Delivered September 26, 2009 at the Episcopal Theological School at Claremont, CA  (Bloy House)

Genesis 2:4b-9, 18-23
1 Peter 4:8-11
Luke 12:22-31
Psalm 16:5-11

I once read an LA Times article about Dr. Francis Collins, a medical doctor, lecturer, educator, and one of the worlds’s most respected DNA researchers whose area of study revolves around finding the source of the origin of our human spices. Due to his scientific nature, Dr. Collins was a card carrying atheist.

Raised by agnostic parents, he was sent to an Episcopal Church at an early age not to learn about God, but to study music; any talk of God in the home was forbidden. As the years went on, and he applied himself to his medical practice, he was confronted by questions from dying patients about the realities of life on earth, and the hereafter. Being a consciences physician and wanting something to say to dying patients, he decided read Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis, and not too long after, combined with life experience, God eventually did was God does best……leading Dr. Collins from atheism, to conversation.

Dr. Collins current work in DNA research rejects the literal notion of Genesis, and its creation stories, but fully embraces the concept that God was the spark of nature and in nature humanity would eventually form and grow to who we are today. I would safely say that Dr. Collins is quite unique, standing outside traditional science and the pseudo-scientific belief in intelligent design.

This notion of a spark from God, and our eventual journey towards our physical formation led me to wonder about the nature of time. Contained within the rising of the sun, and the shinning of the moon, humans seem obsessed with time. Time for us must be fixed and held in some kind of tangible form. Time is something to be measured, logged – - – segmented in our day. As Christians we seem proud of the fact that we keep Divine Hours; that series of fixed times in the day set aside for prayer. As I pondered this notion of fixed time I decided to turn to my training in music theory.

Music uses time but in a different way. In music we use time signatures which are a formatted way of telling musicians how many beats to expect per measure of music. The most familiar time signature is named “common time” which means four beats to a measure. In many ways these beats are similar to that of a clock [demonstrate four beats to a measure].

From the outwardness of the repetitive beat, music and its rhythms offers another variant which is much more subtle as it lives underneath the beats of a time signature. Under the beats of rhythm combined with a melodic line, the text, the interpretation, and talent of the musician lies what we call “the pulse”. A musical pulse is not notated but is felt through the totality of the music. A pulse may change as the music progresses. It has a life of its own but needs the repetitive beats of a time signature to exist; a pulse cohabitates within measured time but is not always outwardly apparent.

Next time you hear some Anglican or Gregorian chants, or listen the drone under a pensive Celtic song I suggest you move away from being aware of the beat, tune your ear and heart into the pulse of the music…tune into the totality of all its parts and there….yes……inside that pulse you might discover the transcendent nature of God.
It’s no wonder that in today’s Gospel reading, Jesus calls people to become aware of things around them; things seen but not truly seen. He’s almost saying, “hey….stop listening to the beat, pay more attention to the pulse of nature!’ Don’t you remember the story of Elijah when he was hungry and the raven’s fed him? Can’t you see that all these wildflowers around you are better clothed than the all of Solomon’s royal court? It’s all in the pulse, and this pulse contains the fullness, and abundance of God.

Moving outside the cacophony of beats and rhythm is a scary thing. It’s scary because, like Dr. Collins and his scientific training, God is best found in what I like to call a Sacred Ambiguity: that thin place where normal time does not exist, where we are not sure of answers….that place where questions reside, that meadow of the soul where God shares its wondrous pulse.

Sacred Ambiguity can make us anxious and often confronts things which we thought were real, but in reality are unrelated to God, or God’s trust in us, and each other. Anxiety happens when the Holy Spirit presents a new path, or makes known the reality that God wishes all of us to be one.

Giving power to anxiety causes great harm to ourselves and our decision making and when we hold anxiety over and above our trust in God’s grace we see irrational finger pointing at town hall meetings, uncivil accusations leveled on the floor of Congress during a presidential address, and a world economy placed in jeopardy so that a very few can amass greater wealth. I’m sure you can come up with many more examples, and I urge you to do so…. but when we elevate anxiety to the sacred, the result may be that we might place the gifts and abundance of this life over and above the giver.

How do we address the anxieties of the individual? “Maintain constant love for one another,” suggests the author of 1 Peter, “for love covers a multitude of sins.” In an anxious state we can’t love others or ourselves, and we can’t strive for God’s village of abundance in the world.

In closing, I would like to share a story of my own experience of time, sacred ambiguity, and the transcendent nature of God’s pulse.

At age 20 I had the supreme pleasure of spending over a month in the UK on a performance tour with a portion of that time in Ireland. One thing I first noticed about Ireland was that it is VERY GREEN; emerald green is every where. The other thing I noticed is that I saw large stones in many places. Boulders dotted meadows, while other stones seemed strategically placed all over the land. Some of these stones formed ancient Celtic crosses.

One night in Limerick, after a performance, I made the decision that I’d wake up very early and go to Mass. I checked with the hotel and found a church within walking distance and in what appeared to be the beginnings of the morning slowly made my way through the small dark village, walking on a brick lined street to this tiny thick walled stone church.

As I walked in the old church there was very little light, and I remember pews covering three sides of the worship space with the altar thrust forward so that the three groupings of pews faced the alter in the center. The old stone church was filled with arched type stained glass windows, at that time of the morning looking cold and dark; almost black.

I would say there were around 20 people or wildflowers in attendance; regulars starting their day with early morning Mass.

I was so struck by what happened next that 30 years later I composed the second movement of my string quartet named Icons based on this experience….I named the second movement “Stone” and this music will be played during Communion today.

As I waited and sat in the silence, in what can be seen as the ultimate of simplicity, the sacristy bells rang; we stood, and in walked, by himself, the form of an older Benedictine monk wearing his traditional brown knotted robe, no vestments per say but a simple stole of authority. In this ancient church we worshiped, and as the summer sun began to rise, the worship space began to be filled with colorful strains of stained glass illuminations. Contained within the call and response of prayers, and at Eucharist, a ballet of light spoke to the stone, creating a dance of color with forms of light filling the space with God’s spontaneous creations.

Time as I knew it ceased to exist. The present merged with the past, the near past, and the people of ancient past. In that moment, freed from reality, I was at one with God’s pulse, and entered willingly into that space of sacred ambiguity:

“Thin places” the Celts call this space,
Both seen and unseen, Where the door between the world
And the next is cracked open for a moment
And the light is not all on the other side.
God shaped space. Holy.

God shaped time and space.

Amen.