Homily for Ian Roberts’ Memorial Service

Saturday, June 16,  3pm

St. Aidan’s Episcopal Church, Alexandria, Virginia

Any number of possibilities present themselves as ways to go about preaching Ian’s service this afternoon. Calling Ian Roberts a multi-faceted human being would be an understatement. Probably the easiest way to proceed would be to simply have as us all look at the picture on the cover of the bulletin. Take a look.

From here we all could wander off into memories of Ian’s welcoming expression, his approach to the world, to the greeting we expect from his smiling face. Ian was husband, friend, parent, counselor…we all have stories.

Or I could talk about all the things Ian shared with those around him. About his desire to invite others into higher purpose, to give, to make the world a better place. A few years ago when he took over the CROP walk to alleviate hunger, he was a force to be reckoned with. I still see him in his yellow CROP Walk tee shirt.

What stands out for me today though, is the most recent experience of being with Ian in his final days and watching a side of him I had known but not experienced to the extent that I did in Scotland a few weeks ago. I had on our recent trip the great joy of experiencing Ian closer to his home setting—geography I had heard him talk about for years. Mary and I had gone to Scotland for the first time two years ago, and in the run-up to that trip it seemed like Ian was in my office every week with a map, or a book, or a new list of parks, mountains, and lochs we had to see. We ended up making a detour at one point to see what Ian swore was a dinosaur’s footprint on a beach on the isle of sky.  

Ian was persuasive. 

With that understanding of his love of the country and it’s marvels, I sat with him on the ferry as we made our way from Oban to Mull. He was totally captured by what he was seeing out the window.  He was fully alive. Then I watched him on the bus as we crossed Mull. I was near the back and he in the front. I watched him pointing and commenting and laughing and delighting in seeing others experience what had always brought him so much joy.  In his last days Ian was as alive and happy as I had ever seen him.

He appreciated the beauty of the world, of his homeland in a way that suggested he was seeing more than just mountains and streams and beaches.  His face and his expressions and his reaction to the beauty around him conveyed a truth offered in the fourth century by Gregory of Nyssa who said the beauty we see fills us and draws us further toward the beauty yet to be seen. 

In Ian’s descriptions of what he loved and was fascinated with one always had the feeling that he was seeing more, and trying to share that something more….that he’d already had a glimpse of what lay beyond and wanted others to catch that vision too.  

As I was thinking this week about Ian and about what I would say today, I ran across these words, written by Walter Pater in his conclusion to a book of poems by William Morris.  Pater says: 

The service of philosophy, of speculative culture towards the human spirit, is to rouse, to startle it to a life of constant and eager observation.  Every moment some new form grows perfect in land or face; some tone on the hills or the sea is choicer than the rest; some mood or passion or insight or intellectual excitement is irresistibly real and attractive to us—for that moment only.  Not the fruit of experience, but experience itself is the end…How should we pass most swiftly from point to point and be present always at the focus where the greatest number of vital forces unite in their purest energy?  To burn always with this hard, gemlike flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life.  

Ian showed us all what it looks like to live a successful life.  

And here’s the thing.  With Ian, that fascination, that observation wasn’t reserved for just the beautiful, but for, and maybe especially for, hidden beauty—the beauty in the mundane, the mystery and glory in what is easily overlooked.  He looked for that hidden wonder in each of us and in everyone he met and we knew it.  One of the books of photographs he published and shared with friends was titled, “Hidden in Plain Sight” because that is where he looked for the amazing, the worthwhile, the more than worthwhile.  

When Ian fell ill and was taken to the hospital in Oban, Kathy went with him and the rest of us made the short crossing to Iona. Kathy stayed in touch by phone and email, and at some point she mentioned Ian’s propensity for searching among the neglected and unnoticed for what was truly remarkable.  We all recognized what Kathy was talking about and that way of Ian’s became a part of our week.  Though he never made it across that last mile of water to the island, Ian was with us the whole time.  More than once at the end of the day’s hiking and wandering in the beauty of nature someone would report having spent the day looking at the world “the way Ian does,” searching out what might be missed because of its humble setting or seeming insignificance in the presence of so much beauty.  On that tiny island, as prayers were offered for Ian at every service in the abbey and as the story spread, our little band became known as “Ian’s group.”  His presence and influence were palpable for people who had never met him.  We would expect nothing less from Ian Roberts.  Ian himself is still hidden in plain sight on Iona. Even in death, Ian was shaping and guiding and creating community.

My understanding of church and salvation has to do with being made whole in the community that gathers around the Jesus stories.  It is about becoming aware of that “something more” which we all intuit and of which we are all a part.  We learn from each other and are shaped by each other’s stories, by sharing the experience of living, its joys and its challenges.  We learn, grow, and discover in community in ways we never could on our own.  Community is where we become what we might become, and hopefully, in the process, discover that part of the divine life that is ours to reveal through our living and acting to others in the community.  Ian found his calling.

Jesus was always encouraging those around him to go farther, ‘think about what lies behind your tradition’s words, throw a wider net when you imagine community, include those you didn’t think belonged, expand your thinking…….your awareness of others and their lives. Expand your belief in your own worth….develop a fascination for everything around you until this life becomes the kingdom of the divine and you begin to worry less about your own life and begin to long for that “something more” you have always hoped for.  

I believe Ian’s gift, his bit of the divine revelation, had to do with that part of what Jesus tried to communicate.  Ian who was “roused and startled to life” very early on, never stopped inviting others into that grander way of being in the world.  He did that with and for and to every one of us.  That is why we are here today.  We give thanks to God this afternoon for the gift of Ian Roberts.  And, we give thanks to Ian for the God we know a little better because of Ian’s call to look for the best things “hidden in plain sight. “

JB

A Sermon for the Third Sunday after Pentecost

Sermon for the Third Sunday after Pentecost

St. Aidan's Episcopal Church, Alexndria

June 10, 2018         

                             Audio Version Here

Who told you you were naked.

I have always liked the story about Adam and Eve and God that we just heard. I particularly love God’s line here, “who told you you were naked?”  That line seems to just sum up the human situation so well. It is a loving response to an affliction we have all known, one that can stick and be hard to shake off.   It is a kind response, it is concerned for the frightened couple who have discovered the power and potency of shame.  “Naked!”  “Who told you you were naked?”

Shame can be toxic.  I’ve known people who spent their whole lives recovering from shame that was instilled in them as children.  For those people, recovering a sense of their worth and goodness can be a major part of their life’s spiritual work. Fortunately, we are learning not to shame children as easily as some of our parents did. We tend to treat our kids better in this enlightened age.  Kids yes, dogs….not so much.  

If you have or have ever had a dog, you probably know something about the power of shame.  They must be born with it, I don’t know where it comes from, but dogs seem to recognize that voice, the “what have you done” voice.  When I think of the dogs that have been a part of my life, I can hear myself, I can hear that voice; “Charlie!”  “Ike!”  “We don’t eat such things when we are on a walk!” “Ralph!”  “Bad dog!”  I don’t think it’s even the words….just the tone.  You could probably read a dog the phone book in the right voice and watch that tail go down between those legs before Rover slinks off to some hidden corner. I wouldn’t think of shaming a child.  Not too explicitly.  But the dog…….I am guilty of using shame on the dog.  I admit it……I’m ashamed……well ok……tail between the legs.  

As I read this story of god coming back into the garden and finding Adam and Eve hiding, it seems obvious that the fall—which I take to be a highly metaphorical piece of poetry—was not a fall from relationship with God, but a fall into shame.  The very first result of doing what they knew better than to do was that the humans became aware of themselves and their assumed unfitness for fellowship.  Isn’t that what shame is.  It is the voice inside us that tells us we are not worthy.  It is that voice that whispers to us that it would be better for us if others didn’t know the truth about us, if others didn’t see us as we really are.  Shame separates us from those around us, and in this story it separates those humans, who are so like god, so aware of god and their place in creation as friends and companions for god, it separates them from the one who created them to share a life of mutuality and plenty and love.  

We were hiding, says Adam, because of this thing we discovered.  We encountered something about ourselves that troubled us and so we assumed we should hide that part of ourselves from you.  

When I think of my least favorite politicians, and when I am feeling really angry at what they have done, I fantasize about telling them what I think of what they are doing, and I will admit that sometimes those fantasies involve shaming….  pretty much the same voice I would use on the dog….Mr. Congressman……….   In those moments I imagine shame as a weapon used to inflict pain.  Shame is too often used to control and shape the lives of those whose ideas or behavior makes us uncomfortable.  

But in my best moments, even those crazy leaders get better from me.  In my best moments I wish they could expand their vision—which is what Jesus tried to get people to do—to in some way take in what is important to the people about whom I am concerned.  

My first instinct, to shame them for being so clueless is exactly the wrong way to bring about any sort of creative engagement.  Since shame, if it is felt, wants to hide and reduce its exposure to and interaction with those around it, shaming each other over our differences can not bring about the desired cooperation.  Everything becomes more difficult when shame enters the picture.  It’s hard to forgive people who are hiding what they have done.  It is hard to be forgiven if we fear the pain of revealing our truth more than we fear living in hiding.  

I am a theologically and socially liberal Episcopalian, which means that I have spent most of my life saying there isn’t any devil.  I can give you all kinds of sound, supported theological reasons for that position, but if I were going to tell a story about a foe of all that is good and all that we hope for in love and community, I couldn’t tell a more chilling story than this one about the snake who leaves this poor, silly, hapless couple mired in shame.  I can’t imagine a more devastating blow to the dream of god than the sowing of shame in this beautiful garden the creator, the dreamer of love imagined.  Imagined for us…..

Paul whose letters are the earliest Christian writings we have, said that Jesus life and ministry responded to that earliest story of shame and alienation.  Theologians and preachers tend to think of Jesus balancing and redeeming Adam’s fall in grand cosmic ways, Adam sinned…..Jesus paid the price…..that sort of thing.  But in today’s gospel we get a more practical version of Jesus responding to the universal problem of shame.  

First, we learn that Jesus grew up in a house where shame was known.  You may have grown up in such a home.  Most of us did.  A home where in one form or another the message was clearly posted.  Let this be your guide through life: “what will the neighbors think?”  We know that Jesus had some of this in his early life because of the story we heard this morning.  Jesus is hanging out in the neighborhood, talking in ways that make the neighbors think he’s crazy, healing people, drawing a crowd, not worrying about what people think, making his mama nervous, right out in front of everyone.  His family goes out to restrain him. It’s like he stepped into the story to show us how to get past the shame that had bound us for so long…..so long……

He tells those who are concerned about the anxiety of his mother and brothers, that his real family consists of those who get him, just as he is.  

Again and again in the gospel story, Jesus is Jesus with little regard for what others will think or what being himself might cost him in the regard of others.  Shame, over time, when used as a system of control, robs us of our authenticity.  Jesus doesn’t just tell us there’s a better way, he shows us. He gathers corn on the sabbath, he heals on the sabbath,  he talks to women, he helps foreigners, he says what’s on his mind, he speaks in riddles that leave people wondering what he is talking about, he eats and sleeps and travels with tax gatherers and sinners, he rides into town like a king, only on a donkey, and in the end—and this is where the circle to that garden story is completed—he ends up nailed to a cross………naked.    All of this he did to show us that we don’t have to hide, that nothing we could do can break the relationship begun in that story so long ago….  Jesus with his whole life utters what we must assume was God’s next line in that first story.  

“Who told you you were naked?”

“And who cares?”