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When I am feeling downhearted about some of the losses in my life, there is a phrase that gives me great comfort, a phrase that is referred to as our
“theme of the day” in your Bulletins:
“Life is a series of meetings and partings.”
I don’t know where the phrase comes from (not in Bartlett, Google doesn’t help), and I’m not entirely sure why I find it so helpful. I think it’s
because it’s a descriptive, low-key, but very accurate statement simply about the nature of life...
...and so, when I’m feeling distressed about yet another loss...grandchildren growing up, saying good-bye to someone I love, or just the unstoppable
movement of time...it reminds me that what’s happening is simply what’s natural...and that I am not alone in it...but that in fact it is one of
the basic realities of being human, and thus links me, to every other person who has ever lived, and changed, and moved on...
Today is a really hard parting for most of you in the parish. You’re saying good-bye to Helen, your seminarian, who has meant so much to you, given
you so much. And I know it’s hard for Helen - she loves you as you love her.
But today is also a meeting day.* There may well be newcomers here -- there usually are -- or maybe it would just be a good day to stop and chat
with someone in the parish you’ve never chatted with before. And at 11:15 we going to meet and greet two brand new members of God’s family in
Christ -- our family -- Alex and Jay, who are being baptized today.
*11:15 We’re meeting two new members of God’s family in Christ -- Alex and Jay, who are being baptized today -- as well as members of their
families and any other people who happen to be new to us today.
Meetings, newness, unexpected beginnings...that’s the flip side of parting. We emerged from the warm safety of our mother’s womb into a chilly
world -- but that world is also full of love and laughter and blue skis and green trees and all sorts of amazing things that made being
born...worthwhile! And we say good-bye to Helen, and all our other good-byes, and then we turn around -- sometimes unwillingly -- and open our
eyes for what’s to come. You never know what's going to happen next.
That’s what happens to the disciples this morning. Today is Pentecost, and you could call Pentecost the Great Feast of the Unexpected. Even after
all that had happened to them in their lives with Jesus and the resurrected Christ, surely the disciples never expected anything like that great
rush of wind howling around them, their own sense of coming alive, of being filled with fire, and then finding themselves speaking languages they
didn’t they knew -- all the languages of the known world.
And yet...they should have known. Just a few verses earlier in the book of Acts, Jesus has said to them: “...you will be baptized with the Holy
Spirit not many days from now...you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all
Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
So maybe we should call Pentecost the Great Feast of Once Again God Keeps Her Promises, Even Though We Keep Forgetting That She Will.
That promise of new life -- which is, perhaps, the very core of who we are as God’s people in Christ -- that promise of new life that God keeps on
keeping...and that we keep forgetting...partly because, when it’s really really dark -- outside or inside -- when we are facing deep pain in our
own lives or the utter horror of how much is wrong, corrupt, dangerous, inutterably cruet in the world -- in all that, it is so hard to see the
light or sometimes even to believe in the light, or even to remember the light.
But that is what we are called to, as God’s people in Christ. It is our work. Two of our Baptismal promises speak to that.
“Will you continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers?”
“Will you keep on being part of this community of hope? Will you keep on joining in the reading and hearing and teaching and singing and sharing,
will you keep on eating the bread of life with your sisters and brothers and allowing that bread to feed your deepest needs? Will you keep on
trusting that prayer makes sense? -- that when you howl out your grief or anger or frustration into the universe, something in the universe listens?
And that when you remember to say thank you it is part of tikkun -- the healing and repairing and transforming of the world?
“Will you persevere in resisting evil, and whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?” (Notice that it’s “when” you fall into sin,
not “if.”) Will you persevere, not in ignoring evil but in facing it head on and doing what is yours to do against it? And when you give up in
despair and think it can’t be done, will you remember that you’re not allowed to do that and look for strength to get up again?”
Here’s how a writer named Martha Hickman says that:
In the midst of the deepest winter, the darkest night, what are we to do? Acknowledge the cold and the dark, the mystery of an unknowable black
ocean that seems to stretch into infinity...and then sing!
And then sing!
I think that literally, singing is a huge antidote to despair. It’s why music is so essential to our worship. So keep on singing and giving
thanks for Jim and Keith and our choirs.
But singing is also a metaphor for all the antidotes to despair. Another way out is humor, so let me close with a Screwtape letter that I’ve already
shared with some of you. (Explain who Screwtape is -- the head demon, giving advice to a his nephew, a fledging demon, who is working on one
particular person.)
Keep the Crises Coming?
With apologies to C.S. Lewis
The Rev. Scott I. Paradise
My dear Wormwood,
You must understand that your patient, like most people, has and will continue to have genuine desires for justice, and love for others. The Enemy
[that is, God]. God did not create him totally depraved. But we have found it possible to make these generous impulses almost useless and nearly kill
them. Our strategem looks like this. First select a major social problem. Label it a crisis. Launch a campaign in the newspapers...and other means
of public communication until masses of people are aroused...Those seeking lo redress the situation will expend great energy to organize, collect
money, and institute remedial programs. But the problem chosen must be big enough to elude quick solution. There are many of these to choose from.
Then, after a period of time long enough to reveal some of the complexities of the problem and produce fatigue among those wrestling with it but
so short that major progress toward solution has not yet been made draw public attention through the newspapers and [tv] to yet another program
equally important.
In this way the public can be distracted from the first problem before anything significant has been done. After creating great agitation on the
second problem, and before any real progress has been made on that, call attention to a third problem. The results of the strategy will be
splendid. First, it will create constant activity with minimum progress. Second, it will give those few who stubbornly refuse to be distracted
by each new problem a sense of being abandoned by those who have been distracted. This will make them depressed and bitter. Third, this strategy
will give many a sense of being overwhelmed by so many big problems that they despair and give up trying to grapple with any of them...
In the decades ahead we plan to raise public outcry against racism, poverty, war, the oppression of women, pollution, corruption, and world hunger.
By shifting public attention from one to another quickly, we may be able to spread widespread demoralization.
The danger to us in this strategy lies in the possibility that through facing this variety of issues, people will begin to see that they all hang
together and are symptoms of a deeper single malaise. If they really recognize the nature of the malaise as a rejection of the news the Enemy
has shared with them, and if they begin to recognize their solidarity with all things and see one another as allies in the struggle for justice,
we are in trouble. They will then work to the root of their problems. They will find themselves standing together. They will persevere regardless
of the absence of quick victories because they will see that by grappling with any problem with these perceptions, they can attack the root.
The news that Screwtape is referring is the “Good News” of God in Christ.
The news of love that transcends death and that is for all people;
the news of God’s presence in our lives, God with us --
that Holy Spirit that is our first breath of life, and that breathes in us
such power, such energy, such a capacity to look at, listen to,
speak to, hear, work for, be healed by -- love! -- one another
such a capacity as we never knew we had.
Life is a series of meetings and partings. Life is such a miracle of the unexpected that the only way to live it is with the deep hope and deeper
joy that always looks for, and always expects, surprises.
