The Far better thing we do

 

"Cruelty cannot stop the earth’s heart from beating" Evelyn Coleman

I do not make it a habit of pontificating from this column. Life is tough and divisive enough; I really want this space to be an oasis of safety and calm. I want it to be a ray of sunshine when things are gloomy, or a drop of oil when life gets squeaky. Anyone who reads my column can probably figure which way I lean in terms of politics and religion, although if we sat down and chatted over a cup of coffee or tea, I suspect there would be some surprises to be had on both fronts. 

I began writing these little “faith and value” columns in 2007 when the editor of the Madera Tribune (in California) asked me if I wouldn’t do something like that for his readers. I’d never had trouble expressing my faith and perspective to the folks in the churches I’d served, but I wasn’t sure how to approach the task of speaking to a wider, more diverse audience. I'm thankful that Suzanne and the Madisonian have allowed me to continue sharing these thoughts here.

I was (and am) an evangelical at heart, by which I mean one who shares good news. I am saddened by those who use the term evangelical to sell their religion or God. The heart of the Good News (as I see it) is this: God loves. Period. Full stop.

God loves creation; creation is diverse; God loves diversity. God loves humanity; God loves you (and me) in all our diversity and weirdness. Why? Because God loves. Period. Full stop.

My goal for these past seventeen years of writing columns on a weekly or biweekly basis has been to share some of the silly things I see and experience in life. They’re generally situations that teach me something about God and/or our lives together. 

I have a somewhat offbeat sense of humor that can be grating for some. I had one parishioner who particularly objected to either the sound of my voice or the content of my preaching – and yes, it bothered me, but do you know what? God loves her, just as God loves me. We are both part of that whacky family God put on earth to take care of one another, so we did, and we do.

So I share my thoughts and insights as best I can, keeping them relatively general, but applicable for the most part. One may find themselves changing their mind about something every now and then, but my goal isn’t to change minds, but to invite folks to join me as I turn over some of the rocks I stumble over, and explore, with fascination, some of the wildlife we see scurrying out from under those dark and damp places.

If there is a change I would like to see in the world, it isn’t for everyone to look, act, feel, and think like me, but for folks to simply be a little kinder and gentler when dealing with one another. None of us knows what another person is going through, so why not extend them a bit of grace, even if they’re behavior is weird?

The one place I do draw the line is with rudeness or cruelty. One can be having a terrible, no good, horrible day and still dance to the tune of their better angels. 

Abuse is a choice. Rude is a choice. Violence is a choice. Lying is a choice. Stealing is a choice. So are their counterparts. Compassion is a choice. Politeness is a choice. Peace is a choice. Truth-telling is a choice. Honesty is a choice.

Very few of us will ever have to make the ultimate sacrifice for things we truly believe in, but sometimes it is enough to just do the little things that make a difference for the world around us. Those little things add up. While I’m not in any hurry to get there, I want to go to my grave with that wonderful line from Charles Dickens: “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest I go to than I have ever known.”

The far better thing for me is love; God’s love. Peace; God’s peace. Kindness; God’s kindness. I truly thank you for joining me as we continue this journey together here in this, our valley.

Keith Axberg writes on matters concerning life and faith. Author of: Who the Blazes is Jesus? Good News for a Vulgar World (available through Amazon in Print and e-book)

To whom should we turn?

Proper 16, Year B Sermon: To whom should we turn?

Grant, O merciful God, that your Church, being gathered together in unity by your Holy Spirit, may show forth your power among all peoples, to the glory of your Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Joshua 24:1-2a,14-18 “As for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.”

Psalm 34:15-22 “The LORD is near the brokenhearted …”

Ephesians 6:10-20 “Put on the whole armor of God …”

John 6:56-69 “It is the Spirit that gives life.”

It’s good to be home. I know this isn’t our home parish (not officially, anyway), but for 40+ years, whenever Barb and I have come back to Federal Way to visit, this is where we’ve come to worship and, on occasion, celebrate the Holy Eucharist with you.

We’re living in Mount Vernon now, having retired and settled there some 7 years ago, and although she can’t be with us this morning, I was so pleased when Terry Elofson invited us to come and be with you this morning.

Episcopalians are called people of the Book. People of the Book. Sometimes I think we should be called people of the library, because it’s not unusual to see prayer books and hymnals and song books and books of alternative services and bibles in our pews. We can’t help it. 

Our is a tangible faith. Earthy. Touchy. The things we do as clergy are called Manual acts. Holding the Gospel as we process. Lifting the bread at the altar, and the alms, and the wine. We ring bells and in some places we add in the smells. We stand, sit, kneel. Our faith is triune: Spirit, Soul, AND Body.

Every place has the way it does things. We’re not idol worshipers, but we also don’t want to see our furniture moved too much, or the liturgy changed too much, or too many unfamiliar hymns added to the mix, do we?

We love our scriptures, although we probably don’t memorize them like some folks do. And yet I’ll bet each of us here has a favorite verse or two we can draw on if we need it. What are some of your favorite passages?

(Let people share their favorites)

As you might guess, I’ve got a few favorites, too.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth …

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want …

    For God so loved the world …

    The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life …

    A couple of my favorites are in the lessons for today.

In the first reading, Joshua says, “... as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

What’s that all about? 

The children of Israel have reached the banks of the Jordan River. They have spent 40 years in the wilderness. The generation that left Egypt has died away for all intents and purposes, and the people are ready to move into the Promised Land.

But do you know what? When you look through their backpacks, their carry-ons, suitcases, and bedrolls, they’ve hung onto their family heirlooms. They’ve kept their gods. They haven’t really given up the past.

You know, we don’t give up the past, really. We don’t turn our backs on it. But our past tends to hang onto us. 

Joshua says, “We’ve got a choice to make. YHWH says we can hang onto those chains we dragged out of Egypt and return to slavery, or we can move forward, and experience a life of freedom, and peace; a land so rich and full that our neighbors can eat off the gleanings from our fields.

This is a struggle we all have. It doesn’t matter how great or horrible the past has been. We want to hang onto it. Sometimes there’s sentimental value there, but sometimes there are painful memories we just can’t let go. People who’ve hurt us, or let us down. 

Joshua says, “You can hang onto those, if you wish. Just remember they will be the master, and you will be the slave, and you will never know what Adonai has in store for you. As for me and my household, we’re going to let go and let God.”

I think that’s an important verse for churches in transition, but really, it’s for all of us. I like Joshua’s invitation. “Do what you want, but for me, let’s see what God has in store.” It’s forward looking; it’s hopeful.

The other passage that strikes me is the line from Peter in the Gospel. Jesus has hit a snag in his ministry and many of his followers were deserting him. Jesus asks the Twelve: “How about you? Are you going to abandon me, too?”

I don’t know if we realize just how profound a question that is. I don’t know of anything more terrifying or harmful to the human psyche than what happens when we are abandoned. 

I was 9 years old when I came home from school and asked my brother where Mom was. He said, “She’s not here. She’s gone.” 

“What do you mean she’s gone?” I asked, and he said, “She’s left. Mom and Dad are getting a divorce.”

I’d had no inkling our biological mother would abandon the family without saying good-bye. I assumed it was all my fault, of course, because that’s what we do; that’s what kids do. “In the absence of information, children will always fill in that blank to their own detriment,” says John Bradshaw, a family therapist and author.

So when I see Jesus ask the question, “Will you leave me, too?” That’s heartbreaking, isn’t it? 

And in that scary, heart-breaking moment, Peter pipes up, and for once he’s not playing the fool.

Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”

We’ve left our chains in Egypt. We’ve left Torah on Mount Sinai. We have made our choice to come and follow you. Why? Because we have come to believe that you are the Holy One of God.”

In other words, in YOU we have hope; we have a hope-filled future.

We live in a world where people are afraid. We’re afraid of war. We’re afraid of famine. We are (many of us) a paycheck or two from becoming homeless. We are reaching an age (many of us) where a catastrophic illness could destroy us and everything we worked for. 

And you know, we’re not miracle workers in that sense of turning water into wine, or walking on water, or having the storms of life shut up just ‘cause we say so. But we are miracle workers if we open our eyes and ears to our neighbors and respond to them as the loving eyes and ears of Jesus. 

Like Jesus, we can embrace those who are unclean, unloved, perhaps even “unloveable,” because while they may be unclean or worthless to the world, they are God’s precious little ones. They are worthy of our time, our attention, our love, and our care – just like they were worth it to Jesus.

Jesus did not institute a sacrament as much as a vocation and a challenge. “Will you take me in, in such a way that where you go, I will go, also?”

That’s what Jesus wants. That’s what Jesus is looking for.

I said earlier that we are people of the Book, but really, we are people of the author, Jesus Christ, himself. 

As John said at the beginning of the Gospel that bears his name: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word WAS God. He was with God in the beginning … in him was life, and that life was the light of humanity.”

May he be our life, our Bread of Life, our Cup of Salvation, as well. Amen

Sermon delivered to St. Matthew’s (Browns Point, Tacoma, WA) 08/25/2024

The Rev. Keith F. Axberg, Retired

Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye

 

"Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear." Mark 4:9

One of the joys of reaching my mid-70s (in age, if not IQ) is checking out the local paper and confirming that I still haven’t made the obituaries. “I’m on the green side of the grass,” as the local yokels put it. True enough, and I’m still in fairly decent health, all things considered.

Not everything has weathered the years as well as I have. Over the past few months, and perhaps years, I’ve noticed that my television is having a harder time making itself heard and understood. Where I could watch most shows set between twelve and fifteen on the volume meter, I’ve had to crank the beast up into the low twenties lately. 

A few weeks ago I bought some electronic devices that are supposed to keep deer out of the yard by making a shrill sound (that is technically above human hearing). I set them up and watched several deer wander through the yard anyway, chewing on some of our greenery all around my ultrasonic deer-blasters. It made me wonder if they even work, but if the sound is above our listening range, how would we ever know?

Then our yard lads came by to mow and trim and asked about the deer units. I explained what they are, and Zach, the older of the two said, “Boy, they’re pretty loud. I’m surprised they don’t bother the deer.” They then got back to mowing and trimming with machines that I COULD hear.

I found myself pondering the imponderable. Is it possible my own hearing acuity isn’t what it once was? As silly an idea as that seemed, I decided to make an appointment with my family doctor and have my hearing tested. Dr. Aulakh tapped a tuning fork and placed it atop my skull, testing for bone conduction of sound. I heard the tone in my left ear, but not my right. “The good news is that I am only half a numbskull,” I exclaimed. She did not disagree with my diagnosis.

“This was just a crude test,” she said, “and it does seem you have some significant hearing loss (probably age related), so she helped me make a follow-up appointment with Dr. Hannah Carlson, one of the audiologists in the regional medical group. Dr. Carlson sat down with me to discuss activities of daily living, my hopes, concerns, and goals. She explained that hearing aids can’t restore lost hearing, but can certainly help a person hear better and understand what they’re hearing more clearly. 

After she hooked me up in the sound-proof room and ran a battery of tests (so she said, I didn’t hear everything she was apparently throwing at me), she showed me a chart that indicated that my hearing loss is between mild and moderate, and mainly in the high range of sounds. 

She suggested I was a good candidate for hearing aids and explained that as people lose their sense of hearing, they tend to isolate themselves. Early hearing aids were designed to make sounds louder (volume), but today’s aids are geared toward shifting sound to levels the wearer can hear better and with better clarity. “They can also help slow down cognitive decline,” she explained, “as the brain is stimulated by sound. As we go deaf, the brain loses the stimulation and begins to atrophy, in a sense.”

The idea that I might need hearing aids does not bother me. I have walked into homes with the television cranked up on full, and occupants unaware it was even on. Our own television has a lot of capacity left for going loud(er), but I am already bothered with the challenge of finding a balance between volume set for dialogue and volume set for commercials, and volume set for special effects, explosions, and dramatic/soaring musical scores. If hearing aids can help me save my cognitive levels and my wife’s sanity, I’m all for getting them!

After all, Jesus said, “Let those with ears to hear, hear,” (to which I reply, here here!).

They are on order, and I hope to provide you with a progress report as I continue this journey. Here’s to hearing here in this, our valley! 

Keith Axberg writes on matters concerning life and faith. Author of: Who the Blazes is Jesus? Good News for a Vulgar World (available through Amazon in Print and e-book)

The stupidity of Artificial Intelligence

"The mind of an intelligent soul acquires knowledge; the ears of the wise seek out knowledge." Proverbs 18:15

This has not been a good week in the world of Artificial Intelligence. I’d call it AI, but I hate that the capital I (eye) and the lower case l (el) look so much alike (depending on the font one is using). I hate it even worse that I have to spell out two words containing 22 letters when I can use the two letter abbreviation. What can I say? I’m lazy.

The problem with AI is that it really isn’t. It is artificial, of course, but it isn’t intelligent. It has been a long time since I have called a business of any sort and gotten a human being to answer the phone. Even one person shops answer the phone with an automated system that reads out your options so that the proprietor can finish his or her sandwich and coffee before talking to you.

I had a technical problem with my internet provider last week, so I called them up and got the expected list of options – none of which is ever an agent or operator. I really wish companies would find a new voice for their answering systems. I think Star Trek’s Majel Barrett would be fine, for she made it clear that she was a computer speaking. I don’t know who does the voice for the majority of office systems, but her phoneside manner leaves a lot to be desired.

The internet provider’s AI operator did not like me asking to speak to an agent. She kept directing me to go online and address the problems there. I explained that I had no internet, so I couldn’t do what she (it) had requested. She thanked me for my time and hung up on me. Twice!

The third time was the charm as I finally found my way through the electronic jungle to a real human being and between us got the matter taken care of.

Artificial Intelligence. It isn’t. I find myself reading articles that are obviously produced by AI. They purport to have been authored by some sort of writer, but I find a complete lack of spirit when I read said articles. They tend to begin and end the same. They gather information and spit it out in predictable patterns, but there’s no life in them. They’re more vapid than my earliest sermons!

The real problem with AI isn’t that it is artificial or dumb. The problem is that our expectations are probably higher than what the current iterations can provide. Sadly, I wonder how many people are displaced by such machines. There is an economic benefit to using AI in place of people. 

There is a side of me that thinks (for a moment) that I might like to have AI produce a column for me on those rare occasions I don’t feel like writing, but deep down I would feel like I was cheating. I would know I didn’t write it, even if I took the time to set up the program to write a 700 word puff piece on why you should think or act differently (although that’s, obviously, not my real purpose and goal), or feel better (or at least a bit entertained).

Well, AI has its place, and there’s not much I or anybody else can do to change that. It’s evolving, even if I’m not. What I’m more interested in is real intelligence, real wisdom. It’s not enough to know stuff, to know facts. It’s knowing what all that stuff means. It’s knowing how to apply that knowledge to the problems we have or the issues we face. 

I don’t expect wisdom from AI. If the computer doesn’t know enough not to hang up on a paying customer (twice!), I'm not going to trust it to recommend purchasing options online, let alone anything more significant.

No, we are here to take care of God’s creation and one another, and that’s not something that can be assigned to a digital brain. Some things we just have to figure out on our own. I just find it’s easier to do that if I have flesh and blood to talk to, rather than dots and dashes, or zeros and ones here in this, our valley.

Keith Axberg writes on matters concerning life and faith. Author of: Who the Blazes is Jesus? Good News for a Vulgar World (available through Amazon in Print and e-book)