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Sermons at St. John’s Presbyterian Church Death -No
Longer at This
Address St. John’s Presbyterian
Church 2727 College Avenue,
Berkeley, CA 94705 Telephone 510-845-6830 Fax 510-845-6837 office@stjohns.presbychurch.net http://www.stjohns.presbychurch.net Scripture Readings: Psalm 42:1-6, Isaiah 61:1-3, Matthew 5:1-12, Revelation 7:14-17, Ephesians 3:14-21, Romans 8:10-2 Sometimes
we find out indirectly when we lose someone.
A letter returns: No longer at this address. No Longer at This Address.
My God, we are reminded how fleeting life is: The
flowers wither and the
grasses fade. And
it is strange and mysterious how many wonderful and beautiful, life-
giving
events coincide with death. My
friend
Phoebe’s grandbaby was born two days after she died.
Howard and Martha were married by Howard’s father in
the hospital
before he died. People
die on or around
Christmas and Thanksgiving; more often it would seem than on the
average
day. Certainly we
miss our loved ones
on these days, regardless of when they died.
Holidays, birthdays and wedding anniversaries may
bring up loss as well
as gain. Two
weeks ago I went on vacation to San Diego knowing that Sylvia Brodie
was near
death. We stayed at
Peggy’s mom’s
house, the Peggy that is connected to Bill, Danny and Michael. I don’t remember why the
subject came up but
I mentioned Sylvia and her pending death, and the death of Donna Eddie,
Don
Dodd, and my dear friend Phoebe Hall the week before.
And that, it turns out, reminded me, and perhaps
others of the
very recent death of Bill’s father.
Of
course that was one of many moments that week where the family would
remember
and be reminded of their father and grandfather.
Bill showed us the video he made to show his father
in the
hospital. We saw
the pie fight
section. A real pie
fight. Bill picked
up seven or eight pies from the store.
We may assume Peggy conveniently had to work that day. The boys set up
a pie
shop. Bill, a
hungry customer came
along and insisted that he really wanted some of the banana cream. He got a little pushy
about it: I really
want some of that banana cream pie!
Danny gave it to him, in the face.
Then general pandemonium, three stooges style, broke
out. So
here we are all lying around in our bathing suits just off the beach,
laughing
our brains out, and remembering the pain and loss of Bill’s father. And
I
thought of how beautiful it must have been to be there in the hospital
room
watching Bill watch his dad watch his grandchildren.
Not
everyone today has a funeral or memorial service in the Church. We have friends and loved
ones for which we
may not get the chance to lift them up in public to God, to ask that
God would
give us and the family comfort and peace, to hold everyone in Her arms,
to seek
that hope that surpasses understanding.
There are many reasons for this: maybe the person
had no interest in
faith, maybe the family doesn’t go to church, or maybe because there
are so few
of them left, they are not sure there is a reason for a service. Maybe they are not sure
they are welcome.
Maybe they got the idea rent was too high, the down payment too small,
“mortgage foreclosure”, “rent past due”. No longer at this address.
Often there
is a service of sorts, a memorial without the worship: stories told,
friend and
family comfort one another and remember good times and bad. Maybe they have a small
personal gathering
to spread the ashes. Such
events can be
beautiful and important. I
am not here
to criticize what others do, but to do what we do. Church
is many things, but certainly it should be a safe space, a train
station on
life’s journey where we can take time to refill our tanks, to face the
loss
that happens along the way. And
when I
am confronted with a death, I always want to pray.
Even when I don’t, even when I don’t want to offend
others, even
when I don’t have the courage to, even when my faith is weak, even when
I
wonder if there is any point to it; even and especially when I haven’t
the
words, there is something about death that touches a faith deep inside
me that
I do not control, that my rational mind can’t seem to kill. Death reminds us of the
smallness of the
individual life. Prayer opens us up to the largeness of life and God,
both deep
within and beyond ourselves. Prayer
opens us up to that divine mysterious goodness and love that even in
the face
of death comes welling up like the spring of the living water. So I
come today to pray like Paul, who though under pain and persecution
says,
“Don’t worry about me, I am in this position because I have chosen with
joy to
proclaim the Gospel.” The
joy and power
of the Gospel are found even in the midst of loss and suffering. “And for this reason, “
says Paul, “I bow on
my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on
earth is
named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be
strengthened with might through his Spirit in his inner being. 17] and that Christ may dwell in your
hearts through
faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, And
I am compelled to read this passage and pray with people, in front of
people,
surrounded by their collective love and spiritual power. I want to lift
up Don
Dodd, and Sylvia Brodie, in this sacred space.
Don the missionary, the expert in orchids, the bushy
little old man with
the beautiful smile who walked miles to his flowers and his church
until he
couldn’t anymore. Sylvia who was born and lived her 95 years here in
the East
Bay, a gifted student who stopped school to care for her parents, a
faithful
member who stayed to the end of one church and then came to help St.
John’s,
serving as an elder. No
longer at this address, but still in our heart.
And don’t we need some grace here.
I am trying to hold it off, you know, for the grand
finale, but
we need a little foretaste from time to time.
Because when we get that letter, it means we were
too late. No longer
here, the time to catch up, the
time to say things that needed to be said, to do things that needed to
be done,
to undo words and things that were said and done, that time is past and
gone. Death can be
like the devil’s
laugh, Ha, ha, you thought you could do it all, fix it all. Too late, the train has
left the station. No
longer at this address. Return
to sender. And
so we bring that grief to church too.
The faith that even though we fall short, even
though we may not have
been there all the time or at the right time, God is.
There are so many people who are significant in our
lives. There are
140 people on our membership
list. Let me take a
random guess and
say that there are at least 30 significant people, on average for each
of those
140. That is 4200
people we should be
praying and caring for, whether they think we should or not. A son in law has cancer, a
granddaughter is
suicidal, the son of a friend was shot by a random bullet while playing
piano. Maybe you
weren’t there when you
needed to be, maybe you didn’t remember a significant date or event…
you should
have talked to the doctors sooner, you should have, you should have. Maybe your pastor wasn’t
there, but we come
together on Sunday morning to affirm that there is a God who is, was
and
forever will be there; She will never leave nor forsake us. Here, in this life, God’s
love is long and
wide and high and deep. For
God, there
is no such thing as no longer at this address.
God is here, God is there, She is, was, and forever
will be. Sylvia
spent much of her life caring for others: her parents, her aunts. We
see in
Sylvia that Christ-like sacrificial love that sometimes comes to us as
much by
fate as by choice, and this vision hurts us a little, even as we have
faith
there were moments of great satisfaction in a job well done, and that
somehow
now her joy is made complete. We
face death in worship because we want to turn around the shock and
helplessness
that comes with that returned letter: No longer at this address. No longer at this address,
where moth and
rust consume, where obligations, guilt or shame prevent us from living
into the
fullness of God, where relationships are broken, burn out or fade away,
where
disease, poverty and violence stunt creativity and smiles, where the
pain of
loneliness and the aches of the body compete for dominant attention. No longer at this address. Returned
to sender, returned to the God, that deep well of Spirit and love,
which is her
Creator. No longer
at this address, we
laugh back at the devil. Despite
the
finitude of our bodies, despite the fallibility and sinfulness, by the
grace of
Christ, Every time I feel the Spirit moving in my heart I will pray,
there is
but one train upon this track, it runs to heaven and then right back.
“We know that the whole creation has been groaning
in
travail together until now; and not only creation, but we ourselves,
who have
the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for
adoption
as daughters and sons, the redemption of our bodies.
For in this hope we are saved.
Now hope that is seen is no hope.
For who hopes for what he sees?
But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for
it with patience.” With
the amazing grace of the risen Christ, in church we face death and
experience
rebirth. With faith
we regain energy to
celebrate the good times, the accomplishments, the relationships, and
to move
on with strength. The
flowers wither,
the grasses fade, but the Word of our God stands forever. God’s Word gives us
strength to face death
when it is time, but also to fight it until it is time to face it, and
by the
grace of God, to move past it. We
are
reminded to count our blessings and to give back, to smell the flowers
before
they fade, to see their fading as the nourishment of the soil for
future
flowers. God
charges us to confront
those causes of death, diabetes, cancer, poverty, injustice and war. We
are not
God, but God has given us gifts, and for a little while on this earth,
we have
the freedom and privilege to love and serve each other:
To sow and reap, to paint and cure, to build
and teach, to forge healthy communities, to play and eat, to laugh and
dance,
to preach the good news of God’s forgiveness and eternal life.
No longer at this address, we’re moving on, in this
life
and in the next, we are moving on toward all that is beautiful and
good, Moving
on toward God, toward that sweet by and by, where heaven and nature
sings, to
that great banquet in the glorious mansion, our debts forgive, the
mortgage
pad. There is a room already prepared for us.
“For
the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will
guide
them to springs of living water; and God will wipe away every tear from
their
eyes.” And they shall sing for joy with a garland instead of ashes, oil
of
gladness instead of mourning, and a mantle of praise instead of a faint
spirit. |