Story: Details, Details

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 3 Comments

October 9, 2022

2 Kings 5:1-3, 7-15c
Luke 17:11-19

The three ‘amakihi chicks had emerged from their eggs over the course of a day, and they promptly set out to do what newly hatched chicks do: they grew. Mother and father brought them food and cleaned the nest and did the things that ‘amakihi parents do. After a couple of weeks, they set out to teach them to fly.

This turned out to be complicated.

The three stepped up out of the nest along a branch and took their positions, ready to fly. “Get your wings ready!” called mother, and that’s where the instruction began. Two of the chicks extended their wings, but the third on the branch just looked confused. “How do I get my wings ready?” he asked.

Mother and father both extended their wings and spread the feathers along them. The first two chicks had been pretty close, though not perfect. The third one hadn’t apparently been paying attention to seeing his parents fly. It took a while, but he got those wings out and open and spread.

“Now open up your tail feathers,” said father. This time was the turn of the second chick to look confused. “Tail feathers?” she asked, as her two brothers both their tails into the shape of a fan. Father and mother demonstrated, and finally her tail took the proper shape.

Everybody managed to get the next section of the flight lesson, hopping up and down and doing some gentle wing flaps. All three managed to get in more and more wings beats before settling back down onto the branch again.

“Very good,” said mother. “The last thing to remember as we take your first flight to that branch over there” (she pointed with her beak) “is to lift up your feet and tuck them up to your belly.”

Now it was the first chick on the branch to look confused. “Shouldn’t I leave them down to grab the branch?” he said.

“No,” said father. “Your balance will be off if you do that.”

“No,” said mother. “You’ll reach out with your feet when you’re approaching the branch.”

That last chick looked uncertain and confused, and sure enough, when he and his brother and his sister took off, his legs weren’t properly tucked up. They flew fairly straight to the branch their mother had showed them, but he veered wildly up and down and from side to side before seizing that branch a good distance from his brother and sister. All of them were panting, but he was panting the hardest.

“That’s a good start,” said mother.

“This is really complicated!” wailed the chick who hadn’t tucked his feet up. “Really complicated,” said the sister whose tail was still working at stretching out.” “There’s so many things to remember,” complained the chick who hadn’t known to stretch out his wings.

“It’s all little things,” said father, “but you’re right. There are a lot of little things.”

“Put the little things together,” said mother, “and you’ll fly with safety and delight.”

It’s the little things, and the little things put together, that make us able to do the big things, like flying, and friendship, and love.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

Technical problems today have delayed the availability of the video, and unfortunately there were audio problem with the recording. You’ll notice that the volume is very low at the beginning of the story and gets much more audible about half way through, at 12:55. We regret the errors.

And, of course, the story as told is not quite the same as the story as written.

Photo of an ‘amakihi by Bettina Arrigoni – Hawaii Amakihi (male) | Palilia Discovery Trail | Mauna Kea | Big Island | HI|2017-02-09|12-21-50.jpg, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=74674211.

How Many Miracles?

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 1 Comment
“Now the Arameans on one of their raids had taken a young girl captive from the land of Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife. She said to her mistress, ‘If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.'” – 2 Kings 5:2-3

“…his flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy, and he was clean.” – 2 Kings 5:14

The first of the miracles was a girl enslaved,
who’d been torn from her home and forced to serve.
She was not embittered. She retained compassion.
She directed her “lord” to a prophet with power.

The general went to the king, and the king went and wrote
to a king, who in fury and fear rent his clothes.
By a miracle word reached the prophet, who said,
“Send the general here to be well.”

With chariots and horses and servants he came,
but only a messenger stood at the gate,
for the prophet, miraculously still unimpressed
remained in the house; directives he sent.

Now the general cursed and would fly down the road,
back to his home with his malady still.
“He told me to wash!” he denounced the directives,
and he would have rejected the miracles, save…

That his servants (among them, assuredly, slaves)
miraculously summoned their courage and said,
“It’s too simple for you? You can do what is hard.
Do the simple thing. See if it works.”

By a miracle the pride of the general faded.
He listened to those whom the culture despised.
He’d followed advice of a girl and a slave,
now the wisdom of slaves took him to Jordan’s side.

In the washing, the general found his skin cleansed.
A miracle true, a healing assured, his status restored.
A miracle once more: He sought out the prophet.
He raised up his thanks and he praised Israel’s God.

A series of miracles, built upon miracles,
a general who thanked, a general who listened
to slaves who cared and a prophet who ordered –
But the first of the miracles was a girl enslaved.

A poem/prayer based on 2 Kings 5:1-3, 7-15c, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel Reading for Year C, Proper 23 (28).

Biblical illustration of 2 Kings 5:3 by Jim Padgett, courtesy of Sweet Publishing, Ft. Worth, TX, and Gospel Light, Ventura, CA. Copyright 1984. Released under new license, CC-BY-SA 3.0 by Distant Shores Media/Sweet Publishing, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18903284.

Story: Filled by God

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 2 Comments

October 2, 2022

Habakkuk 1:1-4, 2:1-4
Luke 17:5-10

A myna and a saffron finch got interested in human religion. What can I say? People who pray are fascinating. They perched outside churches on Sundays and they listened to the things people were saying and sometimes they even chirped along with the music.

They found communion a bit difficult to understand.

“I was at one church,” said the myna, “and at one point during worship everybody got up from their seats, stood in line to come up to the front, and ate a cookie.”

“A cookie?” said the saffron finch. “That sounds rather nice. I saw people taking pieces from a loaf of bread and dipping it in a cup. When it came out it was purple. Then they ate it.”

“Soggy bread?” asked the myna. “The cookie sounds better. But come to think of it, I’ve seen people dip little wafer cookies in a cup, too.”

“Sometimes the one up front drinks from a big cup,” observed the saffron finch.

“And sometimes everybody gets little cups,” said the myna.

“At this one church in Hilo,” said the saffron finch, “everybody gets a little baggie with a cup of juice and a square of something soft.”

“Bread?” asked the myna.

“We could hope it’s candy,” said the saffron finch.

“But what does it all mean?” asked the myna, and they thought about it.

“They’re sharing in a meal,” said the saffron finch slowly.

“It’s a pretty small one, for humans,” observed the myna.

“And they do have something to drink, and it’s pretty nearly always purple,” said the saffron finch, “and they do it together, even if they have to line up for it.”

“They always look like they’re prayerful, too,” said the myna, “as if God is right there in the bread and the cup.”

“They say that, too,” said the saffron finch. “This is the body of Christ, they say.”

“Perhaps,” said the myna, “this is a part of worship where they take in the blessings.”

“Perhaps,” said the saffron finch, “this is a part of worship where they stop talking to be nourished by God.”

I have to say that for two birds watching from outside, they did pretty well. Communion is when we remember Jesus’ gift to us in a way he told us to do: remembering his body in the bread, and remembering his blood in the cup. Communion is when we literally take those blessings inside ourselves by eating and drinking bread and wine (I’m afraid the myna was wrong about the cookies). Communion is when we Christians stop talking for a moment and let ourselves be filled by God.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

I tell these stories in worship from memory of this manuscript – and between my memory and my affection for improvisation, things change.

Photo of a myna by Eric Anderson.

Sproing!

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 4 Comments

[Jesus said,] “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.” – Luke 17:6

Look, Lord, I have faith!

Sproing!

You pointed at this mulberry tree, and look!

Sproing!

It’s gallivanting all about, prancing on the shore.
I know you said to tell it to take root, but look!
What eye could turn away from jigging roots
and twisting trunk, from limbs a-sweeping in the dance?

Sproing!

Now isn’t that great?

Sproing!

Jesus? Isn’t that good?

Sproing!

Look, Jesus, I admit that servants have to serve
and all, but look! A leaping tree!
The spray upon your cheek comes from its hula
in the waves!

Sproing!

What happened to, “Well done, my faithful one”
(now that I’ve demonstrated faith)?
What happened to, “Your faith has made you well” –
and in my case, not well, but great!

Sproing!

You really mean discipleship is not about
the majesty of miracle, but finds its roots
in gentler dance, in tender care,
in humble healing, and in righteousness?

Sproing!

All right, Jesus. Mulberry, take your place.
My place, it seems, is with
the cranky and demanding
healer.

A poem/prayer based on 17:5-10, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel Reading for Year C, Proper 22 (27).

Photo of a mulberry branch by Luis Fernández García – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=85431793.

Story: The Hardest Thing

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 2 Comments

September 25, 2022

Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15
Psalm 91:1-6, 14-16

They were an unusual collection of friends. They literally came from different parts of the world: from land, from sea, and from air, a mongoose, a honu, and a kolea. I don’t know how it first happened, but they’d developed the habit of taking a spot on a beach, with the honu pulled up in the sun, and the kolea looking for tidbits, and the mongoose taking a brief rest while the three talked story.

Today they were deciding what was the hardest thing.

“Rocks are the hardest thing,” shuddered the mongoose. “They hurt my paws sometimes, and a couple times when I wasn’t careful I knocked my head on one. Rocks are definitely the hardest thing.”

“Rocks are pretty hard,” agreed the honu, “but they also make nice shelter when the waves are high. You just nestle in behind them.”

“I fell into water once,” said the kolea. “I have to say it was pretty hard.”

“That’s right,” said the honu. “Water is the hardest thing. When the waves are crashing over me or the undercurrent is pulling me away from the beach, I’m grateful for the rocks. They don’t do that.”

“You haven’t tried the air,” said the kolea. “That’s a hard thing for sure. This last flight here to Hawai’i Island, I wasn’t sure I’d make it. We flew into winds that just blew us back and back and back. I can’t imagine anything harder than that.”

The three of them thought about this for a good long time, tossing in more examples of how rocks and water and air were hard things, when the honu said, “I’m hungry.” His two friends agreed.

They were about to split up to find dinner, when the mongoose said, “Wait just a moment. Wait just a moment and let’s think about this moment.

“Do either of you know that you’ll find food? I mean, absolutely know?”

The honu and the kolea admitted that they didn’t, although the kolea took a quick look around for a handy bug before saying so.

“In this moment, we’re all hungry, we all need food, right? And none of us are certain that we’ll find it.”

“Yes,” said the honu, “but we hope we’ll find it.”

“Right,” said the kolea, “we hope we’ll find it.”

“But isn’t this the hardest thing?” asked the mongoose. “We know what we need now and we don’t know if we can find it – not for certain. We hope we will… but doesn’t that make hope the hardest thing?”

That’s how a mongoose, a kolea, and a honu discovered that hope – that time we spend between realizing what we need and finding what we need – is, indeed, the hardest thing. Hope carries us from one to the other, but it may not be an easy journey, and it’s harder than high winds or strong waves or a solid rock.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

In the video above, the story was told from memory of this manuscript. Between gaps of memory and flashes of inspiration, the two are not the same.

Photo of a honu (before the arrival of a mongoose or a kolea) by Eric Anderson.

Go Buy a Field

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 3 Comments

“For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: ‘Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land.'” – Jeremiah 32:15

O, Jeremiah, what a run you’ve had.

God called you in your youth,
a prophet to the nations,
destroyer, overthrower,
whose words would bring the powerful down.

So to a people well assured
their safety and their righteousness
were beyond query, you announced
they’d changed their fountains for a leaky cistern.

You spoke your words to Baruch’s pen,
to read before the king and summon him
and all the nation to repent, reform, renew.
At king’s command your words were shriveled in the flame.

From summons to reform you turned to warning,
warning of disaster unavoidable,
while all this time the guilty prospered,
and the linen loincloth festered in the earth.

You languished in the stocks and raised your plaint
to God, whose flaming word would not relent
within you, making you a laughingstock
and grieving that you’d lived your life.

You watched your city fall, its leaders hauled
away and into exile, a monarch’s uncle crowned
as client king, and knew (as who would not)
that folly’s day of triumph still was yet to come.

And now, confined by royal order in
the palace guard, invading armies all
around the city walls, you hear the Divine Word:
Come, Jeremiah, buy a field.

Come, Jeremiah, buy a field,
because though armies yet will harrow
this beleaguered citadel, destroy its
ancient temple, spatter it with blood,

A day will come when land once more
will pass from family to family,
from ancestor to progeny,
and grain will ripen in the sun.

O Jeremiah, now I have to ask:
Of all the things you suffered
(cisterns, stocks, and ridicule),
was anything so challenging as hope?

A poem/prayer based on Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15, the Revised Common Lectionary First Reading for Year C, Proper 21 (26).

The image is Jeremiah Lamenting the Destruction of Jerusalem by Rembrandt (1630) – http://www.rijksmuseum.nl : Home : Info, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10720351.

Story: World of Weeping

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 1 Comment

September 18, 2022

Jeremiah 8:18-9:1
Psalm 79:1-9

Up on Kilauea, where people look out over the great crater/caldera at the summit, a little girl was crying as if her heart would break. Why? Well, it probably had something to do with a trip and a fall and some bruised knees, and maybe because a favorite stuffed animal was all dusty. There were tears running through the dirt on her face.

This story is not about her, however, even if it starts with her. It is about a young koa’e kea, a white-tailed tropicbird, that was resting on a small ledge in the cliff just below the little girl and her family. She’d never heard such a sound before. She leapt into the air and circled about, watching the little human and her family as they comforted her, brushed the dirt from the stuffed animal, and headed away.

The young koa’e kea found her father had joined her circling. “What was that all about?” she asked.

“That was crying,” he said. “Creatures cry when they’re unhappy or in distress.”

“What a horrible noise,” she said, “and those drops of water from the eyes!”

Her father watched the human father who was carrying the little girl in his arms by this point and said, “It seems to work. A lot of creatures have their own version of tears.”

“I’ll never do anything of the kind,” announced the koa’e kea daughter firmly.

“Never?” asked the father.

“Never,” said the daughter.

“Hm,” said the father. “Fly with me for a little bit.”

The first thing they saw in their loops about the island was a mother pig and some piglets. One of the little ones had wandered into a thicket and got turned around, and he was squalling for his family. The sow heard him, found him, and herded him off to join the rest of the family.

The next thing they saw was an old ohi’a tree creaking in the wind. You and I wouldn’t say it was crying, exactly, but there was a light dust floating away on the breeze as the tree swayed. “Is it sad?” asked the young koa’e kea.

“Just a little,” said her faither. “It’s struggling to keep growing where it is, but it has special tears. They’re seeds, and even if this tree can’t grow, perhaps some of its seeds can.”

They flew about the cliffsides until they heard another sound. It was a koa’e kea nest, and the chick in it had spotted one of his parents. It cried its hunger until the mother satisfied it.

“Did I do that?” asked the young koa’e kea circling nearby.

“You did,” confirmed her father.

Last of all, they swooped and soared over the Halema’uma’u crater, watching the red lava, which was streaming from a vent in the crater side into the lava lake below.

“Is the mountain crying?” asked the young bird.

“You can say so,” said her father. “When the mountain cries, the island rises.”

“So all things weep,” said the koa’e kea.

“Maybe not all,” said her father, “but when they do, it’s usually for a reason. It helps them get through the time.”

“I guess if the rest of the world can do it,” she said, “maybe I can, too. If I need to.”

“If you need to,” said her father, and they flew off to the ocean for dinner.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

As always, Pastor Eric told this story from memory of the text above. The two versions are not the same.

Photo of a koa’e kea taken on Kilauea by Eric Anderson.

Anticipatory Grief

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 5 Comments

“My joy is gone, grief is upon me, my heart is sick.” – Jeremiah 8:18

Tell me, Jeremiah, down across the centuries,
just what you knew or thought you knew
when vainly seeking balm in Gilead?

Did you lament Josiah’s sad and foolish death?
Or did you hope that Judah would repent?
Or had you come to grieve disaster still to come?

Anticipatory grief.

Ah, Jeremiah, called so young, who saw
Josiah’s candle snuffed so raw,
whose life was marked by shameful taunts and blows,

Who raged anew at warnings burned,
who urged reform when few would hear,
who languished on a cistern’s sodden floor.

Anticipatory grief.

Your griefs indeed took form, took fire,
your people’s cries rebounded from
the city’s crumbling walls.

And so we hear again your warning to
avoid oppressing those at risk
or risk the consequences of our evil…

Anticipatory grief.

A poem/prayer based on Jeremiah 8:18-9:1, the Revised Common Lectionary First Reading for Year C, Proper 20 (25).

The image is Cry of prophet Jeremiah on the Ruins of Jerusalem by Ilya Repin (1870), http://www.art-catalog.ru/picture.php?id_picture=11437, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3257688.

Story: Over and Around

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 1 Comment

September 11, 2022

Exodus 32:7-14
Luke 15:1-10

A few weeks ago, you might recall, I told a story about nene school. Do you remember that at all? In the story, the class got to talking while the teacher was working with one of the students. They didn’t listen when their teacher asked them to be quiet, until she got so frustrated that she flew off in a huff.

Or, well, a minute and a huff.

This story is about that same class and that same teacher, but now we’ll spend time with the young nene who was getting special instruction in flying.

The reason he needed extra help was, well, the fact that he would try anything. I mean anything. One of his early attempts at flying was to see what happened when he flapped his feet. Nene have webbed feet, to be sure, but they have less webbing between their toes than a duck does or than a Canada goose (which they resemble) does. It wouldn’t matter if they had the same amount of webbing on their feet. Ducks and geese don’t fly with their feet.

But he thought he’d give it a try. If you’re wondering how well it worked, it didn’t work well at all.

He tried flying with one wing pointing up at the sky and one wing pointing down at the ground. That was also, I must say, a crashing failure. He tried taking off by doing back flips. I’m afraid his classmates found that pretty funny, and I dare say you and I would have laughed, too. A lot of his experiments resulted in scattered feathers and, let’s be honest, strained muscles and a fascinating set of bruises (hidden beneath the feathers). Most of them ended right there on the ground where they began.

His teacher tried desperately to limit some of his ideas to things that wouldn’t lead to total disaster. Sometimes she succeeded. Sometimes she’d turn around for a moment, hear a honk and a clatter, and look around to find dust rising over another crash landing.

She had to admit, though, that he didn’t repeat his failures. If something didn’t work, he might try a variation or two on it, but he didn’t do the same thing twice. That sideways idea, for example. He tried it with the left wing up, and he tried it with the right wing up, but he didn’t try it with the left wing up a second time.

The teacher also noticed that every once in a while he found something new that she’d never seen before. One day, for example, he was flying at a good height, flipped over on his back, tucked his wings in, and pointed his beak at the ground. She watched in horror as he headed toward earth, but he pushed those wings back out again, caught the air, and leveled out going back the way he’d come. It was amazing.

“Why,” she asked him, “do you try everything when you know so many of the things you try can’t possibly work? Why don’t you follow the flying lessons nene have been using for years?”

He looked uncomfortable, as well he might (he’d just had another crash landing and the aches were settling in). “I could do that, I know,” he said, “and it would work just fine. But…”

“But what?” the teacher asked.

“But then I wouldn’t have tried everything, and I wouldn’t know about the things that nobody has tried, or nobody has passed down the word. I wouldn’t know what I can really do and what I really can’t.”

Trying everything is a hard way to do things, for sure. The good news is that trying things is a way to learn and to grow. Trying things is all about making spaces to find out who you are and what you can be.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

The story above was told live from memory of this text.

Photo by Eric Anderson.

Precious

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 2 Comments

“Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it?” – Luke 15:8

If my fortune were confined
to just ten coins, well, Jesus,
then I’d search and search
to find the one I’d lost.

And if my flock were just
a century, and one astray,
because I treasure life I’d search
until I found it safe and whole.

The trouble is, dear Jesus,
that you’ve used the coin and sheep
as if they represented people
lost and disregarded.

If they were precious, we would seek.
Because we do not seek, you know they’re not.
Not precious to us.
Not precious in the world we’ve made.

And there you are, lamp-bearer,
there you are, sheep-seeker,
for those we do not treasure
are so precious in your sight.

A poem/prayer based on Luke 15:1-10, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel Reading for Year C, Proper 19: (24).

The image is Parable of the Lost Drachma (ca. 1618) by Domenico Fetti – Web Gallery of Art:   Info about artwork, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15453383.