St. John's Episcopal Church

Sermon for Sunday, October 18, 2009 (Year B, Proper 24)

[Jesus asked James and John,] “What is it you want me to do for you?  And they said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.”  But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking.” (Mark 10:36-38)

This morning’s gospel reading from Mark will make more sense if we recall the context.  Jesus and his friends are on their way to Jerusalem for what will turn out to be our Lord’s final confrontation with the authorities.  That is the series of events we celebrate during Holy Week and Easter.  On two previous occasions Jesus has foretold his death and resurrection, but his friends just don’t get it.  Now, for a third time, and in grim detail, Jesus says, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priest and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death; then they will hand him over to the Gentiles; they will mock him, and spit upon him, and flog him, and kill him; and after three days he will rise again.” (Mark 10:33-34)

It is hard to imagine how Jesus could be more precise.  Yet the disciples are uncomprehending.  Indeed, they seem brain-dead!  James and John respond by asking Jesus to make them his chief lieutenants when he comes into his “glory.”  They appear to think that our Lord’s “glory” will be high political office, and that they — perhaps because they were among the first to be called as disciples — deserve special treatment.

According to Mark, Jesus tells his friends that it is not his to grant who will sit at his right and left hands.  That proves to be literally true.  A few chapters later, Jesus is glorified — on a cross.  Those who “sit” on his right and left are “two bandits,” chosen not by Jesus but by the Roman guards.  Both are crucified along with our Lord. (Mark 15:27)

But all that lies in the future.  At this particular moment, the disciples seem convinced that Jesus is going to Jerusalem to overthrow the powers that be — both Jewish and Roman — and to take his place on the throne of King David.  It is a glorious vision.  As our Lord’s inner circle, they jockey for position in this new administration.  For all that our Lord has said about the first being last and the last first, the prospect of political power pushes aside every other concern.  Just as the sirens, those famous bird-women of Greek mythology, lured sailors to shipwreck themselves, so the siren song of political power seduces our Lord’s friends.

Time and again, power has proved to be the Church’s Achilles’ heel.  For example, the gradual decay of the western Roman Empire over more than three centuries created a power vacuum which was filled, at least in part, by the Catholic Church.  In medieval times the popes either cooperated with or competed with secular European monarchs in the exercise of power.  Historians debate how corrupt the papacy actually was, in comparison with other institutions of the day.  But the idea of the Pope directing armies in battle against other medieval princes seems very odd to us today.

Power and the Church have come together here in America, too.  For example, our national mythology gives an honored place to the Puritans whose distaste for the Church of England and what they considered its “Catholic” worship led some to leave the mother country for the New World.  Here, in the 1620s, these nonconformists established the Massachusetts Bay Colony and other settlements.  We celebrate as heroes these brave souls who risked all to escape religious oppression and begin a new life.  Indeed, some of us today look back wistfully on what they created in Massachusetts — a government both democratic and theocratic, which founder John Winthrop called “the city upon a hill,” a shining example of holy government.  President-Elect John F. Kennedy, speaking in Massachusetts shortly before his inauguration, used Winthrop’s image to describe what good government must be, “constructed and inhabited by men aware of their great trust and their great responsibilities.” (Kennedy, Jan. 9, 1961)  President Ronald Reagan used the same image to describe his vision of the United States in 1984 as he accepted the Republican nomination, and again in his farewell address in January 1989.

It’s worth noting, however, that some 70 years after its founding, the courts of this same Massachusetts colony convicted 29 people living in and about the village of Salem of witchcraft, a capital offense, and executed 19 of them, including 14 women and five men.  One other man was crushed to death under heavy stones because he refused to enter a plea.  (In the interest of full disclosure, I should note that an ancestor of mine, the Rev’d John Emerson, seems to have played an unhappy role in this great injustice.)  In any case, I don’t think that the Salem witch trials exemplify the kind of government Kennedy meant, or the kind of country Reagan meant.  Rather, it is an illustration of the excess to which the marriage of Church and State too often gives rise.

Still, many Americans hanker after a marriage of power and religion.  A recent example is the role that evangelical Christianity has played in American political life during the past 30 years, from the founding of the Moral Majority organization in the late 1970s until the present.  The agenda of the so-called Religious Right — opposition to abortion, homosexuality, and arms control, appointing conservative justices to the Supreme Court, promoting traditional family values, censorship of media which advocates something other than traditional family values, and much more — has largely defined our political dialogue for nearly three decades.

Today we hear that younger evangelicals have different priorities than their parents.  Whether this is true is a matter of dispute.  However, as the editors of “The City,” a publication of Houston Baptist University, wrote this past January, “For younger evangelicals, this political alliance [of evangelicals and conservative politicians] signaled an abdication of Biblical principals about poverty, race, and other issues of social justice, and constituted a subordination of the hope of the Gospel to the promise of politics.  Evangelicals [according to this critique] had gained political influence in exchange for their souls.” (The City, 1/15/09)

Perhaps evangelicals are drawing back from the political arrangements of the past thirty years.  Time will tell.  However, it seems clear that a significant part of the Christian family in America still believes that separation of Church and State is not at all what the Founding Fathers intended and is injurious to the Christian faith.  The proper role of government, they say, is to enact into law those values which their understanding of the faith deems most important.

I think we need to meditate on Jesus’ response to James and John when they ask the Master to make them the powers beside, if not behind, the throne.  “You do not know what you are asking,” he says.  Jesus realizes, as his friends do not, that the principalities and powers of this world are jealous of their authority, and stand ready to do whatever is necessary to protect themselves.  Thus our Lord tells the two disciples, “The cup that I drink you will drink” — referring to a cup of violence, “and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized” — baptism, in this context, meaning his death. (Mark 10:39)  James and John see the coming confrontation in Jerusalem through rose-colored glasses.  Jesus is utterly realistic.

Therefore, if I read today’s gospel passage correctly, we clearly are being told that political power is not the friend of religion; all too often it is religion’s enemy.  Political power is not religion’s handmaiden, ready to do the Church’s bidding.  Rather, it is in the nature of political power to co-opt religion for its own purposes, to use it so long as it is useful, and to ignore, marginalize, or abuse it if religion forgets its place.

Jesus sees a different role for the community of faith.  “[W]hoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.  For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:44-45)

As a church professional, and after 25 years of ministry, I recognize that the line between appropriate and inappropriate involvement in politics and government is sometimes hard to determine.  Certainly all of us have the right and responsibility to form and express opinions, advocate for particular positions, support this or that candidate, vote, argue for or against legislation, hold office ourselves, and otherwise exercise our individual rights and gifts.  Things get dicey, however, when the Church, as an institution, marries itself to parties or candidates.  For example, in our General Conventions the Episcopal Church takes positions on various issues.  Should the Episcopal Church then go to a candidate and say, “If you will support our position on immigration, we will urge our members to provide material support for your candidacy?”  I think not.  When the Church becomes too deeply involved in politics, Church and government become indistinguishable.

Therefore, if you and I, as the Church, seek to influence the course of politics, we must stand outside and above the political fray.  That is what Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Amos and the other great prophets did.   That is essentially the position Jesus took with regard to the authorities in his day, and that is the position he urged upon James and John.  By standing apart from party, from special interest, and from the exercise of political power, and by embracing our vocation as a servant community, advocating in particular for those in need, we are free to exercise with integrity the Church’s moral authority.

I realize that this may seem impossibly wimpy in a day when strength is esteemed and weakness despised.  But let us be mindful of what St. Paul reported when he appealed to the Lord about that thorn in his flesh.  “Take it away,” Paul asked.  Jesus replied, “‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.’  So, [Paul concludes] I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.” (1 Cor. 12:8-9)  May that same power, made perfect in weakness, dwell in the Church.  Amen.

— The Rev. John E. Laycock, Interim Pastor

Readings for Year B, Proper 24: Lesson — Job 38:1-7, 34-41  |  Gradual — Psalm 104:1-9, 25, 37c  |  Epistle — Hebrews 5:1-10  |  Gospel — Mark 10:35-45

Collect for Proper 24:

Almighty and everlasting God, in Christ you have revealed your glory among the nations: Preserve the works of your mercy, that your Church throughout the world may persevere with steadfast faith in the confession of your Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

Sermon for Sunday, October 11, 2009 (Year B, Proper 23)

Jesus said, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” (Mark 10:25)

For nearly two thousand years Christians have been trying to put an easier, softer face on Jesus’ comment about the rich getting into the kingdom.  Mark tells us that when a wealthy man asks Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life, Jesus responds that he should sell everything he owns, give the money to the poor, and follow him.  “When he heard this, [the man] was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.” (Mark 10:22)  Jesus then tells his disciples, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” (Mark 10:25)  You can almost hear the disciples sputtering in astonishment: “Then who can be saved?’” (Mark 10:26)

His friends are astonished because in Jesus’ day, and for a long time before that, Jews defined wealth as a sign of God’s favor.  Just as illness and poverty were seen as evidence of divine retribution for sin, so health and children and land and flocks and money and possessions indicated divine blessing.  The more you had, people thought, the more God favored you.  Job’s story of unmerited suffering catches our interest precisely because, at the outset, he is not only “blameless and upright” (Job 1:1), but also a man of wealth, “the greatest of all the people of the east.” (Job 1:3)  If Job been just another poor, sick bloke, would his suffering be so poignant?

Like our Jewish ancestors, we Christians have had a devil of a time breaking free of this idea that wealth and salvation go hand-in-hand.  For many Protestants, Orthodox and Catholics, certainly at the level of popular piety, hard work is seen as a holy calling, and worldly success as evidence of God’s favor.  We regard wealth as a welcome, perhaps deserved, blessing.  As a result, even as Jesus talks about camels and needles, we are busy grinding down the sharp edges of his words.

For example, many Sunday School instructors have taught their students that “The Eye of the Needle” was a certain gate into the city of Jerusalem.  The arch of this portal was so low, they say, that a camel could pass through only if it carried no rider or trade goods, and if the animal stooped down.  Thus Jesus is saying that the rich can get into heaven if they just figure out how to use the gate!  However, there is no historical or archaeological evidence that such a gate ever existed.

Again, scribal errors — that is, changes made while copying the books of the Bible — are one of the great challenges faced by those who work with ancient texts.  Copyists would sometimes make marginal comments on the meaning of a word or phrase.  Later, other scribes, thinking these comments authoritative, might incorporate them into the body of the text.   In this manner, the version of this story in the King James Bible had Jesus say, “…how hard it is for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom….”  Clearly, some scribe was every bit as astonished as the disciples, and decided that what Jesus must have meant is that the problem is not wealth per se, but putting one’s faith in wealth, rather than in God.  However, that is not how the text reads!

So, what is Jesus saying?  Does our Lord mean that to be rich is to be evil?  Will wealth really keep one out of the kingdom?  That seems unlikely, for notice that even as the rich man in the story struggles with the question of how he should live, Jesus loves him.  He does not criticize or reject or condemn this man.  Rather, Jesus loves him — loves him enough not to soft peddle the good news; loves him enough to be clear that living the good life isn’t about clinging tenaciously to what one has, without regard for the needs of others.  Jesus uses the camel-and-needle comparison to help his friends see how our own good fortune can make us blind to the world around us, and to the plight of those who have less.

Today, in these United States, we are struggling to make sense of how we deliver and pay for healthcare.  Health insurance is a form of wealth enjoyed by many, but not all, Americans.  And in the current debate over reform, we may easily fail to see why this is a moral issue — why access to healthcare is a right, not a privilege reserved to those who can pay.

So many statistics are flung about by politicians and interest groups these days that it is difficult for the average person to know what we face.  For this reason an analysis provided by the Kaiser Family Foundation has been helpful.  At the risk of boring you, here are a few of their observations:

First, how much do we spend on healthcare? “Expenditures… on health care [the Foundation says] surpassed $2.2 trillion in 2007, more than three times the $714 billion spent in 1990, and over eight times the $253 billion spent in 1980….”

“In 2007, U.S. health care spending was about $7,421 per resident and accounted for 16.2% of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP); this is among the highest of all industrialized countries.”

“Total health care expenditures grew at an annual rate of 6.1 percent in 2007, a slower rate than recent years, yet still outpacing inflation and the growth in national income.”

The “recent rapid cost growth, coupled with an overall economic slowdown and rising federal deficit, is placing great strains on the [private and public] systems used to finance health care…. Since 1999, employer-sponsored health coverage premiums have increased by 119 percent, placing increasing cost burdens on employers and workers.”

The Kaiser Foundation goes on to say that “Public [healthcare] expenditures made up about 46% of the health care dollar in 2007, with the remainder split between private [programs, 42%] and out-of-pocket spending [12%].”  Medicare and Medicaid spending has grown at a slightly slower rate than private health insurance spending, but “the current economic recession is likely to increase the number of enrollees in Medicaid and therefore increase Medicaid spending.”

In short, healthcare costs are growing so quickly that if we continue down the path we are on, we will be eaten out of house and home.  Whether we are a government, a business, or an individual citizen, healthcare costs threaten to bankrupt us all.

Second, what drives up healthcare costs? Some people point at insurance companies, others at government.  The actual reasons are more complicated.

Prescription drugs and technology are one reason.  Development costs must be recovered, and these new products “generate consumer demand for more intense, costly services even if [these services] are not necessarily cost-effective,” according to the Kaiser Foundation.

Chronic diseases, such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease, are another major factor.  Over the past century, greater prevalence of chronic illnesses have “placed tremendous demands on the health care system, particularly an increased need for treatment… and long-term care services such as nursing homes.”  Costs associated with chronic disease treatment are estimated to account for over 75% of national health expenditures.

Administration also pushs up healthcare costs.  At present “7% of [private] health care expenditures are for administrative costs (e.g., marketing, billing).”  This portion is much lower in the Medicare program, where administration accounts for less than 2%.

I find it interesting that aging of the population, in and of itself, appears to be less of a factor than one might imagine.  According to the Kaiser people, Baby Boomers will begin qualifying for Medicare in 2011 and many of their costs will be shifted from the private to the public sector, but “experts agree that aging of the population contributes minimally to the high growth rate of health care spending.”  This suggests that the relationship between age and chronic disease is somewhat counterintuitive.

Several years ago British historian Robert Lacey and journalist Danny Danziger authored a fascinating little book entitled The Year 1000: What Life was Like at the Turn of the First Millennium. Commenting on life expectancy in Britain about the year 1000, the writers said, “You were doing quite well if you outlived your cow.”  In other words, the illnesses and accidents of childbirth, childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood claimed a huge percentage of the population.  That state of affairs continued until the rise of modern medicine in the 19th and 20th centuries.  Life expectancy has risen, but more to the point, many diseases which used to be fatal are now treatable, and are therefore deemed chronic.

In fact, chronic illness aside, some research indicates that there are two stages of life when the average person runs up the highest personal healthcare costs — birth and death.  Of these two, medical treatment and support during the last few months of life is often the most expensive.

We Americans are justly proud of our medical care, although many point out that for all the money we spend, our health outcomes lag behind those of other industrial nations, infant mortality being but one example.  However, it is undeniable that the benefits of our healthcare system are unequally distributed — and this, in particular, makes healthcare a moral issue.  In 2008 over 15% of the population had no health insurance, and thus no regular access to healthcare services.

Third, what is the cost of not having health insurance? An article on the web site of the conservative Heritage Foundation cites a study by the National Academy of Sciences on this issue.  The Academy found a positive relationship between health insurance and health status.  Chronically ill persons with insurance coverage have better health outcomes than those without insurance, and continuous insurance coverage yields better results than interrupted coverage.  People without health insurance have less access to doctors, often delay medical treatment, lack continuity of care, and have worse outcomes and higher rates of mortality than those with insurance, according to this report.

In 2002 the Institute of Medicine estimated that 18,000 people died as a result of not having health insurance.  Last month a report from Harvard University, published in the American Journal of Public Health, found that 45,000 Americans age 17-64 die annually because they lack health insurance.  That is more than the number killed in auto accidents or by murder.  It is more, too, than the population of Grand Haven, Spring Lake, Ferrysburg, Olive, and Zeeland combined, and it puts the death rate for uninsured Americans at about one person every 12 minutes.  Imagine, if you will, what the national mood would be if the Centers for Disease Control announced that a new illness was sweeping the country, killing off one American every 12 minutes.  Would anyone on cable news or in Congress be telling us, “Don’t worry… everything’s OK”?

Moreover, racial minorities have substantially less access to health insurance.  In 2008 the Census Bureau found that 19% of African-Americans and nearly 31% of Hispanics were uninsured, compared with less than 11% of the white population.  Children hardly fare better.  Roughly 10% of children under age 18 were without insurance in 2008, and children living in poverty were the most likely of all children to be without insurance, according to the Census Bureau.

I don’t mean to weary you with statistics.  I cite these numbers simply to underscore the point that the healthcare system we have now isn’t working for too many of us.  Too many of us lack insurance and therefore lack access to medical care, especially women, people with pre-existing conditions, and those who own or work for small businesses.  For those of us who do have insurance, the most favorable rates are given to the young, healthy and high earning, while the older, less healthy, and less wealthy are penalized with higher premiums.  For example, one member of this parish was recently notified that the premium for her individual health insurance plan will jump 25% in the next year, while the rate of inflation is about 2%.

This state of affairs cannot continue.  Looking at this issue through the lens of this morning’s gospel, can we argue that if I have my insurance, then everything is OK, and those without can just take care of themselves?  In making his point about camels and needles, Jesus is saying that the good life does not consist in clinging tenaciously to what we have, while ignoring the needs of those who have not.  If our blessings blind us to the injustice of the present healthcare system, then we truly risk bankruptcy at every level — economic, political, and moral.

What I have not done this morning is to urge a particular solution or advocate for one of the bills plodding through Congress.  All things considered, it may be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for our Senators and Representative to approve health insurance reform.

I will say that, for me, the objection to a “public option” seems overblown.  As I noted a moment ago, nearly half of all medical services in the U.S. are currently delivered by one public agency or another — by Medicare, Medicaid, the Veterans Administration, the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan, and so forth.  To my knowledge, no Senator or Congress person of either party has volunteered to give up his or her government-run insurance program, and you can be sure that no politician who can count votes will dare propose doing away with Medicare!

At the same time, I see no fundamental objection to for-profit health insurance companies, so long as the people they serve are treated justly, benefits are adequate, premiums are affordable, and profit margins are reasonable.  Overall, I think the best arrangement would offer choice between several public and private options, real marketplace competition, and sensible government regulation, especially for the purpose of containing costs.

But again, health insurance reform is not simply about making things better for those fortunate enough to enjoy coverage.  If the current effort at reform ends up leaving millions of Americans without health insurance, then we will have failed — not just the President, not just the two parties, but all of us will have failed.  That National Academy of Sciences report cited by the Heritage Foundation makes it clear that while some people refuse to take insurance when it is available to them, “most of the uninsured are not offered insurance at work, cannot afford it [privately], or had it and lost it.”  These 45 million uninsured men, women, and children are at genuine risk, as are many among us who have insurance which is not adequate to deal with catastrophic medical expenses.  It is therefore our moral duty to ensure that all Americans have access to the most reliable and cost-effective healthcare services we can manage — and to do so now.  Amen.

— The Rev. John E. Laycock, Interim Pastor

Readings for Year B, Proper 23:

Old Testament — Job 23:1-9, 16-17  |  Gradual — Psalm 22:1-15  |  Epistle — Hebrews 4:12-16  |  Gospel — Mark 10:17-31

Collect for Proper 23:

Lord, we pray that your grace may always precede and follow us, that we may continually be given to good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen.

The Kaiser Foundation report may be found at:

http://www.kaiseredu.org/topics_im.asp?imID=1&parentID=61&id=358

The Heritage Foundation article may be found at:

http://www.stanford.edu/group/scspi/pdfs/pathways/winter_2009/Moffit.pdf

Sermon for Sunday, October 4, 2009 (Year B, Proper 22)

 

He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word.  (Hebrews 1:3)

 

When I was a child, time passed very slowly.  I can remember one summer when my friend Jim and I built a soap box racer out of various things we found in our parents’ garages.  It was quite a sporty vehicle.  Jim and I spent many happy days pushing each other up and down the road, as if it were the Le Mans race.  I remember zipping down the street, with the summer sun filtering through the high elms.  It seemed as if that summer went on forever.

 

Not so now.  As I age, time goes faster.  Unlike that summer in about 1953, this summer was here and gone in a flash.  I suspect you’ve noticed this phenomenon, too.  We seem to be traveling from past to present to future on a train which keeps going faster each year.  I even find myself growing a bit resentful of how quickly the future is rushing toward me, and how rapidly the past slips away.

 

The author of the Letter to the Hebrews also wrestles with the problem of time, but from a different perspective.  It’s not quite clear to whom, or for whom, this document was written — or even that it’s a letter to begin with.  Rather, this 3rd or 4th century work appears to be a theological reflection comparing Hebrew religion with Christianity.  Not surprisingly, Christianity is found to be superior.

 

These early years of the Church were a time when Christians tried hard to understand who they were — both in light of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and in light of the Church’s origins in Judaism.  For example, in the ancient world, if a religion was to be seen as authentic, it had to be very old.  Thus it was incumbent upon the Church to claim continuity with Hebrew religion from the patriarchs forward.  At the same time the Church had to explain Jesus as God doing “a new thing.”  The result was a wholesale reinterpretation of the Old Testament as pointing toward, and preparing for, the coming of the Christ, the Messiah.

 

Now, this may sound like Madison Avenue selling snake oil, or Washington talking heads spinning the President’s trip to Copenhagen.  But that’s hardly fair.  It’s important to remember that Jesus’ resurrection caught people by surprise, no matter how often our Lord had predicted it.  People experienced the risen Christ as a living spiritual reality, and they were forced to struggle to make sense of this experience.  Quite naturally, they looked to the past to understand this crucial event.  The resurrection became a kind of lens through which believers looked back at the historical record, as recorded in scripture, to see how Jesus fitted into the picture.  In time they came to believe that all of Jewish history was a preparation for this “new thing” that God decided to do in giving us his Son.  

 

Thus Jesus came to be understood as the Word of God, existing with God through all eternity, and the means by which God created the world.  Abraham, Moses and the prophets were seen to be God’s servants, preparing God’s people for the coming of the Son.  By God’s grace Jesus was made “lower than the angels” in order that “he might taste death for everyone” (Hebrews 2:9) and know in by personal experience how humanity suffers under the burden of sin and death.  Now, according to the author of Hebrews, our Lord has been exalted “at the right hand of the Majesty on high,” (Hebrews 1:3) having won for us a glorious future — a future for which this present time is but a preparation.

 

In this manner, by fits and starts, and often at the cost of bitter disagreement, the early Church worked to make sense of its past, present, and future — so that we, the faithful, could know where we came from, where we are today, and where we are headed.  This allows us to say with certainty that we Christians are part of a coherent movement from creation to consummation, from the beginning to the end, and that in the end our salvation is assured.

 

Knowing this, we might want to take a hard look at how we relate to our own individual past, present, and future.  For example, many of us are unable to let the past be the past.  We keep dragging the past into the present in an effort — never successful — to fix the past, to somehow correct whatever went wrong.  Perhaps the problem is our relationship with a parent, sibling, spouse, or friend, or something we once said or did.  Clearly, if the problem can be straightened out, then it should be.  But in so many areas the past has slipped beyond fixing and must be accepted.

 

Again, we often believe that our past understanding of something — say, human sexuality or divorce — must determine how we deal with these issues in the present and future.  That runs the risk of imposing a rigid set of categories and assumptions from an ancient time and culture on our own situation today.  Sometimes that works well.  Honesty in one’s dealings with others, fidelity to one’s spouse, remaining faithful to God in both hard times and good times — these are things we share with the ancients.  But we cannot answer every hard question in life by simply pointing to a passage in Genesis or Leviticus and saying, “There, that settles it, now and forever.”  If that’s how God operated, he would have given us something like the IRS Code, rather than his Son.  

 

Jesus — God’s “new thing” — made moral decision-making more complicated by telling us that we must love God, and love our neighbors as ourselves.  When we have significant choices to make, we must see those choices against the backdrop of Jesus preaching, teaching, healing, dying, and rising again.  Then we must ask ourselves: Is this choice consistent with the Lord I encounter in scripture?

 

If we struggle with the past, we can struggle just as much with the future.  We may become so fixated on the future — on what the future holds for us or for others — that we fail to take care of the present.  We fail to realize that it is to the present that the past has brought us, and it is the present which, in so many ways, will determine what our future holds.  

 

I think, in general, that Jesus would encourage us to let the past be the past and the future be the future.  What deserves our greatest attention and the largest share of our energy is today — the time we are in right now.  For this is the only piece of our lives that we really have some control over.  It is today — the time we are in right now — when God calls us to live and love and serve and express our gratitude to the One from whom all blessings flow.  Amen.

 

— The Rev. John E. Laycock, Interim Pastor

 

Readings for Year B, Proper 22:  Old Testament — Job 1:1; 2:1-10  |  Gradual: Psalm 26  |  Epistle — Hebrews 1:1-4; 2:5-12  |  Mark 10:2-16

 

Collect for Proper 22:

Almighty and everlasting God, you are always more ready to hear than we to pray, and to give more than we either desire or deserve:  Pour upon us the abundance of your mercy, forgiving us those things of which our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things for which we are not worthy to ask, except through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ our Savior; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.   

Will the Circle be Unbroken?

A Homily for the Memorial for George K. Smith

Saturday, October 3, 2009, at 1:00 p.m.

 

The fairest measure of a person may be what he or she is devoted to, the object, or objects, of that person’s passion.  Over the past few minutes, by their reflections on his life, George’s family has made it clear that this man had a passion for flying, for his country, and for his family.

 

Flying is not a passion I share with George.  Perhaps that’s because I have spent my time back in the cabin, squashed in with a lot of other folks, rather than in the cockpit.  However, on those rare occasions when I have been up front — in small planes mostly, but once, back in the days when such things were allowed, looking out the front window of an airliner — I caught just a glimmer of what attracts people to flying.  Piloting an airplane, it seems to me, is a combination of technical expertise and art which allows one to soar like a bird.  Much the same combination of skill and creativity drives accomplished mathematicians, doctors, musicians, mountain climbers, and others who want to live life on the edge.  Alas, I’m more pedestrian (in every sense of the word) and frankly, I’ve wondered if my friends who pilot planes aren’t just a bit mad.  But as someone once said, “Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who could not hear the music.”

 

George heard the music of flight.  His combination of technical expertise and art allowed him to dance through the heavens.  And, as a man of faith, he is dancing through the heavens at this very moment.

 

George also had a passion for his country.  He was proud to serve in uniform, and to put his flying skills at the service of the nation.  This passion for service was shared with many others, and thus places him in honored company.  At the end of today’s service representatives of the Armed Forces and the American Legion will render the honors due to all who have served.

 

Most especially, George had a passion for family — his wife, children, and grandchildren.  Rebecca was kind enough to share with me a number of letters her father wrote to her over the years.  They are a remarkable testament to George’s devotion to kith and kin.  They are full of affirmation, encouragement, and unvarnished affection — love letters, if you will, to the people George loved best.

 

Relationships are among God’s deepest blessings.  It is the circle of relationship with family and friends which makes us whole.  In the day of creation God declared, “It is not good that the man should be alone.”  So God blessed George with a devoted wife, loving children and grandchildren, and many friends, to be companions on this earthly pilgrimage.  And in like manner, God blessed us with George.  

 

Now that circle of relationship seems broken.  Death seems to have broken that bond.  But has it really?  There’s an old hymn which speaks of this concern for what happens when a loved one passes on into glory.  The text has been rewritten several times, but the original version goes as follows:  [play the tune softly]

 

There are loved ones in the glory Whose dear forms you often miss,

When you close your earthly story Will you join them in their bliss?

Will the circle be unbroken by and by, yes, by and by?

In a better home awaiting in the sky, in the sky?

 

In the joyous days of childhood Oft they told of wondrous love,

Pointed to the dying Savior, Now they dwell with Him above.

 

You remember songs of heaven Which you sang with childish voice,

Do you love the hymns they taught you, Or are songs of earth your choice?

 

You can picture happy gath’rings Round the fireside long ago,

And you think of tearful partings, When they left you here below.

 

One by one their seats were empty, One by one they went away,

Now the fam’ly is parted, Will it be complete one Day?

Will the circle be unbroken by and by, yes, by and by?

In a better home awaiting in the sky, in the sky?

 

This hymn poses a question which must be addressed every time a loved one or friend passes on.  Is this parting final, or merely temporary?  Will the circle be smashed or unbroken?

 

On this matter the Church has been very clear across the ages — as I must be today.  The God who made us, and who said it is not good that we should be alone in this life, will not deny us the companionship of loved ones in the life to come.  We believe this, because for Christians, faith is all about relationship — relationship with the Father who made us, with the Son who saved us, with the Holy Spirit who comforts and guides us, and with each other.  Death is not the end of life, but its transformation into something new, something more perfect than the life you and I enjoy here.  And just so, death is not the end of relationship, but a deepening and perfection of our relationships with those we love.

 

In his last days, George was clearly seeing something that those at his bedside could not see.  Quite often he reached out, and smiled, as if trying to grasp the hands of loved ones who were welcoming him into the Lord’s presence and new life with the saints in light.  George has been gathered to his people, and in due course we, too, will join him.  And the circle will be unbroken.

 

Let us pray.

O God, whose days are without end, and whose mercies cannot be numbered: Make us, we beseech thee, deeply sensible of the shortness and uncertainty of life; and let thy Holy Spirit lead us in holiness and righteousness all our days; that, when we shall have served thee in our generation, we may be gathered unto our fathers and mothers, having the testimony of a good conscience; in the communion of the Catholic Church; in the confidence of a certain faith; in the comfort of a reasonable, religious, and holy hope; in favor with thee our God; and in perfect charity with the world.  All which we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

 

—The Rev. John E. Laycock, Interim Pastor