Spiritual & Astrology Offerings
Craigville, MA Sermon: “In Praise of Paradox” Rev. Dr. Anne Ierardi 7/7/24
So good to be with you this morning. Craigville Conference and Retreat Center has always been a special place for me since 1990 when I brought women from my parish on their first retreat here. After moving here I met Marion Vuilleumier who introduced me to the Cape Cod Writers. I will never forget their gathering in August of 1991 when Hurricane Bob visited. Fortunately I made it safely home to Osterville where I lived at that time.
Over many decades, I have often took the road less traveled with many encounters and paradoxes, often finding God’s grace in the process.
As Life changes the world appears to spin around even more rapidly … at times with dire warnings and fears abounding.
I imagine you also are concerned about your life, your friends and family, the future of our country, the world at war, the healing of our planet and more.
I invite you this morning to explore the nature of paradox with me. My sermon title is “In Praise of Paradox.”
Where are we now? Have our minds changed? Ours beliefs? How is it that what we knew then is not the same as what we know now?
St. Paul in his message to the Corinthians is expressing a paradox: that in his weakness is his strength. Paul came to welcome weakness and suffering of the body while Satan tempted him to give up. Instead, he experienced the power of God by surrendering to God and letting his own ego take a back seat.
When he appealed to Christ in his misery Christ responded:
“My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.”
I spent the last couple of weeks in discernment over this sentence. I decided to write to Jesus. Perhaps I could have spoken to Jesus in prayer but I find writing gets me deeper into my soul and heart’s core.
Dear Jesus,
I am writing you this noontime from my home on Cape Cod. My little dog Dolce is seated at the end of the bed looking outside…waiting faithfully for Judy to return home. As you know, I adopted her after our first dog Duchy died who graced us for 18 years. Wasn’t he an excellent co-pastoral counselor? He couldn’t wait to go to “work.” No one entered the counseling room with a sour or troubled face after Duchy’s joyful greeting. Two years after he died I insisted on getting another dog, I made the arrangements, paid the adoption fee and named her Dolce for her sweetness. But most of that sweetness she gave to Judy from the get-go. Dolce barely tolerated me even growling at me in the evenings when she was awakened by strange noises from the street or the TV.
Jesus, why is life so full of paradoxes?
You remember that crazy button I wore to school as a teenager in the late sixties proclaiming “Life is a paradox.” Another button “The Strong Silent Type” you challenged with my call to ministry!
You know I almost got out of seminary without preaching but you sent Rev. Dr. Katie Cannon to my seminary, the first African American woman ordained in the Presbyterian church.
I took her class my very last semester. I thought I would get away without preaching being a RC woman not heading for ordination or so I thought!
Katie turned me around! Hher class was a combination of a systematic approach to preaching in the black tradition and a revival meeting. Her dynamic presentations rolled away the stone that was my impediment from moving into Protestant ministry from my Catholic background. Indeed, it became a movement unifying my beliefs not replacing them.
Grace sufficient!
Lord, you are so often there during our years of uncertainty. You gave yourself willingly by joining us here on earth. You weren’t welcomed in your home town, your own followers betrayed you. The religion of your time as much of the religion of this time continues to exclude and turn a blind eye on suffering.
This week just before Independence Day, the powers that be have further led our government towards authoritarianism with the double threat of “Christian Nationalism” which I believe is an offense to the gospel. Evil seems to be winning out against the good, don’t you think?
Satan is alive and well putting a thorn in the side of the people who desire goodness and fairness, indeed who fought for decades for freedom, unity, and civil rights.
The last few days I felt depressed, angry and what is worse… not in control. Why doesn’t somebody do something! And Me? What am I called to do?
Part of me wants to overturn the tables in the temple and the other part of me just wants a quiet hermitage far from Cape Cod- in the summertime.
Jesus, you did both: you overturned the tables in the temple and you went off to pray in the wilderness.
Gratefully, Anne
Dear Anne,
Thank you for reaching out. I was wondering how long it was going to take. I know you are busy doing good deeds, making good plans but come on ---just be…it is July.
Yes….Paradox Number One
Turn over those tables and find your hermitages!
Do what you can to change society in a good way but also Take plenty of time for rest and relaxation. I would surely appreciate more conversations from you all.
Your loving friend, Jesus
Dear Jesus,
I’ve been pondering “my grace is sufficient for you.” I believe I understand but how do I embrace it?
A few weeks ago I received a morning devotion from my college friend, a Lutheran pastor in Los Angeles. She reflected on two texts: one a lament from Marvin Gaye’s song Mercy Mercy Me…Things ain’t what they used to be…where did all the blue skies go?
The other, a celebration, from Philippians 4.
Finally beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence; if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things...
She reflects: Lament and celebration can coexist….Life gives us blessings and burdens often together in tandem. Paradox is!
And she adds: Here’s the good news: God meets us right there – in the here and now, the ebb and flow, the ‘yes and not yet,’ the “As good as it gets” and “where did all the blue skies go.?”
Gratefully, Anne
Dear Anne,
I understand fully and love to be part of this process with you and your friends. I too experienced the paradoxes in my 33 years on earth. The biggest one being God and human but I didn’t boast or call attention to the God-part!
I offer to you all
Paradox Two
Name and Embrace the Paradoxes in your Life. Learn from the mystery they present to you.
Share them with me. I am listening. I am always here among you.
Faithfully,
Jesus
Yes Jesus embodied the central Divine/Human paradox of Christianity.
Meister Eckhart, a German Dominican theologian and mystic, who lived from 1260-1328. wrote about the mystery and paradox of the incarnation:
Why did God become man? – I would answer, in order that God may be born in the soul, and the soul be born in God. For that reason all the Scriptures were written. God created the world and all angelic natures; so that God may be born in the soul and the soul be born in God.
John O’Donohue in Walking with Wonder writes: Eckhart speaks beautifully of the birth of God in the soul. The incarnation of God in Jesus will make no difference to anyone if each person does not allow that birthing to happen within themselves.
Leading us to
Paradox Three:
God invites us to be born in our souls which is quite extraordinary! Allow God’s Amazing Grace to transform your mind, body and spirit to be fully present in the spirit of Love and Truth.
“My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.”
This week here at Craigville is the beginning of the Annual Colloquy – The focus is on Ecotheology: Christian Responses To The Global Climate Crisis.
I came across a letter in the book Rooted in Rising written by a woman to her children and grandchildren. Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, a Lutheran ethicist, writes “I long to leave you a world of beauty and goodness…I would give my life to reverse the runaway climate crisis that we bequeath unwillingly to you and your friends.”
How, she wonders, can we deal with the feeling of powerlessness to change our own consumption and to change how our society benefits economically?
She invites us to accept “the vivid paradoxes in which human life unfolds.”
To reconcile:
*Knowing both hope and despair. The key is to say yes, I do have both hope and despair And because I put my trust in the justice-seeking love of God, my hope prevails.
*The coexistence of Joy and sorrow. *The Beauty & brutality entwined in human life.
Let us pray:
Holy God,
Help us to embrace the paradox of our faith and our lives allowing God’s grace to transform our weaknesses into strengths. Help us to believe in the power and sufficiency of your grace. May we be empowered by your vision to go out and share the good news. Amen.
*********************
2 Corinthians 12:2-10 Mark 6:1-13 NRSV
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