Mystery Revealed in Christ
“Mystery Revealed In Christ”
Psalm 24 Mark 6:14-29 Ephesians 1:3-14
Seventh Sunday after Pentecost, Year B, July 11, 2021
First Presbyterian Church, Sandpoint, Idaho
Andy Kennaly, Pastor
Slovenia is a country in Europe located south of Austria and north of Croatia, west of Hungary and east of Italy and the Adriatic Sea of the Mediterranean. It has some coastline and some very tall, snow-capped mountain peaks in the Alps. There are lovely lakes, river valleys, and rolling farmlands. The terrain is varied which leads to microclimates and distinct patterns of growth for wild plants and domestic crops. There are caves and castles, churches and courtyards, canyons and countryside. Fountains, statues, iconic bridges, and architecture inspired by Venice and Vienna. As the green heart of Europe, bee keeping is central to Slovenia’s culture and history.
Slovenia is the country my wife and I visited on a Sabbatical in 2017 for a beekeeping tour. That was four years ago! We stayed at farms, ate local produce, and were guided by Janez who translated as we connected with beekeepers and toured their European beehouses which feature the A-Z Hive system. Most of the beekeepers wore a uniform as part of the Beekeeping Society of Slovenia. They are very organized there, and coordinate their efforts to track the nectar flow, regulate commerce in selling honey and other products from the hive, and to educate people to help keep the bees healthy. Slovenia is the country that led the United Nations to designate May 20th as World Bee Day to raise awareness on pollinator health around the globe.
We visited a woman at her apiary called the Tigeli Bee Farm (link to a video tour, the certificate on the wall at 5 minutes 22 seconds in) and she was sure to point out a certificate hanging in a frame on the wall. It was from the Beekeeping Society and awarded her as Grand Champion in one of their annual honey competitions. In Slovenia, with the variety of habitats, terrain, and seasonal influences from sun-soaked coastline to alpine glaciers, the nectar flows are unique. Because of this, honey is not created equal. Seventeen different varieties of honey are officially recognized, from sweet to bitter, from light to dark, and all sorts of other unique qualities. Beekeepers enter their honey for judging and this beekeeper had not only won a category but had the Grand Champion that stood out over all the categories.
I’m sure she congratulated the bees that did the actual work of collecting nectar, mixed it with enzymes in their bodies, placed it in liquid form into cells of wax then fanned it to reduce the moisture content below twenty percent so they could cap it with wax coverings on a frame filled with deliciousness. It’s the bees that faced the weather, put in the distance, and visited millions upon millions of flowers.
This September, Shawna and I hope to return to Slovenia and connect with a group as Janez helps us navigate that lovely country and visit people to learn more about their lives and how they go about keeping bees. The spirituality of beekeeping invites a connection with larger rhythms of life, to trust the work that takes place on the inside, in the dark, and take courage as we engage the world whether that experience is sweet or bitter.
John of the Cross, a sixteenth century mystic, picks up on this as he shares about our soul linked with love because our soul is love. He says, “The more a soul loves, the more perfect it is in its love; hence it follows that the soul which already perfect is, if we may speak in this manner, all love. All its actions are love, all its energies and strength are occupied in love. It gives up all it has, like the wise merchant, for this treasure of love which it finds hidden in God.
“The Beloved cares for nothing else but love. The soul, therefore, anxious to please [God] perfectly, occupies itself unceasingly in pure love of God.
“As the bee draws honey from all plants and makes use of them only for that end, so the soul most easily draws the sweetness of love from all that happens to it. It makes all things subservient to the end of loving God, whether they are sweet or bitter.
“In all its occupations its joy is the love of God.” (John of the Cross, 1542-1591, The Spiritual Canticle, quoted at On The Edge of Enclosure, Suzanne Guthrie, Soulwork Toward Sunday: Self-Guided Retreat, Proper 10 (Year B), http://edgeofenclosure.org/proper10b.html).
A couple things about that quote. One is technical, since the 1500’s we now know that the bees don’t collect honey but they collect nectar and use that to make honey. Honey is the form they store food for winter. It has so many beneficial properties in its raw form. Also, another observation is less technical and more structural. As St. John of the Cross talks about the soul and love, this echoes the structure of this morning’s readings as we see proclamations, observations, and actions in the Psalm, the gospel, and the letter to Ephesians all based on the power and presence of love resonating at a soul-level in the lives of people and in the larger creation of which people participate as members of Christ’s expression through time and space.
That a soul is already perfect, is all love, and its actions are love, with energies and strength occupied in love; this is a broad statement that echoes Paul declaring that we are blessed “in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, just as God chose us in Christ before the foundations of the world to be, holy and blameless, before him in love.” He goes on talking about Jesus Christ, grace, redemption, forgiveness, wisdom, insight, and mystery made known. The fullness of time includes everything in heaven and Earth gathered up in Christ, and we that are the first to set our hope on Christ, can live in praise and the confidence only the Holy’s Spirit’s presence can provide, which is a gift.
Historically, the Church has been too successful in taking this broad view of gifts and restricting it, of changing the universal message of salvation into a tribal religion’s desire for control. Today’s polarities of dualistic thinking, and entrenched divisions at various expressions of society can trace their roots to exclusive religious interpretations of what salvation in Christ really means for the world.
Brian McLaren reminds us of community. He picks up on Paul’s extensive use of the phrase, “En Cristo” or “In Christ.” He says, “We must find a new approach, make a new road, pioneer a new way of living as neighbors in one human community, […] as one family of creation. […] Paul repeatedly describes how in Christ we see humanity as one body and our differences as gifts, not threats, to one another. In Christ, Paul came to realize that people aren’t different because they’re trying to be difficult or evil – they’re different because the Spirit has given them different gifts….
He says, “More than ever before in our history, we need a new kind of personal and social fuel. Not fear, but love. Not prejudice, but openness. Not supremacy, but service. Not inferiority, but equality. Not resentment, but reconciliation. Not isolation, but connection. Not the spirit of hostility, but the holy Spirit of hospitality.” (McLaren)
“For Paul, salvation is something that is actually experienced. He wrote about the experience in so many ways because he was always trying to get a handle on it. He sought to put into words something for which he had no ready-made vocabulary. […] In Christ, which he uses dozens of times, moves us to a collective notion of salvation (– with scant success up to now).” (Rohr, https://cac.org/paul-a-new-creation-2021-07-08/, my first quotes are from Brian McLaren, the last one Richard Rohr, all quoted from the Center for Action and Contemplation’s Daily Meditations for July 8, 2021, Paul: A New Creation.)
Friends, as we celebrate life in Christ, as we honor not only the fact that we have a soul, but soul is love, our life in God hidden in Christ, let us come alongside the Psalmist to claim big Truth that has promise to change the world, for “The Earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it…” (Psalm 24:1). Even as we live in a world where the King Herod types seems to wreak havoc as they kill the innocent and government-sponsored violence seem alive and well, overwhelming, let’s take courage to allow the pure love of God to help our soul draw out love’s sweetness as, in Christ, we learn to open our hearts to the sacredness of everything. This is a mark of promise worth savoring. This is the joy of the love of God. Thanks be to God, who in Christ, continues to bless the world, calling us to live as new creations so others may taste and see that the Lord is good. May God be glorified, now, even as forever. Amen.