Awakening to Beauty, Falling in Love with the World

Awakening to Beauty, Falling in Love with the World, with Rev. Kally Elliott. Series: Beguiled By Beauty: Cultivating a Life of Contemplation and Compassion A Spacious Christianity, First Presbyterian Church of Bend, Oregon. Scripture: Psalm 147.1-11.

Join us this week as Rev. Kally Elliott shares personal experiences and biblical examples to emphasize the importance of gratitude and praise in difficult situations. Highlighting how expressing gratitude can deepen one’s relationship with God, even in the face of tragedy.

Join us each Sunday, 10AM at bendfp.org, or 11AM KTVZ-CW Channel 612/12 in Bend.  Subscribe/Follow, and click the bell for alerts.

At First Presbyterian, you will meet people at many different places theologically and spiritually. And we love it that way. We want to be a place where our diversity brings us together and where conversation takes us all deeper in our understanding of God.

We call this kind of faith “Spacious Christianity.” We don’t ask anyone to sign creeds or statements of belief. The life of faith is about a way of being in the world and a faith that shows itself in love.

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Keywords:

god, psalm, praise, leprosy, gratitude, jesus, psalms, hymn, faith, begins, find, gaze, doxology, poem, noticing, taught, sing, oliver, write, thanking, presbyterian, church, online worship, bend, oregon

Featuring:

Rev. Dr. Steven Koski, Rev. Kally Elliott, Tyler McQuilkin, Becca Ellis, Brave of Heart, Guests

Transcript

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Many of us are familiar with Mary Oliver's poem The summer day, in which she gazes at a grasshopper, wondering who made it. This grasshopper, she writes, who has flung herself out of the grass, the one eating sugar out of my hand, who is moving her jaws back and forth, instead of up and down. Who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes. Now, Oliver writes. She lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face. Now she snaps her wings open and floats away. Oliver continues, I don't know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention. To pay attention to the blade of grass, or the swan, the black bear, the grasshopper, to everything that will one day fade away. This Oliver says she's been doing all day kneeling in the grass, paying attention. What better could she have been doing at the end of her poem, Oliver asks, tell me what it is you plan to do with your one wild and precious life, often taken out of context. This question is asked at graduations or as a caption on a well filtered Instagram photo. We hear a call to make a big splash, to follow our bliss, to find our calling. Yet what Oliver is inviting us to is the blessing of paying attention to what is right in front of our noses, right there on the blade of grass in our front yard, the blessing of awe. As a teenager, I spent at least one night a week, if not more, sitting with my mother and father, brothers, aunts, uncles and cousins at my grandmother gigi's dinner table. Each meal began in the same way. We'd clasp each other's hands and then sing in four part harmony the doxology, praise God, from whom all blessings flow. Praise God all creatures here below, praise God above, ye heavenly hosts. Praise God the Son and Holy Ghost. Amen, the word doxology literally means praise, even as a surly teenager, this practice around the table did not strike me as strange. It was just what my family did. It was our tradition, our prayer before dinner. My husband and I have continued this ritual with our own children, and they do it begrudgingly, but they do it. I find it appropriate that while I may have first learned the doxology as a young child in the sanctuary pews of St Andrew's Presbyterian Church, it became the liturgy of my life at my grandmother's table, for it was she who, forever enamored with the world, also taught me to pay attention to the hummingbird at her window. Look at that. She'd explain, exclaim, look at how its wings beat the air. Isn't he amazing? She taught me to wear a Plumeria in my hair. It's what all the girls in Hawaii do. It's so pretty on you, she'd say, to breathe deep the scent of gardenia blooms in her backyard, to savor the sweet juice of pineapple on the fruit plate, to even find the good in the annoying sibling or cousin sitting beside me after singing the doxology. Gigi would often invite us to share what made us grateful about the family members or friends seated at the table with us. This could be especially difficult if I was sitting next to one of my little brothers, but I had to come up with something. I had to pay attention to the good, to the beauty in each person in my family. I had to act with gratitude, even if I didn't always feel the gratitude. Our Psalm today is one of five songs of praise that end the book of Psalms, the prayer book of the Israelite people. In the entire Book of Psalms, you can find every emotion you've ever experienced. There's joy and pain and sorrow, exuberance, pride, hopefulness, hopelessness, grief, rage. It's all there in the book of God's people, in the Psalms, but in the last five. Psalms, the prayers turn to praise. Psalm 147 begins, hallelujah. It's a good thing to sing praise to our God. Praise is beautiful. Praise is fitting. God's the one who rebuilds Jerusalem, who regathers Israel, scattered exile. God heals the heart broken and bandages their wounds. God counts the stars and assigns each a name. Our Lord is great with limitless strength. We'll never comprehend what God knows and does so. Sing to God a Thanksgiving, a hymn. Play music on your instruments to God. The Reverend Dr Walter Brueggemann describes this Psalm as an avalanche of praise the ancient Hebrews unique idea was that the creation so the world around us and we ourselves are essentially good, and that creation is obvious in its abundance. Look at the fertility of the Earth or the rain, the sun, the trees, the flowers, the amazing creatures. The psalm goes on to say, the cattle and the sheep and the lions, the mountain goats, eagles soaring, the great capacity that we have to care for one another. All of it, all of it is a sign of God's goodness and God's providence. And when you look at the world, the Bible says you see something of God. So what if, instead of teaching that faith is a series of rigid rules and biblical principles to follow the church taught that faith begins when we stand on a beach, watching the waves crash against the shore, feeling the vastness of the ocean, or when we gaze into the eyes of our lover or hold our newborn to our chest, when We notice the delicate grasshopper in our front yard, or the resilient flowering weed emerging through the crack in the sidewalk, realizing for the first time that something far greater than ourselves crafted these wonders and crafted us. What if faith begins with paying attention, noticing the beauty, the good, the wonder, the way that God so tenderly cares for us. And if that is where faith begins, then we must grow in faith by being grateful for the abundance that God has given to us. Hallelujah, the Psalm says it's a good thing to sing praise to our God. Praise is beautiful. Praise is fitting. Praise is fitting because, as the great Karl Barth said, when you look around and behold all the gifts that you have been given, all you can do is stammer praise. CS Lewis once famously observed that the healthiest people he knew were the grateful ones, the ones always thanking praise, he said, is is almost inner health made audible. And it's not that the people of Israel hadn't experienced the worst of this world. They'd been carried off into exile. They'd been forced to make their home in a foreign land. Generations had been lost, yet when finally home, it was songs of praise that fell from their lips, inviting us to sing along with them. There's a story in the Gospels about Jesus and 10 men with the skin condition leprosy. It goes like this, as Jesus entered a village, 10 men with a skin disease approached him, keeping their distance. They called out, saying, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. And when he saw them, he said to them, Go and show yourself to the priests. And as they went, they were made clean. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus's feet and thanked him, and he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus asked, Were not 10 made clean. So where are the other nine? Did none of them return to give glory to God, except this foreigner. Then he said to him, Get up and go on your way. Your faith has made you well. Leprosy was a significant concern in the first century, Palestine and encompassing various skin diseases, some of which were severe, contagious and deadly. If someone showed signs of disease, she was to stand apart from her community and has to had to shout Unclean, unclean, so as to alert any passerby of her illness. Constant. Ultimately, those with leprosy resided on the outskirts of society, often in small groups of other diseased individuals. Those with leprosy, they knew despair. And in this story, instead of shouting unclean, the 10 lepers call out to Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. Go see the priest, Jesus tells them, and as they go, they are made clean. But the funny thing is, we don't know if they ever made it to the priest or not. It doesn't say. All we know is that one of the men noticed his leprosy was gone, he paid attention, and his response was to turn back to find Jesus and fall on his knees thanking him. And Jesus's response is to tell this man, your faith has made you well. But well, isn't an adequate rendering of the Greek word Sosa used here. The word Sosa has the deeper meaning of being saved or made whole. It's as if Jesus is saying to him, Hey, you're noticing the goodness of God. You're paying attention to God's tender care for you and your gratitude for it that has made you whole. When I was young, my mother always made me write thank you cards to anyone who sent me a gift. It was an arduous task, mostly for her, and would include a lot of complaining. And am I done yet from me, but I think what my mom was trying to teach me was not just gratitude, but the act of gratitude. It's an uncomfortable position to have to ask, Hey, did you receive my gift? I haven't heard. Hadn't heard so I wasn't sure if it had arrived. It had arrived to write a thank you card or to make a phone call thanking your friend, or even just send a text, completes the act of giving. But what about when things are not well, when you don't feel grateful, when you've lost your job or a loved one, when a long held hope shatters, or when your dream dies, when, unlike the man with leprosy, you are not healed. How are we to thank and praise God? Then these are the times when scripture has gifts for us, the Psalms in particular. Remember earlier when I said that you can find any emotion you might have right there in the prayer book of the people of Israel. In the Psalms, you feel loneliness. The Psalm says, I am lonely and afflicted. Psalm 25 awe. Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of God. Psalm 33 sorrow, my life is spent with sorrow. Psalm 31 shame. Shame has covered my face. Psalm 44 delight. Psalm one, fear. Psalm two, grief. Psalm six, brokenheartedness. Psalm 34 joy, you have put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and wine abound. Psalm four, I could go on, but you get the point. It's all there. All the emotions are there in the prayer book of of the people of God, and God holds it all, but the last five Psalms, out of 150 Psalms, the last five are songs of praise and gratitude, because gratitude runs deep, becoming more profound in times of difficulty and tragedy, it is in the valley of the shadow of death that words of thanks and praise emerge from our lips. Yes, even now, thank you. Thank you for him. Thank you for her. Thank you for your steadfast love and for your presence. Thank you that even in the darkest valley, God, you are there. You comfort me. Thank you for you. You might know the hymn it is well with my soul. It goes when peace like a river attendeth my way, when sorrows like see billows roll, whatever my lot thou has taught me to say, it is well. It is well with my soul. I used to kind of think this, saw this hymn was like gaslighting someone who had experienced a terrible tragedy. But when I heard the story. Story, my I had a change of heart. The song was written in 1873 by Horatio G Spafford, a highly respected attorney and elder in a Presbyterian Church in Chicago. In 1871 his young son died of pneumonia, and then later that same year, the great Chicago fire spread across the city, taking much of spafford's fortune and property. Late in the year of 1873 the spaffords, along with their four daughters, planned a retreat to Europe as a vacation of sorts. But before they could leave, Mr. Spafford was called to some important business, keeping him in Chicago, while the family went on ahead to Europe, where he would meet them in a few days. Mrs. Fafford and the four daughters departed on a ship, and on November 22 1817, after being out to sea for four days, their ship was struck by a British steamship of the 313 passengers and crew, only 61 passengers and 26 crew survived. Mrs. Spafford was rescued a short time later, clinging to the debris in the water alone. When she arrived in Cardiff, Wales, a few days later, she sent a telegram to her husband, simply stating, saved alone. Mr. Spafford left Chicago immediately to reunite with his wife while crossing the ocean, it was said that he was called by the captain to the stern of the ship and told that they were approaching the location of the accident, standing over the waters where his children perished, he began to pen the words to this classic hymn, what began as a poem aboard the ship, was completed. A short time later, Mr. Spafford sent his poem to his friend Philip bliss, who put the lyrics to music the history of this hymn, it is well with my soul, makes me wonder if I would respond in the same I'd like to think I could still dig deep and find gratitude within me, but I don't know spafford's Pain had to be overwhelming, yet so was God's grace, so much so that he could say, without pretense, it is well with my soul. At my grandmother's memorial service, we ended our time together, hands clasped, as we so often did around the table, but we were hands were clasped throughout the entire sanctuary, and we sang. We sang the doxology, praising God that even now, even now, oh God, we thank you for your kindness, for your love, for your presence, for your tender care. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise God all creatures here below. Praise God above, ye heavenly hosts. Praise God the Son and Holy Ghost, as the Psalm says, it's a good thing to sing praise to our God. Praise is beautiful. Praise is fitting. Amen. You.