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Unitarian Universalist Society of Fairhaven "Miracles in Everyday Life" Rev. Ann C. Fox |
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It was a miracle that I made it to the 5:45 sunrise service this morning. I stood at Fort Phoenix here, in Fairhaven, with a few hundred others and watched the sunrise as part of the Inter-Church Council-sponsored service. First there was just a wonderful rosy glow, and then the sun rose spectacularly and quickly. This helped to lift the hearts of the gathered faithful for most of those gathered believe that the Easter moment of sunrise begins Jesus' appearance to his disciples and the promise to all believers of eternal life. For Christians (with a capital C) Easter is a time to celebrate that possibility. This rising of Jesus from death is the most important miracle for the Christian world. Now we Unitarian Universalists feel that the greatest miracles of Jesus are his teachings. We heard today that our children are taught about Jesus' ideas and actions of equality of all human beings and the radical love that is necessary to bring about this justice of equality. Jesus of Nazareth's greatness is expressed in his stories, called parables, and in his famous Sermon on the Mount. Those of you who are new here today might not have seen the stained glass window of Jesus, larger than life, delivering his Sermon on the Mount at the back of this sanctuary. Let us take a few seconds to look at it, especially the children. Actually, the teachings on the Mount are so many that we are sure these teachings were delivered over a long period but the Sermon on the Mount is a nice biblical image for people to remember. (For our Internet readers, our sanctuary has a massive stained glass window of Jesus delivering the Sermon on the Mount on its east side and another of the Nativi ty on the west side.) For the sake of our children, perhaps we should say that a miracle is something that occurs that seemed that it couldn't happen but it did. I wonder whether our children who received their Bibles read of the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000. Jesus was speaking to a great crowd of people. So interesting was he that the people hardly noticed the time going by until they began shuffling around because they were hungry. Jesus noticed this and asked his disciples to feed the people from only two small baskets of loaves and fishes. And these two baskets fed all 5,000 people. I once asked a group of children what they thought of Jesus feeding 5,000 people from two small baskets. One teen-age girl raised her hand and said, "I think Jesus inspired everyone to share the food they had and that was the miracle! How many of you have heard of the miracle of Jesus walking on water? The story is that when the disciples were in their fishing boat and a storm made them feel afraid of being drowned, Jesus walked on the water to them, calmed the wind and climbed into the boat with them. I don't really have an explanation for this but it reminds me of a story about my friend, Jane, a Unitarian Universalist minister who was the first woman minister in a New England town. The male clergy, wanting to seem liberal, invited her out to a fishing trip with them. She'd never fished before but wanted to be one of the boys, so she bought a fishing rod and went with them. They were in the middle of a small lake when Father Pat said, "Oh, oh, I've forgotten my worms." He jumped out of the boat and ran across the water to get his box of worms and came back the same way. Then Pastor Jack said, "Oh, I've forgotten the beer." So he hopped out of the boat and jogged across the water and returned the same wa y with the beer. Reverend Jane's eyes were popping out of her head in disbelief. Then Rabbi Jacob said, "I've forgotten my special Matzah bait," and he skipped across the water! Reverend Jane thought, "Well, I'm not going to have less faith than these men." So she said, "Oh, I've forgotten my fishing rod," whereupon she leaped out of the boat and immediately sank. While the three concerned men fished her out of the water, Father Pat said, "Do you think we'd better tell Reverend Jane about the stepping stones?!?" Jesus is said to have healed many people. Today, we sometimes we hear people say that someone was prayed for and was healed. Or we hear that someone went to a faith healer and was cured. But we don't hear of the person who was prayed for and wasn't healed or those people the faith healer did not cure. We do not know why some seeming miracles occur. Very likely there is an explanation of a mind body connection that can heal. All the healing miracles in the world would be of little use if the people around us were not kind and generous and the world was not filled with the awesome beauty of rainbows and sunrise and sunsets. he miracles that engage my heart and lift my spirit are when I behold a new born baby, the green shoots pushing through the hard, brown earth after a long snowy winter, the sudden shades of red and green and yellow of tree branches that looked dead only two weeks ago, the many robins, cow birds, and blue jays around the bird feeder nowadays, and the warmer winds that hold the promise of a new cycle of resurrection and rebirth. Babushka' eggs in the story this morning look so brilliant and beautiful on the outside because of the goodness and beauty of Babushka's heart and Renchenka's chick is the symbol of rebirth and the generations that will go on and on and on, forever. Whereas the long winter gave us a chance to hunker down and slow the pace of a hectic life, spring vibrates to a different rhythm. The ancient rites of spring long preceded any prophet. Perhaps the job of a wise teacher is to bring an alternative way of viewing life, the lilies of the field, the beauty of the little children. Walt Whitman tells us, "I know nothing else but miracles….Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with miracles, Every foot of the interior swarms with miracles." May we feel the rhythm of the earth awakening and let our spirits soar and sing, like in our last hymn. May rebirth and resurrection ever hold for us the mystery of the sustaining power and the hope that through its process, transformation never ends. |
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