Texts: Galatians 6:11-18; “My Work Is Loving the World,” by Mary Oliver
Speaker: Joel Miller
Mary Oliver wrote that her work is loving the world. I think she meant it. What this looked like for her was listening and watching and putting her observations, and wonderings, and longings into poetry – , writing and rewriting, teaching others to do the same. Her summary of what she saw herself doing when she did all this appears to be this: “My work is loving the world.”
In another poem she wrote “There is only one question: How to love this world.” She slips that right in the middle of considering a black bear, fresh from sleep, coming down a mountain – breathing, and tasting, and sharpening its claws on a silent tree. She imagines this being as some kind of embodiment of perfect love. Which prompts this proposal: “There is only one question: How to love this world.”
I came across these poems about half way into the Sabbatical that wrapped up Monday.
Now I assure you, I did not spend all 13 weeks sitting around reading Mary Oliver poetry. There were, in fact, several weeks where I read hardly anything, including headlines. Those were pretty good weeks. But I’m glad the poetry was there when I reached for it. And I’m glad Mary Oliver included these lines among the hundreds and thousands she wrote.
Because as long as I’ve had to figure it out, and as clear as I’d like to think I am on those big questions of life purpose and all that, I can still get disoriented about what it is we’re doing. What are we doing? I have a lot of questions. Maybe you do too. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was one question big enough to contain all the other questions? Maybe it’s this one: How to love this world.
I know you’ve been talking about the fruits of the Spirit all summer. I saw where you ended that series last week with love, which as a fruit, Bethany suggested in the sermon, is like the fig in fig newtons, holding it all together.
So I apologize for bringing up love… again. Pardon the redundancy. Consider this me just trying to catch up.
One of the gifts of a Sabbatical is actually being temporarily released from loving the world in the particular way one has otherwise committed to. Imagine that – permission to rest from the daily labors of love, knowing that others have committed to step up their labors to make this possible. For this, I’m grateful.
An immediate effect of such a thing is being freed up to love parts of the world one may not get around to loving were the rush of life to just keep rushing.
What I wish this could always look like is something like what happened on our family’s first day in Switzerland, back in June. After a week of seeing the sites in Rome, we took a train to Zurich, rented a car, and headed toward the more rural middle of the country called the Emmental. This is the region where many of my ancestors through my mom’s side come from, and where groups of Swiss Anabaptists lived for multiple generations after being chased out of the urban areas in the 16th century. For me, it was a little pilgrimage. We would be staying with a host family for two days, while getting a guided tour. So that’s where we’re headed, to our host family.
After getting off the highway, the roads were so winding and hilly, I have no idea how we would have gotten there pre-GPS. Most of the time if just felt like we were driving through someone’s pasture. But the tech directed us all the way, as it does, arriving in front of a postcard-perfect Swiss chalet farmhouse on a steep hill, lush sloping fields all around, the smell of fresh cut hay, and Yes, cows with bells around their necks, every one, gently ringing as they grazed. Things must have gotten really bad for the ancestors to leave this. I got out of the car, walked up to the old wooden front door and gave it a good knock. A few seconds later, a cheery Swiss woman threw open the sashes of the second floor window, leaned over and gave a hearty “Hello.” As if this wasn’t enough, the sashes next to her opened up, with two wide-eyed young children peering out.
Whether it’s Mary Oliver’s black bear descending the mountain, or a Swiss welcome party at the top of the green hill, sometimes the world presents itself as perfect love, and the work of loving the world back is as effortless as walking through an open door.
Now, it turned out this actually wasn’t the right house, so we did not walk through that door. But we were very close. That woman was friends with our host family who lived on the other side of the road. And our actual hosts were just as welcoming.
Sometimes even a wrong turn just makes the world larger and more interesting.
If you’ve been studying the fruits of the Spirit, then you’ve been reading from Galatians. And if you’ve been reading from Galatians, you’ve been reading a letter from the Apostle Paul. And if you read the Apostle Paul you will soon encounter references to “the world” in ways that don’t exactly line up with that which is beautiful and lovely.
One of the more challenging aspects of Paul is the way he makes sharp distinctions between the Spirit and the flesh, the kingdom of God and “the world.” So much so, that one could easily follow a line of thought that has Paul devaluing anything that has to do with the world we can see and touch – the human body, the earthy natural world of pasture and cattle – the world our great poets help us pay attention to in all its ordinary splendor…One could easily read that Paul is pointing us away from all that toward the more exulted, invisible, spiritual reality – the only thing that truly matters.
The closing section of his letter to the Galatians – soon after naming the fruits of the Spirit – is a good example of this language.
That part starts with chapter 6, Verse 11: “See what large letters I make when I am writing in my own hand.” As an aside, it was common practice in the ancient world for the letter-writer to compose the letter by speaking the words aloud to a scribe, who would do the actual writing. The author would then end the letter by writing something themselves. It’s kind of like when you get a Christmas letter in the mail with the family update for the year typed out, and then at the bottom your friend writes a few sentences in pen to just you. “Hey, it was good to see you back in June. Hope you’re doing well. Love…..” It’s an unmediated message from them to you.
That’s what’s happening here at the end of the letter to the Galatians. There’s a handwriting font size change, which Paul acknowledges: “See what large letters I make with my own hand.”
Within these closing, more personal words he includes this: “May I never boast of anything except the cross of Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. For neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything; but a new creation is everything.” (6:14-15)
So there we have it again. “The world.”
I feel no need to be a defender of Paul, but I do want to stay curious about what his words meant to these little upstart Christ communities in the ancient Roman world who received his letters. Not just how they appear to us, across all this distance of time and culture.
Fortunately, contemporary scholars have a pretty broad consensus on what Paul was getting at when he refers to “the world.” Rather than “Visible Creation,” as we might hear it, or “Embodied Existence,” it would be more accurate to substitute phrases like “The Prevailing System” or the “Dominant Culture” or, if you really want to go for broke and bring it into the 21st century, “The Hetero-Normative, Patriarchal, Racialized, Consumerism-Obsessed, Violence-Based, Ego-Centric, Eco-cidal, Domination System coming for you and your children.” Something like that. In other words, the powers at work all around us that are contrary to Christ. The ones these Galatians experienced on a daily basis within the Roman Empire. Paul calls it “the world.” Maybe we could just call it “the system.”
Our work is loving the world. There is only one question: How to love within this system?
For Paul, this is a matter of life and death. It called for a kind of death in order to experience life. For this, Paul sees the cross as the ultimate symbol of transformation. “May I never boast of anything except the cross of Jesus Christ, by which the system has been crucified to me, and I to the system. For neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything; but a renewed creation is everything.”
Paul writes this with own hand, in big letters. God is remaking the world, a new creation, and God is looking for partners in loving the world. But first there’s a death to undergo, to the system, and there’s a resurrection to receive. This is why those early Anabaptists were convinced it was decision-making adults and not newborn babies who needed baptism. Baptism’s first vow is a pledge to renounce the ways of the system. Baptism’s embodied act is going under the water in death, rising into new life. Our baptismal identity makes us a conscious participant in the new creation.
So I did look at some headlines after those few weeks. Read some articles. And I’ve concluded that the system has not gone away. And I have some questions and uncertainties. And I came across a poem that proposes a question to live with: How to love this world.
In light of all this, let’s imagine this picture in Galatians: The deepest wellspring of reality – which we can call Spirit, or God, or Love – blossoming into concrete existence in this world, as these fruits – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Our work is intermingled with the work of the Spirit. It’s the dying and the rising. It’s sinking our roots into the wellspring, joining the fruitful ecology of the new creation.
I’m happy to be part of this congregation and whatever ecological niche it is we might fill in the months and years to come. To only slightly paraphrase Paul’s very final words to the Galatians: “May the grace and overflowing love of our Ancestor and Guide Jesus Christ be with your spirit, sisters and brothers. Amen.”