the child?
I’m having a bad day, Jesus. You would know the worst of days, and take them better than you did this day. Might you spare a moment then, I pray, and soften stony heart inside of me?
A poem/prayer based on Matthew 15:10-28, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel Reading for Year A, Proper 15 (20).
In the old days, ‘elepaio followed the canoe makers through the koa stands as they searched for tree trunks that were suitable for a canoe. They were and are curious birds, and they would watch the trees fall and the people removing the limbs and branches so they could bring the trunk down to the shore for a canoe.
The people watched the ‘elepaio, because as well as being curious, they were hungry. If an ‘elepaio settled onto a koa tree and began to chase bugs and spiders, or if an ‘elepaio did the same on a log they’d just cut down, the canoe makers would move on. If the ‘elepaio was interested, they concluded, the tree must be too full of burrowing bugs to make a good hull.
People don’t cut koa for canoes much any more, but the ‘elepaio are still curious and will still follow people through the forest.
Which doesn’t have much to do with this story, because there aren’t any people in it. There’s an ‘elepaio, of course. And there are koa trees. There is one specific koa tree, and one specific ‘elepaio, and that koa tree was his favorite koa tree.
I’m not sure why. There were plenty of koa trees in that part of the forest, and to my untutored eye they looked rather the same. Oh, some were a little taller, and some were a little shorter, and some were wider, and some were thinner, but his favorite tree wasn’t the tallest or the shortest or the widest or the thinnest. It was just his favorite tree.
When people choose things as their favorite, they tend to act differently around it. It turns out that ‘elepaio do, too. On all the other koa trees he would search long and hard for the bugs and spiders that made up his breakfast, lunch, dinner, and any-time-of-the-day snacks. On his favorite tree, however, he’d sit quietly. It was too special, he thought, to be hunting on it. To his distress, the tree wasn’t doing well. Some of its leaves were turning brown.
“What’s wrong with my favorite tree?” the ‘elepaio asked himself out loud one day. “I think it’s sick.”
“What have you been doing to it?” asked an ‘akepa who overheard.
“Nothing,” said the ‘elepaio. “It’s my favorite tree. I don’t even hunt on it.”
The ‘akepa hopped over to the favorite koa, and said, “That might be the problem. There are lots of bugs in this tree. I don’t think that’s good for it.”
Sure enough, the bugs the ‘elepaio hadn’t been hunting on his favorite tree were making that tree rather ill.
“How can I treat my favorite tree just like everything else?” he asked.
“What about if you thought about it the other way around?” asked the ‘akepa. “What if you treat your favorite tree as well as you can think of – including cleaning off all the bugs – and then treat all the other trees as well as you treat your favorite tree?”
“You mean, treat all of them really well?” marveled the ‘elepaio.
“Treat all of them really well,” agreed the ‘akepa, and that is what the two of them did.
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Story
I write these stories ahead of time, and then tell them in worship without the manuscript or notes. As a result, the telling is somewhat… improvised.
Photo of an ‘elepaio (not in a koa tree) by Eric Anderson
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