Yom Kippur Services

Last night at Yom Kippur services at Beth Elohim, Rabbi Andy Bachman announced that Rev. Daniel Meteer of the Old First Reformed Church was in attendance. I've been wondering about the Old First church, source of the central slope steeple you can see from all parts of the neighborhood.

What intrigued me most about Rabbi Bachman's service was when he spoke of Psalm 27, in which King David reflects if the Lord is my strength, of whom then shall I be afraid. Caused me to reflect on the man I saw sleeping in his car with the door hanging open earlier in the day. How often do you see one so open and unafraid, so completely relaxed?

The fact that a spiritual leader of one creed would worship within the temple of another makes me happy. And the fact that the Rabbi welcomed him, doors open wide. I can see I'm not the only once noticing that we're talking about the same God, just using different languages, the one that resonates with our cultural schemata. But as my therapist says, sometimes the point of getting lost in the details, is to miss the point.

The Reverend blogs his sermons, which I just looked at. I read through last Sunday's sermon, it is is called the Riddle of Rescue and is riddled with questions, a lot of very good questions. I felt this paragraph was the pith of his sermon:

What if God has to burn me to save me? What if God has to judge me to rescue me? God seeks out the lost sheep, will God also seek out a lost wolf? That’s what the Apostle Paul was. That’s his testimony in the epistle, that he was the worst of sinners, a blasphemer, a persecutor, a man of violence. He was a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and yet God sought him and found him. And knocked him down and blinded him and sent him off to the desert for a few years first. Paul always regarded his salvation as a surprise, a wonder, he never took it for granted.
Rev. Dr. Daniel Meteer, sermond, 9/16/07, from Blog

It appears God saved Paul in an experience that can be described as a "little death" in shammanic thinking. One thing's for sure: not many want that kind of experience. It's not that God doesn't care to save everyone, it's that many don't want to be saved yet. Deep down we know what it takes to make that kind of room, what we have to lay down. At what price, Deliverance?