Jack McKinney

Pullen Memorial Baptist Church

September 9, 2007 – Sunday in the Park

Text: Mary Oliver’s Poem, The Summer Day

Big Questions—Little Answers

            One of the most interesting parts of my job as a minister is that people come to talk to me about the big questions of life. Some of those questions are painful as people seek to understand the terrible suffering and losses they have encountered. Other questions are more philosophical or theological in nature as people try to discern the nature of God and how they can relate to this sacred presence in their lives. Regardless of which big question someone comes to ask me about the person will invariably say, “You know, Jack, I don’t really expect you to have an answer for me.” But then they will often pause, and smile, before adding, “Of course if you do have an answer I’d sure be glad to hear it.”

            The big questions of life do seem to draw us to church, or send us into therapy. I suppose that’s good news for those of us who make our living helping people ponder meaningful and perplexing questions. Still, I can’t help noticing that most of the big questions we ask are accompanied with a certain amount of angst: Who am I? What am I supposed to do with my life? Why has God allowed me to suffer so much? These questions are often shrouded in depression or anxiety or anger.

            Which is part of the reason I am drawn to Mary Oliver’s poem, The Summer Day. In this poem Oliver raises some of the most fundamental questions we face: Who made the world? What is prayer? Doesn’t everything die too soon? And, of course the wonderful closing question—What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?  That’s a pretty impressive list of big questions for a poem that is less than twenty lines.

            But what jumps out at me is that in raising questions about the creator, and prayer, and death, and what we are going to do with our lives, Oliver doesn’t leave us with the residue of unanswered longing. Instead, she creates a delightful and relaxing mood by raising these ultimate questions within the context of a grasshopper eating sugar out of her hand. Oliver is paying attention, as she puts it, as she strolls through the fields feeling idle and blessed. What a delightful scene she paints. The big, ultimate questions do not seem so overwhelming when they are framed in the context of grasshoppers and open fields.

            Jesus said, “Why do you worry about what you will eat or drink or wear? Consider the lilies of the field…” (Matthew 6) On one level this makes no sense at all. Jesus is saying to let go of our most basic concerns of survival by looking at lilies. But the feeling he leaves us with is not unlike Oliver’s poem. The big questions are still there; it’s just that they take on a different hue when placed within the simple act of paying attention to the loveliness of nature.

            Once a year we come out to the park and have church outside. It’s a nice thing, casual and simple, but that’s really about it. Except that even out here in our shorts and sandals we have brought all of our big questions with us. What shall we do with our wild and precious lives? I don’t know, but a good place to start is noticing the grasshopper in your hand. How are we going to survive? Beats me, but have you noticed the lilies in the field? It sounds so silly, doesn’t it? But sitting here, in the beauty of God’s creation, it almost makes sense.