Last Sunday,
along with others, I pushed and shovelled water, helping to clear 4 inches of
water out of the church basement. Part way through the exercise, I realized
that the experience was the very one I would remember through the years; Bob
and I throwing water over the sump pump that was in a large square box –
tactfully missing each other’s shovels and pausing every now and again with a
few words passed between us as we rested.
While
shoveling I was reminded of the porch project at the parsonage, 14 years ago. A group of men from the congregation came to
replace the floor. The lumber was in the driveway, the table saw was on the
sidewalk, a few had on carpentry aprons; measuring tapes, large pencils, nails
and hammers were in hand; men were working, and of course there were a couple
of supervisors. I came home from a visit and went into the house to retrieve my
hammer. At which point I offered to help ….
after a few looks, and me throwing the first nail, it was all good--- it
seemed everyone took a very long break, while Heinz and I finished nailing down
the floor boards. This story is being
told because it was the day I began to know Art Crouse. He is one among many
whom we remember today.
In church
world, I have found that when individuals focus their energy in the same
direction, trust, relationships, and community grow. Sweating
and working together for a common goal and purpose are the moments that create
saintly memories.
Over the years,
that day on the porch, fostered relationship between the people present--- and
in years that followed, when those men experienced overwhelming circumstances,
the chaos of life, the death of loved ones, journeying through sickness, and
their own deaths --- the saints gathered; I gathered with them and their
families in a deep way; together we shed tears and bore each other’s burdens. Gone was a superficial dancing around about how
we would be with each other, gone was the need to nervously fill silence with
talk; awkwardness and fear were dispelled for we had sweated together, focused
together, were not afraid to get dirty together. What I would like to call saint moments, are
these times of vulnerability, whether physical, emotional, mental, or
spiritual; moments that test and challenge us. Saint moments shape us into who
we are and how it is that we “be” in the world.
The word from
Isaiah, as read earlier, is a text that acknowledges the difficulty and
challenge of present times. For Isaiah’s
people, it was living in a trampling ground for the empires of the world as
they fought with each other. Caught in
the middle, the people are exiled by one foreign power or another; with tears
they lose people, home, land, and Temple. In tears, they face a changing way of life,
and a fear that they will no longer be a people.
The difficulty
and challenge of present times, as spoken by Isaiah, is just as tear-filled
thousands of years later. Whether we look at escalating fear as articulated
through exclusionary rhetoric, the cruel and inhumane treatment of fellow human
beings, incidences and politics of hate --- we live in the face of a changing
way of life. It breaks my heart, and the tears are there, ready to overflow.
I take comfort
in the readings for this morning. They are the most tear-filled readings in the
lectionary cycle. As a community we are invited to theologically reflect on
tears.
American essayist and diplomat, Washington
Irving wrote: There is a sacredness in
tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more
eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming
grief, of deep contrition, and of unspeakable love.
There is truth in these words. How many of you, those who have lost a loved
one, or loved ones, have had moments when your eyes fill with tears, when tears
simply run over?
We are in good company. The Gospel of John, shares with us a vulnerable and intimate moment in Jesus’ human life. At the death of a close friend, while accompanied by others – Mary and Martha- Jesus began to weep. With tears they bore each other’s fears and grief.
We are in good company. The Gospel of John, shares with us a vulnerable and intimate moment in Jesus’ human life. At the death of a close friend, while accompanied by others – Mary and Martha- Jesus began to weep. With tears they bore each other’s fears and grief.
Through the tears, because of the tears, Jesus and Mary and Martha, along with the
others at Lazarus’ grave found themselves in a sacred place, a place of power;
the tears articulated the depths of their hearts, their love, their fears, and their
broken dreams. The tears also had an
edge, an edge that contemplated hope, promises, and dreams of newness of life
and resurrection; the tears had a silver lining that they could be changed to
tears of joy.
When Jesus approaches Lazarus’ tomb – Jesus approaches a dark musty and
lifeless hole— it is into this nothingness that Jesus calls. Jesus’ words echo
through the abyss, and from it, life comes out. Jesus says to those with tears
in their eyes: unbind him, and let him go. As the people unbind Lazarus,
they unbind their own fear and grief; tears turn from sadness to joy.
Karen Shaner,
a New Testament scholar, suggests that on All Saints day we reflect more fully than
on the theme of physical death to life.
Yes, this story of Lazarus is one of hope and promise, but, it is not in
the end of life when saints are made. Today
is not just about the saints who have left this earthly life, today is a
celebration of current saints -the ones who build porches and bail water;
suggesting that perhaps each Nov. we should pause to celebrate those who have
been baptized over the past year. This changes our perspective, to celebrate
the saints who have come into the church through the waters of baptism –
through the action of dying to oneself and rising with Christ. Saints, people
who continually prepare and practice living into community and focusing their
energy to sweat and work together, for the common good.
Today, together, we uphold
for each other that on both sides of the grave there is life.
Brian Peterson, a New
Testament scholar states: this day is
about what all God’s saints have known and experienced, that here and now there
is no death or grief or fear so deep and dark that the voice of Jesus cannot
reach into it, call us out, and bring life.
God has not
left us or abandoned us. Through tears, following tears, God calls into the
darkness –of fear, loneliness, depression, listlessness, grief--- and from the
abyss draws life.
A
loud voice from the throne says, I am making all things new. See, the home of
God is among mortals. God will dwell with them; they will be God’s peoples, and
God will be with them; God will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be
no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things
have passed away.
This is apocalyptic
literature at its best. It is explicit
that God has not taken our loved ones away. The new heaven comes down to earth;
the new heaven is not a replacement, but, rather, a renewal of what was and is
– in the very place God has always been; at home, dwelling, among mortals;
crying at the open grave and from the abyss calling out life.
The calling out of life,
once again places life to grow out of darkness, the darkness in us, in our
hearts, in the chaos in the world, and in the change of the way of life as we
have known it.
As God calls into the darkness, and we see
more clearly through the tears, the words of Isaiah echo…
then
the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces. It will be said on that
day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for God, so that God might save us.
This is the Lord for whom we have waited; let us be glad and rejoice in God’s
salvation.
Perhaps today grief
is too raw for you to contemplate tears of joy and tears of hope. This is the
beauty of a community of saints, ones who have toiled together, built porches,
and bailed water side by side; there is an unspoken reality that we are in this
ship together and come hell or high water
we will share each one’s griefs, and carry light and hope, and
resurrection, for each other, especially when the other is unable to do so for
themselves.
Each week we
come to this sacred place, oft times with tears in our eyes ready to spill over,
to celebrate being given the grace of God to be saints through the way we live
our lives. We come with tears in our eyes at the magnitude of God’s forgiveness
and grace, as we celebrate that which is yet to be; a great feast of good things,
for all people, on the mountain of God. We celebrate this feast here, not in
perfection, but, with all those of every time and place, as the new heaven
comes to earth, to dwell where God has been all along. Here.
We bring our
grief to the table and find there a foretaste of the feast to come.
Art Crouse, as
others on the list of saints who have passed from this life, are as present and
alive to me in the meal we share, as they are resurrected while building porches
or shoveling water with the saints with whom I continue to sweat and work.
God
says: Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true. It is done! I am
the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give
water as a gift from the spring of the water of life.
May your tears be tears
that spring from the water of life; with power to dispel grief and fear; and
may we be unbound through the sacredness of tears that as a community we might
have life in abundance; with abundance to share.
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