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United Church of Paducah
4600 Buckner Lane
Paducah, KY 42001
(270) 442-3722
Worship Times
Sunday Service: 10:00a
Refreshments &
Fellowship: 11:15a
Christian Education
For All Ages:
11:20a - Noon
Nursery Services Provided Handicap Accessible
All Are Welcome!
A Congregation Of The
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From October 14, 2007
The Secret's Out
Psalm 111
A few years ago, there was a short-lived
television show called Hot or Not. Taped in front of
a live audience, each contestant came out onto the stage for
the sole purpose of being scrutinized by three judges there
to determine who was hot and who was not.
This alone made for questionable programming, but what made
the show even more questionable was the actions of judge
Lorenzo Lamas (son of actor Fernando Lamas). He appalled
viewers by training a laser light on each contestant's
miniscule flaws: a tiny patch of cellulite on this one, a
mole in the wrong place on that one.
Lamas' little laser was clearly "not hot" and neither was
the show; it tanked not long after it debuted. Still it
lingers in my memory because it put a spotlight on how
demanding of perfection our culture can be.
We study our grocery store apples for tiny imperfections,
something that confounds organic farmers struggling to
compete with industrial farmers.
When we get to the cereal aisle, we trade the box with the
crushed corner for one with crisp edges.
When we eat out or shop at the mall, it's not uncommon to be
handed a receipt with a website printed on it, so that we
can go online as soon as we get home to critique our dining
or retail experience.
Even American supermodel Cindy Crawford isn't perfect enough
for us; she suffered the indignity of having her belly
button airbrushed away when she appeared on the cover of
Cosmo Magazine; seems that little part of her anatomy made
for a less than ideal midriff.
Who knowsmaybe it starts with the teacher's red pencil and
simply graduates to red laser lights and airbrushed magazine
covers. Maybe it's a more complex process than that, but
something about our culture teaches us to look for what's
wrong, what's not up to snuff.
Standing in direct opposition to this trend is our faith
tradition, which teaches us again and again to "taste and
see that the Lord is good." Our psalm today says it this
way: "Great are the works of the Lordthe Lord is gracious
and mercifulthe works of his hands are faithful and just."
(Ps 111: 2a, 4b, 7a).
Looking through the eyes of the culture, we note flaws,
shortcomings, inadequacies, the not-quite-rightness of this
thing or that experience. But looking through the eyes of
our faith, beginning with the first chapter in Genesis, we
see that not only is God good, so is all of creation. Deeply
so.
Looking through the eyes of our faith, we see a God whose
great works and graciousness are motivated by one thing and
one thing only: love. The kind of love that refuses to hold
anything back, a love that only wants to give and give and
give, and is infinitely creative in its lavishness.
In his book, The Ragamuffin Gospel, author Brennan Manning
wants us to understand that God's graciousness isn't just
sprinkled here and there; it is woven into the very fiber of
creation. When God creates, God leaves nothing to chance.
Take the slant of the earth, for instance. Its 23 degree
tilt makes seasons possible. Anything more, anything less
and the oceans would create vapors, and every single
continent would be covered with ice.
If the earth's crust had been just ten feet thicker, our
atmosphere would be such that plants would be without the
oxygen they need to survive and thrive. And thus we would be
a lifeless planet.
When God creates, Brennan Manning reminds us, God goes big,
over the top. Fish a dime out of your pocket some night and
hold it up to the heavens; that little coin blocks out no
fewer than 15 million stars--if you could see them all,
count them all, that is.
God's attention to detail isn't simply interesting. It
speaks to the enormity of God's love. It speaks to God's
nature as an infinitely generous creator, a God who happily
takes eons to create a world that not only functions
perfectly but which has more beauty than we know what to do
with.
Imagine this. Imagine a love that would gladly labor for
millions upon millions of years on what, if we think
pragmatically, are entirely unnecessary design elements.
Visit any state or national park, travel on any continent,
trek to any corner of the globe, and you'll see God's love
on full display--landscapes jam-packed with reminders that
God refuses to hold back.
Or don't travel at all. Smell the roast cooking in the oven.
Listen for the birdsong outside your window, music that
begins long before you open your eyes each morning. Drive by
Clark or McNabb Elementary and catch sight of children on
the playground; sit on the banks of the Ohio and do nothing
but watch the river go by.
God has a big, big secret when it comes to giving: it is
good, deeply good, and is born only and always out of love.
This secret explodes from the ordinary ever bit as much as
it does the extraordinary.
In our stewardship devotional, Elizabeth Barrett Browning
(harkening back to Moses' encounter with God) reminds us:
Earth's crammed with heaven. And every common bush afire
with God; But only he who sees takes off his shoes--The rest
sit round it and pluck blackberries.
Stewardship doesn't begin with a decision. It begins with
noticing. With seeing. Seeing not with the eyes of our
culture, not with vision that seeks out the flaw or the
fault, but with the eyes of our faith.
Stewardship begins with noticing heaven in the spectacular,
as well as heaven crammed into the tiniest and seemingly
most unremarkable places.
Do we see it? Do we see heaven? Do we see the ways God is
blessing us, gifting us, loving us? Yes. And No.
Once for the better part of a year, I had the rare privilege
of living in heaven. Heaven on earth, that is. Everything
there was perfect: the people, the place, even the pay! It
was a remarkable, God-given time in my life and I knew it. I
was entirely blessed. And continually grateful for the
abundant life Christ was gifting me with.
As happens in life, the time came for me to move on to begin
the next chapter in my life. You can imagine the affront I
felt when angels didn't greet me at the door as had happened
before. You can imagine the shock that swept over me as I
realized that the glorious perfection of there had been
replaced with the utter void of here.
If I had been in possession of Lorenzo's television laser
pen, I would have drawn a huge red circle around almost
everything I encountered.
I struggled with this new reality mightily, painfully, even
angrily, until one day I happened upon an unlikely book in
an unlikely place, one written by a wise soul who invited me
to turn my prayerful attention to any small thing that could
be praised, toward anything for which I could feel even a
smidgeon of gratitude.
Desperation can sometimes be a good thing. And I was
desperate.
So every night I sat quietly to recall the events of the
day. I'll confess that some nights there was little for
which I was genuinely grateful. Still, I combed each day's
memory, ferreting out anything, any gesture, any
unanticipated moment in which God's goodness was evident.
And after savoring each little find, I praised God for it.
Slowly, imperceptibly, my void began to turn into the heaven
on earth that Browning describes.
By simply paying attention and being grateful, by noticing
and giving praise to God from whom all blessings flow (as
our Doxology affirms), I began to find myself with more and
more each night for which I was genuinely grateful.
But the blessing didn't end there. Over time I found myself
becoming increasingly aware of the day's graced moments, not
simply after the fact but as they were being given--gift
after gift after holy, holy gift.
As we move through our season of stewardship, let me suggest
something. Even before you begin to entertain thoughts about
your giving of time, talent, and treasure for the coming
year, simply do this: notice, just notice.
Notice how and where and when God's graciousness pours
itself into your life. Notice how even in mundane and homely
happenings, even in what seems challenging, God is fast at
work blessing you, blessing us, in ways that have us know
ourselves to be very, very rich and deeply, profoundly
loved.
And noticing all this, begin also to notice your response.
Is your response centered around a sense of obligation?
Duty? Indebtedness? Or is it something enlivening and
expansive? Something more akin to awe and gratitude?
You'll recognize your response from other times in your
life. Times not unlike Christmas Eve and Easter morn, times
when heaven and earth do meet, and we recognize all over
again the pure gift is to be alive and given gifts that
aren't simply good but which incomparable, gifts we
recognize as eternal.
May our good and generous God bless you with a thousand
graced moments to notice this week. And then one thousand
more. Amen.
© Rev. Karen Winkel
United Church of Paducah (UCC) The gratitude
practice I describe here comes from Gratefulness: The
Heart of Prayer by Brother David Steindl-Rast. A simpler
practice still is to spend time in silence, saying "Thank
you" to each image, thought, memory, or feeling, no matter
how unlovely. This is not some "make nice" Pollyanna effort
that denies reality; rather, it is a discipline that opens
us to God's creative, loving power that works tirelessly to
bring blessing from the most unlikely circumstances and
realities.
The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning centers on
God's boundless grace and "furious" love. |
"Never place a period where God has placed a comma." - Gracie
Allen
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