Category Archives: Symbols and Metaphors

Lent and Easter, Sermons, Symbols and Metaphors, The Good Book Sermon Series

SERMON: The Good Book (Part 7): Fields and Meadows.

A Sermon by the Rev. Dr. Arthur M. Suggs
Preached on Easter Sunday, April 1, 2018

April First Is Fool’s Day, and We Have Butterflies and Moths
 on the Communion Table.

We did The Good Book (Part 1): Enlightening the Eyes (a.k.a. Bible 101). Then came a sermon on A Hard Conversation: The Use and Abuse of the Bible in Part 2, the Bible and Women in Part 3, the Bible and Homosexuality in Part 4; the Bible and Money in Part 5; and Core Principles of the Bible (Part 6).

Today is a rare day, when both Easter and April Fool’s Day coincide. The last time this happened was in 1956, 62 years ago, and the next one isn’t that far away, in 2029.

Considering the rarity of this coincidence, there are probably tens of thousands of sermons right now about the apparent vacuity of Paul’s Gospel admonition to be fools for Christ, but I’m going to pass on that temptation.

However, our Christian Education Committee has asked me to incorporate the theme of butterflies into the Easter sermon for today.

I’m happy to oblige on one condition, that it will cover both butterflies and moths. The committee undertook my plaintive request after lengthy debate and condescended to my petition upon a close vote.

On the communion table, we have the National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Butterflies and Moths, and we have a fantastic coffee-table book called Biophilia: The Human Bond with Other Species by Edward O. Wilson, with marvelous pictures.

There’s an old photograph of a butterfly 
that I’ll mention later, and the television is cycling fifty-some photos of butterflies that Bernie Lewis has taken over the years.

There’s also what’s called a pysanky, the Ukranian Easter egg with the butterfly theme on it that my wife Tracy did.

To top off the display, in the cases on the piano and also on the communion table are butterflies that were provided by the Price family. So thank you all.

Let me begin with a short poem by Robert Graves, called Flying Crooked:

The butterfly, the Cabbage White,


(His honest idiocy of flight)


Will never now, it is too late,


Master the art of flying 
 straight,

Yet has – who knows so well as I?

A just sense of how not to fly:


He lurches here and here by 
 guess


And God and hope and hopelessness.


Even the aerobatic Swift


Has not his flying-crooked gift.

A Sphinx Moth feeds on a
Trumpet; a Beautiful Blue 
Morpho Saves an Ill Child.

Sphinx Moth on a Honeysuckle Trumpet Vine. Courtesy of UKNTrees.

We have all been entranced by the wonder and beauty and delight of butterflies throughout our days.

Perhaps we had a butterfly net as a kid and a meadow to play in, or perhaps we’ve been to the state fair or the Museum of Natural History and have seen the displays of serious collectors.

Or maybe we’ve been sitting in our backyard on a sunny afternoon, and a butterfly alights upon a sleeping dog or baby or flower, demanding our attention and lightening our souls.

It need not be a sunny afternoon. One rather late August night, well after 11:00 p.m., I was sitting in my backyard, having a glass of wine and taking in the night air.

I happened to be sitting next to a trumpet vine, thinking little enough, when suddenly a Sphinx moth, almost indistinguishable in size and flight from a hummingbird, began its nocturnal feeding on those beautiful flowers.

The large moth hovered only a foot or so from my head as I sat still and quiet. I was transfixed by the moment — the rarity of such an encounter; the brrrrrrrrr of the wings right by my ear; the exquisiteness of this little creature of nature, dimly visible in the dark.

Some of you might have seen The Blue Butterfly (2004). This marvelous movie tells the true story of a terminally ill ten-year-old Canadian boy whose dream is to catch the most beautiful butterfly on earth, the mythic and elusive Blue Morpho.

His mother, single and frazzled, but determined to grant this last wish of her only child, persuades a renowned entomologist (played by William Hurt) to take them on a trip to the jungles of Costa Rica to search for the butterfly, leading to an adventure that will transform their lives.

I won’t spoil the ending for you but will say only that you will have a tear of joy in your eye.

[Read this omitted section in the full sermon]

Butterflies (and moths to a lesser extent) have been a classic Easter symbol going all the way back.

The way the classic version of it goes is that the caterpillar stage represents our regular human life, and then the cocoon or the chrysalis stage represents our death, reminiscent even of the shroud, the linen cloths wrapped around Jesus’ body.

Finally, after death our soul or spirit emerges into the heavenly realm, the angelic realm, no longer encumbered by physicality, and that is the butterfly stage.

The Caterpillar Doesn’t Die, It
 Metamorphoses; Follows Death
 by Resurrection as a Butterfly.

Monarch Caterpillar Becoming a Chrysalis, courtesy of Monarch-Butterfly dot com.

As far as metaphors or analogies go, this isn’t the best of them. For one thing, it’s a bit negative to liken our human experience to that of a worm. I know some people who feel that way. They are glass-half-empty people, but it strikes me as a bit harsh.

However, the caterpillar doesn’t really die but rather changes, called metamorphosis (a Latin word meaning to change from). In any case, really dying is an important part of the Easter message.

This reminds me of an Easter sermon I heard years ago, perhaps memorable because the preacher did not know the difference between two key words — “resurrection” and “resuscitation.”

So he preached an entire sermon about Jesus being resuscitated. “Come on, Jesus, you can make it.” This definitely made the sermon unforgettable.

Despite the butterfly metamorphosis analogy having some weaknesses, the analogy is actually receiving better science that has been discovered of late.

See how the rest of the story unfolds and wraps up…

Download or view the full Good Book (Part 7): Fields and Meadows sermon.

Featured Image Credit: Monarch in the Meadow. Photo by Brett Billings, PD via Pixnio.

Archetypes Sermon Series, Sermons, Symbols and Metaphors

SERMON: All Wet – The Archetype of Water in the Scriptures

On Sunday, February 11, 2018, the Rev. Dr. Arthur Suggs continued with — as he said — “a series of sermons on primal archetypes that wind their way through the scriptures, bend their way through the world’s religions, and churn their way through our lives.

First in the series was trees, the second was mountains, the third was light, the fourth was music, and this sermon explores the archetype of water.”

The Rev. Dr. Arthur Suggs

Flying over an Archetypal 
Symbol, I Am Disconcerted by
the Absence of Terra Firma.

I had a marvelous experience a number of years ago when a friend of mine who is a pilot had a three-day meeting in San Juan. He asked me if I could take three days and go with him. He lived in Kansas City, so he flew his four-seat airplane to the Binghamton regional airport, picked me up, and then we flew down to Miami, crossing over Washington, D.C., airspace, where I learned they’re rather picky about that.

We landed in Miami and were told we needed to pick up a little box that went at my feet, which was an inflatable life raft in case things go bad. That was at my feet as we left Miami heading for San Juan, Puerto Rico. Shortly after taking off, we flew at 7,000 feet, and the big planes were at 40,000 feet, zooming past us as we puttered along.

We were not far out, just 15 minutes out of Miami, when I fully realized there was no land in sight. Wherever I looked, there was nothing but ocean, and it stayed that way for quite a while. It was a little disconcerting being in a tiny airplane, and a little statistic came to mind — three-quarters of the earth is covered with ocean.

Suddenly, it seemed like a lot of water.

What I’m going to do is to give you two brief overviews, and then to look in detail at two passages from the Bible, which happen to say the same thing.

Two overviews first: The symbolism of water is huge.

It’s everywhere, and so what I’d like to look at is the concept of dream symbolism.

You see a waterfall, for instance, or a geyser or a river in your dreams. What does that mean? There are symbols, meanings that go with images of water.  Here are a few of them:

Triple Falls, Columbia River Gorge, Oregon. Photo by Rocketstove, CC PD Wikimedia.

Symbols of Dreams About 
Various Kinds of Water

Ice — For example, if you dream about ice, there’s a situation in your life that’s frozen or static and needs to be thawed out.

Muddy or murky water — The situation is unclear and needs to be clarified.

Splashing water — There’s a need for arousal, for awakening.

Steam, vapor, mist, fog — Not all has been revealed; not all is known.

Ocean — A classic symbol of infinity. Either standing on a beach and looking out as far as the eye can see or flying in an airplane gazing in any direction.

Tides — Are symbolic of the natural rhythm of things. Beyond that, there’s a powerful rhythm. In other words, it’s foolish to fight against it.

Snow — Represents quiet and peace.

Flood — This is a complex image because it’s both bad and good. It means too much, to the point of danger. It means damage and loss, but it also means judgment. In addition, it means destroying in order to purify.

Spring rains — Mean warmth, growth, softening, renewal.

Lake — This is also complex. It means unrealized potential because you see only what’s on the surface, and there’s so much underneath that has yet to emerge.

Puddle — Symbolizes play, childhood, fun, carefree; go ahead and get dirty.

Cross and Church at St. Patrick’s Well, Marlfield. By Rustythedog, CC via Wikimedia.

Stream, river — Another symbol for infinity; ever flowing, never stopping.

Oasis — Water in the desert; a place of safety or refuge, away from danger.

Well — One of the most extraordinary symbols of all. Like the ocean or the stream, it’s one of the most pregnant symbols of all time. Its meaning is to go deeper to find life-giving water. Go deeper in sports, meaning to try harder. In our intellect, in our spirituality, going deeper to find nourishment, to find reward.

These are only a few examples of water symbols — 14 of them if you were counting, out of dozens and dozens.

Overview Number Two —
Classic Bible Texts
 Concerning Water

The second overview on water is to look at these classic texts in the Bible about water, that reference water — the same profound and important things, using water as imagery. Let me give you a handful of these:

Genesis 1:1 — “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.”

Rainy Season in the Tropics, 1866, by Frederic Edwin Church, Hudson River School. PD.

This is a philosophical passage. That primal, chaotic, formless potential that God’s spirit swept over in order to begin creation. It’s a poetic way of wording it. Some of the other texts are a bit tough.

Amos 5:21 and 23-24 — Fantastic imagery but extremely judgmental. God is speaking, “I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. // Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. // But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream.”

Jeremiah 2:12-13 — An equally judgmental passage. “Be appalled, O heavens, at this, be shocked, be utterly desolate, says the Lord, // for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, // the fountain of living water and dug out cisterns for themselves, // cracked cisterns that can hold no water.”

John 7:37 — “On the last day of the festival, the great day, while Jesus was standing there, he cried out, ‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, “Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.” ’ Now he said this about the Spirit, which they were to receive . . . .”

 

Download the Full Sermon: All Wet – Water in Scripture

Featured Image Credit: Clouds over the Atlantic Ocean, Brazil. By Tiago Fioreze, CC Wikimedia.

Archetypes Sermon Series, Epiphany, Sermons, Symbols and Metaphors

SERMON: Make a Joyful Noise – Music is the Mediator

On the fifth Sunday after Epiphany (February 4, 2018), the Rev. Dr. Arthur Suggs continued with — as he said — “a series of sermons on primal archetypes that wind their way through the scriptures, bend their way through the world’s religions, and churn their way through our lives. First in the series was trees, the second was mountains, the third was light, today is music, and next will be water.”

Spiritual Music … the Beatles?

The Rev. Dr. Suggs started with this: “For the sermon this morning, let me begin with part of an article from about a year ago. It was strange because only after reading the article did I look at who wrote it and realized that I know him:

“As a child being raised in a troubled home, religion and spirituality were discussed about as often as we discussed opera, which was never. Music and, to a lesser degree, nature were my sole companions. Turning on the radio one day, I heard a hit song that began, ‘Help! I need somebody! Not just anybody! Help! You know I need someone! Help!’

“I was a twelve-year-old boy, and, like John Lennon, I also needed help, but I didn’t know where to turn. I did not have a girlfriend, therapist, church, or relationship with a ‘concept’ called God. So I turned to the Beatles, none of whom professed or practiced Christianity, and yet they wrote and recorded song after song that came from a place of deep spirituality.”

The Beatles arriving at John F. Kennedy International Airport, 7 February 1964. U.S. Library of Congress, Wikimedia.

“It was not Jesus, Yahweh, Sigmund Freud, Higher Power, or Jehovah 
that led me to hope for some ‘Help!’ It was the Beatles. George Harrison was a Hare Krishna who wrote ‘My Sweet Lord’ and ‘Give Me Love’; John Lennon penned ‘Eleanor Rig-by,’ ‘Imagine,’ and ‘Give Peace a Chance’; and Paul McCartney composed ‘Lady Madonna,’ ‘Black Bird,’ ‘Let It Be,’ and ‘Hey Jude.’”

A Powerful Link Between 
Music and Our Deepest Emotions, from Sadness to Joy

“There’s a link, somehow or other, between all kinds of people and their varieties of music. Many researchers have studied this phenomenon, and there’s a very powerful link between music and our deepest feelings, our deepest emotions, covering the range of emotions from sadness to joy and everything in between.”

Rev. Suggs shares examples of evocative music, from the recognizable scores of The Titanic and Schindler’s List films, including the “Hymn of the Sea” in the former and Itzhak Perlman’s violin solo in the latter – “a very simple violin piece that makes you ache inside with both sadness and beauty.”

Then a song from the Rocky III soundtrack …

“So I’m tooling down Route 17 when “Eye of the Tiger” comes on, and I crank it up loud. In my mind, I’m Rocky, defeating the enemies, unbeatable, and listening to this music.”

“Suddenly, I look down, and I’m going 95 miles an hour. A wave of panic comes over me, and I check all the mirrors, not expecting to see one cop but anticipating six cops behind me. Thankfully, there’s no cruiser, but I slow way down to a normal speed limit. How do you get so engrossed that you don’t even know you’re going 95 miles an hour? It’s amazing.”

Jimmy Hendrix, Woodstock, the “Flower Duet” from Delibes’ opera Lakmé, Eminem, Amazing Grace, praise bands, Gregorian or Taizé chant … and then some.

Rev. Suggs continued …

Everything in the Universe
Vibrates in Motion with 
Frequency and Sound

Plato wrote:  Music “gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaity to life.”

I suggest to you that it’s sort of significant for Plato to say that. Here’s the author who introduced into the world the idea of the soulness of things. “Music gives soul to the universe.”

Two observations:

There does not exist a religious tradition that does not have music integral in some way. Even the traditions based on silence (Quakers, Zen Bhuddism), chant music of some type as prelude 
and postlude for them. It’s found everywhere.

The other observation is one that I think we do take for granted, but it’s only things that are categorically true. There are zero exceptions to this and that is:

Everything in our universe vibrates. Every single portion of our universe is in motion with a frequency and a sound and a vibration.

The Milky Way, NASA-APOD.

EVERYTHING!

Our Milky Way goes around 
 once every 230 million years.
The Sun and our whole solar 
 system orbit the Milky Way 
 in 230 million years.

Our Earth circles the Sun, and 
 we define it as a year.


Our moon circuits the Earth 
 every 28 days.


We observe the sabbath 
 based upon our religious 
 traditions every seventh day.


The cycle of our day is based 
 upon the rotation of the Earth 
 relative to the Sun.

And 
 so we have breakfast, lunch, 
 and dinner every day.

We 
 have waking and sleeping 
 every day, and work and 
 leisure every day.


Our hearts beat around 70 times 
 per minute.


Our respiration is about 20 times
 per minute.


We can hear music from 60 hertz 
 up to the vicinity of 20,000 
 hertz.

The vibration of atoms 
 in general is 1013 hertz.


Every ray of light has a 
 frequency to it.

Beethoven’s walk in nature, by Julius Schmid (restored by Michael Martin Sypniewski). Wikimedia.

Ludwig van Beethoven said:

“Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life.
So what we do, with a combination of both art and science, is that we organize the frequencies. We manipulate and arrange the vibrations to express our grief and our joy, our sadness and our exultation, our longing and our reverence.”

Amen.

Download the full sermon PDF

Featured Image Credit: Flash Mob! HKFO performs the Beethoven “Ode to Joy” Flash Mob, Hong Kong’s largest choral-orchestral flash mob at Shatin New Town Plaza on 28 July 2013.

Archetypes Sermon Series, Epiphany, Sermons, Symbols and Metaphors

SERMON: Darkness Shall Not Overcome – The Universal Symbolism of Light

On the fourth Sunday after Epiphany (January 28, 2018), in a series of sermons on the great archetypes in the bible, the Rev. Dr. Arthur Suggs reflected, and spoke, on the universal, multi-tradition symbolism of Light and the power to overcome those deep valleys of unknowing, uncertainty, fear, and even despair.

Others in the Great Archetypes series include Trees, Mountains, Music, and Water. (You’ll see those in the Recent Posts at the sidebar if they’ve been uploaded to date.)

Rev. Suggs began the sermon on the archetype of Light with the following:

“Far, we’ve been traveling far without a home, but not without a star.” ~ Neil Diamond, America

“But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.” ~ William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

“Look to my coming, at first light, on the fifth day. At dawn look to the East.” ~ J.R.R. Tolkien, Gandalf in Lord of the Rings

He says, “You are the moon of my life.” And she replies, “My sun and my stars.” ~ George R.R. Martin, Game of Thrones, Khal Drogo to his Khaleesi

LIGHT …

… Is a powerful metaphor
 and a dynamic symbol in
 all parts of our culture.

Expulsion – Moon and Firelight, 1828, by Thomas Cole. {{PD-US}}

In paintings of every type, the artist plays an unusual dual role by painting light itself as an important motif in the picture and then by lighting the whole picture.

In stage and theater, the art of lighting can spell the pinnacle of performance or the death of dreams.

Throughout literature, authors depend on light to excite their insight. I have provided a few examples from various media.

Light permeates all of theological printing and speaking, and it is found virtually everywhere in the sciences.

Even a musical concert can be enhanced or ruined by the lighting. The solo spotlight on a piano performance. Or the lasers and the burst of flame at a rock concert. Or — and you’ll find this hard to believe — spotlights on preachers.

Light has pervaded our language:

Light at the End of the Tunnel. PD Image Segugio.

“There’s light at the end of the tunnel,” an expression that we use when we’ve been trudging through something, and “Finally there’s a measure of hope at the end.”

In American politics, pretty much every four years or so, we have “The dawning of a new era.” Reagan got a lot of mileage out of “Morning in America.”

Or we hire an expert to “Shed light on the subject,” whatever it might be.

The imagery infuses our soul as well:

  • Starlight to a sailor.
  • Sunlight to a prisoner.
  • Moonlight to lovers.
  • Candlelight to a scholar.
  • The light of a campfire to old friends.
  • A light in the window to someone who is lost.
  • And a thousand other examples.

Here are some samples from the Bible. These are among the few equations of God:

“God is light.” It doesn’t say, “God is the light.” It doesn’t say, “God is a light.” It just says, “God is light.” God equals light. There is only a handful of other equations like this: God is spirit, God is bread, God is love.” ~ The First Letter of John, Chapter 1, Verse 5

Light Through a Stained Glass Window. PD Stockphotos.

The Letter of Paul to the Philippians, Chapter 2, Verse 15, speaks to the children of God, this is for you: “Shining stars in the sky.”

“Let your light so shine before others.” Don’t put a bushel basket over it. Let it shine the way the song says. ~ The Gospel According to Matthew, Chapter 5, Verse 16The first Letter of

Or in Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonions, Chapter 5, Verse 5: “You are children of the light, and children of the day.”

Preacher: I’ve Been Here Long 
 Enough, and You’ve Heard Me 
 Long Enough to Know That . . .

. . . many of the aspects of standard orthodox Christianity don’t suit me very well.

There’s an example with the notion that “God is light.”  So it says in The First Letter of John, and then in the Gospel of John he adds two more verses to it.

Now I want to put the three of them together, and you tell me what you think it means:

As mentioned, in his First Epistle, John says, “God is light.” But then, in the Gospel According to John, Jesus is recounted as saying, “I am the light of the world.”

Now bear in mind that he spoke problematically in Aramaic, translated into Greek, and then translated into English.

I Am the Light of the World, c. 1900-1904, by William Holman Hunt, St. Paul’s, London.

Fortunately, the linguistic construction is identical in all three languages. “I am” is both the belief of referring to “me” or it’s the name of God. Either he’s saying “I am the light of the world,” citing himself that he, Jesus, is the light of the world, or he might be saying, “God is the light of the world.”

To add to the confusion, a little later he says, “You are the light of the world.”

There’s a part of me that wants to take all this at face value and ask, “How are we to understand this?” And so I’ve got these three thoughts here — “God is light,” “I am the light of the world,” and “You are the light of the world.”

At face value, the only conclusion I can come to is that there is a linkage between our physical being — who we are as homo sapiens, as organisms — and divinity.

There’s a linkage, an identity linkage, that either we want to deny it or ignore it or just set it aside and never preach on it, but it’s there in the background.

A Series of Archetypes:
 Here Are Two Lessons
 from the Notion of Light

We’ve been looking at deep archetypes that run through scripture, and this is the third in a series.

We looked at trees two weeks ago; we looked at mountains a week ago; the notion today is light; and next Sunday it’s music. I’d like to offer two lessons from this notion of light, pervading its way through the scriptures but beyond the scriptures, infusing their way into every facet of human existence.

Read the rest of this sermon:

Download PDF of The Darkness Shall Not Overcome – The Symbol and Metaphor of Light in Christian Scripture

Featured Image Credit: Beam of sun light inside the cavity of Rocca ill’Abissu at Fondachelli Fantina, Sicily. By Fediona; Creative Commons via Wikimedia.