Loading...It’s time to talk about the honeybees.
I made the communion bread we are breaking together for the sacrament at the altar today. One of the main ingredients is honey. Some of you have already heard or read about my experience with honeymakers, how I was four years old when I heard God’s voice.
It’s my first memory. When God said “this will be your life” I knew I was going to be a priest. That was in 1973. The Episcopal Church didn’t even know women would be priests. Women would not be officially authorized to be ordained until 1979. But God had a purpose for me in God’s life and wanted me to know it already. The voice I heard was in English. It was loud. It was 100% clear. It was personal. And it was accompanied by the hum of a 1,000 foraging pollinators at the blooming spring bouquet viburnum in North Brookfield, Massachusetts where I was playing with the flowers.
As one bee-keeper friend has said to me, “Anyone who has been near honeybees knows God.” (Thank you Michele Dillard Boling)
If you’ve ever had the chance to see a honey bee up close and personal you know that they look like tiny plush toys covered in fuzzy hair with panniers on their hind legs to store nectar. All those fuzzy hairs get covered in sticky pollen. The forager honey bees return to the hive with the nectar and pollen stuck to them and give it to a house honeybee who store it in the comb. Honeybees know when to take up the pollen and and when to lay down the pollen. They know when to gather and when to give over. They know how to stick to the good stuff and, when it’s time, they let go what needs letting-go. Bees know when to be sticky and when to be slippery.
Jesus lives and dies a honeybee. Not with pollen and nectar. With forgiveness. He lays down his life, letting it slip from him. He takes up his life, sticks to being a human. He takes our sins upon himself — a sticky business. He forgives us our sins, letting them slip from memory. Jesus gives his bee - ing to those who follow him — to those willing to sit at his table and eat the meal that is his body and blood — the sacrament we share at the table together. The table to which we come today is originally set by Wisdom herself.
I’ve only been at St. James since March and already I have sat at so many finely set tables — tables set with creativity and care — for so many festive and generous events, including the altar set by our very thoughtful altar guild.
Forty five years ago, God set the table of my heart to be a priest which prepared me to join St James as your rector. I feel so curious about what table setting is up God’s sleeve today. I see so many ways the world feasts and might feast even more on God’s sweetness here at St James. What other tables shall God set here?
Another way of asking the same question is this: by taking a place at God’s table what are we missing out on? There is a rare and precious Wisdom in missing out. From what are we fasting when we choose a meal prepared by a chef from heaven? Because we are sitting in this fine space on Sunday morning we are not somewhere else.
There was once a time before nutrition labels when we didnt’ know all the ingredients of the food we were eating. Now we know what we are missing out on when we make choices at the grocery store. Food products that no one thought twice about eating before the labels were required now may give us pause. Remember learning that Velveeta isn’t actually cheese? It’s ok to not eat it. There are other ways to make queso. Let’s talk about mature topics for a minute.
It was once ok for women to be excluded from the priesthood. That’s not ok today. We are missing out on that exclusion. It was once ok for priests to abuse children and for their supervisors to cover it up. That is not ok today. We are taking a hard pass on that and thankful to be missing out on that kind of abuse. For these kinds of suffering to be reconciled someone somewhere had to surrender like a honeybee surrendering her harvest.
One news outlet recently shared the story of Jim Vansickle who is attending mass today for the first time since 1985 when he quit attending church because he was abused as a teenager. Now age 55, he is thankful for the work of one cardinal who years ago reported the truth before the consequences were brought to light today. Vansickle said, As far as me coming forward, I was in turmoil. I was scared. I was in fear….I don't think I could have lived with myself if I didn't….Everything was secret and silent….I'm looking to be heard.
One place healing happens is where the powerless surrender their powerlessness and tell their story. When they do, the powerful can take on the powerlessness surrendered. Sometimes even forgiveness happens then. I myself have often experienced forgiveness with something not unlike a unique sting. That sting doesn’t make forgiveness less sweet. In fact I cannot think a more important mission worth taking a sting for.
For years I followed the soul singer Aretha Franklin. My very favorite song has always been Sweet Bitter Love.* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEg_Uw7rB3g
Earlier this year I read how she originally recorded it at the age of 19. I remember thinking, in passing wonderment, how does a nineteen year old sing a song containing deep dimension with such deep dimension in her young voice? Upon her death this week I read that by the time she recorded Sweet Bitter Love she had already given birth to three children, the first when she was 12 years old. Now I understand the deeper dimension in her voice and how she helped set a table for my soul’s song to be sung.
Some of my friends believe that if you set the table just so, that only people with manners will come and that manners are one of the job’s of organized religion and spiritual types.
Look at how lovely and clean our altar table it set. It might give one the impression that only people with manners are allowed there. But that’s not what this table is for. THIS table is for those who live the depths of the soul’s dimensions, both troubled and joyous. THIS is the table set not fairness but by Wisdom. Wisdom doesn’t set a table here to right all the wrongs, rather Wisdom is here to forgive all the wrongs. She sets the Lord’s table with sweet bitter Love.
I wish I were more honeybee. Alas my heart is sticky where I wish it would forgive and slippery where I wish it were steadfast. I’ve held onto empty spools of thread longer than good friends. I let myself get stuck on stuff that I don’t need and let slide the stuff I really do need. But God is stuck on me and on you, slippery as we may be.
You and I have been cross-pollinated with the love of God in Christ. So long as His cross stands we know what to give up, give over, give in to, to whom we are given. His cross tells us what to keep and what to release. His cross tells us He is the one who can lay down our sins in his death and take up our life with His new life. Amen.
*Sweet Bitter Love Lyrics
I talked to you today, we've loved each other
For so long in that special way
And if circumstances should keep us apart
I just want you to know
That you will remain forever here in my heart
Sweet, sweet bitter love
The taste still lingers, though through my helpless fingers
You slipped away, ooh, yes you did
Sweet, sweet bitter love, what joy you taught me
What pain you didn't mean to but you brought me
And so shall, baby and so shall it stay
My magic dreams have lost their spell
And where there, where there was hope
Oh, there is an empty shell
Oh, sweet, my my my, my my my, my my, bitter love
Why have you awakened and then you've forsaken
A trusting heart like mine
My magic, my magic dreams
They've all, they've all, all lost their spells
And where there, where there was a little bit of hope
Yes sir, there is, oh look at me now, there is an empty shell
Oh, sweet, my my my, my my my, my my, bitter love
Why have you awakened and then
And then and then and then and then you know, you have forsaken
A trusting heart, yeah like mine, a trusting heart like mine
I love you boy, yes I do, like mine
Link to Story and forum about Women’s ordination in the Episcopal Church
https://www.episcopalnewsservice.org/2014/07/28/ordination-timeline/
Link to Story of Sexual Abuse Survivor from Pennsylvania
https://www.npr.org/2018/08/17/639670949/survivor-of-pennsylvania-clergy-sex-abuse-shares-his-story
