A couple of weeks ago, Audrey and I went to Sevierville, TN for a few days. We usually try to do that in the fall or the winter. It’s a nice little getaway; and if you stay up in the mountains, the beauty is one of God’s great gifts. While we were there, we couldn’t help but notice the beauty in nature. The trees were breathtaking, the wildlife is always unbelievable, especially if you get to see a bear. And the beautiful autumn skies are amazing: If the orange, purple, and yellow sun rises and sunsets don’t get you, the moon and stars against that perfectly black velvet sky certainly will.
Since, before we left for TN, I already knew I was doing the homily today, I was preparing for it. In doing so, when looking at those beautiful skies I couldn’t help but think of today’s Gospel. Today, we heard Jesus tell his disciples: “the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from the sky”. And then he says to his disciples: “this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place.”
Can you imagine if that had happened? Obviously, if the sun went dark, we know today that the moon would as well; and then if the stars fell to the earth? That describes the end of life as we know it. So, unless Jesus was very inaccurate with his prediction, which is highly unlikely, maybe it wasn’t the prediction it sounds like, or the one we think it was. Maybe he was using a metaphor for a different event. The event he had been telling them about for almost three years: his death and resurrection. That single event really did shake heaven and earth. It turned everything they knew upside down. The sun was literally darkened. One thing they knew was that people who are dead don’t rise again. And it happened…just as he said it would, before that generation passed away. With his death, the sun went dark. With his resurrection, the heavens and earth were shaken.
What shakes our heaven and earth today…in 2024? War? Is there any disagreement in our world about whose side we should take? What about elections? Any disagreement about whose candidate is the best…the right one? Any broken lives, broken relationships, broken families in our world today? Any of that in your world today? Do you think Jesus didn’t intend his model of love for all of this that we experience today? Do you think he wanted us to stay broken, separated; or did he shake heaven and earth with his death and resurrection to demonstrate to us how to heal all of this division?
Speaking of healing division, take this bowl for example. A good friend of our family made this and gave it to me along the words for much of this homily today. Her name is Jillian Timberlake. This bowl Jillian made, was obviously broken and then put back together…kind of like the world: Jesus died…and then rose from the dead, to heal a broken world. But this isn’t simply a bowl broken and put back together. Like the Jews and the Gentiles in Jesus’ time, and all of the separations in the world today, these two bowls – one black and one white – both were broken, and then, in order to rebuild the two opposites…to pick up the proverbial pieces and rebuild their brokenness, the two had to be integrated into each other, two put back together as one…to make things complete.
In life, it is incredibly difficult to repair what appears, at the outset, to be mismatched or broken: bowls…or people, or relationships, or families, or religions, or neighbors with red yard signs and blue yard signs. The process to repair these bowls was excruciatingly slow, meticulous, and frustrating. The pieces, like us, can be stubborn and set in their ways. The process challenges us to consider in what ways we can soften our rough edges and jagged places in order to allow space for others.
I am not suggesting that ultimate truth doesn’t exist: it does. Nor am I insinuating we should ignore morality – given to us by God. We should not! But, when we identify each other only by an external label (a political party, a racial identity, a religious affiliation), we diminish the dignity that God gave to each of us. In doing that, we become the source of fractures, cracks, and wounds. If you don’t believe me, listen to what Pope Francis says on this point.
These bowls have very obviously been broken. Even the seams that glue them back together look different than the two originals did when they were brand new. Two opinions, two people, two parts of a family, two neighbors.
What I didn’t tell you is that this yellow glue that has mended these pieces and made them whole, is actually…gold. Real gold! And now, with this healing gold…this grace, this healed bowl has changed in value. Not to mention the value added because of the synergy of the two.
When your world is shaken, when your sun and moon go dark, and your stars fall from the sky…let us look to Jesus’ example. Let us love one another, soften our rough edges and jagged places. Do the hard work of reconciling, and of restoring.
May we – may I – use each opportunity we are given to shake heaven and earth as Jesus taught us. To lean into love and fill the gaps with grace.