Isaiah 40:21-31, 1 Corinthians 9:16-23, Mark 1:29-39
John Donne, poet and clergyman, wrote these words in 1624 (Meditation XVII from Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions ): “The church is catholic, universal, so are all her actions; all that she does belongs to all. When she baptizes a child, that action concerns me; for that child is thereby connected to that head which is my head too, and ingrafted into the body whereof I am a member. And when she buries a man, that action concerns me: all mankind is of one author and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated. God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God’s hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another. As therefore the bell that rings a sermon calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come, so this bell calls us all…No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main…Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee” (http://isu.indstate.edu/ilnprof/ENG451/ISLAND.meditation.html). So eloquent – so much we can learn from these words written almost 400 years ago. We are dependent on God. “No man is an island, entire of itself…all mankind is of one author...God’s hand is in every translation.”
Donne speaks about how a man’s death diminishes me. We are all connected one to another. When a life is lost, we are changed – a part of who we are and how we live is gone – and thus, how we live is changed, who we are is changed. We are all part of God’s Creation, necessarily connected to one another – when a life is lost, the whole is changed. And, every life lived changes who we are. Donne speaks about how a baptism changes who we are, because now there is a new member of our corporate body. And, that new member necessarily changes us – those we interact with shape our day, shape our perspectives, shape who we are and how we live. Consider a loved one in your life. Consider who you were before you knew this person and who you are now. This person has necessarily shaped your life. How you think, and how you feel, and how you structure your day is somehow shaped by this person in your life. And, people we only know of through others, through stories related by friends and acquaintances, through stories read in books, and newspapers and magazines, through stories heard on the news, these people’s stories shape our perspectives and ultimately, our actions. Arguably, even those we have never heard of are shaping our lives because they are interacting with someone, and eventually the interaction returns home – we are all connected – we are children of one God, of one Creation.
And, so, we are dependent on God. Because, who we are, our being, is shaped by all of God’s children. “No man is an island, entire of itself…all mankind is of one author...God’s hand is in every translation.” Consider how dependent you are on the ones you love. You desire to be with them, you need them, you know you are something different without them, that knowing is the pain of loss. That desire to be with the ones we love teaches us everything about our relationship with God. God desires us – corporately as a whole Creation – and individually. And, turning our backs on God is loss. For just as every member of Creation shapes us, becomes part of who we are, the ultimate expression of our need for one another, is our relationship with God. God makes us whole. We are not complete without God. We are dependent on God.
Listen once again to Isaiah’s expression of our dependence on God: “Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to live in; who brings princes to naught, and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing” (Isaiah 40:21-23). God is our Creator. We know it in our minds, but how do we know it in our hearts? How do we live each day knowing that all that we accomplish is not about us, but about God? How do we allow ourselves to be dependent on God?
I read a good book this past year entitled Here If You Need Me by Kate Braestrup (New York: Little, Brown & Co., 2007). Braestrup talks about the death of her husband, raising her children alone, and carrying out her ministry as a wilderness chaplain in Maine. She explores the emotions of loss and renewal. Braestrup talks a bit about her dog dying when she was eighteen years old and the grave on their property that she dug for her dog. She put rocks on the grave to keep animals from disturbing the remains. But, when she stepped back from her work, the pile of rocks looked oddly plain to her, so she began restacking the rocks hoping for a better result. She shares: “The new pile was somewhat more attractive than the first, but it still wasn’t quite fine enough. Again, I pulled down the cairn, again I recommenced my labors—all this, I might add, to honor a dog that in life had displayed no interest whatsoever in aesthetics. No matter. I built and rebuilt that pile at least six times. For a long as I was fussily gathering, placing, and judging stones, then casting them aside, I still had a dog. When I placed that last stone on the grave and walked away, my dogless life would commence. It was a moment I desperately wanted to postpone.” (p. 33) Braestrup recalls this time from her teenage years, and then offers wonderful insight about grieving, and about moving on. “Go ahead. Arrange and rearrange the stones on top of your beloved’s grave. Keep arranging those stones for as long as it hurts to do it, then stop, just before you really want to. Put the last stone on and walk away. Then light your candles to the living. Say your prayers for the living. Give your flowers to the living. Leave the stones where they are, but take your heart with you. Your heart is not a stone. True love demands that, like a bride with her bouquet, you toss your fragile glass heart into the waiting crowd of living hands and trust that they will catch it.” (p.196)
That is what we do, we lean on others, we allow ourselves to depend on others to pull us through. And, we depend on others for varied expertise and for carrying out the many different functions and activities of any community. We know that treasure of having people to depend on, and we give thanks. Our whole perspective on life is enriched by the fact there are other people to depend on. Being dependent on others doesn’t make us weak or irresponsible. Being able to depend on others makes our life more complete. And, being dependent on God completes us. God is our Creator, and our Redeemer, and our Sustainer. Knowing that all we have is from God does not make us less – the knowledge makes us more. Our understanding of life broadens and deepens. We give thanks and praise. Amen.
