“Be”

Deuteronomy 5:1-15

Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

August 25, 2024

Last week we heard the story of Jesus’s quieting a storm at sea. Do you remember the three words he uttered after the disciples woke him up and asked for help? “Peace. Be. Still.” 

This week, we’re focused on that middle word - the smallest one, but it packs a big punch: BE. 

Fresh off of sabbatical, the word “be” is top of my mind because I spent a lot of time thinking about it these past three months. In our day-to-day lives, we probably don’t make space to ponder “being” as much as we should. When the to-do list is never ending, we don’t have much space to sit around and wonder what we should be doing next - it’s all right there in front of us. There are so many things to get done - our existence can sometimes feel like a never ending quest to complete all the tasks and, hopefully, find a moment of rest at the end of the day. 

It can be all-too-easy to forget that we were created as human BEings, not just human DOings. 

One Sunday during my sabbatical, I traveled over to Junction City to worship with our kindred at Zion UCC. Their pastor was on vacation that week, but the guest preacher was a lovely retired minister that I’ve known for a decade. He was surprised to see me in a pew, of course, and I explained I was on sabbatical. “How wonderful!” he said, “What are you doing with your sabbatical?” 

With a bit of a nervous laugh, I said, “As little as possible!” 

I think he looked at me a little funny after that, though I may have just been feeling self conscious. Even though I know that, for me at least, the practice of taking sabbath serious during a sabbatical is the right path, I still have a hard time admitting that to other people. Even in a time specifically set aside for sabbath, the pressure to perform and produce is still there. 

Sabbath-keeping is so radically counter-cultural, isn’t it? I suppose that’s why our holy texts present is as a command, rather than just a suggestion. Otherwise, we’d gloss right over it as a ridiculous pie-in-the-sky possibility. 

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I was not raised with any concept of sabbath or even a respect for the idea of rest. The messages I received from the world were that I needed to work hard all the time so I could move on to the next thing and the next. I was told that my value was determined by the quality and quantity of what I produced. And if anyone ever told me that rest was a good idea, it was because rest might make me more productive. 

But at the beginning of the Bible, God doesn’t rest in order to be more productive. God rests….for the sake of resting, I guess. We’re not really told why. But anyone who has ever taken seriously this commandment to honor the sabbath can tell you all kinds of wonderful things happen as a result. Stress is reduced. Relationships blossom. Physical and mental health improves. Perhaps more than anything, the “magic” of sabbath isn’t about what happens on the day of rest. The real joys are found in the way the other six days flow. When sabbath is a regular part of our spiritual practice, it means that our whole sense of time shifts. It suddenly seems there is more time, not less. Priorities become clearer and our general sense of anxiety about DOING ALL THE THINGS tends to lessen.

As wonderful as sabbath is, we all know that taking a whole day each week to rest can be downright impossible due to economic constraints and the general structure of our society. 

So let’s go back to that tiny word: BE. What if we thought about sabbath-keeping as not just about a specific quantity of time but the quality of time. In his 1951 classic, The Sabbath, Rabbi Abraham Heschel points out that God is very concerned with the quality of our time. In fact, Heschel argues that the Bible is MORE concerned with time than with space. He says, “[Scripture] pays more attention to generations, to events, than to countries, to things….We must not forget that it is not a thing that lends significance to a moment; it is the moment that lends significance to things.” [1]

No wonder, then, that God - caring so much about time - puts an emphasis on sabbath-keeping. Heschel calls sabbath “a palace in time” - one of God’s greatest gifts to us - and he reminds us that sabbath “is not a date but an atmosphere.” [2]

We sometimes let the perfect be the enemy of the good when it comes to sabbath. We get so hung up on the impossibilities of doing it by the book, that we give up completely. But what if we took seriously Heschel’s invitation to see sabbath as an atmosphere? Are there ways we can approach time with intention in order to cultivate a spirit of sabbath-keeping even when it’s not a whole set-aside day? Are there ways of BEing in the world that can help us counter the false, hyper-capitalist narrative that our worth lies only in DOing? 

I can think of a few ways of BEing that can help us receive God’s gift of sabbath. And I want to hear some of your ideas, too. But before we get into the nitty-gritty, I want to amplify a couple of things Walter Brueggemann lifts up about sabbath. First, Brueggemann names Sabbath as “resistance” - in particular, resistance to the narrative that we are simply cogs in a great economic wheel and that our worth comes from what we produce and consume. He cites the words of Jewish theologian Michael Fishbane who says we “enter the [sabbath] sphere of inaction through divestment.” That very-economic word - divestment - reminds us that sabbath is both very much about economics and it is a communal activity. Brueggemann states it quite clearly. Sabbath is “an alternative to the endless demands of economic reality…that will leave us endlessly ‘rest-less,’ inadequate, [and] unfulfilled.” [3] 

Secondly, Brueggeman says “Sabbath is not only resistance. It is alternative… The alternative on offer is the awareness and practice of the claim that we are situated on the receiving end of the gifts of God. To be so situated is a staggering option, because we are accustomed to being on the initiating end of all things. We neither expect nor even want a gift to be given, so inured are we to accomplishing and achieving and possessing.” [4] 

Sabbath is a gift to us. We can allow ourselves to receive the gift, but that is a very different posture than toiling to create this palace in time with our own bare hands. Sabbath is not something we strive for, but something we accept. 

In that spirit, let’s chat a bit about some things we can do as individuals and as a community to receive this gift of sabbath. This invitation to remember that we are human BEings not just humans DOing.

Here’s quick list that I jotted down earlier this week:

1. Create margain in our schedules. Do not fill everything up to the brim. It leaves no room for breathing, for just BEing in the day-to-day. Unplanned and unscheduled things will always sneak in, too, and without any margain, we become miserable. 

2. Brueggemann says Sabbath is about “work stoppage” and about remembering that we are citizens of God’s realm, not prisoners of empires here on earth. Sabbath can be about choosing how and when we work. It is also about intentionally monitoring what and when and how we consume. 

3. Sabbath reminds us that joy is a Christian virtue. We were not created to work without ceasing. We were also born to sing, laugh, dance, and be goofy. We were created to appreciate art, nature, and beauty. Making space for joy in daily life is a way of stepping out of DOing and into BEing. 

4. As ridiculous as it sounds at first, I think praying without ceasing is actually not an impossible goal. Depending on how we define prayer, of course. I define it as orienting ourselves to the already-present reality of God among us. And that’s something that can be taken with us into the classroom, the board room, the grocery store, the family dinner table, and hiking trail. Carrying the awareness of God’s presence frees us to BE and it’s a way of tapping into the gift of Sabbath in our daily lives. 

Okay. Those are a few of mine. What do you have? What are some ways we can embrace this gift of sabbath? Ways that we can remember we are human BEings not just humans doing?

(conversation)

Let’s close with the words of Lonnie Rashid Lynn, better known as the musician Common. These are the closing words of the first song on his 2005 album, Be:

Walk like warriors, we were never told to run

Explored the world to return to where my soul begun

Never looking back, or too far in front of me

The present is a gift, and I just wanna be 

NOTES 

[1] Heschel, Abraham. The Sabbath, 6.

[2] Ibid., 21.

[3] Brueggemann, Walter. Sabbath as Resistence, xi-xii. 

[4] Ibid., xiv. 

“Peace”

Mark 4:35-41 Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood August 18, 2024

The passage from Mark’s gospel ends with a question, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” 

While I don’t think it’s meant to be a rhetorical question, we aren’t given an answer. Instead, we’re invited to consider what our answer might be. Just who IS this guy? Calming a massive storm at sea? Speaking to the wind and waves with a firm command: ‘Peace! Be still!’?”

Three little words that hold so much power. I felt led to explore each word over the course of three weeks: Peace. Be. Still. So here we are. While we journey through this mini sermon series, I’d encourage you to carry these three words with you - perhaps writing them on your hand, or a post it note on your bathroom mirror. If you’re on the church e-mail list or social media, you’ll see that we sent out a phone lock screen you can use to keep these words front and center. 

The disciples ask, “Who is this that even the wind and seas obey?” And it’s a great question. I have another question: “Who is this, that sleeps soundly through a gigantic storm?!?” We’re told there’s a great windstorm, waves beating into the boat, water coming aboard. And yet Jesus sleeps soundly - unbothered. The disciples have to wake him up. 

Jesus slept peacefully in a small boat that was being tossed about at sea. How did he find that level of deep peace in the midst of a literal storm? And how can I get some of that peace? 

*****

This is my first time in a pulpit since April. Three months of sabbatical means I wasn’t preaching, but I did enjoy worshiping in many pews these past few months. I was Lutheran, Mennonite, Jewish, Unitarian Universalist, UCC in Oklahoma and Junction City, Catholic all over Manhattan and in Austria. And, of course, I experienced God beyond the walls of religious buildings, too. 

This morning, I want to take you along with me to another seaside. Only metaphorical storms ahead but I do think there will be some Jesus sightings. Let me pull up a photo to show you where we’re headed. (Slide 1)

This is the Adriatic Sea. We’re in Trieste, Italy - which is the teensiest tiniest far northeast corner of Italy. It’s…..uh….not a place anyone from the U.S. really visits when they go to Italy. If Ogden squints his eyes far enough he might be able to see Venice across the water. We went there simply because we’ve always wanted to go to Italy and we were right next door in Croatia, and I figured, “Hey, if we’re only 90 minutes from the corner of Italy, we should go.” 

Here a map to show you what I’m talking about (Slide 2). Trieste is a port city of about 200,000 people - so it’s bigger than Topeka but smaller than Lincoln, Nebraska. Nowadays you’ll mostly see giant cruise ships in the harbor (Slide 3), but in the 19th and 20th centuries you would have seen all kinds of ships here - traveling all over the world. Trieste is a part of Italy NOW but for several centuries it was a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. And before that the Holy Roman Empire and before that it was Venetian and long before THAT is was part of the Roman Empire. (Slide 4) Triestines are no strangers to empire and it’s a great place to go if you’d like to stare out at the water and ponder existential realities like the impermanence of social constructs like nation-states. (Slide 5) 

I mean, not that I know any weirdos that would do that. 

It’s also a great place for pastries if that’s more your thing. (Slide 6)

We were only there 48 hours but I could quickly see why British journalist Jan Morris wrote a book called “Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere.” A once-powerful port city, connecting the mighty Austro-Hungarian empire to the rest of the world, Morris describes it as “a middle-sized, essentially middle-aged Italian seaport, ethnically ambivalent, historically confused, only intermittently prosperous…[Trieste is] so lacking the customary characteristics of Italy that in 1999 some 70 percent of Italians…did not know it was in Italy at all.” (Slide 7)

Like I said, it’s a great place to ponder impermanence. It’s also a great place to think about power and the peace that may or may not come with it. 

Imagine with me that you’re a prince. Specifically, the second in line for the throne of the great Austro-Hungarian Empire. I’m guessing most of us don’t know much about Austria-Hungary, so let me just share a visual to put things in context. (Slide 8) THIS was the Empire just before World War I. So, yeah, not a bad place to be a prince, right?

But also: when your big brother is number one it can be hard to figure out your place in the world. And that’s just what happened to this guy: Maximilian the First, Emperor of Mexico. (Slide 9)

Mexico? That’s a long way from home, Max. How’d that come to pass? 

Maximilian was the Emperor of Mexico for about 3 years before being executed there in 1867. He was lured there as a political pawn in the ongoing battle for control of Mexico. While I don’t know the ins-and-outs of what persuaded him to travel all the way across the world and become the Emperor of a country he had no connection to, I’m going to guess it had something to do with a deep desire for power. Big brother was an Emperor, so that’s hard to top, right? 

What I do know is that this (Slide 10) is where Maximilian lived before he became emperor of Mexico. Miramare Castle, built for Maximilian and his wife Carlotta in the 1850s. It was barely finished when they left for Mexico, never to return. Legend has it that Maximiilian picked this location when he was out at sea and found safe harbor along this rocky shore during a storm. (Slide 11) He was a prince by birth, the leader of the Imperial Navy, and called this place home, (Slide 12) but none of that was enough to give him deep peace. 

*******

Fast-forward a bit to the early 20th century. Trieste is an incredibly diverse city. Port cities are often at the forefront of social change. People from all over the world mix in these places. And the divisions between different ethnic groups can tend to feel less important when everyone is focused on the same thing: making money. 

Trieste in the early 20th century has a large Jewish population. And it’s a place where Jews feel safer than they might in many other places in Europe. And so, the Jewish community builds a beautiful and enormous synagogue right in the middle of the city. (Slide 13) This new gathering space makes it possible for the entire Jewish community to gather together for worship. And it is a symbol of pride and power. The Jewish community is an important part of this city, integrated into the fabric of Trieste, and they are here to stay. (Slide 14)

But remember - I said this is a city that makes you ponder impermanence, right? This synagogue was completed in 1912 and was a spiritual home for about 6,000 Jews. The early 20th century was a time of integration as the power in Trieste shifted from the Austrians to the Italians. But in 1938, Trieste was the place where Mussolini gave a speech declaring anti-Semitism to the be the law of the land. (Slide 15) And by the 1940s, Trieste was home to the only gas chamber on Italian soil.

Great storms in this city by the sea. Giant waves of fear and facism crashing down on their shores. And very real people - grandparents, children, young adults (Slide 16) - caught up in the midst of al the violence and hate. One very real person was Carlo Nathan Morpurgo, the secretary of the synagogue. (Slide 17) While my family sat in the synagogue together, our tour guide told us about his acts of heroism. (Slide 18)

When the Nazis came to Trieste, they not only deported and murdered Jews, they took over the synagogue. They used it as a secure storage space for all the riches they had stolen from local Jews - paintings, jewlery, family heirlooms. Before the Nazis took over the building, Morpurgo found a hiding place inside the synagogue for their most-valued items, like the Torah scroll. (Slide 19) Mercifully, the items were not discovered and remain with the community today. This local leader stayed in Trieste when he could have escaped, hoping to stay behind and do what he could to protect those who were unable to leave. Tragically, Morpurgo was eventually deported and died at Auschwitz in 1944.

Morpurgo must have been a man of deep peace. He had the ability to tap into some power beyond himself - a lasting sense of peace in the midst of all this chaos - that reminded him of what really matters when the great storms of life assail. And from that deep well of peace, he found the strength and power to show up in love for others in conditions beyond what any human should have to face. 

*************

I don’t know what the disciples were thinking about when they stared out at the sea that night. (Slide 20) Perhaps it was a peaceful evening at first. But as they noticed the storm clouds on the horizon, maybe one or two of them pondered impermanence. Things can change so quickly, can’t they? One moment you’re just out on a boat with friends and the next you’re scared for your life. One day you can be a prince living in a palace and the next you can find yourself embroiled in a civil war on the other side of the world. One week you’re simply a leader in your congregation and the next you’re a hero whose name will never be forgotten. 

The relentless drumbeat of change can be terrifying. It can sometimes feel like there’s very little we can count on in this world. Sometimes things get better and sometimes they get worse, but our circumstances are always shifting and changing. It can feel so overwhelming. 

***********

Come with me back to the boat. The storm is raging and panic is rising. Look with me at our sleeping friend back there in the stern. Close your eyes and really look. Can you see him there in your mind’s eye? Do you see the way his chest slowly rises and then falls as he dreams on? In. Out. In. Out. In. Out. 

Peace. 

It turns out peace isn’t actually about what’s happening out there. It’s not about the circumstances that swirl around us. It’s not about storms that rage and it’s definitely not about empires that rise and fall. 

Peace isn’t a gift the world gives us. And it doesn’t have to be impermanent as so many other things are. 

Peace comes from somewhere else. And can prevail even when the world is crumbling around us. 

Close your eyes again. See him there. Breathe. Watch. Learn. 

 

NOTES: 

Morris, Jan. Trieste And The Meaning Of Nowhere (p. 15). Hachette Books. Kindle Edition.