There was once a stone cutter who was dissatisfied with himself and his position in life. One day he passed a wealthy merchants house. Through the open doors, he saw many fine possessions and important visitors. "How powerful that merchant must be!" thought the stone cutter. He became envious and wished that he could become like the merchant. To his great surprise, he suddenly became the merchant, enjoying more luxuries and power than he had ever imagined. But he was envied and detested by those less wealthy than himself. Soon a high official being carried in a sedan chair passed by, accompanied by attendants and escorted by soldiers beating gongs. "How powerful that official is!" he thought, "I wish that I could be a high official!" Then he became the high official carried everywhere, feared and hated by the people all around. It was a hot, sticky summer, so the official felt uncomfortable in his chair. He looked up at the sun. It shone proudly in the sky, unaffected by his presence. "How powerful the sun is!" he thought, "I wish I could be the sun." And so, he became the sun, shining fiercely down on everyone, scorching the fields, cursed by farmers and laborers. But a huge black cloud moved between him and the earth, so that his light could no longer shine on everything below. How powerful that storm cloud is! I wish I could be the storm cloud!" Then he became the cloud, flooding fields and villages, shouted at by everyone. But soon he found that he was being pushed away by some great force, it was the wind. "How powerful it is, I wish I could be the wind!" He became the wind, blowing tiles off the roofs of houses, uprooting trees hated by all below him. But then he ran up against something that would not move, a huge towering rock. "How powerful that rock is, I wish I could be that rock!" Then he became the rock, more powerful than anything else on earth. But he heard then, the sound of a hammer pounding a chisel into the hard surface, and felt himself being changed. What could be more powerful than I the rock, he thought? He looked down and saw far below, the figure of a stone cutter.
The stonecutter in his desire to be more powerful and more influential and more wealthy traversed the entire universe, he became the Sun and discovered in his journey, the most powerful person, the most powerful presence he could be was himself, the stonecutter, the man he ought to be, the man he was made to be by God. God is much more interested in making us what we ought to be than in giving us what we think we ought to have.
Richard Rohr, a theologian and spiritual writer, calls us circumference people, people who have little access to our natural Center. He believes we spend much of our lives on the boundaries, on the edges of the worlds that we live in, on the margins of our lives, rarely able or willing to move back into our center. And so, Richard Rohr decided to reframe this idea of having a center within ourselves, and suggests that we should not look to enter the center of our own beings, but rather understand that we are already part of a soul, a larger soul that we exist within. It is to the center of this soul that we traverse.
I like the idea of moving in and out of a center of a soul that does not belong to us. I love the idea that we move from the margins to the center and back out again. We are an active, frenetic, constantly moving people. We are. And so, I asked this question, what if there is no such thing as centering of ourselves? What if centering ourselves is participating in the Gospel opportunities we have in our lives? What if participating in God's mission, moving from the mission we do here at Gethsemane and in our own lives, back to the worshipful center we experience together and out again, what if that work, and that movement is the centering activity we are called to live?
Today we celebrate, we celebrate the work of the Garden, we celebrate the work of the Shelf of Hope, we celebrate the work our Malik Sealy Gym of Dreams, we celebrate the passion that we place into our worship and into this amazing faith community. And today we don't celebrate us as individuals, that will be for another time, today we give thanks for these amazing opportunities that have revealed to us how God is acting in the world. What is God up to? We celebrate the opportunities to reveal to others that great and abundant love we know God has for the world. We celebrate these events as our understanding of all the different ways that we see God at work in our lives, because all of these things that are around us, all of these opportunities we participate in are not ours, they are God's, they are God's and they are some of the most wonderful gifts, the most amazing manna from heaven, that we have ever been given in our life as a Church, as a faith community in Minneapolis Minnesota.
It is these opportunities are what transform us, these are the things that move us from the centers we know, to the boundaries and the margins where we can soften the hard edges, dull the sharp corners, to the places where we can firm up the foundations and brighten up the dark places. These are the opportunities we have been given to achieve the Reign of God here on Earth.
And so, today, let's celebrate, let's throw our hands in the air and proclaim: Thank You God! Thank you, God, for the amazing gifts and wonderful sights we have been given. Let's focus our love on the activity of God in our marvelous faith community, let's move our own selves out of the way and see this community gathered as the most vital part of our singular lives, this community that has shaped and formed and woven itself into our lives in so many ways.
Let's journey together through the universe and take our chances as the Sun, as the wind, as the clouds, the powerful among us, but always return to that which God has done for us, that which God has made us to be, that which we ought to be, ourselves, our beautiful, wonderful, loved, and amazing selves, part of a community where we are fully loved by God, where we are held by God in God's own hand, where we are picked up every time we fall and brushed off and encouraged to continue on the journey. Let's be God to one another, God made us for that purpose, so that we, together, could recognize the holy in every single person we meet and know.
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