Waiting and Acting

 

The Boule

Rev. Molly F. James, PhD

DFMS Noonday Chapel via Zoom

Commemoration of James De Koven, March 22, 2021

Psalm 84:7-12; 2 Timothy 2:10-15; Matthew 13:31-33

May God’s Word be spoken. May God’s Word be heard. May that point us to the living Word who is Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

I think you all know I love to cook, I especially love to bake. I think you also know that I like accomplishing things, and if I can do so quickly then all the better. Being an achievement oriented person whose life experience taught her at a young age that life is short, means that ideally I would like to have everything done yesterday. I am not good at sitting and contemplating. I am not good at waiting. 

So this means that making bread is a spiritual discipline for me. Especially with our favorite bread recipe, is an amazing no-knead bread recipe. It requires very little labor, just a lot of planning. It is remarkably simple, and remarkably similar to what is described in our Gospel reading today. You mix together flour, yeast, salt and water in a bowl. And you leave it be for 18 hours. After that you fold it over and form it into a ball. Leave it for another two hours. Then you bake it in a preheated dutch oven with the lid on. You remove the lid for the last 15 minutes. The result is an amazing crusty boule with a soft and chewy inside. This recipe creates the kind of hearty, delicious bread that makes you begin to imagine that it might actually be possible to live on bread alone - particularly if you have some nice olive oil and a delicious cheese to go with it. 

But you can only achieve that delicious result, if you follow the recipe. Waiting is the central and essential act of this bread recipe. It cannot be rushed. There are no shortcuts, no way of speeding it up. I have to have patience and faith. I think that is why bread is such a prominent feature in Scriptures and our faith life. Bread is a staple food, but it is not an instant food. It can fill us up and sustain us, but only if we have the patience and faith required to transform its simple ingredients into a food we can eat. 

This theme of waiting resonates with me this week. We are waiting. The world is waiting. For things to change. For enough of us to be vaccinated. To travel. To see and hug the people we love. To feel safe in a group of people again. We are waiting for transformation. 

But I think it is important to nuance the theme of waiting, while the bread recipe does require a lot of waiting, it is not without active participation. Without making the dough, and doing the baking, there would be no bread. A transformed world is not something we just passively wait for. We wear our masks. We get our shots. We love our neighbors. We speak out against horrific acts of hate and violence like those in Atlanta last week. We who are in positions of power and privilege keep learning, keep acting, keep doing our part to dismantle our culture of white supremacy. 

The change we long for is coming, and we can be a part of making it happen. Perhaps one of the lessons we can take from this pandemic is the ways in which small actions can have a huge impact, especially when we act together. If a few of us wash our hands and wear our masks, nothing would change. The more who do, the greater the effect. What else might we do? What other small sacrifices on our part would ripple out far beyond our own communities? As the world reopens and we return to old habits, may we not forget how deeply interconnected our lives are. 

And may we also have patience and faith in the midst of it all. Action is essential. Sometimes the action is urgent. If you don’t take the bread out of the oven when the timer goes off, it will burn. The realities of injustice are life and death realities in this country. 

On the other hand, if we tried to open the world too quickly, we would risk further harm. We need to be wise and discerning. Sometimes we need to act. Sometimes we need to have more patience. Patience is hard. Is this goopy, sticky dough we have in front of us ever going to turn into something delicious and beautiful? 

And yet. When we can have faith, when we can have patience. When we can trust that God is at work in ways we cannot even see or imagine, change happens. Transformation happens. We get to join God in creating something amazing, beautiful, and sustaining from the sticky mess in the mixing bowl. The waiting is worth it. The work is worth it.

As we work and as we wait, may we always remember that Jesus is indeed the Bread of Life. He is that which sustains us through the deserts and the challenging times. He is the source of wisdom and insight. He is the one whose presence gives our feasts of celebration a greater depth of joy. He is the one who inspires us to live lives that embody grace, generosity and gratitude. 

AMEN. 

A sprinkling of salt

Rev. Molly F. James, PhD

DFMS Noonday Prayer

February 9, 2021

Psalm 8; 2 Tim. 1:1-14; Mark 9:42-50

May God’s Word be spoken. May God’s Word be heard. May that point us to the living Word who is Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

As many of you know, I love to cook. And one of my favorite things to make is chocolate chip cookies. I alternate between traditional regular chocolate chip cookies and an “everything but the kitchen sink” version that is a chocolate cookie with nuts and three kinds of chips - dark chocolate, white chocolate and peanut butter. I love them both for very different reasons. I recently made a discovery that the dark chocolate cookies were made even better if I sprinkled them with salt as soon as they came out of the oven. 

That’s the thing about salt. Just a little bit of it opens up a whole new set of flavors. But the “little bit” is key. I am sure we have all had the experience of eating something that has been over salted. There is a fine line between flavor enhancement and inedibility. A little bit is amazing. Too much is ruinous. 

Today’s Gospel is all about what gets in the way of us deepening our relationship with God. What are our stumbling blocks? What keeps us from living more fully into who God calls us to be? 

But it is that last part about salt. About having salt. About being salt. About finding peace that really caught my attention. It gave me pause, because I will admit that first portion about stumbling blocks felt like an admonition. Stumbling blocks, God? You want to talk about stumbling blocks, okay. No problem. I have a long list for you. There is a global pandemic. We are all working from home. We are utterly exhausted, and while there is a light at the end of this tunnel it is still too far away. Not enough people are getting vaccines fast enough. We miss being together - in person! We are weighed down by the enormous challenges facing our nation and our world right now. Poverty, Racism, Sexism, Environmental Degradation, name your issue. See God, we have plenty of stumbling blocks! 

But then I pause. Then I think about what some of the wisest voices I know might say to me. . . Molly, take a deep breath. Think about that list for a moment. What is notable about it? Oh. You mean the part where I have conveniently named only external stumbling blocks and failed to take responsibility for what I might do differently. You mean that might be part of the problem? Oh and externalizing everything might also cut me off from the gift of being able to connect more deeply with God and those around me? Oh, yeah, that’s not very helpful. 

And I go back to the salt. I think about how just a little bit makes a difference. What if that were true here too? What if I don’t in fact have to fix all the world’s problems today. What if I don’t have to make a seismic shift in my spiritual practices? What if, at least for today, it is not about transforming everything? What if, at least for today, it was just about the small steps, the sprinkling of salt that might be life giving? That might move us one step closer to the depth we crave, to the coming of the kingdom?

In my current state of pandemic overwhelm, coupled with my task oriented, achievement driven personality, I needed that reminder that it does not (and probably cannot nor should not) all be done today. Small steps are okay. For today, for now, they are enough. As the Carrie Nicewander song we listened to last week says, every small kindness shifts the balance toward the light. 

I hope that resonates for you. I hope that you feel your burdens lightened. I hope that you feel more glimmers of hope and possibility. I hope that you feel inspired to seek out the small ways that you might deepen your connection to God. A few more deep breaths. A little more quiet. A little more time outside. Choosing relationship over task a little more often. Reaching out just to say “hi.” A little more time for prayer. A little more time to feed our souls. 

I trust that all those sprinkles of salt, all those small steps, all those moments will enrich us and nourish us so that we might have what we need to be a part of the transformation of the world, together. Amen.