Remembering Our Roots

Psalm 104: 1-23

Roger Lynn

August 20, 2017

Outdoor Worship

(because this was an informal outdoor worship experience it was not recorded, so there is no audio for the sermon this week)

We are people of the earth. The stuff we are made of is the stuff the earth is made of. We are a part of creation. We are connected to the rest of creation. In the mythic, poetic imagery of the creation story found in the second chapter of Genesis, we are formed from the dust of the earth. Unfortunately, we sometimes seem reluctant to recognize and acknowledge that part of our human heritage. It seems beneath us somehow. We would much prefer to focus on the part of the creation story where God breathed life into us with the divine spirit. The rest just seems far too messy for our tastes.

But when we forget, or refuse to remember, our earthy roots and our connection with the rest of creation, then all sorts of unfortunate and destructive consequences seem to follow. We lose track of who we are. We lose track of the part we play in keeping the world in balance. We lose track of how vitally important it is to stay connected with each other, with the world around us and with God. We start to believe that we can get along just fine on our own. Pretty soon we find ourselves treating other human beings with less respect than they need. We start treating the planet and her resources with less respect than is healthy. We read the newspapers and listen to the news and wonder how in the world things got this bad. And the answer, at least in part, is that we, as a society, as a people, individually and collectively, have forgotten to remember our roots. We have forgotten to remember our heritage as people who are intimately and inextricably connected to the earth.

What a difference it could make if our decisions and our choices and our lifestyles were built on a foundation of genuine, deep-down awareness of our basic connections, with the earth, with each other, with God. What a difference if we really remembered at the most basic and elemental levels, that we are, in fact, one. Perhaps we would begin learning to walk more gently upon the earth. Perhaps we would learn to dwell more gently with each other. Perhaps we would learn to live more gently with ourselves. When we begin to recognize that everything and everyone is a part of the same greater whole of which we also are a part, then all of our living is cast in a new and different light.

But where to begin? The habit of thinking we are separate and apart from the world and from each other is deep seated and long standing. Much of how we live is based on the mistaken notion that we are somehow separate. To change requires not only un-learning old ways of doing things, but also some serious swimming upstream against the cultural current. So we begin by recognizing that it will not change overnight, for us or for the world. We begin by being as gentle with ourselves as God is gentle with us. And we simply begin. The old saying is true that every journey begins with a single step. We remember to get outside once in a while (like this morning) and look around. Pay attention to your breathing. Feel the air filling your lungs. Remember that the air you breath is the same air which the birds breath and the animals breath. It is the same air which the trees help to filter and replenish. Look around and notice something in this setting that you don’t normally pay any attention to. Give it your attention. Reflect on the ways in which you are connected. Feel the earth beneath your feet. Perhaps reach down and touch it with your fingers, or even take off your shoes and feel it beneath your toes. Remember that it is the same earth which has supported and sustained life on this planet for eons. Allow your body to remember your roots. Begin to remember the connection you share with the planet, and all that exists on the planet, as well as the connection you share with the sacred, divine, holy source of all that exists.

When we begin to remember we begin to heal. And as we heal we also become agents of healing. I pray that we will begin to remember soon.

Holy Ground

The ground . . . the ordinary, always present,

hardly-in-danger-of-extinction ground . . .

and God called it holy!

I know that Moses took off his shoes

because God told him he was standing on holy ground.

What I don’t know is,

When is the ground holy and when is it not?

When do I take off my shoes?

I walk upon the frozen ground in winter,

and find it cracked and ugly, lacking color.

There’s nothing here to make me stop and say,

“Holy ground,”

yet I know that underneath

spring is growing,

and in the months to come

I’ll be stopped dead in my tracks

by crocus and tulip and daffodil

and in some morning’s light

I’ll see a blaze of forsythia

and a triumph of pink dogwood

and I’ll have a whiff of lemon thyme

and I’ll take off my shoes.

When is the ground holy,

this ground that yields to us Life?

If the earth is the Lord’s

and the fullness thereof,

no amount of planting or tilling or harvesting

is going to mean the bounty is ours.

We can’t earn it;

everything is a gift.

And the gifts are not unique:

they’re everywhere . . . commonplace . . . ordinary:

ordinary trees, ordinary vegetables,

ordinary fruits, ordinary flowers . . .

ordinary beauty, ordinary bounty

ordinary extravagant gifts.

Just in case,

I’ll take off my shoes from time to time

and say, “Thank you.”

(from Searching for Shalom, by Ann Weems, Westminster/John Knox Press, 1991)