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Wilderness as Holy Ground
By Riviera UCC | March 29, 2009
Wilderness as Holy Ground
a sermon based on Mark 1:9-15
given at Palm Bay, FL March 29, 2009
by Rev. Scott Elliott
For some reason a lot of people who know me find it kind of hard to believe that I was very introverted and shy as a child and in my youth.
My guess is that those who find this hard to believe just wonder how such a handsome guy with so much talent and amazing abilities in front of people could ever have been shy or introverted?
And that’s a fair question.
As is, why is Scott always so doggone humble?
It is true. I was very shy as a kid and I steered away from people growing up. I tended to hang out with our dog or play in our yard or when I was older ride my bike to creeks and ponds and lakes and parks and hike or sit and take in nature.
It’s where what I’d name to today the Spirit used to call me, and I liked to be with and in nature, very much so– and still do.
I am certain that I first became aware of God out in the wilds of the nearby orchards, parks and rolling grassy hills of Northern California.
Even today just set me in the wilderness and I feel almost instantly at peace and closer to God, it’s one of those thin places where the walls that get in the way of experiencing God are so narrow, so thin that God can be felt in our lives.
I have mentioned over the past few weeks that the ocean and this church building are places where I sense God better– where we can all sense God better. Well, the wilderness is also one of those thin places for me.
I suppose it’s beginning to sound like I can go anywhere and find those thin places. I wish that were so. And maybe one day it will be. Since God is everywhere soaking everything it’s possible to get yourself so oriented toward God – as Jesus did– that a person could find the local 7-11 as a thin place.
I am certain that 7-11 would have been such a place for Jesus, even the cross and death were thin places for him.
And did you hear how the wilderness is the first recorded thin place for Jesus in Mark?
He is baptized in the wilderness, the Spirit of God lands on him like a dove out there in the Jordan River and then what happens?
The Spirit drives him further into the wilderness and for forty days he is out there with wild beasts. Then in the wilderness with the beasts he encounters God in the form of angels.
When Jesus leaves the wilderness after forty days the Spirit sends him out to begin his ministry.
Lent is exactly forty days long in remembrance, and as a re-enactment, of Jesus’ forty days of preparation for his ministry in the wilderness. A ministry that in one sense ends on Easter, and in another begins. Even as the Jesus of history leaves earth, the Jesus of Easter stays with it.
We are, in these forty days of Lent, traditionally supposed to turn away from our lesser acts and beings and turn towards our better acts and being. It’s a time to prepare ourselves to follow the Way Jesus left us as a historic person and the Way the promise of Christ’ resurrection has taught us, the Way that the Jesus of Easter now and forever calls us to.
I love that Jesus goes into the wilderness (returns in a sense to Eden to be with creation and God) as he gathers himself for his initial ministry.
Jesus, at the start of what we know of his adult life is called, actually driven, into the wilderness, which turns out to be a Sacred, thin and holy place. The wilderness where God awaits Jesus is a springboard to Jesus’ ministry.
While I have yet to work out 7-11 as a thin place, I have found the wilderness to be soaked with the Sacred. And lucky for us from where we sit this morning, where I come to work all week long the wilderness is closer than the nearest 7-11.
This church’s quest for new property at the turn of this century ended perfectly with the amazing twenty-acres this building sits on.
The capital campaign that we have been hearing about is designed to help pay for the wealth of gifts from God, found not only in the building covered in last week’s sermon, but the gorgeous holy land God has given us.
As I mentioned last week, when I first visited here I found this building to be a very Sacred and holy place. Being a wilderness lover, an outdoor kinda guy, I found it interesting though on that first visit much of the twenty-acres the building sits on were overgrown and virtually inaccessible.
Something called palmetto (which I had never heard of before) made it impossible to walk around out there in the wilderness. Since coming here the palmetto and I have become good friends. I have come to know them almost as well as mosquitoes in Florida!
Before we even moved here I knew after my first visit (three years ago) that a part of my call was go to into the wilderness on this property, God’s given Riviera United Church of Christ and make its holiness more accessible.
In fact after I arrived I immediately began working out on the acres at lunch (and other time I could scrape up) making prayer trails and a drumming circle.
I had worked in the woods before, in Oregon. I was surprised, though that when I did such work in Florida that I sweated like I had never sweated before. It seemed like even my eyes and finger nails perspired out there.
And I also found out quite quickly that I was getting bit by things that have never bit me before, things I could not see–tiny insects with one of the best descriptive names ever: “no see ‘ems.” Which is exactly right, I never see ‘em, I just feel ‘em.
I even got a very weird rash out there in the woods, a serious rash all over my torso and arms that had me itching for weeks on end, baffling not just me but doctors.
To say the least, it has been an education working out there in the wilderness God has blessed us with.
I am not the only one who has worked out there on the trails. Jack and Paul, and my brother Darin and son Robin, the youth and a number of people needing to do community service have also worked in our woods.
Once the trails got started and clearings to gather were made other folks started wandering out there– or were dragged out there by me. We have held nature walks, drumming circles, meetings and vacation bible school in the woods, our wilderness. Many of you have walked and sat out there in the woods with me. It’s stunningly beautiful out there.
You do not have to walk far to enjoy the holy outdoors that God has provided us. The subject of our capital campaign, the holy land that we are helping to pay for, is now relatively easily accessible.
I encourage all of you who are able, as a part of this campaign, to go out and explore as much as you can of this invaluable resource, this gift from God of dirt and sand and flora and fauna, and its Sacred holiness.
Butting up to the building is land that has been carefully tended to with the caring and gifted hands of Marylou, Kenneth, Dick, Phyllis, Bonnie, Daryl, Walter and the youth. Interesting flowers and greenery surround the church and our parking lot and driveway. Their good health and good looks come not just from God’s good creation, but through the hard work of these wonderful members.
A little further away from the building on the outskirts of true wilderness we now have
reclaimed and cultivated our Matthew 25 Ministries garden. Matthew 25 has the verses where Christ notes how when you tend to the least of those you tend to Christ. In the Matthew 25 Ministries garden we are growing food for no less than Christ who is in those who are in need!
Without the land God gave us the garden part of this ministry would be impossible. It’s a glorious garden right outside the back doors. A holier place does not exist on these grounds. Jade, Lyn, Maya, Angela, Paul, Pat, Bob, Phyllis, Dick, Jack, Scott, Daryl, Bonnie, Nancy, David and others have worked hard to turn the sandy soil into a lush garden. The goodness of the hard work by humans and creation emanates from the earth and plants in that space. God walks that garden daily.
Just beyond the Matthew 25 Ministries garden down a packed and curvy marl trail our beautiful memorial garden is going up. A bricked in area with loved ones names has been carefully laid out and we have plans to put the ashes of loved ones out there as a final resting place. The names on the bricks, the beauty of the brick work and the gorgeous setting gives that corner of the wilderness a sense of the holy too.
Remarkable work has been done by the landscaper and the memorial garden team,
Priscilla, Ginny and Kay.
The drumming circle is just a little walk away too. Some benches nestled in the shade of a stunning oak and tall pines give a place of solitude and meditation where I assure you God can always be found. That place is just inside the wilderness and it too is on nothing short of holy ground. A set in a bench out there can lift a weary soul.
The prayer trails that we have are long and varied and one can spend hours walking outside in the wilderness or sitting in the shade in prayer or contemplation.
Since my permanent arrival just under three years ago I have seen a great variety of plants and animals on this wonderful property.
In addition to many, many, many palmettos I have seen wild grape and blueberry, long needle and short needle pines, oaks, deer moss, air ferns and lichens.
Of course I have also seen many wild beasts, including wasps, bees, fire ants, walking sticks, butterflies, dragonflies and spiders (one the size of a backhoe!). I have seen armadillos, brown snakes, indigo snakes, cooper’s hawks, blue birds, cardinals, woodpeckers, mocking birds, squirrels, adult gopher tortoises, baby tortoises, ducks, and sand hill cranes. I have also seen the footprints of wild raccoons, possums and pigs on our trails. And I‘ve passed by or sat under the homes of critters too, from nests to burrows to soft places in the vegetation.
At Lent many of us give up something to remind us of Jesus’ sacrifice, or as a discipline to help us focus on the journey to Easter. This year I decided not to so much give up something, as to do something. I decided to re-enact Jesus’ going into the wilderness, in a small but, for me, significant way. Everyday during Lent I have spent time with nature, with the beasts – and God– out in the wilderness.
Everyday that I have been here during Lent I have purposefully walked the trails and sat and experienced wild beasts and God’s presence in the angels of the trees and plants and nature out there on our holy sacred ground. It has been uplifting, refreshing and very Spirit-filled. I would not trade those Lenten moments in the woods for anything. It has been my best ever Lenten practice.
It’s an easy circle back from that thought to Chatter the squirrel and Anybody and Carol’s clever skits and our capital campaign.
For one, our capital campaign is aimed at making it possible for us to have such holy ground in our lives, blessing us with a place to rest this building and our souls. It is certainly good news for us to have such blessings.
And the Good News from today’s scripture goes hand-in-glove with that good news. Jesus was driven by the Spirit into the wilderness and with the wild beasts out there he experiences God. We can choose to learn from this lesson that creation, the wilderness, places like the outdoors on our property, can be thin places; places where God can be sensed and more easily experienced.
God’s ordinary creation, you see, is extraordinary! And there is a reason God has blessed us with this little corner of creation, it is to give us another thin place to better sense God.
My advice is that if you hear the Spirit calling you out to the outdoors, if you feel driven to go and sense the Sacred on the holy ground God has blessed Riviera United Church with, don’t put it off.
Go!
Chances are you will not be sorry.
Chances are you will be blessed with finding a thin place where you can feel closer to
God.
From the landscape, to the garden, to the drumming circle, to the memorial garden, to the prayer paths, to all of nature’s bustling with life out there God can be found.
These twenty acres are no less than holy ground gifted to you and me and this wonderful church community.
AMEN!
COPYRIGHT Scott Elliott © 2009 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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