Speaker 1: Welcome to the commons cast. We're glad to have you here. We hope you find something meaningful in our teaching this week. Head to commons.church for more information.
Speaker 2: We are halfway through summer and halfway through our patron saints series. We are going to talk about the poet Mary Oliver today, but first, let's look back on the series, patron saints. Now, I grew up Catholic, but I have found my vocational home in Protestant churches. Yay for the ordination of women. Thank you.
I mean, I'm not throwing shade genuinely. As Protestant as I am now, I am still a little bit Catholic. When it comes to saints, I am always down to clown. And what I mean is I love the saints' bewildering ways, their outside the box, living their impression on the world. Over the years, saints have been like spiritual guides to me.
Julian of Norwich, Hildegard of Bingen, Gregor of Nyssa, I love them. I love how saints meet their moment with trust in God as they understand God, trust in the way of Christ, trust in the spirit's creative work in the world. I love how they trust in their own voice and their own visions. They trust in a mystery so much bigger than they can grasp. They trust in their communities of like minded friends.
By definition, the word saint is derived from the Latin word sanctus, and it means holy ones. And father Neil Roy offers this definition. A bit wordy, but stick with it. Those members of Christ's mystical body, the church, who responded to the impulses of divine grace and bore faithful witness to Christ, either as martyrs by death or by a life of heroic virtue. Those are the people commonly called saints.
I like that definition. There's a lot to think about there. But you may have guessed that we are rocking a bit of a broader definition of saint this summer. One of our saints is still alive, and the others only passed away in the February. So here's what we did for the series.
We tried a thought experiment that went like this. If we were to name saints for you, Commons Church, thinkers, academics, artists, who have influenced our thinking and our identity, who would those people be? It's fun. Right? So Jeremy talked about the French philosopher Rene Girard as a patron saint of commons.
And Girard gave us ideas about the violence behind our desires and how we scapegoat to relieve the pressure of this mimetic or imitative desire. And Scott talked about the Jewish academic Amy Jill Levine as a patron saint of commons. And Levine is a gift to Christians. Her writing and teaching helps us to see how Jewish Jesus was. And she insists that Jesus did not shake off his Jewishness.
Today, I'm talking about Mary Oliver as a patron saint of commons. Some of you, like me, have been reading Mary Oliver for years. Others are like, who is she? And all of that is all good. But before we dive in, let's take a moment to pray.
Let's be still, try not to fidget, and allow a little bit of quiet to come to your mind. Notice your breath on the inhale as it fills you, and let your exhale be just a little bit longer. Loving God at the center of our lives, our communities, our joys, and even our struggles. It can be easy to think that our experiences are so isolated, that our questions are unique, that our pain is our own. But for centuries, people have found fresh ways to live with hurt and contradiction and joy.
So help us to have open hearts for the experiences of others. May we boldly trust that what is true is holy, and what is holy comes from you. Christ of the cosmos, you are near. So may the peace of all peace be ours. With the unifying holy spirit we pray.
Amen. So the commons patron saint we're looking at today is the poet Mary Oliver. And your outline, I love an outline, is made up of pieces of her poems. So in four parts, I pay attention. Second, where does the temple begin?
Jesus' wild and precious life and poetic sensibility. That last point is less Mary Oliver and more what I do with her work for our context. Before we get to why she matters to us, let me tell you why she matters to me by way of wild berries. I've become someone who can't walk by a Saskatoon tree, a raspberry bush, or a blackberry bramble in season without stopping to pick and eat and savor. But I was not always this berry picking person.
Sounds like a swear. It's not. I was not always this berry picking person. I remember picking berries a lot as a kid on our farm, but I just kind of forgot the delights of found berries as a grown up. So I'd be out with friends, and they'd stumble upon blackberries or Saskatoons and say, oh, yes, berries.
And they'd get so lost in looking for the perfectly ripened ones and moaning with pleasure about the sweetness. And I can see that at least part of my problem was that I was living way too much in my head. I was hovering just off the ground with my stress and my introspection and my overall disconnection from my body and the body of the world. But I've changed. I'm now a committed berry picker.
I'm in alleys picking raspberries. I'm laying down my bike at Glenmore Reservoir to reach up for some Saskatoons. I am lost in the pleasure of Earth's generous sweetness. And I can name two clear paths that brought me back to the berries. One, sacramental theology, and two, poetry.
Sacramental theology is not only concerned with the sacraments like capital s sacraments, baptism, the Eucharist, marriage even, as places where we encounter the divine. Historically, that's exactly what sacramental theology was about. But over time, sacramental theology means a very specific conviction that the world is full of the life of God whose nature is known in Christ and the spirit. And theologians pushed a definition of God further by insisting that the divine presence can be found in nature, yes, and in creative pursuits like gardening and engineering and poetry to name a few. And the broadening of sacramental theology takes us back to a Jewish understanding of the world, and we'll pick up on that in the life of Jesus in a moment.
All this to say, sacramental theology called me back to myself, back to my body, and back to the world by insisting matter matters when you're thinking about God. And a second way I found my way back to the Berries was through poetry. When I was in grad school studying theology, I took a few poetry classes for fun. I even thought of changing my academic focus to include more creative pursuits. But here's the thing, I actually wasn't very good at it, like solid Bs at best.
What actually needed to happen for me was to see my work with theology as a poetic pursuit. I remember a professor saying in a lecture, the church needs pastors, more poet preachers. And I was like, yes. Sign me up for that. That is for me.
So with average grades in poetry classes, I started to at least read more poetry. So enter Mary Oliver. As I read her, Mary Oliver lived sacramental theology in her poetry. So who was she? Mary Oliver was an award winning poet.
She was born in Ohio, lived much of her life in Massachusetts, and later relocated to Florida where she passed away in 2019. Mary Oliver walked every morning. For a time, she hid pencils around town so she could stop and write down what she was noticing in nature. She loved dogs. She taught college students.
She cracked jokes. Mary Oliver didn't only write about the beauty in the world, she also wrote about what was brutal in nature and in us. She was committed to using I pronouns in her poems not because she needed that for her ego, but because she was pretty sure you'd find yourself in her experiences. Mary Oliver was a heavy smoker. She was committed to her partner, Molly Malone Cook, for forty years.
She read Rumi every day, and she prayed. Though, don't try to claim her as Christian, even if she brings you closer to Christ. Mary Oliver is too diverse for any of our labels. Her work belongs to everyone. When I first started reading Mary Oliver, probably fifteen years ago, I actually didn't love her.
I was so impatient. I was like, get on with it, lady. Enough with the owls and the roses. Like, get me the spiritual stuff. But eventually, she won me over, and her poems have been a companion ever since.
After all these years, more than anything else, Mary Oliver has taught me to pay attention, to start with the trees in my own front yard and the birds in my backyard. I'm not sure that there's anything more spiritual than that. It's sacramental to really see the world around you and to realize that you cannot love what you don't even notice. So what are we waiting for? Let's read a Mary Oliver poem.
This one's called, Where Does the Temple Begin and Where Does it End? There are things you can't reach, but you can reach out to them and all day long. The wind, the bird flying away, the idea of God, and it can keep you as busy as anything else and happier. The snake slides away. The fish jumps like a little lily out of the water and back in.
The goldfinches sing from the unreachable top of the tree. I look morning to night. I am never done with looking. Looking, I mean, not just standing around, but standing around as though with your arms open and thinking. Maybe something will come.
Some shining coil of wind or a few leaves from my or any old tree, they are all in this too. And now I will tell you the truth. Everything in the world comes at least closer and cordially, like the nibbling tinsel eyed fish, the unlooping snake like goldfishes, little dolls of gold fluttering around the corner of the sky of God, the blue air. God, the blue air. I mean, I'd sing that weird worship song.
You would too. In Where Does the Temple Begin? Where Does it End? You get the happiness of reaching past limits, the dignity described in the looking. You get the posture of openness to the world, the closeness of existence with all living things, and a vision of God as the blue air.
I mean, what does that even mean? No one can say for sure, but it does make you think bigger thoughts about God. Right? The language of poetry assists in theology. I'd argue you can't do theology without it.
Figurative language, communication that isn't literal, is biblical. Take the poetry of the Psalms, the parallelism and poetic images. God is a rock, a tower, a shield, a shelter, a monarch, a warrior, an artist. I could go on for days. Take the metaphors of the prophets, marriage to a sex worker to represent God's faithfulness, a basket of ripened fruit to represent the near destruction of Israel for denying the needs of the poor.
Take the parables of Jesus. His identity is a paradox. Fully human? Fully divine? And then he goes around and flips the meaning of stories with poetic reversals.
You need figurative language. If you can't handle figurative language, there's really no way to speak about mystery. No way to speak about God. No way to read scripture. Here, I'll show you.
In John two, Jesus goes to Jerusalem and he slips into the temple. There he finds people in the temple courts selling cattle and sheep and sitting around exchanging money for sacrifices. You know the story. Right? Jesus loses it.
He makes a whip, a bit harsh, to drive the traders from the temple courts. He flips tables and scatters coins. He says, stop turning my father's house into a market. And the religious people say to him, what sign can you show to prove you have any claim on the house of God? Jesus answered them, destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.
They replied, it has taken forty six years to build this temple, and you are going to raze it in three days? But the temple he had spoken of was his body. Boom. It's a metaphor. It's not like his torso literally became a column and his limbs became lampstands.
The temple incident challenges those who think they know exactly where God dwells and by default, where God doesn't, as in certainly not in this furious rabbi. So there's a couple of things going on in John's gospel. First is that the temple did literally fall in seventy AD. And John's audience, they knew that. Second is that Jesus fell too, crucified on a fateful Friday, raised up in just three days.
So if Jesus' body is the temple, like, what does that mean? Well, we need to go back to Exodus for that. The Exodus temple was meant to be Yahweh's dwelling place on earth, And God taking up residence on earth takes us back to the garden in Genesis. The temple is meant to be the new Eden, God at the center of all that God has made. So the temple is the new Eden, and Jesus is the new temple.
And to people struggling to make sense of life without Jesus, as in everyone reading John's gospel, the story reminds them that they don't actually need a temple or a savior's body to trust that God is near. Any suffering, even death, could not take away the life that Jesus gave them. In other words, where does the temple begin and where does it end? So let's look at one more Jesus story to consider Mary Oliver's question a little further. In John three, a Pharisee finds Jesus at night, then they have a conversation about what drives Jesus' work to perform signs.
And to explain, Jesus speaks about the life of God in the world. He says, it's like being born of the water of the womb and of the spirit. He says it's like the wind that blows, but you don't know where it comes from or where it's going. He says, the world can seem so dark, but the light of God has finally come. And we find a word for these descriptions in verse 12.
I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe. How then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? And the Greek word for earthly things is epigeos, and it literally means on earth things. Over and over and over again, Jesus uses on earth things to speak about God. I mean, just think of how much of Jesus' ministry takes place outside.
Tested in the wilderness, baptized in the river, he invites new friends to walk through the countryside with him. He feasts in fields. He tells stories on hillsides. He confronts people about power under a big blue sky. Jesus transfigures on a mountaintop.
He rides a donkey along a dusty road. He bleeds outside. He dies outside, he walks out of a tomb into a garden, squinting at Sunday's bright sunlight. Then think about all the natural metaphors Jesus uses to inspire. Salt and light, the birds of the air, the lilies of the field, a log in an eye, a fish and a snake, grapes on a vine, a tree with good fruit, I will keep going.
The rains that fall on the sand, the wind and the storm, seeds and weeds and lost sheep and a fig tree and everything that dies and resurrection. You can't turn a page of the gospels without noticing that Jesus was inspired by the world. Sometimes, we come to church to be told to do something differently, to think a different way, to love a different way, to worship a different way. But today, what I wanna tell you is something you, Commons Church, already know. You all have taught me more about this than anyone.
We learn the ways of God by noticing and meditating on earthly things. And everything about we notice, our awe, the vastness of the universe, the loveliness of what is simple, all of that is the gift that you receive, and it is something of the gift that you have to give. You birders, you gardeners, you hikers, you cyclists, you marathoners, you walk down the street for ice cream ers, that's more my speed. You nature lovers you. Mary Oliver, she is your patron saint because she, like you, loves the world.
She spoke about it truthfully, and she gave her words as a gift. She never separated God from all that God has made. So here's the thing though. I do believe we need more than the great outdoors. We need to find the words for life in all its beauty, but also in its brutality.
And we're at our best when we're doing that like poets. I do wanna give the last word to Mary Oliver today, but before I do that, I urge you to stretch your poetic sensibilities this summer and beyond. Poetry will work your brain, it will expand your heart, it will frustrate you, it will help you pay close attention. Poetry will put words to your feelings, it will make you wiser, it will spin you around in circles, it will inspire you. Why should you care about poetry?
Because Mary Oliver says poetry is a life cherishing force. What's more theological than that? So read a poem a day for a month. Better yet, read a poem a day for a year. See what that does to you.
Read Mary Oliver because she is so accessible. Branch out and read Ross Gay, Billy Collins, Ada Limon. Read the classic. Read Shakespeare's sonnets even if you don't understand them. Read the Sufi poet Rumi.
Read Emily Dickinson if you dare. Read a collection of poems and find a few that you like. Padreig Ottumma's Poetry Unbound is a great place to start. Read poems, people. Read them out loud.
Whisper them to yourself when you're lonely. Share them with friends. And maybe, just maybe, there is a poem or two in you waiting to be written down. So we finish with Mary Oliver's poem, The Summer Day. Who made the world?
Who
Speaker 1: made
Speaker 2: the swan and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean. The one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand, who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down, who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes. Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open and flies away. I don't know exactly what prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day. Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn't everything die at last and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? Let us pray. Loving God, thank you for the gift of Mary Oliver, the way she took on the world and loved it. Through her, I think we can love it a little more too. For the ways that we haven't paid attention to trees and birds and seasons, to siblings and children and friends, we are sorry.
It's pretty hard to love what we don't notice in detail. For the ways we've forgotten that the temple has no walls, it has no ceiling, has no curtains, help us to trust that the goodness of God can be reaching up to us from surprising places. For our own one wild and precious life, without heaviness or guilt, we ask for inspiration and creativity and joy in living the lives, God, that you've actually given us to live. And for those in need today, we pray. Spirit of the living God, present with us now, enter the places of our hurt, our lethargy, our grief, and heal us of all that harms us.
Amen.