All Saints’ Day 2018: The Bellybutton of the Galaxy

In the year 2002, a young blue star
at the center of our galaxy, the Milky Way,
made a sharp and unexpected turn.

That star was among a group of stars moving so fast
only something massive
could have changed its orbit.
How fast was it moving?
One-third the speed of light.
How fast is that?
Well, the Earth moves at about 43,000 mph
and the speed of light is over 670,000,000 mph.
So that little blue star
was moving at about 225,000,000 mph,
give or take a few million.

What has the sheer gravitational force
to coerce a star moving that fast,
to abruptly change course?
Turns out, because it is speed and mass,
we can figure that out with computers.

It is a black hole:
a monstrously powerful black hole –
and it is the bellybutton of our galaxy.

How powerful is this black hole?
Don’t ask me how they know this,
but the black hole at the center of the Milky Way
has already swallowed four million suns
and condensed all of it into a tiny space.

Now there are between 200 and 400 BILLION stars
and other stuff floating around in the galaxy,
so swallowing 4 million stars is a very small beginning.

But digesting 4 million stars
gives that black hole enough gravitational pull
to bend the orbit of a star
hurling through space at 225,000,000 mph.

All this came from a NYT article titled,
“Trolling the Monster in the Heart of the Milky Way.”

I understand very little of astrophysics but I love to read about it,
just like I love to look into the night sky
and wonder.
What is clear though,
is that there is a hungry black hole
hiding behind space dust and stars we call Sagittarius.
One day the Earth, or remnants of it,
will get swallowed up too.

If the fact that Earth will someday disappear
renders human life meaningless to us,
it is because we have pulled
a gelatinous mask of ego
over our eyes
and are unable to see
beyond our own feelings.

When existence gets boiled down
to being all about us, then
hope and meaning
are soon swallowed up
by the black hole of ego.

But if instead, we can lift our heads
and our hearts
above death, grief, and sorrow
then we can touch hope
and reach out and grab meaning.
That is what Isaiah did.
He imagined God
preparing a gourmet feast for us
on the holy mountain.
Isaiah somehow touched hope
as he looked at the apocalypse
and destruction around him,
in which the ancient empires smashed into one another
in war on every side like comets in space.

My suspicion is that he was able to do that
because he was able to rise up
above his own grief,
and peer out over the field of current suffering
and make out the images of life
that would return in the future.

In other words, like an ever-widening camera lens,
he enlarged his field of vision,
moving outward in concentric circles
until he could behold a vision beyond
his own self-interest…
behold a vision beyond his own self-interest.

When he did that,
he was able to imagine how the present moment
could be redeemed, and how new life
could grow in places it never grew before.
Isaiah was a master at it –
able to name meaning
and touch hope even while standing in dark times
with those otherwise
broken by despair.

It was not wishful thinking or fantasy either,
but poetic imagination
that opened up the dark hole of the moment
to explore the possibilities
of what might, and could happen.

It is comical how, not so many years ago,
if you thought there could be life on other planets
out there in the universe,
you were considered a crackpot.

Now there are teams of highly trained scientists
looking and listening for it –
imagining and theorizing which sectors
of the vast expanse
might be looking back at us.

As our telescopes and computer models improved
they widened our perspective
and now the discovery of other life out there
seems an inevitability rather than a laughable eccentricity.

So Christian faith must move from human beings
as the center of the universe
and the apple of God’s eye,
to something smaller
and something more a part
of something bigger
than ourselves.

Meaning and hope reside,
not in how you and I are feeling about
what is happening in our own lives,
but in a bigger picture.
Imagining what that bigger picture is,
is an act of stewardship.

Oh, now you knew I was going to go there, didn’t you?

Fear not,
I have never directly asked for money or pledges
in a sermon (at least that I can remember) –
and try to avoid it in worship altogether.

But we do have some lovely charts
and a nice story to share
with our pie today.

While we will talk about the role of money
in determining our future,
we won’t be asking you for a pledge today.

Stewardship is not about money.
Money is a toolof stewardship, not stewardship.

Stewardship
is the word that describes
the quality of our foster care
for that which has been given to us
to care for and nurture.
Stewardship is ourrelationship
to the matrix of life and resources
we value and use,
but do not own.
The Earth of course;
our children, nieces and nephews, grandchildren;
our neighborhood, town, city, and land;
our wealth and power,
if indeed we do believe that we do not really own
such things, but have use of them
to further the work of God’s love.
That is a big “if.”

Meaning and hope
are the core elements of life and faith,
and we have been made stewards of them
by virtue of our baptisms.

Let me repeat that please,
because it is about as important a declaration
as anything I have ever declared.

Meaning and hope
are the core elements of life and faith, and
we have been made stewards of them
by virtue of our baptisms.

Meaning and hope
are not fostered or nurtured
by how we happen to be feeling about the world around us,
they are cared for by what we DO.

So allow me to remind us
of what we have promised to do
as stewards of Meaning and Hope.

There are many more eloquent ways to describe it
but the language of our baptismal covenant
is utilitarian and specific, so I will use it.

Here is what we say we will DO
in order to be good stewards of Meaning and Hope:

1. Continue sharing our ancient spiritual wisdom.
2. Continue sharing community, communion, and prayers with one another.
3. Persevere in resisting evil, which includes the acknowledgement and repentance of our own.
4. Pointing to and sharing the presence of God in our midst, including where we discover it in the Gospel.
5. Seek God in all people.
6. Serve God in all people.
7. Love our neighbors.
8. Love ourselves.
9. Be activists for justice and peace.
10. Be respectful of the dignity of every human being.

I am going to repeat those again too.
They do not need any real explanation
because we all know how to do each one,
and we have all done each one
with varying degrees of success.
We have all neglected each on too,
with varying degrees of denial.

Here they are again:

1. Continue sharing our ancient spiritual wisdom.
2. Continue sharing community, communion, and prayers with one another.
3. Persevere in resisting evil, which includes the acknowledgement and repentance of our own.
4. Pointing to and sharing the presence of God in our midst, including where we discover it in the Gospel.
5. Seek God in all people.
6. Serve God in all people.
7. Love our neighbors.
8. Love ourselves.
9. Be activists for justice and peace.
10. Be respectful of the dignity of every human being.

If we do those things,
even some of those things,
and we do them on a regular basis
to the best of our abilities,
then we will be good stewards of Meaning and Hope.

Doing those things
allows us to widen the lens
upon which we see life,
and move out beyond our own ego-driven
excitement or despair.
Meaning and Hopewill never be discovered
in the range of human emotions
that react like electricity
to the events all around us.
They are uncovered and touched
when we move outside ourselves,
to the outer rings of perspective
where desire and grief
or pleasure and pain
are but some of the millions of molecules
in the atmosphere.
You and I, as Christians,
as baptized people of faith,
are the stewards of Meaning and Hope.

By doing those things
we say we are going to do
in the Baptismal Covenant, we enhance
our relationship to Meaning and Hope
and we become its stewards.

So now we know what this place is, Trinity Place –
Trinity Church.
It is not programs.
It is not outreach.
It is not worship.
It is not classes.
It is not food and fellowship.
Those are tools.
It is a place from which you and I
get the perspective we need
to be better stewards of Meaning and Hope
so that we can share it
among those with whom we live, and work, and play.
Whatever activities or programs we do here
is spice and gravy
on top of the real meat and potatoes,
which is what we do ‘out there’
in our daily, routine, and ordinary lives.

The power of Trinity Place
is what it fosters for those of us who come here,
so that we are empowered to go into our lives
with strength and renewal
to practice the elements of our baptismal covenant.
We are supposed to get strength,
and courage,
and wisdom,
and nurture here
so that we can go out there
and do what it is we have been given to do.

The things we do here
should also strengthen and renew us
for our lives, which after all
we live in fullness ‘out there.’

So I am hoping
that we can affirm this place,
and one another,
as a powerful resource for our stewardship
of Meaning and Hope –
our stewardship of naming meaning
and touching hope.

They may sound like big ideas
that live in the clouds above our heads,
but the ability to name Meaning
and touch Hope
is the difference
between God and a black hole.

Can I get an “Amen?”