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The Rev. Brian C. TaylorDuring this time of year you can’t see the constellation Canis Major, or Big Dog, because it rises after and sets before the sun. Ancient people thought that since the constellation moved with the sun in this season, it added to the heat of the day, and that’s why it was so hot. And so for hundreds of years, this season has been known as the Dog Days. According to the 1552 Book of Common Prayer – I’m not making this up – the Dog Days began on July 8 and ended on the 4th of September.
There’s another meaning I associate with the Dog Days of summer. It seems that every year about this time I start feeling like an old hound lying in the road in Mississippi. Lazy, indifferent, unable to find the motivation even to bark after a passing car.
But summer isn’t the only time when this feeling comes over us. From time to time we just go through the motions, on a treadmill. Like a mule with blinders on, all we can do is put one step in front of another, grinding the grain; then around we go again, day after day, grinding the grain. I think it is a natural thing to feel this way sometimes, as long as isn’t a permanent state of mind.
So we come here today and nearly the first thing we hear is the Collect for the Day: Grant that we may so pass through things temporal that we lose not the things eternal. Hmmm…I’m afraid that quite often - not just in the Dog Days - I’m passing through temporal things in such a way that I do lose eternal things. It’s easy to get so dulled by routine, so caught up in the miniature concerns of everyday life, that we lose sight of the majestic grandeur and purpose of it all.
Now I preach on this subject occasionally because part of my role as a priest is to remind us all of things eternal. Priests stand at the altar and, with you, sing Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might; heaven and earth are full of your glory! Hosanna in the highest! Hearing the transcendent Word, we get off the treadmill and remember big themes, high meaning. Celebrating the sacraments, together we break open the sky. We rouse ourselves from the Dog Days, stand up and howl at the moon!
Our readings from scripture today have this effect. Elijah the prophet and his protégé Elisha make their way from Gilgal to Bethel, Jericho, and the Jordan River. Elisha insists on accompanying his master the whole way, because, as he acknowledges to their fellow prophets at every stop, the Lord is about to take Elijah away.
Elisha asks for a double share of Elijah’s spirit, and the old man says he will get it only if he is able to see his ascension. This is curious. Apparently not everyone could see the chariots and horses made of fire, the whirlwind. But Elisha could. With the eyes of faith, he saw the majesty of the Lord revealed. The sky broke open.
In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, he lifts their vision from the humdrum concerns of everyday congregational work and human conflict, helping them see themselves as the very Body of Christ. Their differences aren’t a bad thing, he says, but distinctive gifts given by God so that the whole Body could be built up into maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.
It’s good to recall this vision now and then in the church. We quarrel over sex, we fret over raising money, we disagree about how we should worship. We go through the motions of God’s work like a busy little religious club. Paul reminds us to lift up our eyes to the grand purpose of our calling. For we are doing nothing less than building up the very Body of Christ here on earth, so that he might live through us in our time and place, right here, right now.
Then there is the gospel. Those poor, blind disciples. The text says that their hearts were hardened, that they did not understand Jesus’ miraculous feeding of the 5,000, which we heard about last Sunday. Why? Perhaps they were too worried about crowd control: Lord, it is late, and they’re hungry; send them away! And so they couldn’t see the miracle right there in their midst, as Jesus fed them all.
Later that night, out on the lake, when Jesus came casually sauntering by their boat, walking on the water during a storm – I just love that; what was he doing out there? - they didn’t recognize him; they thought it was a ghost. They couldn’t see the power of God reigning over nature itself. Why? They were too busy straining at the oars on a windy night, just trying to get home.
It’s all about seeing and not seeing. Seeing the eternal even as we pass through things temporal. Seeing the chariots of fire. Seeing our community as the living, breathing, Body of Christ. Not seeing the presence and power of God among us, feeding, nurturing, prevailing over all creation.
The sky is impossibly blue with puffy white clouds. Do you see it? Seeds fall to the earth, bees spread pollen, little sprouts turn into massive shady trees. Your body is a miracle, a harmoniously integrated machine of unimaginable complexity. The face in the mirror, the person next to you is an infinite potential of love, beauty, and imagination. And the Spirit of God Almighty dwells within and among us, guiding, comforting, and connecting us all together.
Do you have eyes to see all this? I’d guess that on some days you do and some days you don’t. Some days you’re Elisha, gazing up at the chariots of fire, and some days you’re like those unimaginative, hard-hearted disciples, straining at the oars against an adverse wind. Grant that we may so pass through things temporal that we lose not the things eternal.
Well, as usual, I’m just as interested in how we respond to our call as the call itself. So how do we see with the eyes of faith and wonder?
It doesn’t happen by wishing that God would give us spiritual sight. It happens because we look for it regularly. We become what we choose to see. Beleiving is seeing. This is not to say that if we strain to see the beauty and wonder of life, we’ll see it there and then. Usually when the sky is torn open, it comes as a surprise. But here is the key. These moments of surprise will not come if we don’t put in some time seeking, trying to see with night vision, exercising our imagination, peeking around the corners of the ordinary. The former Archbishop of Canterbury Michael Ramsey said something along the lines of I don’t know if miracles happen as a direct result of prayer, but I do know that when I stop praying, coincidences stop, too.
And so we put ourselves in circumstances where God might come down in a chariot of fire, where Jesus might saunter by on the surface of the water. I open my Daily Office book and labor through the psalms; I stop my momentum now and then and just sit there, eyes closed, breathing; we watch movies with stories that lift us up and make us wonder; we go to beautiful places where there’s nothing much to do. And I come here to encounter the Word, the community, the sacraments. I put in my time, often feeling as if nothing is happening.
Then, when I’m not looking, when I’m not even trying, something unexpectedly shifts and life is big again. This only happens because I’ve laid the groundwork. It’s like exercise or eating well. If we take care of ourselves, we may not experience the benefits in the moment, but we will over time. One day we turn around and notice that we’re feeling stronger and more alive.
Grant that we may so pass through things temporal that we lose not the things eternal. That is, grant that we may live in this ordinary world in such a way so that we don’t lose sight of the extraordinary. Some of this is God’s doing: the unexpected moments of grace, which we can not and should not try to manufacture. But much of it is our doing, too, in the work of preparation.
So we prepare in faith, believing that even though we cannot see or feel God’s kingdom at all times, it is always there. It’s like the constellation Canis Major, hidden in plain view during these Dog Days. Behind the ordinary light of the sun, there is a whole sky full of constellations that we just can’t see. Slogging through our days, our little concerns can block out the wondrous and divine nature of life that is always there. And so the kingdom of God remains concealed, but in our very midst.
Do you want to see with the eyes of faith? Then prepare yourself every day. Do whatever you need to do to make yourself spiritually available. Put in some time. Then relax and trust that the skies will open now and then, and that you will be able to see what is hidden in plain view.
End Document — St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church