The Beginning of the Good News Preached for Wollaston Congregational Church on November 29th, 2020 Scripture: Mark 1:1-15 This Advent we will hear the origin stories from each gospel: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. This week we heard from the gospel of Mark, the earliest and shortest gospel. Mark has no birth narrative of Jesus. Instead he introduces John the Baptist first, the one who prepares the way for the coming of Jesus. The first half of the first chapter of Mark takes place in the wilderness, a frightening, desolate place. And yet, Mark proclaims this is “the beginning of the good news, about Jesus Christ, God’s Son.” Mark is not denying the desolation of the wilderness, he is defying it. In this first chapter we read of the way that John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth defied the desolation of the wilderness too. Mark writes at a time when Jerusalem is under siege. Radical Jews have revolted against the Roman occupiers. Jerusalem will not last long. These are the last terrifying days before the city is completely destroyed. And so, Mark tells the tale of John the Baptist who, had retreated to the wilderness area outside Jerusalem a generation before. John appears in the wilderness calling people to repent and be baptized: to turn toward God, to turn away from that which is not God. John sets up ministry by the River Jordan, far from Jerusalem, the city that is the religious and political center of this corner of the Roman Empire. Crowds of people from the country all around come to be baptized. They have had enough of the power and control of the Empire and the religious authorities who collaborate with power. They’ve placed their hopes for freedom in the coming of the savior for whom John is preparing the way. John is a vision of the hope that is to be found in the desolate places. John wears itchy uncomfortable clothing, reminiscent of the age-old prophet Elijah. He lives on a meager diet of locusts and wild honey. He tells the people that someone stronger than he is coming, his role is simply to prepare the way. He says that he, John, baptizes with water, but the one who is coming will baptize them with God’s own Spirit. Then Jesus arrives, from Nazareth in Galilee, a forsaken village on the northern margins of the Jewish territory. The crowds wonder who he is and why John is in awe of him. Then while he is being baptized, they see Jesus gaze to the sky, as though he’s seen a great vision and they hear a voice saying "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased." Then they understand that this is the one John has been talking about, the one for whom he has been preparing a way. And now Jesus is forced out into the wilderness too, into the shadow-lands where the wind whips his shivering body, and the wild animals scurry and howl. He is exposed and tempted to the point of despair by Satan. And at the end of 40 days angels come and tenderly care for him. John is arrested, but Jesus comes into his home territory, announcing the Good News of hope and joy: God’s kingdom is coming. Turn toward God and trust … this is good news indeed! The people of Prague in Czechoslovakia, as it was then, enjoyed a culture of music, arts and academia, until the beginning of the Nazi occupation in 1939. The Jewish community in Prague was one of the oldest in Europe, with a population of around 50,0000. As the Nazis took hold, the culture was destroyed. Jews were not allowed to perform in the orchestras or choirs and were subjected to an evening curfew. Then in 1941, very early on a cold November morning, they were taken by the trainload, from their homes in the city to the Garrison town of Theresienstadt. Family members were separated from one another, even small children from their parents. They were housed in barracks, sleeping in 3 story bunks. They were fed a meager diet of watery soup and forced into hard labor, as much as 100 hours per week. They were imprisoned. The Jewish people’s existence in the Theresienstadt ghetto, Terezín, was miserable and monotonous. Thousands continued to arrive and the camp became overcrowded. Diseases like typhus ran through the camp. The barracks were infested with fleas, lice, bedbugs, and rats. Older people died in droves, survivors say that death was around them all the time. And yet, there were artists, musicians, Rabbis, and professors among the community. One renowned Prague musician, Rafael Schächter had filled his baggage allowance with musical scores. He found an old piano in a cold, damp basement and so he began to assemble a chorus from the prisoners. The Rabbis created a hidden synagogue, the professors began to put on lectures, the artists created pictures. The vibrant culture of Prague was replicated, after hours of forced labor, in the camp. The 2012 movie “Defiant Requiem” tells the story of Schächter’s chorus and the hope they found in the midst of the misery and monotony of the camp. [1] Several survivors still speak with shining eyes as they recall the hours they spent rehearsing around the piano in the basement with “Raffy”. They lived for this time to focus on their music, and to forget the misery of their days. The music lifted them from despair to hope. In time it gave them the opportunity to defy the Nazis, singing words of judgment right in front of their faces. A major fear in the camp was of “transportation to the East.” As more Jews arrived at the camp, others were shipped out. No one knew where these people went, but they were never heard from again. The Nazis turned a blind eye as the prisoners entertained themselves, singing, praying, drawing and acting. After all their days were numbered. As the situation in Terezín became more dire, Schächter turned to a score of Giuseppe Verdi’s Requiem Mass. A Requiem is a “Mass for the Repose of the Dead.” The Requiem is a Catholic work, of course, and the words are in Latin. This was quite foreign for the Jewish singers of Terezín. The Rabbis of the community were troubled by the idea that they would perform this work. Still Schächter persevered. They had only one score and just a piano instead of a full orchestra. And so he taught the chorus each note and each syllable by rote, making sure that the singers understood every word. They would be singing a message of God’s great wrath and judgment to their Nazi captors. The verse that declares that “whatever was hidden will be revealed” resonated with their experience. The horror of the camps would be revealed to the world in due course. After hours of practice in the cold, damp, rat infested cellar, they put on 15 performances of the Requiem for the community in Terezín. The audience was stunned by their first performance. One chorus member recalls “Raffy put all of us, the singers and the audience into another world … this was not the world of the Nazis … it was our world!” The next day 5,000 prisoners were deported for “resettlement” including half the chorus. Schächter had to start over again and recruit more singers. In Spring of 1944 residents of the camp learned that Terezín was going to be used as a Nazi showplace. The International Red Cross was suspicious of what was happening to the Jewish people under the 3rd Reich and wanted to inspect a camp. Since Terezín already had a thriving artistic community, the Nazis decided it would be the perfect place to entertain the Red Cross. A delegation was brought through the camp to see a lively soccer game, little children playing on swings, or taking naps underneath the trees, adults sipping coffee, or participating in an outdoor exercise class. This was all completely phony, of course, the next week all the children were gone. And so Schächter and the choir put on the final performance of the Requiem. The chorus had been reduced to less than half the original size. This was not ideal but they would have no other chance. In complete defiance, they sang. One survivor said that the Nazis thought they were singing the Requiem for themselves, as they would soon be dead. They were not. They were singing judgment upon their captors. The survivors declared: “[The Nazis] had our bodies … but they did not have our souls.” Defiance is not the same as denial. The Terezín chorus did not deny their situation, but they defied it with their music. To defy is to confront. To defy death and despair is to go on living with hope. Our wilderness, in these times, is a pandemic and a holiday season that will look different from any other. With 90,000 people hospitalized in the United States this weekend, and 50 Americans dying every hour, this certainly is a desolate place. [2] Our wilderness is our loneliness. It is our fears for our family members, for our loved ones, and for our financial future. And our act of defiance is still to hope, still to proclaim the coming of Jesus to the world. Our defiance is to remember that Jesus can be witnessed among us all the more, in circumstances like these. Our act of defiance is to sing, even though this year we are singing in our homes. We don’t deny the pandemic, but we defy the power it has over us. We defy any ideas that pandemic makes our worship less worthy, that our singing is less vibrant, that our lights shine less brightly. These times are disheartening, of course. Remember when we closed in person worship for just 2 weeks? Remember when we thought we would re-gather for a late Easter this past spring? I had hoped for an outdoor in-person Christmas Eve service. But in light of an increased infection rate over the past few weeks in this state, we have decided against that plan. And still, using an online platform gives us the opportunity to extend our Christmas Eve service beyond the local area. It allows us to include those who would not drive in the dark, those who need to remain isolated, and those who could not be out in the cold. It is heartening to remember that even Jesus was exhausted when he was confronted with despair. It is OK to be tired. It’s OK to be done with this. It’s OK to take a break. This Advent time may we be on the lookout for angels and messengers, bringing words of support and encouragement. May we heed the call to raise our voices, in defiance of those who say that “the church is closed.” This is the beginning of the good news. May all God’s people say, Amen [1] https://www.amazon.com/Defiant-Requiem-Lindsay-Hopper/dp/B07BLRJKZ6/ref=sr_1_1?crid=DRTRGGB4TYRE&dchild=1&keywords=defiant+requiem&qid=1598832400&sprefix=defiant+req,aps,214&sr=8-1 [2] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-hospitalizations-top-90000-united-states/
0 Comments
Beware of Greedy Shepherds and Aggressive Rams Preached on November 22nd, 2020 for Wollaston Congregational Church Scripture: Ezekiel 34:11-24 This last Sunday of the liturgical year is designated Reign of Christ, or Christ the King Sunday. This is a relatively recent innovation. The festival was instituted in 1925 by Pope Pius XI in response to growing secularism and nationalism. The observance was moved to the last Sunday of Ordinary Time in 1970. [1] The observation of this day and time seems an appropriate pinnacle in the church year. Throughout the gospel, Jesus talks of the “Kingdom of God”, as being at hand: that it is within and among his followers. He teaches them to pray “thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Jesus’ descriptions of the kingdom and who is sovereign, pick up on imagery from the Hebrew scriptures, in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. The imagery of God as shepherd and king, resonates through the psalms and prophets. This may seem like a strange comparison to us today. A shepherd does humble manual work, following the sheep and sleeping rough at night. The shepherd’s work is smelly and messy. They rescue the lost sheep from the thickets and precarious places, and they assist the ewes who have trouble birthing their lambs. A monarch generally lives in a palace, dresses in finery and is fed the most extravagant food. A monarch has power over their people. When this power often goes unquestioned and can result in cruelty and abuse. In the ancient Near East, though, the word ‘shepherd’ was often used as a name for the king. The monarch was expected to serve God, and rule the people with compassion and justice. This image has been extended to religious leaders and even today, our tradition calls a minister a “pastor”, that is a shepherd. And higher church and catholic traditions give their bishops a symbolic crooked staff, resembling a shepherd’s crook. I suspect that we modern Christians prefer to think of the image of Christ as loving shepherd rather than a powerful monarch. The most common understanding of the paradox of the shepherd king is that we are God’s beloved flock. We like to identify with the lost sheep, the ones in need of rescue, the injured ones whom God heals and binds up. It’s rare for us to think of ourselves as strong in this context. And yet, the scripture we read from the prophet Ezekiel today, has much to say about both the responsibility of those who lead and those who follow. It concerns both the shepherd and the sheep. Ezekiel writes at a time when the people of Judah have been taken away to exile in Babylon. The temple has been destroyed, Jerusalem their beloved city and the home of their God, lies in ruins. It’s quite possible that this is a consequence of their regression into a divided kingdom: Judah in the South, Israel to the North. When King David had been on the throne, the kingdoms were united. At the time of Ezekiel, those heydays are a dream of long ago. David is a legendary leader in the minds of the people. He was the harp-playing, overlooked shepherd boy. The youngest child of the family, he was sought out from the fields to become the ruler of the united kingdom of Israel. During his reign David established Jerusalem, and his son and successor Solomon built the immense temple. The people conveniently remember the romantic side of the story, but forget the shadow side. They remember David as a man after God’s own heart, a charismatic ruler. But, as so often happens, power went to David’s head. His rule was not always merciful, he and his family members’ behaviors were often abusive and despicable. David was once a shepherd, but he forgot his humble origins once he became king. His power and popularity went to his head. Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Still, Ezekiel promises the people, one day there will be another David, who will be prince among them. This compliments the vision of the dispersed and scattered people returning to Jerusalem to live under the kind and compassionate rule of a new king. When Christians read this passage, they hear a clear reference to Jesus, our shepherd king, who is said to have been of David’s line. The passage from Ezekiel echoes the words of the beloved 23rd psalm, which is often recited during funerals. The shepherd king finds lush green pastures and clear flowing streams for the flock. He makes them lie down in a safe place. He seeks the lost and cares for the weak and the injured. This is beautiful bucolic imagery, comforting and calming. However, this is not Ezekiel’s only message. He talks of sheep among the flock who are overfed and pushy. These are the aggressive rams, who have pushed aside the weaker ones. They have placed the vulnerable ones in danger. This passage follows earlier verses in the chapter, in which Ezekiel chastises the shepherds of Israel who had not cared for the people. They had eaten fat for themselves and clothed themselves with wool, but they hadn’t fed the people. They had not strengthened the weak, healed the sick, or bound up the injured. They had not cared for the health and welfare of the flock. They had not done any of the things that the good shepherd ought to do. We might hear the imagery of this passage as guidance for the way that rulers and leaders ought to behave. And yet, most of us are not rulers and leaders. And so, in order to understand of the image of the shepherd king and what that means for us, we also need to understand the comparison of the people with sheep. Sheep flock together. This behavior is sometimes characterized as stupid, but it is necessary for their safety and survival. Sheep are not predators but prey, and so there is safety in numbers. Sheep follow one another. Where one goes, they all go. When people are compared with sheep, it is often in an unfavorable light. Following the crowd is considered foolish. But perhaps it is also a true comparison. However intelligent and individualistic we may feel, the fact is that we do follow one another. Do you remember going to a new place: a new job or school, meeting a new group, or joining a new church? What are the questions you asked before you went? Maybe: How does everyone dress? What do you do for lunch? Who is in charge? What to they like or dislike? The desire to fit in is not limited to groups. Large swaths of the population follow particular fashion and lifestyle choices. Certain cultural personalities are popular at a particular time. Fitting in with the group is very important for humans. We rely on one another for protection and survival. Being accepted by a group or a community generally is not a problem. Problems arise, though, when the group is being led in an unhealthy direction. At that point, it is important that we do not behave like sheep. Religious groups can easily be led in an unhealthy direction when power and control is given to one dominant individual. The same pattern can occur in families, political groups, or community organizations. This kind of dominance and control can be quite literally toxic. Recently we have heard news of pastors who have required their churches to gather in person, singing hymns and praying in close proximity, as though God will magically protect them from COVID-19. And we are aware of political leaders who eschew wearing face masks and remaining physically distanced, making this a mark of belonging to their group. Those who have blindly followed their leaders have been put at great risk and they’ve also contributed to the recent devastating spread of infection throughout the nation. It is important for us to stay alert and awake to what is going on in our groups including our faith communities, our workplaces, other organizations and our nation. I confess that my own inclination has been to lie down and fall asleep to the gentle passages of Psalm 23 or the reading we heard today. Some years ago, when I was in a religious setting that was being led in an unhealthy direction. There were situations where I should have done my own work, figuring things out for myself. But instead I was inclined to go along with the group, even asking for guidance from them at every turn. I ignored my inner wisdom that was prodding me to warn me that things were not right. It took me quite a while to wake up to what was going on. This can happen to any one of us, in our family and in social settings. It’s easy to give in to the power and control of toxic leadership. It is much more difficult to resist. Ezekiel’s passage give comfort to the weak and the vulnerable, it reminds them that God will bind their wounds and seek out good pastures for them. But this is not an invitation to count ourselves unnecessarily among the weak. We have been given the resources we need to discern a good shepherd from greedy dominant one, who is only on the lookout for their own welfare. We have been gifted with enough initiative to avoid following the crowd in an unhealthy direction. Today we are celebrating the Reign of Christ, our ultimate shepherd king. Christ will lead us only to good pastures. Christ will lead us in the way of health and wholeness: physical, mental and spiritual. If anyone ever tries to lead in any other direction, that is not the Christ. Beware of greedy shepherds and aggressive rams. May all God’s people say, Amen [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feast_of_Christ_the_King The Promised Land: the Shadow Side of the Story Preached on November 8th, 2020 For Wollaston Congregational Church Scripture: Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25 In our culture today, religion and politics are two separate entities. Each is almost equally taboo for polite conversation. And, yet, there is no real separation between these spheres, and the equally important topics of ethics and morality. They overlap, each informs and impacts the other. If we are true to our Christian faith, we will put God first and allow our faith to inform our politics. When we’re attempting to interpret the events of our time, we’ll reach for our Bibles before the newspaper. We will read both, because we serve God, who is intimately engaged with all that goes in in our world. In this nation we have an appropriate separation of church or religion and state. This is for the purpose of avoiding restrictions on the religious freedom of citizens. It allows the freedom for individuals to observe their own religious faith, or to opt out of religion entirely. The separation is necessary because of the tendency of dominant groups to impose values and beliefs on others. Our scripture passage for today comes from the book of Joshua. It is set in an ancient time when there was no separation of religions, politics, ethics or morality. All were one. Disputes between tribes hinged on which God or gods were worshiped. The dominant groups felt empowered to overcome neighboring tribes and seize their land, in the name of their deity. Imposing values and beliefs on others was the objective. I have to admit, Joshua is not my favorite book of the Bible. Some years ago I was preparing for my “Ecclesiastical Council”, the public test I would take to confirm my call to ministry. I had prepared myself for the question: which books of the Old and New Testaments would you least like to preach on? My choice from the Old Testament was a tie between the consecutive books Joshua and Judges. These books document warfare, ethnic cleansing, rape, plunder, and the seizing of land. All this is attributed to the name of God. This follows the story of the Israelites peacefully wandering the wilderness for 40 years under the leadership of Moses. When Joshua takes over after Moses’ death, things change. According to the narrative of the scriptures, the people are finally led into the elusive Promised Land. The problem is that it is already occupied. Joshua is instructed by God to militarize, strategize and overcome the existing occupants. These are small tribes much like the 12 small tribes that comprise the Israelites. According to the text, God enables Joshua to claim victory after victory. This story is the meaning that was made from whatever really happened in the land of Canaan. The narrative has been embellished and exaggerated in favor of a mighty Israelite victory. History tells us that there were skirmishes between tribes in the land for many years. The other ethnicities were not wiped out and appear again in much later books of the Bible. Ultimately, the people of Israel are responsible for ushering in a time of increased cooperation between peoples, respect for the stranger and the neighbor, the equitable distribution of land, and a more merciful approach to criminal justice. But we might ask, do the ends justify the means? These books, Joshua and Judges, tell a dark history of the people of Israel. Perhaps not much has changed. There is a shadow side to the stories of every nation, every culture, every religion, every political movement. The theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, is famous for the Serenity Prayer used widely by addiction recovery groups. But Niebuhr also wrote extensively on moral and ethical issues impacting society in his time. In 1932 Niebuhr wrote the book “Moral Man, Immoral Society.” In this book, Niebuhr observes that human sinfulness is magnified, rather than eliminated, by institutions that subscribe to high ideals. The Encyclopedia Britannica states that Niebuhr “stressed the egoism and the pride and hypocrisy of nations and classes … He emphasized the tendency for sin … to appear on every level of human achievement, especially where claims to perfection were made, either in religious or political terms.” [1] Paul Elie, authored an article on Niebuhr in the November 2007 issue of The Atlantic, saying “While the individual ‘moral man’ can check his natural selfishness through conscience, self-discipline, and love, social groups—tribes, movements, nations—look out for their own and strive to dominate other groups.” [2] And so, how do we reconcile the shadow side of the history of our nation with our patriotism or citizenship? I have to confess that I am squeamish about patriotism in a way you may not understand. I’ve been wrestling with this for a while. I’ve wondered why I’m put off pride in nation, either for my birthplace, the United Kingdom, or the place of my citizenship, the United States. For me citizenship is a more palatable term, it emphasizes participation, engagement, and community. In my mind, citizenship acknowledges the shadow side of culture in a way that patriotism does not. Citizenship calls us to work toward a greater good. I think my unease comes from a feeling that at some stage in my life I was bamboozled by patriotism. Not by my family, we are not particularly patriotic folk, but perhaps by the narrative of the culture, and my schooling. The remnants of a triumphalistic Christian faith, coopted by the British Empire, were hanging on when I was a child. The patriotic song, “Rule Britannia”, is sung with gusto and much flag waving at the annual proms. These are concerts broadcast by the BBC from the Royal Albert Hall in London. One line sounds grotesque to my ears. “Britons never, never, never shall be slaves.” I hope that they shall not be slaves, but what else does this mean? That it is alright for others to be slaves? Some years ago I had a work colleague who had come from Germany to the United States. She had allowed her teenaged daughter to learn an instrument at school, maybe the trombone, or the clarinet. But then she was quite horrified when the girl was recruited for the school’s marching band. She explained that marching bands were out of the question in Germany, following World War II, because they raised the specter of Nazism. This all to say that the way that patriotism, nationalism or citizenship hits us will depend very much on our upbringing and life experience. And so we return to our scripture for today.While we may find most of the book of Joshua objectionable, the passage we read today is acceptable and applies to our times. The Revised Common Lectionary – the selection of readings for each week of the church year - has been carefully edited that way. Today’s scene comes at the end of the book. The violence is over and supposedly the Israelites have taken possession of the land. A new chapter is dawning. Joshua gathers all the tribes of Israel and they present themselves to God. Joshua recalls the history of their ancestors, remembering as far back as Abraham, the first to be led into Canaan by the one-God. Joshua questions the tribes’ loyalty to the God of Israel, reminding them that serving God in sincerity and faithfulness is not easy. He provides them with another option: they can choose other deities, they can align themselves with the Amorites whose land they live in. If they choose the God of Israel, then the Lord must be first in their lives. Their loyalty to God must be above loyalty to all else, including family and tribe. It will take them a while to learn this. And it will take us a while to learn this too. Then Joshua clearly states his intent: “As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” The tribes insist that they will serve the Lord too, but Joshua is not convinced. They’d better not commit, he warns them, if they cannot follow through. If they are tempted to wander away, to turn to the foreign deities, they will regret this day. Let them be a witness against themselves. And so, all the people of Israel assure him that they will serve their one-God. And standing here, in what will be the Promised Land for them and their children, they make a new covenant with the Lord. For the Israelites listening to Joshua’s call, this means a renewal of the covenant revealed through Moses. And for us Christians, this means a renewal of our covenant to follow Jesus Christ. The tentative question of Joshua is a question for us today: Are we up to it? On the dawn of the next chapter in American leadership, will we look back realistically and learn from 400 years of history? And will we, here, in the faith community, re-up our commitment to Jesus Christ? Our calling, in the end, is to be the best citizens that we can be, in this imperfect world, this imperfect culture, this imperfect nation. The Promised Land remains elusive. If Christ is first, above all else, at least for us, our vision of that land may be just a little clearer. May all God’s people say, Amen [1] https://www.britannica.com/biography/Reinhold-Niebuhr#ref121323 [2] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/11/a-man-for-all-reasons/306337/ Sermon Reflection on “The Eye of the Storm” Collaborative Service with Wollaston Congregational Church and Quincy Point Congregational Church November 1st, 2020 Scripture: Revelation 7:9-17 All Saints day is a day when I feel all the feels, so to speak. It’s a day when I fill up on the hymns and music, hymns such as “I sing a song of the Saints of God, patient, and brave, and true.” These songs and hymns, and the imagery of the scripture passages we read on this day, give me a place of comfort and hope in the midst of our rapidly changing world. They provide a place to hold on, remembering that there are so many who have gone before us, so many who have come through great ordeals such as the martyrdom Rev. Kim described. Whenever I sing the hymns that I remember from my childhood Methodist chapel, I hear my grandmother’s voice, high and warbly, echo in my mind. There I see her, with her snowy white old-lady curly hair, in the little boxed-in pew. She, who was patient, brave and true. Faithful to the last, she’d attend church twice on Sunday, even when she could no longer hear the sermon. The village chapel was the center of her life, where she met her husband and where they raised their daughters. She lived out most of her life barely half a mile from that hub. Today, I have a confession to make, especially to the Wollaston congregation. Last year, when I took a week off to travel to England to visit my family, I moonlighted. I preached on that All Saints Sunday at my old home chapel. I wasn’t physically at the chapel, as the building has been sold and the congregation have moved. But I preached at the community center where the congregation meets now, together with a neighboring church that was actually named “All Saints” church. Preaching to the congregation that provided my formation in the faith was a powerful experience. I truly felt surrounded by the saints: my former Sunday school teachers, family members, friends of the family, all a little older than before, but still showing up on Sundays to sing the hymns. I was surrounded in another way, too. As I stood up behind the table that would serve as the pulpit, I teared up a little at what I saw. The table had been spread with a white cloth that I remembered from years ago. When I was a young girl, my grandmother had brought the cloth home from her “Ladies Meeting” to have me sign my name on it. I had written with my best handwriting. Apparently the cloth had circulated around all the women of the church, their signatures had been collected and then embroidered in various colors. As I paused to draw my breath to begin the sermon that All Saints Sunday, I was surrounded by names: my grandmother, my aunts and great-aunts, cousins, elder church members and Sunday School teachers no longer with us. This cloth had been carefully preserved and the names had been carried from the old church building to the new location, so that the congregation would still be surrounded by their saints. There have been many artistic renditions of the scene we read of in our scripture today. This week I have focused on a particular painting that shows a sea of the great multitudes from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, gathering around the throne of God. The elder tells John of Patmos that these are the ones who have come out of the great ordeal. In the sea of people, you can mostly only see heads and the color of hair. And so I search that sea for a soft white head of old-lady curls. For my grandmother, Edith Scott née Hornsby, had certainly come through a great ordeal. She lived from 1901 until 1999. Almost the entire spread of the 20th century. She was born in a small row house, back to back and side by side with neighbors, with outdoor plumbing. The eldest child of 5, she was educated in the same village school as my mother and myself, until the age of 13 or 14. She had the smarts to enter higher education but failed the test because she did not know the tram fare into town. She had always walked. The timing of my grandparents’ birth was fortuitous. My grandfather was just old enough to join the peacekeeping force in Germany following World War I, and by the time of World War II he was too old to be called up. During that second war, my grandparents had dug their air-raid shelter in their lovely long garden and grown the carrots that would help their night vision. When the air raid siren sounded my grandmother would gather my aunt and my mom and their gas masks and head for the shelter. My grandfather served on air raid police duty, patrolling the village for any houses allowing even a glimmer light to show. My grandmother knitted for the troops. She refused to pray only for British soldiers but for all those who were in peril. She had the empathy to imagine that both British and German mothers and fathers, not to mention those of all the allies and the foes, were agonizing over their sons. Throughout the war and for the remainder of her life, my grandmother stretched resources. My mother remembers that she could provide the most nutritious meals from their meager weekly rations, “salmon” paste and meatless meat loaf with her specialties. She conserved water, saved elastic bands and pieces of string, sharpened pencils until they were less than an inch long. A neat stack of used envelopes were clipped together to make her note pad. She was quiet, but she had opinions. Sadly as she aged, her hearing loss increased and it was harder and harder to hold a conversation with her. Of all the questions I asked my grandmother, it never occurred to me to ask what was it like when the 1918 flu pandemic swept through their community. She had come through that ordeal too. All I know was that her little brother had died of croup around that time and that she’d never quite gotten over the loss. This is the story of one very ordinary, and at the same time extra-ordinary saint. My grandmother came through the great ordeal that was the 20th century: times of global warfare, pandemic, and political upheaval. And yet somehow she lived her life in the eye of the storm. She was devout, patient and calm. She served God and neighbor, and quietly challenged the assumptions of the time. And there are many, many saints who have done the same, enduring depravations and celebrating the joys of life throughout human history. Over these past 20 years, the pace of life and cultural change has gotten faster even than it was in the 20th century. The ordeals seem to keep coming and in this moment they are swirling around us with the force of a tornado: a pandemic, a contentious and divisive election, climate change: hurricanes, melting ice caps, immense forest fires. In the passage we read today, God makes a tent, a tabernacle to shelter the ones who have passed through their ordeal that was martyrdom. These are comforting words, and hope for our future, even when we pass from this earthly life to the next. And so, may we hold onto the memories of those who were patient and brave and true. We stand on the shoulders of those multitudes. We are buoyed by their prayers. May we remember they walked this way before us, and there will be more saints who follow us in the future, too. And so may we find our eye of the storm, a place of peace and hope, in the memory of those very many saints. May all God’s people say, Amen |
If you enjoy a sermon or have a question, please leave a comment. If you would like to quote any of my material in your own sermons or writings, please use appropriate attribution. I look forward to hearing from you!Archives
April 2022
Categories |