19 February 2012
Carolyn L Roberts
Mark 9.1-9

            The term thin places is one of the gifts of fifth century Celtic Christianity. In typical poetic fashion, Celtic Christians from Ireland, parts of Scotland, Wales, and northern England,4 came to describe the place where the divide is thin between the sacred and the profane, the eternal and the physical, the holy and the ordinary. In such places, we experience the sacred, if only for a moment. For some of us, the natural world is our most immediate access to a thin place. For others, it is music; for still others, it is in seeing justice take form. I have experienced thin places in all of these ways.

            You all know that I was in Annapolis on 31 January with a crowded room full of clergy gathered for a prayer breakfast. That was followed by a press conference and  meetings with legislators to express our support for marriage equality. I’ve mentioned before that our Open Door friend Jill McCrory was one of the chief organizers of that particular event, so we were led in prayer as only Baptists can pray. What I haven’t shared were the numerous thin places within the prayer breakfast itself. Speaker of the House of Delegates, Michael Busch, addressed his own changes in understanding of marriage from a public commitment between a man and a woman to a preference for civil unions–till he became aware that legal protections are not the same. That’s when he understood the justice element and mover to full support for same-sex civil marriage. An African-American pastor shared a similar journey, stating simply that he has not stood with that group of clergy in years past. Sister Jeannine Granick, whose own work in the LGBT community began in the 1970's, spoke to the changing definition of families. She has an excellent short piece in yesterday’s Washington Post, section B. Each of these–and others–brought insight and compassion and a deep passion for justice to the witness they gave.

            But it was Rabbi Daniel Berg of Baltimore, who touched my heart when he began, “...I am...a man of faith. I am also a servant of God, and my belief is that God doesn’t want any of us to live a life of shame, inequality or fear....God does not wish for us to condemn a portion of humanity to secrecy or celibacy or worse.”1 He reminded us of God’s wishes for us in the very beginning, in the book of Genesis: It is not good for [one] to be alone.1

            That reminder called forth James Weldon Johnson’s achingly evocative poem, The Creation, that speaks to the same poignant need on God’s part: “I’m lonely. I think I’ll make me a world.” And after all of the riches and excesses of creation, God says, “I’m lonely still....[Then] God thought and thought,/Till he thought: I’ll make me a man!...This great God/Like a mammy bending over her baby,/Kneeled down in the dust/Toiling over a lump of clay/Till he shaped it in his own image;//Then into it he blew the breath of life/And man became a living soul./Amen. Amen.2 Rabbi Berg’s simple reminder of our beautiful, God-given, formed-in-the-DNA of creation need to be in relation recalled that poem for me. It was a spiritual moment; it was a moment of grace. There, in the midst of dozens of hotel staff clearing away the remains of breakfast, clustered at one end of the banquet room with dozens of clergy and microphones and cameras, I found myself in a thin place.

            I am reminded of Lilian, who goes to church every Sunday to meet the God she has come to know in Jesus. Emma, her co-worker is curious: “So you go to church every week and God meets you there?” Lilian answers, “I go to church every Sunday and for reasons I can’t explain, I meet God about one in every eight worship services.” Emma pushes, “Then why do you go every Sunday?” “Because,” says Lilian, “I never know when that one Sunday is going to be.”3

            I didn’t go to Annapolis with any expectation that I would be in a thin place. Moses wasn’t herding sheep in the brush expecting to be in a thin place; when Jacob was fleeing for his life and fell into an exhausted sleep using a stone for a pillow, certainly didn’t expect to experience God’s presence in a thin place. Jesus’ disciples didn’t know they would experience a thin place when they hiked to the top of whatever mountain they climbed. But there on that mountaintop, Jesus’ personal baptismal experience of being claimed as God’s beloved one suddenly becomes a public experience shared by Peter and James and John. In that thin place on the mountaintop, they see the God-given love and grace that radiates through Jesus; they meet God there on that mountaintop.

            Three things. One: thin places are transformational; they are places where our hearts are opened.4 Like Lilian, I meet the God I have come to know in Jesus here at church–and in a whole host of other settings–from the birth of a baby to a clergy prayer breakfast in Annapolis. Like Lilian, I never know when that is going to be. Sometimes a trip to Annapolis  is simply an opportunity to speak with legislators. Sometimes a hike is simply good exercise.

            Two: The church is in the business of helping people experience the thin places of God’s love and grace. A colleague was in Annapolis last week with members of her congregation, visiting Frederick’s Delegate Patrick Hogan, who supports civil unions, but voted against marriage equality. One retiree spoke up: Delegate Hogan, like you, I’m a Republican. The military has had the ability to change their “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy regarding gays in the military. For the past ten years, men and women have fought on our behalf in Iraq and Afghanistan, and I’m pretty sure at least some of them were gay. If they can die serving their country, should they not have the right to marry the person they love, whether it is a man loving a man, or a woman loving a woman, or a man and woman loving each other.5 The church not only helped that retiree experience the thin places of God’s love and grace, but also helped him see the connection between his own experience and the call to extend that love and grace to others.

            Three: God’s love and grace is relational. Genesis captures its essence–it is not good for men and women to be alone. James Weldon Johnson adds the insight that even the God of creation can be lonely; even God needs beloved sons and daughters so that love has a way of being experienced and expressed. When we experience that love between one another, or between our self and God, we are in a thin place, because there is nothing like love to open the heart and transform the soul.

***

1http//www.washingtonblade.com/2012/01/31/clergy-rally-behind-md-same-sex-marriage
2Johnson, James Weldon, The Creation, http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-creation
3Ripski, Mike, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com, sermons@clergy.net, as found on 2.14.2012.
4Borg, Marcus J., The Heart of Christianity, HarperSanFrancisco, © 2003, pp 149-163.
5Barbara Kershner Daniel, Senior Pastor, Evangelical Reformed United Church of Christ, Frederick MD, conversation 2.17.2012 and Weekly Thoughts, 2.14.2012.