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6th

June 2010 : Pentecost 2 : Year C

9:30am Camillo

1 Kings 17:8-16 : Galatians 1:11-24 : Luke 7:11-17

The Leonard Cohen quote in the pewsheet and reflection comes from

his songA thousand kisses deep.

You lose your grip, and then you slip

Into the masterpiece

Its a love song, a song of regret for lost love and a song that celebrates

the joy of experience, however tough it may have been; a song that

recognises the power of wisdom that comes only through that kind of

toughening.

How hard it is to lose our grip! We know now when the chapter that

contains that part of our lives that has belonged to what is now the

Anglican Parish of Camillo comes to a close. Its a formal date the 3rd

of July, 2010. Its a date that is less than one month away.

So here this. Its no way near enough time to do anything but begin to

get used to some notion of grief and grieving. Do not expect the wake

up on the 4th

of July and feel refreshed and calm and ready to get up

and go to church especially if the church you expect to go to is this

one.

I say this only because I have the vague, admittedly-unchecked notion

that some people not in this community of faith, I hasten to say may

be thinking that something magical will happen on 3rd

July 2010, that

somehow all our pain or anxiety or anger or guilt or whatever will

quickly recede and well all look forward to our next place of worship,

our next parish and parish life.

It doesnt work like that, though I doubt if I have to remind anyone of

that.

We have, of course, already begun our grieving. But until now we have

been in a suspended state, not knowing when we would awaken to ourNew Beginning. Now we do know. It is a Good Thing to have this

knowledge. And it is a Terrible and Terrifying Thing also.

But as I suggested in the pewsheet, when we are able to lose our grip on

the body that has been our community of faith, we will find that we can

and will eventually slip into the Masterpiece. The Masterpiece

that is the grace and love of the Living God. The Masterpiece that is our

New Beginning. The Masterpiece that speaks, not of death but of

amazing new gifts and hope and opportunity.

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To repeat by way of reminder what I say in the pewsheet: the widow of

Nain has to lose her grip on her dead son and the consequent terror of

having no support in an age that did not offer any kind of social

security. Her fate was quite likely to become a beggar or maybe simply

wandering off and dying of starvation and disease. The widow in Kings

is already starving and near death, along with her son. She grips the

expectation that she and her son will enjoy one last meagre meal before

they inevitably die. Paul, writing to Celts in Galatia, recounts how he

gripped a belief that he was doing God s will in trying to eradicate the

early Church.

But in all three instances it is only when these people lose their grip andallow themselves to slip that they discover not their worst nightmares

or what they dreaded most and were trying to prepare themselves for

but the Masterpiece of Gods love and grace and promise and hope.

I dont know what we, individually or as a body of believers are

gripping. Some things will overlap, certainly; others will be different;

and with yet other gripped-things, the difference will be one of

emphasis rather than kind or content.

It is the nature of grief and grieving that we grip these familiar and

rightly-valued things, whatever they may be. Perhaps its the memory

of nearly three decades spent serving the Living God in this particular

community. Perhaps its the friendships weve made friendships that

wont and don

t and certainly don

t have to disappear.

Maybe its the recollection of the things weve done together or

individually in the name of God through this community. It could be

the sense of growth and development over the years; or the sense of

bondedness and belonging.

All of these things that we grip are wonderful, exciting, worthy

andno one and no circumstance have the right to take them from us.

But we do need to lose our grip on such or similar things because

unless we are able to do that, we cannot slip into Gods Masterpiece.

And the paradox is that we will have a deeper, more fulsome and lively

experience of these things only ifwe lose our grip on them.

In other words, we do not want to court the danger of ignoring the

Living God, of supplanting God with these tightly-gripped memories.

But if we lose our grip on them, God can and will create for us these

lively, fulsome, deep and rainbow-coloured experiences.

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Now, however, may not be the right time to do any of that. Thats okay.

Whatever our hopes and wishful thoughts, we can only take one step at

a time. Right now, we still have to get used to the reality that the final

day for this particular community of faith, in its current form, is the

Third day of the month of July in the year Two thousand and ten.

What does that date mean? What will it feel like on that day? Can we

even imagine what we will be thinking on the day? When we celebrate

our final Service who will definitely want to be here? who will find it

just too painful to face? Both would be legitimate choices but the

healthier option would still be to attend the final Service, whenever it

may be; to face the pain, to experience the loss that particular day ordate encompasses.

And sooner or later we dont have to create artificial time-lines; they

are decidedly unhelpful we will have to lose our grip on whatever we

are holding tight. And we may need to ask ourselves: What are the

reasons I am holding onto these memories or thoughts so tightly? What

am I so terrified of, that I cannot lose my grip on them? What would

actually happen if I lost my grip on these things? What wouldactually

happen . . . ?

But however we answer those and similar questions, when we lose our

grip, when we allow ourselves to slip we will find ourselves in Gods

own Masterpiece, whatever that may be or mean for us individually.

None of this, however, is meant to negate or nullify the perfectly

appropriate feelings that accompany our grieving. We may find

ourselves suddenly angry, or regretful, or have overwhelming urges to

blame someone or something. We may need to cry. We might sink into

a state of deep sadness, perhaps even a period of depression. We may

continue to deny that our Parish as a human, artificial construct is about

to die, to hope that something miraculous will happen to save us. We

could experience the urge to strike up a bargain of some sort withthe

School or the Diocese.

Whatever we find ourselves experiencing, we need to be aware that IT

IS OKAY. What lies before us and what we are in the midst of is

unspeakably miserable. It is okay to experience some powerful

emotions at this time. Be kind to yourselves. Seek out those who can

handle your feelings calmly and non-defensively. Whatever you do

DO NOT try to hammer down these feelings, however uncomfortable

they may be. DO NOT pretend that everything is okay when it isnt.

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And do not succumb to pious BS about getting over your grief or

worse still, denying or suppressing your grief in the name offaith.

Jesus himself grieved; Jesus cried when Lazarus died. Remember that

and remember that, as it says in the Letter to the Hebrews, we do not

have a God who is unfamiliar with suffering and pain.

Yet it is the nature of our experience that we live constantly within the

tension between the now and the not-yet. Between the pain of closure

and the hope of the Masterpiece. Both are real. But we cannot

experience the Masterpiece until and unless we admit the pain implicit

and explicit in our grief.

So let it happen. Let God bless it. Bring it to the Living God and let

God bless it.