Lord, If You Had Been Here!

 

John 11:1-44

Psalm 104:27-30

Lent 1

            The story we hear today is a complicated one.  Jesus’ life has been threatened so his disciples are not excited about going back to Judea, and so close to Jerusalem.  We hear that it was “less then two miles” from Jerusalem to where Martha, Mary and Lazarus were.  But Jesus heard that Lazarus was very ill, so after waiting a couple days, he decided he needed to go back to see him, he had to go, despite the threats against him.  The disciples were anxious, but Jesus needed to do this.  He loved Lazarus, he loved Martha and Mary and he needed to return to them to help. 

            On the way back he heard that Lazarus had died.  And Martha and Mary were both upset with Jesus, “If you had been here, my brother would not have died!”  Martha said.  Later Mary said the same thing, “If you had been here, my brother would not have died!”  We understand this.  We understand this pain, this anger, this frustration.  They are grieving the loss of their brother!  And at some level they feel it is Jesus’ fault.  “If only!”  They say.  If only!  If only Jesus had been there, Lazarus would not have died!  And while in their anger it sounds like they are being disrespectful, the truth is that these statements on their parts are strong statements of faith, of trust.  Jesus is able to see past their accusations and to understand that these angry comments are both statements of love for their brother and statements of trust in him!  They trusted that he would have been able to prevent Lazarus’ death.  They also trusted that he could still do something about it.

            Oh, that we were able to see the same in those who get angry with us!  But it’s not that easy for us, is it?  It just isn’t really that simple when we are faced with an “If only” most of the time!

            A couple months ago now my parents both were sick with COVID.  Because they had been vaccinated, they did not get it severely.  They both thought they just had colds.  But the truth was that they both had it and that my father had been to my house the first day that his symptoms showed up.  By the time we found out that it was, in fact, COVID, both David and I had symptoms similar to theirs.  And while I was not worried about myself, I was worried, very worried, about other people in my life.  I was worried about the congregation.  I was worried about my kids being exposed.  And I was deeply worried about David.  David has some fairly serious respiratory issues.  The major diagnosis for him is that he has asthma about being sick.  To say it differently, he gets an asthmatic reaction every time he is ill.  That means that once he gets sick, his allergy system kicks in and he has a hard time breathing, he coughs terribly and constantly, and it doesn’t go away.  As a result of this and other respiratory issues, he actually had to have a tracheotomy when he was only 5 years of age because he couldn’t breathe.  He has the scar from that to this day and it is a daily reminder to me that for David, being sick, especially with a respiratory illness, is not a simple or uncomplicated thing.  For David, being sick is very serious.  So, when I heard that my parents did in fact have COVID, and when I realized they had been at my house the first day that it really presented itself, I was upset.  Like Martha and Mary, I confronted my dad, “If you had not come that day, David would not be sick!”  Different words, but equally a response of grief and fear that manifested in being upset.  And, like Mary and Martha, I wasn’t calling him to just complain.  They went to Jesus seeking help.  They needed to express their grief.  They needed someone to hear their pain.  But also, they were both still hoping, still trusting that he could make it better.  I called my dad to complain just because I needed someone to hear how scared and sad I was that David was sick and that I was afraid it, too, would be COVID.  But we also know that a huge part of grieving is bargaining, or negotiating.  At some level I think it felt that if I could just say “if only you hadn’t come!” it would fix it, it would turn the hands of time back and mean he hadn’t exposed David, and that we were okay. 

In fact, it turned out neither of us did contract COVID.  But in that moment of pain, those feelings of “If Only” were the feelings that overwhelmed me. 

            “If only!”  If only Jesus had been there.  If only my parents hadn’t come over that day.  If only Brent hadn’t gone to that party where COVID went crazy through the group.  If only Suzie hadn’t sold their house at the bottom of the market.  If only, if only, if only.  These are familiar sentiments to all of us, far too often.

            And Jesus’ response?  The shortest but most packed verse in the entire Bible, “Jesus wept.”  Even though in the story he could still do something about Lazarus’ death, even though he could still bring Lazarus back, even though the story did not end here, we still have this amazing and profound verse, “Jesus wept.” 

            I remember reading a sermon once in which the pastor said that we are to be people of the resurrection, people of joy, people always trusting and delighting in the hope of tomorrow.  We are to trust that God truly can and does bring new life out of every death, and new beginnings out of every ending.  And yes, there is truth in that.  As I mentioned in my sermon on the wedding in Cana back in January, we should celebrate much more than we do.  There is so much hope, promise and joy in the resurrection story!  There is so much life and grace and abundance in what Jesus brought and shows us of who God is, that we have no excuse not to party and celebrate and live this life in great fullness!  I stand by that.  I believe it to be true.

            But these two words in this one verse give us a very different gift.  They also give us permission to grieve.  Jesus wept before moving on and bringing new life to Lazarus.  Jesus wept before even looking towards hope and new possibilities for life for Lazarus.  Jesus wept.  He didn’t just cry a few tears.  He didn’t just say “aw, that’s too bad!”  He WEPT.  And he wept for a long time: all the way to the cave where Lazarus was buried.  And in doing so, he invites us to do the same.  We are given permission to cry and to grieve and to lament the changes, the losses and the struggles that we, too, have experienced. 

            I have talked before about the importance of reframing our tragedies.  And of seeing God in them, through them, and in the resurrection aftermath of them.  But we cannot jump there too quickly.  It is immensely important for us to live through the feelings of loss, and of grief. 

            I’m reminded of a movie I saw (Joan of Arcadia episode) in which one of the main characters had been in a car accident and had become a paraplegic as a result.  The person who caused the accident was the driver of the car who had been drunk when he drove.  While Kevin had finally come to terms with the loss of his legs, the loss of the life he had envisioned for himself, the family of the one who had driven the car sued him because he had allowed his drunk friend to drive.  Kevin’s parents tried to shield him from that.  They said to him, “Kevin, you should not have to go through this again!”  But his response, his profound, wise, deep response was, “But I have to.  Don’t take this away from me.”  Don’t take this away from me.  Jesus got that.  He got that there is a need to go through grief, through the pain, in order to truly heal, and, I would say, in order to see the new life on the other side. 

            When the kids were little, we had, for a while, two pets: a cat, Sabbath, and a Beta fish named Jeriah.  At night when I would tuck them into bed, I usually sang to the kids and my song would include a part where I would list everyone in our family: “With Mama and Daddy and (eldest) and (middle) and (youngest) and Grandma and Grandpa and Nana and ….” Etc.  I would name everyone who was part of my kids’ closest circle in the song each night.  Grandparents, aunts and uncles, friends, and, yes, the pets.  I would end each one with “And Sabbath and Jeriah” Well, as you know, fish don’t live long.  One day when we came out we found Jeriah at the top of the fish tank, floating on his side.  It was sad but we made it important: did a little service before flushing the fish down the toilet, sending him to his watery grave.  No one cried at that point.  I think everyone, even the littlest of the kids, understood that death was a part of life and that fish just don’t live very long.  That night when I sang our goodnight song, though, Middle was adamant, even before I started singing, “Don’t forget Jeriah!  You still need to include Jeriah!”  And it was at that point, when I was singing our goodnight song and naming the fish, that the tears came. 

            There is a wonderful Washington Irving poem that I would like to share with you:

There is a sacredness in tears.

They are not the mark of weakness, but of power.

They speak more eloquently than 10,000 tongues.

They are the messengers of overwhelming grief,

of deep contrition and of unspeakable love.

            We are in a time when there is much to weep about.  Our world is not what we would want it to be.  We are frightened and scared about the violence happening in the Ukraine, about the decision to deal with things through violence at all, with the greed and the claiming of power that this represents.  We feel helpless in the face of such wrong behavior.  And on top of that we continue to struggle with COVID.  We see people almost always through masks, we distance from people we would like to be spending time with, we all have lost people and lost a sense of “normalcy”.  And this has been going on now a LONG time.  Next week we will have been under the tyranny of the pandemic for two years.  Two long years.  Do we see a light at the end of this tunnel?  We think we do and then that light moves to being farther off.  And the reality is we will never return to what was.  Times have changed.  We have changed.  There is sadness to be felt, there is grief to go through.  This is our truth.  This is the reality of the times.  And while we trust and look to a God of resurrection, a God of new life, a God of hope and joy, we aren’t there yet.

            This is the first week in lent: and in this first week of lent, we are walking towards the cross, not yet towards the resurrection.  And we are called to look, to see, to be honest about where we are and how we are and where we are going.  And we are called, finally, to do what Jesus did.  To grieve, to struggle, to acknowledge the pain, to go through the pain.  To weep.  We know that God knows what this is, that God understands what this feels like.  And we know that tears are a deep gift: the ability to weep, to release our pain, to express our pain: this is a gift from God.  Often, it is only once we have allowed ourselves to grieve, to feel, that we can see what actions we can take to change things, to make the world better.  We are invited into the grief so that we can move through the grief to a new place, a place of hope, of resurrection, of new life.  It will come: that is the promise.  But we must go through the death, through the grief first.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

Immortality - All it's cracked up to be?

         One of my family's favorite movies is Stardust.  At one point in the film one of the characters says, "King!  For eternity!"  He is obviously very excited about this prospect, and will do whatever it takes to make that happen.  But while we were watching it the other day for the umpteenth time, one of my kids said, "well, that's horrible!"  To which I said, "Yeah.  The idea of being king forever is not at all something I would want." My child responded, "Oh!  That's not what I meant.  What I meant was that it would hurt everyone else if this person was king, and especially king forever."  Hm.  There are so many stories of people searching for immortality.  But it seems that most of these were written by people who are fairly young, who haven't lived through the many, many changes and challenges and tragedies of life.    

       But my own experience is that life gets harder as we get older in many ways.  There is grief that compounds grief as we lose those we love.  Our bodies present more and more physical challenges and limitations as we age.  The number of changes in society and in the world that we have witnessed and experienced grows, and the challenges to our worldview and thinking become more numerous even as our ability to adjust our thinking and change our ways of interacting with others in the world seems to diminish.  

    I've lived through a lot of hard stuff.  And I've lived through so many changes in our world and in our thinking and in our society.  I know it is only a piece of what I will live through.  I don't believe I am resilient enough that I could continue to handle an infinite number of losses and challenges and changes.  And more, each one is difficult, painful, and tends to reawaken the other crises that I've experienced, compounding them as it will.  

    Additionally, the idea of doing ONE job (being king for example) for all eternity is also an unbelievably unpleasant idea to me.  To do the same things each day, whatever that may be, because your job requires it, your life requires it, forever? A working life of 45-50 years seems plenty to me to spend doing one job.  Additionally, to always have people see you in one way, one role, to always treat you as a person in that one role: no thank you.  Not for me.  

    We think we want to live forever when we are young.  We also tend to think we are indestructible, that we will not die, or certainly not anytime soon.  And this is appropriate.  We have so much to look forward to in life.  But as we get older, there are growing pains, challenges and restrictions.  Yes, there is still much to look forward to.  At the same time, it is far too common in my experience that the people I visit in the elder years of their life just want to know why they are still alive and proclaim regularly that they are ready to go, that it is time.  We spend so much energy focusing on how to live longer, and we forget to focus on how to live more fully, more deeply with the time we have now.

    Immortality is not all it's cracked up to be.  And frankly, a long life that is lived past the time of understanding the world, past the time of enjoying one's body, past the time of really being able to LIVE in whatever way is meaningful to each of us, is not something I would ever wish for myself or for any of my loved ones.  

     I am grateful that medical professionals are now exploring this reality more.  Books such as Atul Gwandi's book Being Mortal are helpful steps towards people really making decisions about what is important to them during life so that they can choose what they are willing to suffer at the end of life as well as the point at which it is time to stop accepting medical interventions and to let go of life.  But I think these steps away from simply postponing death, and instead choosing to live a life that is full and meaningful only for as long as it really is full and meaningful for the one living it - these steps are small and will take time.

     One step towards that may be to stop glorifying the idea of immortality and stop telling fairy tales that idolize the idea of immortality.  It just isn't all that it's cracked up to be.  

Seasons of Loss

        This last year seems to have focused an inordinate amount on loss for us.
        As a congregation we read the book Being Mortal by Atul Gawande (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2014) which discusses end of life decisions and questions that are important for us to name and explore with our family members BEFORE the time comes for those decisions to be made.  It is an amazing book full of relevant stories and one I would recommend to everyone, regardless of your life situation, your age, your circumstances, or even your beliefs.  Death is a part of life and the sooner we recognize and plan for what we really want at the end, the better prepared we, and our loved ones who will walk us through the endings, will all be.
        This was followed by our Faith and Film night movie being If I Stay, which tells the story of a young girl caught between life and death and needing to make a decision about whether to live or not since her nuclear family has all been lost to the same accident that placed her in this limbo state.  This was a very thoughtful movie, bringing up questions of agency in our own endings but also family roles, what ultimately matters to each of us, and what decisions we make that either mirror our true values or act against them.
        In the midst of all of this my brother in law died, at the age of 52, from a stroke.  There was no warning, and no way to prepare. It just happened, leaving my husband and his family reeling, grieving, confused, and lost. 
        A few months later, the priest at the local Catholic Church died, at the age of 61, in a car accident.  He was a man I worked with and served with (I am one of the church's pianists) and who left behind a deeply grieving congregation.
       Then at the end of November my uncle, age 69, died of a heart attack.  Also an unexpected, unanticipated, very sudden, and very big loss for us.  That was the third unexpected, tragic death in the course of six months.
        Finally a friend I care about very much is dying of cancer.  This is now imminent.  She is a solo parent, and she leaves behind two teens.  And while cancer at some level leaves more time for loved ones to prepare, it is still devastating.  She is young, her children need her, and the loss around this feels huge. 
       All of these losses are in addition to those I usually face as the pastor of an older, aging congregation.  The deaths of older persons are still not easy, even though they may be more expected. 
       As I said, it has been a year of loss.
        I have found myself saying repeatedly to my family as they have walked through this year of loss, "Well, people aren't meant to live forever."  And that's true.  Reality is that we are all walking towards death.  None of us get out of the this life alive.  Our own deaths may seem more distant, but we walk towards them just the same, and as most of our losses this year show, "distant" could mean just around the corner.  Things happen, life happens, suddenly at times.  
        As I said above, death is a part of life: a natural, expected-at-any-moment, other side of the coin that is living.  While I will be the first to admit that I don't have a clue what death really means for those who leave this life, while I find that scripture really doesn't have a lot to say about after-life (though there have been many misinterpretations that say otherwise), still I have a sense of some kind of continuance. I believe strongly that whatever death looks like, we are loved through it just as we are loved through life. Additionally, I have never felt that my relationship with someone is over once they've died.  I still talk to those who've died.  I still imagine, and sometimes feel, I might actually hear their responses.  I still feel their presence or spirit as something that continues within my memories of our times together, in the retelling of their stories and in the ways I have learned, grown, and changed because of them.  I still meet them in the ways that those around me also have been changed and the ways their lives reflect the values and lives that those who passed have led.
        But still, with all of this, grief is real.  Our relationships with those who have died are different now.  We can no longer call them, or check in with them, or see what they are doing in the same way.  Sharing a meal or going for a walk together, having a good laugh, hugging and connecting with a touch or smile - these things are no longer possibilities.  It's no longer possible to make new memories with them, to have experiences together in the same way, to physically be in the same space, sharing, working, playing, being together.  And that changes everything in a day to day way.
       So I'm left with the same questions I always have - what do we do with this?  What are the lessons for us in times like this, and where do we take our grief when it can be overwhelming?
        First, grief is different for every person.  Even within those differences though, it isn't something we can avoid or put off or ignore.  It has to be walked through in order to move us to a new place.  This is never comfortable, but it must be done.  Trying to not feel our grief means it will erupt in other, potentially harmful ways.  We are given these feelings as a pathway to healing and feeling them is the only way through.
       Second, we don't walk this alone.  God is there with us experiencing this as well.  We have a companion in this who sees beyond us and is there to love us through it all.  But also, all of us experience loss.  All of us experience grief.  We've been given community to walk with us and to care for us.  Finding people to share your grief and feelings of loss is so important during these times.  Standing with one another, supporting one another - these are essential.
      Finally, I believe our grief, our sense of loss, our devastation sometimes, is a sign of just how deeply we care.  It is a reminder of something absolutely beautiful and that is the love we have for one another.  Grief can also remind us not to take for granted what we have this day, this moment, in this place.  It can be a gentle push to honor those with whom we travel THIS day knowing that tomorrow is not a guarantee.
        Be good to one another, because we do not know when is the last time we will see someone.  We do not know when will be the last chance we have to tell a person we love them, value them, see them as a beautiful person.  Apologies, expressions of gratitude, kindnesses, words of love and grace - all of these cannot be offered too often, or too soon.  

Humor Sunday sermon - The Reversal of All Things

Acts 5:27-32,

Revelation 1:4-8,

John 20:19-23

A mother listening to her son praying said to him, “Honey, that’s no way to say your prayers!”

The girl responded, “But mom, I thought that God was probably tired of hearing the same old stuff every night.  So I told him the story of the Three Bears instead!”



Pastor, “So, your parents say your prayers with you every night?  What do they say?”

The boy responded, “Thank God, he’s in bed!”

               Today we celebrate humor Sunday, the day when we remember that God had the last laugh over evil, and frankly, over all of us as well, by reversing what all of us know to be the only truth we can absolutely count on: that life ends with death.  Instead, death was the beginning: the beginning of the resurrection, the beginning of new life, the beginning of Christianity, the beginning of the faith that we have come to know and follow for the last 2000 years. 

               This should be an amazing and wondrous thing to celebrate and yet we often “celebrate” the resurrection with solemnity and ritual.  It is as if we cannot really accept the irony, the ridiculousness, the JOY of death being overcome, being destroyed, being reversed.  But that reversal of all we know should do exactly that: it should confuse us, it should turn our lives upside down, it should force us to question everything that we have ever known to be true, and to celebrate again with laughter, with humor, with music, with delight that God loves us so much that even death is no longer a solid steadfast rule; that everything we know is up for grabs, but that we need not fear because the God of love has promised to carry us through it all.

On humor Sunday this year we are literally practicing the reversal by reversing the worship service.  I hope that as we go through the service, you will find meaning in doing this.  First of all, it is often only those things which are different and unexpected which catch our attention enough to bring about genuine change.  Since we have not experienced physical resurrection first hand, sometimes we need a little help to remember the scandal of that day and of that experience for the disciples.  Reversing what we know invites us to experience both the confusion but also the possibilities inherent in life being other than what we expect.  That confusion can help us to see differently, to put ourselves in a place to hear in a different way.  The possibilities that open up for us, then, from a place of not knowing, but of seeing anew, can be amazing.

Secondly, I hope that today especially will be a reminder that church is not the goal.  Going to church is not what gives you stars in your crowns.  It is not what pleases God most.  As you may remember from my Amos sermon during lent, God said to Amos, “I hate, I despise your solemn festivals.  But let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” What pleases God most is when we follow Christ and do what he has called us to do: be the hands and feet of God, healing, loving, uplifting, feeding, visiting, making the world better for everyone; be the mind of Christ – wise as serpents and gentle as doves; be the heart of Christ, loving those we would call “sinners” because we have hearts of compassion that can do nothing less than treat even our enemies with love and grace.   The point of church is to ground us in the love of God, to center us in the reason for all we do, to remind us of our call and the support we have from God and this community for doing the call, and to feed us so that we can then do the work of the world with energy and passion. 

When seen this way, it is therefore more than appropriate that our “welcome and announcements” lead us into being the church in the world out there; that they come at the end of the service, inviting us into the work of Christ.  It is appropriate that we enter this place with the benediction, and the reminder that it is a temporary leaving of our work for Christ that we do when we come into this place to be fed so that we can go back into the world again at the end of the hour.  It is appropriate that we hear the words of scripture AFTER the sermon so that we can hear whether or not our thoughts and our reflections actually have anything to do with what God is saying to us through the books of the Bible.  It is appropriate that we give of our best gifts in our offering before we have been fed in this place so that it is not somehow a measurement of what the hour has provided us, but instead a pledge to give our best to God no matter how we are feeling or what we face in this moment.  It is appropriate that we greet one another with the peace of Christ: coming into this place as forgiven people forgiving each other before we can hear what God would say to us in this hour. 

And finally, it is very appropriate that we celebrate Christ’s resurrection with laughter, with a recognition of the absurdity of life that ends for most of us in death; and the delight in death that ends with the scandal of life.  We will hear today from the book of John that Jesus’ message to the disciples was peace, was one of sending forth, and was one of forgiveness.  That continues to be Christ’s message for all of us who would follow: to find peace so that we may go forth loving, forgiving and doing the work that God calls us to do in the world.  Christ is the one who was, who is and who will be.  It is in that wake, in that understanding, in that deep and undeniably powerful call that we are told to go and do what he did: healing, loving, freeing, raising up the valleys and bringing the mountains low.  And so we will, as we step forward into our lives from this place.  But before we do that, it is appropriate that we boost ourselves with a bit of laughter, with joy, with celebration.

So towards that end, we begin with the jokes that you have to share.  These two come from Scott Lewis who could not be here today:

Muldoon lived alone in the Irish countryside with only a pet dog for company.  One day the dog died, and Muldoon went to the parish priest and asked, 'Father, my dog is dead. Could ya' be saying' a mass for the poor creature?'

Father Patrick replied, 'I'm afraid not; we cannot have services for an animal in the church. But there are some Baptists down the lane, and there's no tellin' what they believe. Maybe they'll do something for the creature.'

Muldoon said, 'I'll go right away Father. Do ya' think $5,000 is enough to donate to them for the service?'

Father Patrick exclaimed, 'Sweet Mary, Mother of Jesus! Why didn't ya tell me the dog was Catholic?”

Father O'Malley answers the phone. 'Hello, is this Father O'Malley?'

'It is!'

'This is the IRS. Can you help us?'

'I can!'  

'Do you know a Ted Houlihan?'

 'I do!'

 'Is he a member of your congregation?'

 'He is!'

 'Did he donate $10,000 to the church?'

 'He will.'

All Saint's Day: Life and Death

Ezek. 37:1-14

John 11:1-45

The old time pastor was galloping down the road, rushing to get to church on time. Suddenly his horse stumbled and pitched him to the ground.  In the dirt with a broken leg, the pastor called out, “All you saints in Heaven, help me get up on my horse!”

Then, with superhuman effort, he leaped onto the horse’s back and fell off the other side.

Once again on the ground, he called to Heaven, “All right, just half of you this time!”

“Jesus wept.”  The shortest verse in the Bible.  “Jesus wept.”  What does it mean to you that Jesus wept?  What do you think about Jesus weeping?  

Today we celebrate All Saints Day, and while by “all saints,” we include ourselves (because “the saints” are all of those who are communing with God both during and after life), it tends to be a day when we honor, remember, celebrate, and grieve those who have gone on before us. We remember our loved ones who’ve died.  We celebrate the lives they led, and we remember that death is a temporary physical separation from those we’ve loved.  Death is a change in our relationship from one which is material, to one which is purely spiritual.  But while All Saints Day is a day to remember and celebrate, it is also appropriate that those memories would bring up some grief for us as well.  And All Saints Day is a day to honor those feelings as well, to remember that while we can rejoice in lives well lived, while we can celebrate the end of pain, while we can carry forward the legacies of those who led the way forward for us, while we can honor those who’ve passed by leading the best possible lives forward that we can, none the less, there is grief involved for each of us when a relationship changes from one of physical interaction to being simply one of remembering, celebrating, or speaking to our loved ones that have passed without tangible reassurance or promise of an answer.  That grief is a good thing.  It is a sign of the depth of the love we have for the other.  And it is a God-given experience: an opportunity to express the changes that happen within and without when someone we love has passed.

Sometimes people struggle to accept the grief they feel, thinking that in comparison to others, the loss they are experiencing is minor.  Or they feel they shouldn’t grieve as long as they do. Or we feel that we should just be thankful for what we do have and not mourn what we have lost.  I cannot tell you how often people say to me, “I shouldn’t feel this way.  I’ve been so lucky…”  But grieving is not unfaithful.  It is a recognition that we have loved and loved deeply.

“Kierkegaard said, ‘the most painful state of being is remembering the future… particularly the one you can never have.’ ”   I want to say that again, “The most painful state of being is remembering the future…particularly the one you can never have.”  In other words, the deepest grief comes when we realize that the future we envisioned for ourselves, for example, with another person, is no longer a possibility. 

Grief is an invitation to work that through.  When we are able to do that, then we can live lives that honor and celebrate those who have gone on before us.  When we try to stuff the grief, that is when we get into trouble.   

Many years ago, a parishioner died whose husband had spent the last thirty years caring for her.  It was his purpose and his focus in his life to care for her.  And when she died, her husband was left not only with the grief of losing his wife, but also with the feeling of having lost his purpose and his meaning in life.  He could not deal with the pain and he avoided

it by jumping into another relationship almost immediately, interestingly with someone who also needed a great deal of care.  He was remarried within six months of his wife’s death.  But while that whirl-wind romance put off his feelings of grief for awhile, it could not keep them away in the long run.  The result was that he then had to do his grieving within the context of a new marriage.  His new wife, not understanding grief, felt hurt by his pain over his wife who had passed.  She felt that he hadn’t let go or that he didn’t really love his new wife enough.  It made their relationship very difficult as he struggled both to live within his new relationship and to honor his old relationship through the honest and natural process of grieving.  In addition, the woman whom he married, as I mentioned, was also extremely needy and probably not someone he would ever have married had he taken the time to heal from his last relationship.  He jumped in to this relationship, he ran away from his grief into this relationship, not making the best choice for the long term.

That’s not to say that grief has to look the same for everyone or that there is one right way to grieve or even a right time line.  There isn’t one right way and grief looks different for everyone.  While grief specialist Kubler-Ross identifies as normal parts of grief - denial, anger, bargaining, depression and finally acceptance, there is no prescribed order to these feelings and many experience them in different amounts, at different times, and in different ways, sometimes experiencing each of these stages multiple times and again in multiple ways, other times skipping one or more of these stages altogether.  Other grief specialists add “pain and guilt” into their lists of normal feelings associated with grief saying that even in cases in which a person could have done nothing differently, we feel guilty about things not done, about things that might have been done, things that should have been said.  But however one experiences grief, grief is a natural, normal process in life that we can’t avoid as human beings, as real honest people.

I remember a conversation I witnessed in which a parent was trying to protect their child from grief, keeping the loss of their grandmother from the child, not allowing the child to attend the memorial service, telling others not to mention the grandmother around the child, removing the child from any situation in which the grandmother’s name might be mentioned.  The mother thought she was doing what was best for her daughter.  But the daughter in her wisdom, as she grew a little older, finally told her mother, “I have to go through this. By forbidding me to grieve, you are taking away from me something that is extremely important and beautiful.  Please don’t take my grief away from me.”  Unlike her family, she understood the deeper truth that not going through the pain of grief was in some way denying her something important.  There is a gift in that grief.  There is a gift that is hard to see when we are in the midst of deep pain.  But the gift of grief is that it leaves us open and able to see things as they really are.  It leaves us able to move on, to heal, and to be ready for what God will bring in the future.  For Christians, the gift in the celebration of the Saints who have gone on before us is that we are invited once again into a deeper relationship with God, for God is with us in our grief, grieving with us as well.  And God is the God of resurrections, bringing new life out of every loss.  But again, we have to grieve, have to go through the death of the past in order to be open to the new life that God brings.

And that brings us back to today’s verse, “Jesus wept.”  It can feel difficult to understand this verse at some level because Jesus kept saying to all those around him both before and after Lazarus had died, that Lazarus would live.  Jesus knew that Lazarus was not really gone forever.  In light of that, what does it mean that before he raised Lazarus from the dead, that he wept for him?  How could his grief have been sincere when he knew his loss was not long lasting or real?

I belief Jesus’ grief was real.  I think that Jesus realized, and reminds us through his grief, that new life never looks the same as old life.  A resurrected person doesn’t look the same or act the same as a person who has never died.  We are changed by the losses we experience, the deaths we live through.  Roberta Bondi sums it up well in her book “Memories of God” with these words, “Even Jesus was resurrected with his wounds.”  Jesus, too, was not the same after his resurrection and he knew that Lazarus, too, would not be the same.  He grieved the Lazarus that died because the Lazarus who was raised would not be the same.  He would be different, he would be changed by his experience of death.

The reality is that it is hard for us to look at those wounds, the wounds of life, the wounds that have forced us into lives different from what we imagined.  It is hard to accept that even though new life has come, the old life is gone, really gone.  But it is.  Lazarus died.  He truly and actually died.  And while Jesus was able to bring new life to Lazarus, he first had to grieve for the life that had died, the life that was, the life that ended.  That, to me, is the message in that one very important Biblical passage, “Jesus wept.”  Jesus knows that we, too, must grieve for what was, grieve for what has past, for what is over, for what is done.  It is only through grieving and letting go of the past that we can really truly be open to the wonders of the present, to the gifts of the now, to seeing the new life around us.

Those two simple words, “Jesus wept” give us permission to not just live in the Easter celebration of new life, but to grieve the death that preceded it as well.  “Jesus wept” gives us permission to recognize that every change includes grief, and that it is okay to feel that even as we look towards new life.  Jesus wept.  And we can, too.

I want to end by reading you a poem by Washington Irving:

There is a sacredness in tears.

They are not the mark of weakness, but of power.

They speak more eloquently than 10,000 tongues.

They are the messengers of overwhelming grief,

of deep contrition and of unspeakable love.

            So today, I would like to invite you to come forward and put your pictures on the tables that are set up and name the Saints that have meant something to you.  If you would like, tell one good thing about that person.  If you did not bring a picture or a momento, I invite you still to come forward and say the name of someone whom you are remembering this day.  For this is our celebration of the Saints: all those who have blessed our lives, and continue to do so with our memories and celebrations of their lives.

To Lay Down Your Life

Acts 4:5-12
John 10:11-18

       In the passage from John today we heard that Jesus is the shepherd who will bring all the sheep into his fold, even those who are not part of the recognized flock.  He also said that he has come to this place by being willing to lay down his life for his flock.  It is from that place of being willing to die, according to this passage in John, that he gained God’s choosing, God’s love, God’s mark.  Or, as John puts it, “For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again.”
       This is part of the hardest thing we are asked to do - to no longer fear death. Attached to that is what I believe is even harder. The hardest thing we are asked to do is to be willing to overcome any fear we do have, and if necessary to be willing to give up our lives for others - for our family, for our friends, yes - but more than that, for our enemies.  I’m not saying that we are to seek out death, or that being a martyr is the goal.  What I am saying is that we are to act with all faith, and without fear even to the point of being willing to die for others, even for, maybe especially for, our enemies: for their lives, for their well-being, for their wholeness.
        I want you to take a moment and think about someone that has hurt you.  Someone that offends you.  Maybe it is a person you know very well.  Maybe it is someone you don’t really know at all: a person from a particular group of people that offends you - a person with a different religion or a person with a different lifestyle choice, a person with a different political bent or someone with a different attitude about anything that really, really matters to you. I want you to picture a situation in which you are with this person that you don’t like, perhaps don’t respect, don’t value. And I’d like you to imagine that a bad guy has come into the room and has announced that one of you is going to die that day. 
            I know this sounds ridiculous. But the fact is that this isn’t so far off from what Jesus was faced with. The people around Jesus were, both literally and metaphorically, dying. Their lives were lives of deep struggle. And there was a great schism: some were caught up in a legalism, they were enslaved by their understandings of their scriptures that made their lives rigid – ordered, structured, but life-less. Others were condemned for being unable to live up to those rules, being unable to bring the needed offerings, to be fully without illness or disability, or to live by a set of strict regulations that were difficult for the poorer people.  All were caught up in a cycle of sin, or I would say of oppression, which meant that they were either the oppressors - the pharisees, the legalists who were making life unbearable for the rest, or the oppressed - all those considered “unclean” which included anyone who was injured, anyone who had a disability or infirmity, Samaritans, Syrophoenicians, women, children, and those too poor to pay the legal sacrifices that were required. 
       Some played both roles in different ways. And in those roles of oppressor or oppressed, the people around Jesus were not living. Jesus saw this, and was willing to die in his efforts to bring a different message, to bring life to all involved: confronting the legalism, lifting up the oppressed and hurting. Only this witness, this stand so strong it would die, as well as a resurrection promised and brought forth that showed they could choose a different way because even death was not something to fear: only this would prove that those paying attention did not have to follow these life-less rules, that they could live without fearing death because it too would be overcome. But the irony of it all: these very people, these people whom Jesus was trying to save were the very same people who wanted Jesus to die. These same people he wanted to help, to free, were the very people yelling for his death. In this way they were Jesus’ enemies, the enemies Jesus chose to love and to care for even to death, these were the people he was trying to reach.  And he was willing to lose his life in the attempt. 
         Would you be willing to step forward and sacrifice yourself for an enemy like that?  What if the “bad guy” in my scenario was saying that he would either kill you or kill himself.  Would you choose to die, taking the chance, the risk, that the very enemy who held your life in his hands might then choose life?
        It would be hard to choose to do this.  Common responses might include, “They don’t deserve to live, while I die.”  Or “I would be leaving behind people who need me” or just very simply “I don’t want to die.” But the reality is that everyone of these responses is a sentence about fear. Saying that another doesn’t deserve to live while you die is an expression of fear that death is not as good as life, that death is a bad and scary thing. Saying that the people you would leave behind need you is an expression of fear that new life does not await those we leave behind.  And of course “I don’t want to die” is all about fear.  As a country, as a community, as a bunch of interwoven cultures, we seem to be ruled in great part by fear.  We fear to speak the truth, afraid someone will be angry, afraid someone will reject us.  We fear to do the right thing, afraid we will get hurt, afraid we will suffer or that our loved ones will.  We vote out of fear - fear about the economy, fear about people from other countries, fear that our view of the way the world should be will be changed or challenged. We go to war over fear: fear that we will be attacked or hurt, or again that our expectations of how our life should be will be challenged. Most of our news stories: people being killed because people fear them for their color, their orientation, their religion – these all start with fear. People grabbing what money they can and refusing to share with others: this is fear that there will not be “enough” for me and mine.  We fail to really live because of our fear: we fail to grasp life and take risks and meet challenges, because of our fear.  We fail to be the church: a people living in the good news, serving in the good news, because of our fear.
        The first month I was here at this church, I shared with you this story.  I share it again because I think it is so important. My first call out of seminary was to a church in AZ that was just beginning to fully explore the area of service to others. One of the ways they served the community was that they allowed an Alateen meeting, a meeting for youth who have been seriously affected by the alcoholism of other people, to take place at the church.  One night a 14 year old girl was dropped off at the church for the Alateen meeting, only to discover that she was a day early for the meeting. I found her standing in the door of the church looking lost, looking confused, looking scared. I asked her if I could help her and she said she needed a ride home. This girl lived with her single mother on the other side of Phoenix, a good 45 minute drive away, and her mother had dropped her at the church on her way to work.  The girl had expected to get a ride home with another friend who attended the meeting, but since she had come on the wrong day she now had no way to get home. I was scheduled to lead a meeting that evening, so I went into a small dinner group of church members who were just finishing their meal and asked them if one of them might be able to give the girl a ride home. Can you guess what they said?
       The response was unanimous: “That girl could be a car-thief. That girl could be a con-artist.” “That girl could be carrying a gun or a knife and just waiting for a chance to stab somebody.”
I was floored.  They hadn’t even seen this 14 year old girl, but if they had, I knew it would not have helped her because as she had piercings and tattoos and she would have, for them, only confirmed their stereotypes and reinforced their fears. I gently suggested that this might be an opportunity to help this girl have a new understanding of what it might mean to be part of a Christian community. But was greeted with the response, “God didn’t call us to be stupid.”
       No, God doesn’t call us to be stupid. But God does call us to put love above our fears.  While we are also invited to use our brains and all of our skills to find ways that we might love ourselves and our neighbors fully, God also calls us to refuse to allow fear to make our decisions for us. When there is a choice between acting out of love and acting out of fear we are always, always to choose love. In those moments, God calls us to take risks knowing, absolutely, that they are risks, and believing that those risks - the risks we take to care for our friend, for our neighbor, for our enemies, are none the less the only things in our life worth doing well.
        Jesus came to free us from our enslavement to fear, to free us to really, really be able to choose life. But that remains the challenge. To believe to the point of being free from our fear, and free therefore to choose faith, to choose life.
      That is exactly the story that we heard in the first passage that was read for today. Peter and John had moved out of and beyond fear. They stood before their enemies: the people who had imprisoned them and who now held their lives in their hands. But they were so freed by their witness of resurrection that they could speak the truth to these powerful enemies: to speak truth that might help these imprisoning people to learn and live and grow, even while it put their own lives at risk. Peter and John had experienced a risen Christ and they knew from that experience that death is nothing to be feared. Death will be overcome: it had been overcome. And because of that, they were freed, completely freed, to speak their truth, to love their enemies, to give and give all of who they were and to fear nothing. They were able even to choose to die for their enemies, to follow in Jesus’ footsteps completely because they were unafraid. As it happened, they were not killed after speaking the truth. But they could have been. Still, they still chose to live, fully and unafraid, risking speaking the truth.
I’m not saying that this kind of belief is easy. I also recognize, again, as our scriptures tell us, that faith itself is a gift. But I think that’s the gift we need to pray for most fervently.  Because without that faith, we live in fear. And if we live in fear, we fail to really live at all.

All Saints and Stewardship

Ephesians 1:11-23

Luke 6:20-31

Today I have the daunting task of talking to you about both Stewardship and All Saints Day. But while these may not seem connected, stewardship is not just a giving forward, it is also a celebration of what has been, an honoring of the past.

The Ephesians passage tells us that we were chosen in Christ.  We can rest assured that the Saints were chosen in Christ.  We can feel safe in the assurance that our loved ones still exist in some form, that they are with God, that our love for them still matters, and their love for us still continues.  When we are in grief, as many in this congregation are this year, these words can seem a little hollow, perhaps. We miss them.  And while the promise that they still exist in some form helps, while being assured that they are now at rest with God can help, it doesn’t always ease our grief. 

As I thought about the fact that on All Saint’s Day we are called to honor those who went before, I realized that we honor them as much for our sake as for theirs.  Taking the time to celebrate and remember those who have shared with us their time, their wisdom, their presence - helps us to grieve with grace, to celebrate their lives, even as we mourn our own losses, to reflect on the legacies that they’ve left us and that have made us who we are today.    

We honor their memories by sharing with others stories of their lives.  We honor their memories by praying about them, or talking to God about them.  We honor their memories by spending time looking at their pictures, at things they’ve made or things they’ve created, by remembering them.  But there is more.

One of the ways we honor the memories of the Saints is by maintaining practices and rituals that were important to them…such as going to church and giving to church. The saints, the ones who have passed, understood that faith is not just a statement about what we believe.  It is an action, it is about doing, much more than believing.  You show what matters to you by what you do with your time, your energy, your money, your talents, your gifts.  That means that we honor the Saints not only by following in a tradition of generosity, but by giving of our time, our energy, and our talents as well.  There is something that every person here can do.  Every person here can contribute in some way: writing cards, knitting scarves, coming to bible study, inviting your friends to come to an event at church: the concerts, the studies, Sunday worship.  Stewardship then is following through on all of this: it is about committing our lives with our time, energy, talents, and resources - all of which is an expression of faith but also an honoring of our tradition, our history, and the Saints that have gone before us as well.

That doesn’t mean that giving is easy for any of us.  We live in a culture where we are expected to get more and gain more.  We often rank ourselves by the wealth we can demonstrate and we socialize with those in the same socio-economic sphere.  What we perceive to be our need often grows to fit our incomes or to even exceed them.  We can see it happening in our lives and in the lives of those around us, but it is hard to change this, especially in a culture that celebrates wealth. 

A boat docked in a tiny Mexican village. An American tourist complimented the Mexican fisherman on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took him to catch them.

            "Not very long," answered the Mexican. 

            "But then, why didn't you stay out longer and catch more?" asked the American. 

            The Mexican explained that his small catch was sufficient to meet his needs and those of his family.

The American asked, "But what do you do with the rest of your time?" 

"I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, and take a siesta with my wife. In the evenings, I go into the village to see my friends, have a few drinks, play the guitar, and sing a few songs. I have a full life." 

The American interrupted, "I have an MBA from Harvard and I can help you! You should start by fishing longer every day. You can then sell the extra fish you catch. With the extra revenue, you can buy a bigger boat."

"And after that?" asked the Mexican. 

"With the extra money the larger boat will bring, you can buy a second one and a third one and so on until you have an entire fleet of trawlers. Instead of selling your fish to a middle man, you can then negotiate directly with the processing plants and maybe even open your own plant. You can then leave this little village and move to Mexico City, Los Angeles, or even New York City! From there you can direct your huge new enterprise." 

"How long would that take?" asked the Mexican. 

"Twenty, perhaps twenty-five years," replied the American. 

"And after that?" 

"Afterwards? Well my friend, that's when it gets really interesting," answered the American, laughing. "When your business gets really big, you can start buying and selling stocks and make millions!" 

"Millions? Really? And after that?" asked the Mexican. 

"After that you'll be able to retire, live in a tiny village near the coast, sleep late, play with your children, catch a few fish, take a siesta with your wife and spend your evenings drinking and enjoying your friends." 

How much life do we miss in our quest to become richer?  In our quest to gain more for ourselves and our families?  We know that the most generous people, again with time as well as with money, are often those who start with the least amount of money; and that those who share the least are those with the most money and time to do the sharing.  We also know that studies show there is NO increase in happiness associated with an increase in wealth.  What we think will make our lives fuller and more meaningful doesn’t.  Instead, the one thing that tends to be the best indicator of human happiness is a person’s generosity, with giving, and with caring for and serving others.  That is something that people of previous generations often understood much better than we ourselves can.  And, on death beds, the biggest regret that is always expressed is not spending more time giving meaningful service and time to those people and needs that we care the most about.

            One of my house-mates from college lives as a Catholic worker volunteer.  This means that she lives in a community of other volunteers who open their house to the poor in their community.  They feed them, house them, living in community together.  She is married with children and still lives in this community.  While I struggle to find the money to send my children to lessons so that they might have a full education, her children have the fullest education possible, living with and serving God’s people in community.  She has found God’s wealth to be far greater than that of material wealth and security.   She lives in God’s kingdom and she does it every day.

            I think about Rick Warren, the pastor of the megachurch, Saddleback in Southern CA.  When his books hit the best seller list and he started raking in the money, he had to make some serious decisions about what he would be doing with it.  He wrote, “sometimes learning to deal with the good is harder (than dealing with the challenges in life). For instance, this past year, all of a sudden, when the book sold 15 million copies, it made me instantly very wealthy.   It also brought a lot of notoriety that I had never had to deal with before. I don't think God gives you money or notoriety for your own ego or for you to live a life of ease. So I began to ask God what He wanted me to do with this money, notoriety and influence. He gave me two different passages that helped me decide what to do, II Corinthians 9 and Psalm 72.   First, in spite of all the money coming in, we would not change our lifestyle one bit.. We made no major purchases.  Second, about midway through last year, I stopped taking a salary from the church.   Third, we set up foundations to fund an initiative we call The Peace Plan to plant churches, equip leaders, assist the poor, care for the sick, and educate the next generation.   Fourth, I added up all that the church had paid me in the 24 years since I started the church, and I gave it all back. It was liberating to be able to serve God for free.   We need to ask ourselves: Am I going to live for possessions? Popularity?   Am I going to be driven by pressures? Guilt? Bitterness? Materialism? Or am I going to be driven by God's purposes?   When I get up in the morning, I sit on the side of my bed and say, God, if I don't get anything else done today, I want to know You more and love You better.. God didn't put me on earth just to fulfill a to-do list. (God) is more interested in what I am than what I do.”

Many people come to church for what Church can give them.  Instead, maybe we should pick a church by what church needs us.  It should be a two way street.  No church will be perfect, and that is part of the challenge.  Same is true of the Saints that went before.  None of them are perfect, but we sometimes feel the church should be perfect and until we find one that is, we won’t commit.  We don’t honor our loved ones by making them into people they really weren’t.  We don’t honor who they really were by remembering only the good stuff.  And we don’t honor the tradition of the church by insisting it be perfect, or that it serve us if we are not giving back every bit as much as we hope to get from the church.  It is in giving that we receive. 

I think about the description of heaven and hell that I have shared with you before: in hell, you walk in and see a banquet table filled with foods, but everyone’s elbows are locked.  Each person struggled to feed himself, fighting against the fact that each one cannot bend his or her arms to bring the food into his or her mouth.  In heaven the situation looks very similar: a table filled with food, people surrounding the table with elbows locked.  However in heaven everyone is feeding each other.

            Stewardship, choosing to give of our resources and to give with generosity, is a statement of trust in God, a statement that we know that our real wealth comes from our connections with God and to God’s people.  It is an offering to the church and to one another the foods on the banquet table, trusting that we will be fed in turn.  It is an honoring of all we have loved and all we continue to love as we celebrate the generosity of the Saints by being generous in turn, by sharing with one another our time, our experiences, our wisdom, our energy, and our monetary gifts.

            The words of the hymn we will be singing later, “we give thee but thine own” is one of the truest statements of our faith.  The money, the talents, the gifts and resources we have are not ours.  They are on loan to us from God…but as scripture tells us, “from those who have much, much will be expected.”

            We are blessed.  And today as we remember the Saints who have passed on, we remember that their presence in our lives was a great blessing and their memories continue to be a blessing.  We honor those memories by striving to give as much as they gave us, of all that we have and all that we are.  Amen.

"She will not be comforted, for her children are no more."

Jeremiah 31:15-17

Matthew 2:13-18

            “A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation.  Rachel weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted, for her children are no more.” 

This is the other side of Christmas.  The cloud behind the silver lining.  The systematic and senseless killing of every child two and under in and around Bethlehem.  A most horrible tragedy, as we know.  But we experience this as well, don’t we?  And especially this month, this week, as we reflect on all of the natural disasters, the hurricanes, the tornadoes, and, most lately, on the shooting in Las Vegas.  For every person who has died, for everyone killed in any of these losses, there were more parents, children, friends, relatives, anyone who was near enough to know and care; weeping and wailing for the senseless and absurd deaths of so many. “She refuses to be comforted, for her children are no more.”

            We don’t want to think about this side of Christmas.  Christmas is supposed to be a celebration of joy, life, and love.  We don’t want to think about this side of life.  God’s world is supposed to be a place where we celebrate the beauty of creation, of life, or friends and family.  We don’t want to see death and pain, and it is very difficult to make sense out of tragedies, out of these awful events that are happening in our world.  How do we do it?  How do we move forward when there is so much loss and pain in our world?  How do we still trust and believe in a good God when nothing changes?  When the natural disasters get worse with each year and when people still are allowed to shoot at and kill others in this way?  When nothing is done to stop this, when we are owned and controlled by big money rather than the lives of those we love?

            But most of the time I think we still try to put it aside, still try to not think about it, not worry about it too much.  We have to get on with our lives and we are called still to celebrate the good…   

            Unless.  Unless a tragedy is so big and so horrible and so personal that we can’t put it aside for the day.  The event of Herod’s merciless slaughtering of all the young children in Bethlehem was such a tragedy.  The events in Puerto Rico and in the Virgin Islands, in Texas, in Mexico, in Nevada… for the families and friends of all those who have lost loved ones, each one is such a tragedy.  Each is a lightning bolt striking down in the middle of a warm spring day, the shock of being thrown into ice water alone and isolated.  For the families and friends of those children in Bethlehem, there was no Christmas.  For the families and friends of those in the many places I’ve mentioned, there is no celebration.  For the people of Bethlehem, the birth of the Messiah seemed to be the cause of their tragedy.  There was no room for celebration here.  There was only weeping - “Rachel refusing to be comforted, for her children are no more.” 

The people of Bethlehem must have felt, and rightly so, that the birth of this one baby, Jesus, could not possibly be worth the killing of so many innocent children.  Their minds must have been filled with questions.  Why did this have to happen?  Why now of all times?  And why did God warn Joseph and not the other parents?  If God had the power to warn and protect, why weren’t all the parents with young children out of Bethlehem before the slaughter? “She will not be comforted, for her children are no more.”

            According to the Interpreter’s Bible commentary, this story was clearly not meant to be told as an historical event.   Instead, the story is a story about God’s divine intervention.  It is a story about God taking the initiative when it came to reconciling with humanity.  God initiated the coming of the Christ child, initiated Jesus’ birth and saw through to the fulfillment of Christ’s mission against all odds.  It is a story that shows God acting out of love on our behalf, even when we have not prayed for it or asked for it, or done the work that is necessary to bring healing and safety to the world.  It is a tale telling how God fulfills God’s plans of love, no matter what the obstacles.

            This understanding of the story may help.  It may help to believe that God didn’t really warn Joseph while allowing all the other children to be slaughtered.  This may help – until we realize that the story is true.  It is true, as we have witnessed this month.  It is true when we look at the world.  In our world at this point in time, 3% of the population use 80% of the world’s resources.  3% seem blessed by their wealth, success, and comfort, while many, many people in the world do not have homes, do not have the medicines they need, do not have food.  Most children in our privileged country live and love and have enough, but not all of them.  And in the rest of the world children continue to be senselessly slaughtered.  Girl children in some countries are killed simply because they are girls.  In other countries children are killed because it is war time.  Children die in the thousands from starvation because there isn’t enough food or water.  Our storms, fires, tornadoes are becoming worse in the face of Climate Change and many are suffering the violence of our weather. And sometimes, something happens and a person will snap, go on a rampage and kill people for no real reason at all.

            It can be hard to really grasp the depth of these tragedies.  But we sometimes experience them in other ways.  I have a friend whose oldest son of seven kids contracted Spinal Meningitis.  The child had an especially bad and quick attack of the disease and the doctors told my friend that he should not expect his son to live.  But at the last moment the child recovered.  A couple years later, however, another friend of mine lost her only daughter to the same disease in a matter of hours.  My friend whose son survived the disease swears that God intervened to save his child.  But then I have to ask, why did God save his boy and not my other friend’s daughter?  “She refuses to be comforted, for her children are no more.”

            I know that the Christmas story to be real – both sides of it.  It is a true reflection of the world in which we live.  Miracles happen all around us, and at the same time, people suffer cruelties in abundance.  “She refuses to be comforted, for her children are no more.”

            How can we live and celebrate the joy when we know in each moment that we are joyful that others are weeping?  How do we remember the less fortunate and live in the joy of the Good News at the same time?  How do we celebrate God’s love and presence in a world fraught with pain?

            The Christmas story is a whole.  The slaughter of the innocents cannot be separated from the wonderful birth of the Christ child. They go together. The celebration of God’s amazing love for us cannot be taken out of the real world which God loves and was born into and came to save.  Celebrating is good and right.  God celebrated.  Jesus’ first miracle was to turn water into wine to celebrate.  The angels were so excited about Christ’s coming that they announced it to any who would listen, even shepherds in the fields.  The angels rejoiced as God rejoiced.

            But God also came to us, through Jesus, into the real world; a world torn with strife and senseless pain.  Jesus was born into life, even as the innocent children around him were being slaughtered. 

And so we, too, rejoice.  We celebrate and laugh and honor God’s glorious presence in our world.  But it isn’t enough to stay there.  We are called; we are called to be in the world and its pain as much as we are to celebrate its beauty.  Therefore we must use the joy God has given us to strengthen us so that we can enter the world, confront the world and CHANGE the world.  We cannot hide in comfort and celebration.  We must take the celebration and the love into the world and overcome the pain.  WE must stop the slaughtering of the innocents.  We are God’s messengers of love.  And we therefore must bear this good news to the world.  This is God’s calling to us.  Because, just as God laughs and loves with us, God cries with us.  God is suffering.  It is God’s children who are being slaughtered.  It is GOD who refuses to be comforted because HER children are no more.  And we are the soldiers and caretakers of the world.  WE are the ones who must bring God the comfort that She seeks.  We are God’s hands and we must bring life, love and justice to all God’s children.  The Magi tried to protect Jesus – after following the star to see him, they did not return to Herod to tell him where he lay.  We, too, on this day of Christian love and celebration, are called to follow the star – the star that shows us where God is coming and to protect that reflection, that incarnation of God. 

But we are also called to something more.  We reflect God’s sorrow and anger as well as God’s joy and WE must stop Herod from killing any more children, stop the privileged nations from allowing anymore children to starve, stop the gangs from destroying one another, and WE must pay enough attention to the hurting people in our world that we know when someone is going to lose it and WE must care for them and attend to them and get them the help they need before they go into another building and hurt or kill any more of God’s children.  But it is more than that.  Did you know that basic human psychology tells us that when we are angry, the judgement centers of our brains are disabled?  We literally and physically are incapable of making intelligent decisions when we are filled with rage.  It cannot be done.  When we allow people easy access to weapons in those moments when their brains are disengaged, is it any surprise that we end up with the situations we currently have?  We therefore must also work to change the systems that allow money to be more important than lives. We have to start paying attention to the statistics that show us again and again that countries that allow free access to these weapons are also countries where these tragedies occur again and again and again.  We have to look at countries that don’t have this issue and see what they are doing differently.  In the aftermath, we have to take responsibility and we have to work for change.  We have to educate ourselves and we have to act.

 There is a real need to take ownership over our part in allowing these terrible things.  We need to own that we have allowed money to set the conditions for climate change. We have to claim our part and work to change it.  We have to. 

              In the midst of these tragedies, where is God?  God is the mother crying for her children because they are no more.  And God is also the voice that tells us we must stop any more Herod’s from killing or allowing the killing of any more children.  God is the voice that says “enough”.  God is with the helpers.  God is with the healers.  And God is with those who would change systems of oppression and injustice. 

            God has given us much to celebrate.  Out of our gratitude let us help to end God’s weeping by bringing our joy to fullness and fruition, bring the good news of God’s love and presence to all the world.