[Jesus said,] “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.'” – Matthew 9:13
Would you like to know what blessing is? asks Jesus: Watch me.
Would you like to know what light is? asks Jesus: Watch me.
Would you like to know what righteousness is? asks Jesus: Watch me.
Would you like to know what love is? asks Jesus: Watch me.
Would you like to know what honesty is? asks Jesus: Watch me.
Would you like to know faithfulness is? asks Jesus: Watch me.
If you watch me, says Jesus, you will find compassion. You will find forgiveness. You will find welcome.
If you watch me, says Jesus, you will find healing. You will find inclusion. You will find life.
The challenge, says Jesus, for those who would follow me, is when people would know about blessing and light, righteousness, love. When people would know about honesty, faithfulness, healing, inclusion, and life: What will they see when they watch you?
And I ask: What will they see when they watch me?
A poem/prayer based on Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel Reading for Year A, Proper 5 (10).
A lot of the honeycreepers in the mountain forests have brightly colored feathers. I think I’ve mentioned that before. The ‘apapane and the i’iwi are bright red and black. The ‘amakihi and the ‘akiapola’au are bright yellow. The ‘elepaio has these fascinating speckles in its feathers, even if they aren’t all that vibrant.
And then there’s the oma’o. The oma’o is basically gray. Gray head. Gray wings. Gray belly. Some brown in the back, but basically gray.
This oma’o felt perfectly fine about that. He didn’t see the need to show off his feathers. He was content to sing out with a good song when he felt like it, and to eat the berries and bugs he found. All in all, he felt pretty good about the world.
Except for the i’iwi.
He couldn’t help but notice that some of the i’iwi in the forest had some bad habits. They didn’t like other birds nearby when they were feeding. They didn’t like other birds nearby when they were singing. They didn’t like other birds nearby most of the time. If an ‘apapane settled nearby, they’d chase her away. If an ‘amakihi perched in a neighboring tree, they’d chase him away. Sometimes it felt like the most common sound in the forest was the wingbeats of an i’iwi chasing another forest bird.
Some i’iwi live alongside other birds without feeling the need to chase them away from flowers in blossom, but the oma’o didn’t actually notice that. It’s the noisy ones that get attention in the forest just as it is among people. The oma’o’s eye passed right over inoffensive i’iwi as their aggressive cousins chased ‘apapane and ‘amakihi away.
“I’iwi are evil,” the oma’o announced one day after one had bullied three ‘apapane, an ‘amakihi, and a confused ‘alawi (who doesn’t even eat the same food as and i’iwi) out of the neighboring stand of ohi’a trees. “Something should be done.”
“Like what?” asked his sister, who was perched nearby.
“I don’t know,” said the oma’o, “but look at what’s happening. What kind of world is that for ‘apapane and ‘amakihi to live in?”
The sister said nothing then, but she did some thinking. Could an entire kind of bird be evil? Could a combination of feathers and beak and diet and song make you automatically harm others?
She perched near her brother a couple days later and asked, “How are you different from the i’iwi?”
“That’s simple,” he said. “I’m not evil.”
“Okay,” she said, “but you’re alike in a lot of other ways. You’ve got feathers, and you fly. You’ve got a beak and feet that can wrap around a branch.”
“They’re nothing alike,” he protested. “My beak is straight and short; the i’iwi has one that is long and curved. I’ve got gray feathers; they’ve got red and black. I eat berries, they eat nectar. Most of all, I don’t chase other birds.”
“Do you think their red feathers make them chase other birds?” she asked. “The ‘apapane doesn’t. Or their curved beak? The ‘akiapola’au doesn’t. Or their diet of nectar? The ‘amakihi doesn’t.”
She looked him in the eye. “Isn’t it true that you don’t chase birds because you choose to? Isn’t it true that some i’iwi choose to, and some don’t? Isn’t it true that you and I have more in common with an i’iwi than we do with a nene, who doesn’t bother much of anyone at all?”
He had nothing to say.
“We’re all birds of the forest up here,” his sister told him. “We choose good and bad. I’iwi aren’t just evil. They’re our cousins, too, sometimes for better, and sometimes for worse. We can only encourage everyone to be better to one another.”
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Story
I write these stories in advance, but I tell them from a combination of memory and improvisation. The story as I first wrote it does not match the story as I told it.
God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. – Genesis 1:31
Praise the Poet, Breath and Wind and Word, who movement on the waters stirred up light and night and land and sea, stars and planet whirling on the cosmographic page.
Praise the Poet, summoning the earth to green abundance, summoning the seas to swarm with life, summoning the trees to welcome birdsong, summoning the land to bear the tracks of feet.
Praise the Poet, maker of more poets, speakers of the word, creators in the image of Creator, author of more authors. A human writer often finds their characters find their direction. The Poet watches poets make a universe of words.
A poet of the people, though, relies upon the languages of human speech, on rhyme and rhythm and multiple meanings, while God has written in broad rays of light, in buzzing bees, in sweet perfume, in gentle touch, in salt upon the tongue.
Praise the Poet, Breath and Wind and Word!
A poem/prayer based on Genesis 1:1-2:4a, the Revised Common Lectionary First Reading for Year A, Trinity Sunday.
I don’t know what it was that he found in the tree. Maybe it was a collection of seeds. Maybe it was some burrowing insects. Maybe it was material for a nest. Whatever it was, he was the only house finch to know about it, and as far as he knew (or I know) the only bird in the neighborhood to know anything about it.
“Wow!” he said to himself, but not very loudly. He had already decided what to do with it all, you see (whatever it was). He had decided to keep it to himself.
“I’ll be really happy with all this,” he told himself, and he didn’t tell anybody else.
Having decided this treasure (whatever it was) was his, he settled into a nearby branch to protect it. He made sure he had a good lookout on the whereabouts of other birds, but he also made sure that he wasn’t too obvious. If other birds noticed that he wasn’t going much of anywhere, they might get curious. Not to mention if a cat noticed him staying still, the cat would get interested for different and more dangerous reasons.
So he perched on his branch, ducking down from time to time to avoid notice, and guarding his treasure. He only snuck away briefly to get water and eat. If you’re thinking, “Ah, ha! His treasure wasn’t food!” all I can say is, what if he wanted to avoid birds noticing that he didn’t have to go anywhere else to eat?
He kept guarding whatever it was.
One of his sisters finally noticed that she wasn’t seeing him in the usual places. She got worried, of course. When a brother goes missing, sisters get worried. She looked about for some time before she finally spotted him just before he ducked his head down out of sight again.
“What are you up to?” she asked him.
“Nothing,” he lied.
“That’s ridiculous,” she said. “Have you been in this same spot all day? Why would you do that?”
“It’s a fine spot,” he said. “You should find one of your own.”
“What are you up to?” she said, and flew a little closer. Then she saw it.
Whatever it was.
She was impressed. “I can’t believe you found all that,” she sighed.
“It’s mine,” he told her. That surprised her. She didn’t think of him as that kind of bird.
“All right, it’s yours,” she said. “What are you going to do with it?”
Now, for the first time, he thought about it. His day in one spot in the tree hadn’t been all that great. He’d never really eaten or drunk quite enough, so he was uncomfortable. He was worried about cats. He hadn’t spoken to any of his friends or family until his sister came along. He hadn’t even seen when the finch races had taken place a short distance away.
“Keep it,” he said, but he didn’t put much heart in it.
“You can, I suppose,” she said, “but it seems lonely and uncomfortable to me. Wouldn’t things go better if you shared it?”
He thought some more. Then he nodded.
“Tell you what,” he said. “I’ll stay here a bit longer to protect it, while you fly around and tell everyone about it. Then we can all share in it.”
And that’s what they did. They all shared it.
Whatever it was.
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Story
I write these stories in full in advance, but I tell them from memory (plus improvisation). The story as I’ve written it is not the same as the way I told it.
Photo of two house finches by Eric Anderson. I don’t actually know that one of them is guarding anything at all.
This story didn’t take place on our island, because although one of the birds in it lives on Hawai’i, the other doesn’t. I took this picture on Kauai, though both birds also live on O’ahu.
The one on the left, swimming in the water, with its red beak and red on its forehead, is an ala’e ‘ula, or Hawaiian gallinule. The one on the right, standing on long thin pink legs with white and black feathers and a very long straight black beak, is an ae’o, or Hawaiian black-necked stilt.
Both of them like to search for food in roughly the same kinds of places: relatively still and shallow water, like old fish ponds or coastal marshes. They don’t eat the same food, however. The ala’e ‘ula likes plant roots and seeds and shoots, and enjoys a snail or two. The ae’o mostly looks for fish, but will snap up water insects when it finds one.
Actually, the ala’e ‘ula will eat those insects, too, but neither of them is so fond of a diet of bugs to get very upset about it.
On this day the ae’o was getting somewhat upset, but not about bugs. It was fish. He couldn’t find many. Oh, one or two swam his direction, but where were the rest of them? He was getting hungry, and he was also getting irritated with the world. Being hungry does that to some people, and to some birds as well.
“Where are the fish?” he squawked in frustration.
“You can’t find fish?” asked an ala’e ‘ula a short way away.
“No, I can’t, and is that any of your business?” he said rudely.
“No, I suppose not,” said the ala’e ‘ula, who’d been feeding quite happily on roots and shoots and therefore wasn’t hangry with the world. “Would you like me to tell you if I find some fish?”
“You do what you want to do,” said the ae’o irritably, and as the ala’e ‘ula swam off to another section of the fishpond, grumbled to himself, “It’s not as if you’ll be of any help.”
It wasn’t very long, though, before the ala’e ‘ula swam back toward the hungry, grumpy ae’o. “Say, friend,” he said. “Take a look over there. There’s a good sized school of fish milling around eating flies.”
“How would you know?” demanded the ae’o, who couldn’t make out the flies on the water from where he stood.
The ala’e ‘ula shrugged. “One might know if one looks under water,” he said. “I was pulling up a root and there they were, all around. When I got my head out of the water I saw the flies swimming on the surface.
“I suppose you could make a meal of the flies if you have to,” he said thoughtfully, “but I imagine you like the fish better.”
“One might know,” muttered the ae’o as he stepped over to where the ala’e ‘ula had been, “but one probably doesn’t. More fool I.”
Then he saw the milling flies, and he saw the ripples where the fish had risen to the surface. He saw the water swirl as they swam beneath. In a moment he was there, and dipping his beak, and catching his fish, and feeling better than he had all day.
“I guess one might know at that,” he said when the ala’e ‘ula found him again shortly after.
“One might know,” said the ala’e ‘ula.
“Even better,” said the ae’o, “one might share what one knows. And the world gets a little bit better than it was.”
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Story
I write these stories in full ahead of time, but I tell them in worship from memory and improvisation. The story as written and the story as told are not identical.
Photo of an ala’e ‘ula (Hawaiian gallinule) and an ae’o (Hawaiian black-necked stilt) by Eric Anderson.
For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. – Acts 17:23
Not looking carefully, I typed “Kiijubg” as first word for the title of this poem/prayer.
It’s not a word I’ve seen before; I’d struggle to define it, and truthfully it’s definitely not the word I meant.
But Shaw once wrote that when a thing is funny, search it for a hidden truth (and promptly replied to himself that it takes all the fun out of it).
That fierce and fascinating man from Tarsus, though offended by the shrines to idols all about, found one shrine
Which honored Agnostos Theos (perhaps); enough to base a sermon on, to find a common root within a verdant forest
Of complex and disparate devotion, and twist a cord to complement relationship
Between the human children worshiping the God of Jacob, and the human children worshiping Olympians.
If Paul had looked less carefully, perhaps his ire for idols would have leapt to his lips.
Instead his plea for understanding fell on ears which heard. Some scoffed, it’s true,
But if he’d launched into a diatribe against the shrines, what could they do but scoff and turn away?
For anger, like a hand misplaced upon the keys, makes meaningless its words, however filled with hope.
A poem/prayer based on Acts 17:22-31, the Revised Common Lectionary First Reading for Year A, Sixth Sunday of Easter.
The image is a photo of the “Altar of the unknown god” ca. 90-110 CE, discovered on the Palatine Hill in Rome (not Athens) in 1820. Photo by Sailko – Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=56294298. The inscription can be translated, “Whether sacred to god or to goddess, Gaius Sextius Calvinus, son of Gaius, praetor, restored this on a vote of the senate.”
“But filled with the Holy Spirit, he [Stephen] gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.” – Acts of the Apostles 7:55
I wonder about Stephen, what he knew when he was brought before the council of the priests. Did he expect they’d hear him out? Or see the door as gateway to his grave?
Oh what a fool he was to speak the words he did if he had hope they’d hear him as they’d heard out the apostles not so long before, and waited on the signs of God.
Yes, “stiff-necked people” echoed Genesis, and all he said about the troubled times of their ancestors had been said before by those who crafted First and Second Kings,
But telling those in power that they lived just as their grim progenitors had done, as faithless slayers of the prophets, roused their wrath and spurred them order his death.
Now, if he had a hope of being heard he spoke the ravings of a fool, and died for it, but if saw the writing on the wall, he spoke a liberated word.
Without a hope of living through this trial, his mind and tongue could speak his fearless truth, his soul adjust to choose another hope, one which did not rely on human beings.
“I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man, who stands there next to God,” he said, and as they dragged him to his death, he found that hope is flexible enough for all.
A poem/prayer based on Acts 7:55-60, the Revised Common Lectionary First Reading for Year A, Fifth Sunday of Easter.
“So again Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep.'” – John 10:7
It’s not your most compelling image, Jesus. In a section where you said, “I am…” three times, how many hold this one in memory? To say the truth, I barely do.
And yet a gate is comforting. It guards a home, a sheepfold, or a soul from harm. It’s hardly perfect, since a thief may climb the wall: They’ll have to work to work their ill.
The beauty of a gate is not protective force, but its capacity to swing, admitting those outside who’ve recognized the voice and come to claim their place and home.
You tell us you are gatekeeper and gate. May we remember that the gate is you, and when we close it, we usurp your power, your authority. and you yourself.
May we have faith and wisdom both to hold the gate wide open for the gathering flock and only close it in the most compelling circumstance, then open it with welcome love.
A poem/prayer based on John 10:1-10, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel Reading for Year A, Fourth Sunday of Easter.
Sometimes a bird on the mountainsides just takes a liking for a particular ohi’a tree. I don’t know whether the nectar tastes better, or if you get a particularly crunchy kind of bug, or if there’s something else that gets a bird excited.
This is about an i’iwi who had a favorite ohi’a tree.
He like other trees as well. When the mamane were in blossom, he’d happily sip from those flowers as well, but as far as he was concerned there was nothing better than his favorite ohi’a tree. The flowers were the right color red, he thought, and they’d get that lovely gold tip as they blossomed. Sometimes there weren’t any flowers on it, of course, but that just meant he’d develop an appetite as he waited for them to bloom again.
It was his favorite tree.
I think you know, however, that sometimes trees in the ohi’a forest die. Sometimes the wind blows them down. Sometimes an earthquake from the volcano shakes the soil loose beneath them. Sometimes an eruption knocks them down. And sometimes, I’m very sad to say, they get very sick very quickly. Their leaves fall and, all too often, no leaves grow ever again.
The i’iwi’s favorite tree got sick.
He didn’t notice at first. He noticed it didn’t have any blossoms, of course, but that wasn’t unusual. A tree can’t bloom all the time. But then he noticed that some of the leaves were browning and dropping away. It looked like the tree was trying to grow new leaves, but there didn’t seem to be a lot of them. The i’iwi realized that the tree was in bad shape.
He shouted out his frustration to the world.
He carried on with living. But he decided it would make him too sad to see his favorite tree get sick and maybe – probably – die, so he spent his time in other parts of the forest. There were good trees there. None of them were his favorite tree. None of them could ever be his favorite tree.
One day, however, the forest’s blossoms were scarce in the groves he’d been browsing. The pattern of flowers led him, tree by tree, toward his favorite tree. He didn’t really want to go there, but if that’s where the nectar was, that’s where the nectar was. Eventually he found himself flying right toward his favorite tree.
It was covered with bright red ohi’a lehua.
Imagine his surprise. He was sure the tree was dead, but it had survived, and it had even thrived. He flew around it, singing for joy. He settled onto a branch and lowered his long curved beak into a flower. The nectar tasted like heaven, even better than before, he thought.
This story is about Easter, but it’s not about mistaking who’s alive for someone who is dead. No. this story is about Easter because it’s about surprise. That i’iwi knew, knew to his soul, that his favorite tree was no more. Jesus’ friends and disciples, Simon Peter and Mary Magdalene, they knew that Jesus had died – as he had.
Both a Hawaiian bird and Mediterranean human beings learned that the world has more surprises in it than they’d imagined. An ohi’a that got better. A Savior who rose again to new life.
Happy Easter!
by Eric Anderson
Regrettably, there was a technical problem this morning, and the story was not recorded.
You’ve heard, I know, that there are some birds that winter with us here in Hawai’i, and that they fly to Alaska for the summer. Those birds might prefer to fly on a big jet, like you and I, but they use their own wings, even though some of them are pretty small birds. The kolea are the best known, but we’re also saying farewell to hunakai, ‘ulili, and ‘akekeke in the next month or so.
An ‘akekeke getting ready to fly looks like, well, it looks like an ‘akekeke does most of the time. It hops around the sands and stones and grasses near the ocean looking for crabs, worms, small fish, and basically anything it can eat.
A little flock of ‘akekeke noticed, however, that one of their number never seemed to pause much. Oh, she’d rest when she needed to, but the rest of the time her beak was pointed down, following her eyes constantly searching out the next worm, or small fish, or crab. She’d pause when she’d really filled herself up, but even with that she was hunting far more than her family or friends.
“What are you up to?” they asked her.
“I’m getting ready for the big flight,” she said.
“We all are, but we’re not eating all the time. You’re eating all the time. Why?”
“I want to make sure I can get all the things before it’s time to go,” she said.
“What are you talking about?” they asked her. “You can’t eat all the things. There’s too many things to eat to do that. And where would you put them?”
“I know,” she said, “but I’m going to look for as many as I can find, and who knows? Maybe that will be all the things.”
Why do I tell you this story? Well, it’s because out there along the walkways of the church there are Easter eggs. Some of them are ones you colored yesterday, and they look amazing. Some of them have sweets in them, and the sweets (not the plastic eggs) taste amazing.
What’s important, however, is that we find all the things. All the dyed eggs. All the plastic eggs. All the eggs you can use to make egg salad. All the eggs that have goodies in them.
Be like the ‘akakeke this morning. Find all the things!
by Eric Anderson
I tell two stories on Easter Sunday. I told this one just before the keiki began the annual Easter Egg hunt, where it is really important to find all the eggs. For the record, they did!
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