What is your Pastoral?
Every celebration needs a soundtrack…and I’ve got a very specific song in mind. The song needs the place of Jersey City and a time, at a church, in order to get the words and chords just right. But in order to get the time and place just right. In order to get the music just right I need to ask a question.
Is your Pastoral a specific place? Perhaps on Storms Avenue with fish fry’s and fashion shows?
Does your Pastoral have a gospel choir of children; The Incarnations; in which the children sing with a kind of joy, that even with a child called,
“Y e l l i n g t o n,” brings you a joy on a Sunday that you haven’t found anywhere else?
Is your Pastoral a community of faith—in time,
Is it a time that calls this place; Stratford upon Duncan Avenue; where Shakespeare is recited like King James English or is it King James is recited like Shakespeare, “Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I shall fear no evil. For thou art with me…”
Is your Pastoral,
Kidz to Camp;
A cooking class in the kitchen;
Men serving women meals on Mother’s Day; is it saying in unison “rose not pink” on the third Sunday of advent; or is it a Stone Soup supper?
I ask, is this your Pastoral?
Because pastoral; is an idealized way we see the world…yet the idealized way we see the world; the pastoral, is often the way we practice, or at least measure our faith.
True story. There was a Doctor in Paterson, New Jersey who was a Doctor because his immigrant mother from the Caribbean, who named him Carlos after his uncle said, “you can be anything in the world you want…
…as long as it’s a doctor an engineer or a lawyer.”
(Even though the boy wanted to be a poet.)
The Doctor isn’t remembered because he practiced medicine. The Doctor is remembered because he wrote poems on his days off.
His name is William Carlos Williams.
The Doctor; the Poet; lived near Jersey City and perhaps passed through this very neighborhood on his days off so he could visit other artists living in Greenwich Village in New York.
One of the things he is most famous for writing is a poem everyone in high school used to have to read, something about a red wheel barrow.
Carlos, William Carlos, also wrote a poem called “Pastoral.” He used the words “an episcopal minister approaching the pulpit on Sunday;” which sounds beautiful; and certainly it sounds better than comparing the tracks a man walking his dog makes to the flow of the robe of the minister. (Spoiler, he says the tread of man, the footsteps of the man walking his dog, is more majestic than the one preaching a sermon)
What does this have to do with Jesus?
Lean in and listen, “Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus” they were confident that what they see and what they hear and what we all experience is, all there is…the religious asked Jesus a silly question about succession among family members and a question about marriage to get Jesus to concede what Jesus may or may not have believed about resurrection is, just as they think; silly…
“In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For seven brothers had each married her.”
Jesus isn't much interested in make believe.
Jesus is even less interested in gotcha questions.
Jesus is deeply concerned with people…so interested that he says,we are; wait for it.
Yup, We are angels.
And, wait for it; we are children of God…not just children of god.
We are Children of the resurrection.
Fear no evil indeed.
“Goodness and mercy shall follow us all the days of our life and we will live in the house of the Lord forever. “
Instead of contemplating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
Or how many brothers a woman can marry Jesus is interested in the God of the living.
Which is to say, Jesus is as equally interested as the religious with the here and now;
But unlike them; Jesus says there’s more to here—a place; and there’s more to now—a time.
Let me say this another way for you. You’ve heard it before; but maybe not this way…
It’s another true story.
There was a little boy who visited a church on Storms Avenue in Jersey City.
That’s a place. Go ahead and call that place The Episcopal Church of the Incarnation.
There were fish fry’s and fashion shows and even another little boy who wore his baseball shoes on the wooden floor after practice; which he was told not to do—that’s our friend who trains our acolytes. Don’t worry friend heaven forgives you.When the little boy who wore baseball shoes was grown he took another man’s children to church. (That man is our chief usher. He and His children are forever grateful.) Lots of men and lots women took others to church because they loved God and because they believe Jesus when Jesus said we are supposed to love each other.
Maybe you believe Jesus in part because at least one minister not only told you this but showed you this.
One minister taught a neighborhood boy named George, a boy who loved poetry, how to play the piano.
The priest also taught George how to read music…One of our Vestry members said he heard the story with his own ears.
A former Warden bought the book the little boy wrote about his life when he became a man.
Anyway, once upon a time, remember this is a true story though, George, who learned to play the piano at The Church of the Incarnation, also taught himself how to play the drums. That’s pretty cool. George found some other kids who were cool too.
They formed a group; a gang if you will; of kool kids;
Kool and the Gang.
They celebrated life.
Not as doctors, or lawyers. or engineers, or even Episcopal ministers, but as artists, musicians who loved to help other people dance. And decades later when the church where George learned to love music and life at was no longer an Episcopal Church …and when that minister who had taught him music had long since passed away another minister, let’s call this one; hmm let’s call him, “especially thoughtful,” that’s much better than “simple;”
This minister asked, “and whose child was this?”
He said it not quite the same as the Sadducees who don’t believe in resurrection and asked Jesus a question about marriage…but the minister asked a real question that was a real head scratcher, “whose child was this.”
No one knew who George was, even though they knew who Kool and the Gang were.In fact, someone knew who George was; uh hem, his cousin. His cousin of course knew who George was, but she was protecting him, protecting her family; protecting his fame and his fortune.
And the simple minister said when no one remembered George, “blessed are you who have seen and not remembered. Yours is the kingdom of God. That’s what we are here for. Not to collect on an investment but to make an investment…of love”
So, that’s why we sing Celebration.
That’s our pastoral.
Celebration is the song of The Incarnations and Kidz to Camp. It’s the song of unification. Or it’s the song of resurrection. Of angels and children and children’s children. When Jesus is answering a question about time and place Jesus is saying.
“You have no idea how this is going to go;
keep investing in one another;
not for their notoriety or money
but because the resurrection is about loving one another.
Whether you invest as a poet
a doctor
an Episcopal minister
or a dog walker, your tread; your foot prints are majestic.”
Happy unification Sunday friends we are close to the resurrection when we are close together; because we are close to God and God is close to us.
Today is our pastoral.