“Monument, or Footprint”

“Monument, or Footprint”

1 Samuel 17:1-11, 19-23, 32-49       Mark 4:35-41

Fifth Sunday after Pentecost, Year B, June 23, 2024

First Presbyterian Church, Sandpoint, Idaho

Andy Kennaly, Pastor

I heard Queens this week. Honeybees. One of my hives, the one painted yellow on the front with an artwork panel above the bee entrance that shows two doves that face each other with a shared olive branch in their beaks; that hive group had a Queen that died, or left, I’m not sure. They’ve been without, but this week, I heard Queens.

Some terminology from my Slovenian A-Z hives. When I say hive I mean the wooden box that bees live in. When I say colony, that’s American language for the group of bees that live in the hive. Family is a word more in line with Slovenian tradition, for Slovenia is the original source of the Carniolan variety of European Honeybees, of which my bees trace their roots. We remember that the family is all related to the mother, the Slovenian term for what Americans call the Queen. I morph the languages, and say Queen Mother and Family Colony so Americans don’t get too confused and I still honor the Slovenian A-Z Hive management style I use in my Bee House.

So that hive I mentioned, Yellow Hive Two Doves, lost their mother, I’m not sure how, but the result was a dearth of eggs, larvae, and sealed brood so the family colony was getting smaller and weaker. But the bees knew they were in trouble. They started to feed a few young larvae Royal Jelly. This special treatment created large Queen Cells which develop, and like a caterpillar makes a cocoon and comes out a butterfly, Queens emerge as adult bees.

These new Queens emerged, and there are a few of them, but one of them comes out first. I heard them Tooting and Quacking. Toots and Quacks are terms to describe short little honking sounds made by almost fully developed Queens still in their cells, and an emerged Queen. They’re communicating, maybe they’re sizing each other up, because only one will become the mother.

Here is an audio recording I did on my phone in my Bee House this week, in one of my hives. I hope you can open it to listen, even though it has a lot of ambient bee noise, the hum of the bees. About halfway through this thirty second clip, you will notice two different tones, they call it tooting and quacking. You’ll hear the toots and the quacks, and those are distinct from each other. Those are the noises I want you to notice.

Last week I visited the bees and heard their conversation. Although I don’t know their language or what exactly they were saying or what motivation they had behind their toots and quacks, I do know it is unique to hear this, to notice and be in awe of it. I feel I’m eavesdropping on an ancient conversation yet brand new and about to emerge as life unfolds in ways that bring benefit and build strength of community.

A few days later, I visited the hive again and figured they’d had time to emerge, to go on mating flights, to be accepted by the family as the new mother, and to work out which one that is. Sure enough, there she was, a lovely Carniolan Queen Mother Honeybee that cruised around on frames of wax cells able to lay around 1200 eggs a day. I’ll visit again in a few days and look for eggs and larvae and see how good she is.

One of the things that amazes me about a family of honeybees is that they do most of this work in the dark. The hive’s enclosed, with only one small entrance in the front, and a couple vents in the back. But mostly it’s dark and Queen Mother uses pheromones and other chemical communication to direct their work. The foragers bring messages that translate the waggle dance through the vibrations of motion and shapes.

After I visit the bees, I lay down on a mat in the beehouse and reflect on how important it is for us to do work. As a metaphor, to work in the dark means inner work, and no one can do our inner work for us.

Even our own heart and soul can be drown out by our busy mind. Racing thoughts shaped by established narratives bombard us and skew our attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs. It's a discipline to learn how to set those things aside, to invite spaciousness of spirit to teach us.

Lessons for the soul often don’t use words, and it’s easy to miss the language of subtleness. The gentleness of intuition can be overlooked if we expect intensity of experience and peaks of emotion to be our guide. Like a developing queen in her wax cell, to hear toots and quacks in the dark requires attentiveness, especially when the bees don’t have ears. They detect vibrations in the air through their antennae. In their brain these sounds that stir in the dark recesses of the hive are crystal clear.

How does spiritual conversation happen in our lives? How do we hear soul language? Do we trust intuitive felt sense at the core of our being? Intuitive felt sense is not conceptual thinking. For many, even Christians, our mind’s monopoly on thoughts makes us suspicious. We’ve been taught not to trust inner experience, and there are some that even label it as demonic or evil. So what do we do?

A couple major themes emerge to guide us from the story of David and Goliath, and the story of Jesus on a cushion in the stern of a boat. One dynamic of these stories involves things that don’t fit, like Saul’s armor that makes David feel encumbered and heavy, or the strong wind that makes waves that threatens to swamp the boat; these things that don’t fit try to engulf something precious, something with a fragile purity about it.

There are also threats of powers that seem too big to deal with, like the armies of the Philistines with their champion who shouts insults, and like the sea whipped up by a storm; these highlight feelings of vulnerability. The armies of Israel struggle, and David the young shepherd seems like a longshot. The disciples are terrified, the waves beat into the boat.

Yet each story also shows us how to trust. Each story is marked by someone who pays attention to what is essential. The scenes are commanded by those who have developed the authority and cohesiveness of inner experience. A close relationship with God is manifest through confidence gained, expressed, and empowered by nothing less than Divine Presence.

Wouldn’t you like to have the innocent intensity of David just in from the fields, there to support his brothers, fully focused on God’s faithfulness and power of deliverance? Wouldn’t you like to learn how to be like Jesus on the pillow and no matter what storms come up, an inner calm remains untouched by the chaos?

The fact is, these stories are there, to show us that we can be like that. But it comes with a cost. Notice each story gets to the brink, which reminds us that suffering is part of the mix, that to find order, it requires a time of disorder; like compost in the garden things break down but something new emerges, and indeed is fed by what comes before and now shares life energy. Fear in the face of threat has a way of undoing us and exposes roots of falseness and misunderstanding. But when these cracks emerge, it allows light to shine through and suffering is prime for grace to be revealed and received.

In both stories the larger theme is love. Love is operative in David’s motivations, shapes how he hears things, and is foundational as he forms a response. Love as Christ reveals in Mark’s gospel carries no animosity even for the wind and the waves or the disruptive fear of the disciples in the boat. Jesus, the teacher as they call him, demonstrates unity with all there is seen and unseen. Was that cushion a pillow? Was Jesus sleeping? Or is this a metaphor for meditation practice on a mat, focused within, calm and silent? From that stance, inner peace flows out. He is awakened, for once an awakened heart knows, it can’t not know, this grace revealed.

Inside all of us is a center, our soul; of Divinity, an eternal Presence. This True Self is that calm, grounded core of our being as created in the image and likeness of God. These stories show us the purpose of religion, its limitations, and the movement beyond it. The purpose is to help us grow into the wholeness of our own essential Self. This is called divination. But since many Christians don’t like that kind of terminology because it sounds like idolatry, of making us God, then the Church chose the route of externalizing faith in the form of doctrinal beliefs and systematic theology based on a sin/redemption model. But rather than developing peoples’ callings, this institutionalization stifles peoples’ callings, distracts from the essential by imposing the unessential. Thus, the abuses of the wind, the misbehaving of the waves; thus, the vileness of Goliath, the arrogant violence of armies who try and force their will and way, and how it gets us nowhere.

Young David is amazing. Five smooth stones, taken from the stream bed of the wadi, placed in his shepherd’s bag, a pouch, then one of them retrieved while on the run to confront evil, to face what many fear. Slung in the sling the stone was flung to its mark and the battle is won by a person with singular focus to trust in God’s deliverance.

This week, find five smooth stones. Like David, carry them in your pocket or a pouch, or put them on your dresser or side table or near where you eat your meals. Look at them and ponder their subtleness; the varied shapes, the colors and spots or blotches, the wrinkles and creases, and the history of all that happened, what makes them what they are today. Be sure to touch them, to feel the texture and rotate them in your hand. Rub them with your thumb and in your mind offer a simple thank you. Later in the week, lay them out in a circle so their edges touch. Then put your finger in that space in the middle. Be sure to notice that much of what you experienced from those rocks is based on their very outer layer, yet there is more to the rocks than their surface, that which you cannot see, the inside part where it’s solid and dark.

With your finger in the middle space surrounded by five smooth stones, close your eyes and ask God to help you trust on the inside, where your soul lives untouched from the tough world, where God’s Presence waits for you to notice, to awaken to. What are you afraid of? Do you want to trust, to hear without ears and help life emerge in ways that are beneficial and creative?

One more thing. Be sure to take those rocks outside and let them go, Earth to Earth. They don’t need to support you in building monuments, but they will help you with each step as you make footprints.

Simplicity and humility guide us in this journey with Jesus, just as he is, the Christ who knows our name and leads us on the way deeper into the unity of all things. May grace flow as we take our place in a movement of planetary scale, yet as imminent as our next breath. As we learn to let go of that which distracts, may we shed what is cumbersome. From our center, we take courage to confront the evils of our day, not for vain glory, but so that what is broken may partake of wholeness, even as we fall into the abyss of Love, the source of faithful joy that cannot be taken away from our hearts. The Spirit helps us live out our part of the biblical narrative, as we trust that God is glorified, NOW, even as forever. Amen.