Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, August 19, 2018, "Praying for Wisdom"

B Proper 15 20 Ord 2018

I Kings 3:5-12

August 19, 2018

          It was the first time they had been together as a family in three years.   Craig and Amy knew the groom in college.  Jennifer and Mason had graduated from high school with the bride.  Though Craig did not participate in the conversation, the topic of conversation centered around their sister, Amy, who couldn’t make it to the wedding and would be late getting to the reception.  Amy had recently joined a remote Hutterite community just outside of Cut Bank and was engaged to one of the elders in the church.  Jennifer and Mason couldn’t help poking a little fun at their older sister, even in her absence, wondering how many farmhands she had to give birth to before they would let her speak at a church meeting.  Or whether Hutterites wore Birkenstocks and whether Amy would have to sell her collection.

          Craig politely laughed at the musings of his brother and sister, as if they were a distant conversation he could barely overhear.  He was on slow stew.  Not that he expected his sister to check with him for her every decision, but this just made absolutely no sense.  He and Amy had been inseparable for so long.  There was a time when they wouldn’t even go on a first date without getting approval from the other sibling.  Craig’s wife, Deanna, had been on Amy’s volleyball team and Amy had introduced Deanna to Craig.  Craig was the only one who believed Amy could make it through graduate school.  Craig had been there all those sleepless nights when Amy had lost her daughter, fixing tea, reading her good books, turning off any sappy music.  He was the one Amy could call at all hours in the night, the older brother who was her protector, her defender, her safe harbor amidst any storm.

          So what was this, Craig thought.  Amy had just dropped off the earth for two years.  And with two kids and his job in full swing, Craig never really thought to call until Jennifer, his youngest sister, called him to say that Amy had gone off the deep end and gotten married to some Amish guy outside of Glacier.  Well, they weren’t married, they were engaged and it was Hutterite not Amish.  But Craig was mad that Amy hadn’t even told him.  Must have been pretty ashamed that she wouldn’t even call.  Craig was mad that she might think anything was beyond the pale, mad that Amy might be unwilling to call because she was ashamed.  She knew better.  She knew better.

          When Amy arrived, Mason and Jennifer were ready.  Amy knew it was coming.  Jennifer started, “Where did you get that wonderful bun hairstyle?  Do tell, who is your hairdresser?”  Amy laughed and turned her head to each side, “Doncha’ love it, no muss, no fuss.  All the girls in Cut Bank just have to have one.”  Mason continued, “I wondered when those long skirts were going to come back into style.”  Amy curtsied before she took her seat and shot back at Mason, dismissing him with a smile and wave, “You’ve always had such a fascination with women’s clothing, Mase.”  Jennifer and Mason smiled with her. 

Craig did not intend to be so funny.  “So where’s your new collar and leash?”

          Amy ignored the comment and sat, “So, hey guys!  Did I miss all the good appetizers?”  The conversation continued with Amy asking about Mason’s kids and Jennifer’s new job and boyfriend.  Craig continued to throw nasty little barbs Amy’s way, sometimes stopping the conversation, sometimes even leading Mason and Jennifer to stare down Craig.  Jennifer tried to lighten the conversation several times, sure that Amy was beginning to tear up as Craig’s little quips cut closer and closer to the heart.  Both Craig and Amy avoided eye contact with each other.

          Just after the dancing started, Mason and Jennifer left to see if they could see how the new bride was doing.  Craig finally looked up at Amy and shook his head.  “What, Craig?  Is there something else you want to say?  Or is it easier to take potshots without talking?”

          Craig shook his head again and looked away.  “You are just a shame.  Why would you think we even want you as a sister anymore?  You finally pulled off your stupidest stunt.”

          There it was.  Right to the heart.  And Amy’s tears began to flow.  She turned away hoping she could stem the tide, but it was no use.  She left the table.  Jennifer and Mason returned surprised not to see Amy.  “Where did Amy go?” Mason asked.  Craig shrugged his shoulders.  Jennifer could tell that Craig had done something.  “You butthead.  What did you say to her?  I swear, Craig, you can be a horse’s patoot sometimes.  This is Amy.  She cares more about you than anybody else in the world.  She adores you.  If you throw that away . . . “  Craig was ignoring Jennifer.  “Oooooooh, Craig, get up and go find Amy.”

          A little surprised by Jennifer’s emotion, Craig got up from the table and began looking around the hotel for his sister.  It wasn’t long before he found Amy.  She was in a small room, just off the front desk, turned away from the door, and sitting on an ottoman.  Craig sat down in the chair next to the ottoman, still pretty mad, not sorry that his sister was in tears. 

          “Jennifer sent me to find you.” Craig said, plainly.

          “Can you feel the love?” Amy said, choking back her tears.

          “The love?  The love?  I didn’t drop off the face of the earth two years and then show up as some conservative, Bible-beating, bun wearing woman who goes against everything she believes in.”

          Now Amy was more angry than sad.  “You haven’t taken the time to know what I believe in, Craig.  And you could have picked up the phone and called too.  I love you, Craig.  But I have to grow up too.  I have to grow up too.”

          “How is this growing up, Amy?  All this is, is letting other people run your life.  Now this guy will decide how you go in and how you go out.  This church tells you what to believe.” 

          “How do you know all this, Craig?  How do you know all this?  You don’t know a darn thing.”

          “I don’t know a darned thing, Amy?  Where is the radical Amy?  Where is the Amy who searched and thought?”  Craig moved his face in a sneer right beside Amy as he spit out his words, “Where is the strong sister I once had?  What would Abigail think if she were still alive to see her mother?” 

          “How dare you, Craig!  How dare you talk about Abigail!  You know the last thing Abigail wanted before she died?  Do you?  She wanted a video game, Craig!  A video game was more imprinted on her brain, ran through her blood, was in her skin more than her own mother.  She didn’t want me!  She wanted a video game, Craig!  A video game! 

“Yes, you were there for me when Abigail died.  But this community has been there for me too.  When I could no longer pray, they prayed for me.  When I could no longer hope or trust, this community hoped for me.  When I could no longer look at the world, they looked at it for me so that I could see the beauty once again, the life once again, the fire once again.[1]  They loved my way through the dark.”

            “Remember the two things you gave to me on that day in college, when you told me the one thing you always have to do is to discern your path?  You gave me that quote from story from Rumi, do you remember it?”  

            Craig mouthed the words to the story as Amy told it, “‘A certain person came to the Friend's door and knocked.  

            "Who's there?"

            "It's me." The Friend answered, "Go away.  There's no place for raw meat at this table."  

            ‘The individual went wandering for a year.  Nothing but the fire of separation can change hypocrisy and ego.  The person returned completely cooked, walked up and down in front of the Friend's house, gently knocked.  

            "Who is it?"  

            "You." 

            "Please come in, my Self.  There's no place in this house for two.’"[2]

            And it was you that read me that Scripture verse where Solomon prays to God for discernment, for wisdom.  I’m working on those things, Craig.  I’m trying to find the heart of God, burning for it, trying to be well-cooked.”

Even though Craig remembered, he was unmoved. “Apparently the heart of God looks a lot like what Donald Trump wants for you.”

          “Right, Craig.  I dare say, whose life looks more like Donald Trump’s life?  How many cars do you have, Craig?  Where did you take your last vacation, was it the coast of Florida?  When we need something we go with the whole community on one van.  How many of your neighbors do you know?  I know my whole community by its first and last names.  I know all the children in my community by name.  I know all the people who need help getting to church by name.  Maybe people like Donald Trump because he doesn’t pretend to be something he is not, he isn’t a hypocrite.”

“Oh, come on,” Craig interjected.

Amy shrugged.  “I’m just saying.  But it’s not about Donald Trump, Craig.  We live simply, eat simply, touch the earth simply.”

Craig interjected. “Think simply.”

          “Maybe so, Craig, maybe so but do you remember when you had all those sit-ins on campus to protest the university’s investment in fossil fuels or pipelines?  How you regularly protested climate change?  You were on fire.  All I wanted to be was like you, to have that fire.  You talked quite a bit about the Heart of God then.  You were the one who read to me from St. Catherine of Genoa, Julian of Norwich, St. John of the Cross, Therese of Lisieux and told me that they searched so fervently after the Heart of the God that their lives turned on the dime.  They were on fire.  They craved that wisdom, that discernment every day of their lives.  Like you did, Craig.  Like you did.  All I wanted was to be like you, Craig.  My life has turned on the dime and I feel, for the first time, like I’m on fire, like I’m free.”

          Craig’s tone softened.  “You’re using a lot of past tense to talk about me being on fire.”

          “My life is not your life, Craig.  You have to discern your own path.  You are my dear, sweet brother who has spent most of the evening making me cry.  We don’t use these words in the community, but . . . you bastard.”

          “How are you free, Amy?  Aren’t you giving all that freedom away?”

          Amy reached up and held the side of Craig’s face in her palm, tears still rolling down her cheeks.  “My life is not your life, Craig.  The boundaries I choose in the community help me to be free.  Who do you see at the forefront of all these social justice movements?  Priests and nuns who are free.  They are able to turn on a dime.  You put them in jail, they don’t have any family depending on them.  They chose those community boundaries and they are free.”

          “So I’m not free, Amy?  I don’t have the fire?”

          Amy shook her head.  “Craig, please don’t make me spell all this out.  Don’t make me differentiate between you and me.  I’m just learning.  I’m just a little pup on the path.   I’m loving my way through the dark.  But my heart is on fire, Craig.  I’m just trying to pray the Solomon prayer every day of my life.  ‘God, give me the wisdom for today, to know the path for today.’  But I don’t have it all figured out.  I want to do this with your blessing.”

          “I can’t give that to you, Amy.  I just can’t.  My blessing.  I just feel like you are turning your back on everything we had together as family, as brother and sister.”

          Amy once again began to cry.  And Craig turned his back on Amy and left the room.  Once again, Amy prayed for wisdom, to find the path in front of her.  Amen.

---

[1] Wendy Farley, The Wounding and Healing of Desire:  Weaving Heaven and Earth (Louisville, Kentucky:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2005), p. 137.

[2]The Enlightened Mind, An Anthology of Sacred Prose, edited by Stephen Mitchell.  Harper Collins, 1991, quoting Jelaluddin Rumi (1207-1273), founder of the Whirling Dervishes.