I know you enjoyed the leadership of Bob Traer in worship last Sunday. It was nice not to drive back from Tahoe on Saturday night. I want to thank Claudia and her family for the great service of allowing us to use her home up there. We had an awesome time, and all twenty of us fit quite comfortably in the house. Unfortunately, I was reminded that I am no longer 12 years old. My spine simply cannot take thumping down a bumpy, icy hill, and it let me know it this week after I got back to Berkeley. I suppose these lessons are part of mid live.
Most of us do not like to give up those things we have enjoyed. Even if we are not high profile professional athletes, or athletes at all, there are plenty of things which help form our identity, bring us pleasure, and connect us with others that life and age force us to relinquish. We often consider beauty a vain pleasure, and it certainly can be, but I wish more kids could enjoy and appreciate their own development and beauty. In a conversation during a trip to a presbytery meeting, a woman near the age of retirement mentioned her poor appreciation of her looks when she was young. She worried about particular attributes she thought were less than perfect. In her young mind, her eyes were a little small, her eyebrows were too narrow, she was a little short and a little overweight. She had recently gone through some old photo albums and thought, "why did I waste so much time thinking poorly about myself? I was beautiful. Ironically she grew more comfortable with her appearance and youth grew more distant.
If it is not beauty or athletics, then perhaps it is gardening or hiking, knitting or holding children. I knew a bird watcher who has lost her ability to see birds, a painter who now struggles to paint. Margo has been coming to worship her at St. John's since 1933, 73 years, and now she is unable to make it. Her heart aches for her home and her church.
I am excited about new life here at St. John's, about new people and new kids, about a new bell choir, youth groups and the family snow trip. Last night we welcomed the East Bay Sanctuary Covenant who had well over 200 people here eating and celebrating and inspiring one another to take action for peace and justice in Haiti. I love the theme of the Centennial, "The next hundred years!" because it expresses the hope and faith that God has not only done great things but that God will continue to do great things through this congregation. 2107, imagine what they will have to celebrate, the wonderful legacy of 200 years. What a wonderful vision, so full of possibility.
I also think that part of a vibrant church; people and individual life includes that freedom to grieve loss. Part of what we offer as a Christian congregation here at St. John's is a place to bring our losses before God. This is a fundamental part of the Bible and Christian faith.
Isaiah is speaking to a people who had experienced all kinds of loss. In 722 BCE the Assyrians came through and wiped them out. Then again in 587 the Babylonians killed many, destroyed their temple, homes and crops, and sent most of the living into exile.
Like flowers and grass of the fields, Israel seems to spring up with beauty and hope, only to wither and blow away. This is the undeniable reality of their situation, our situation, but it is not the whole picture. The flowers wither and the grasses fade, but those who hope in the Lord shall renew their strength.
Grief is connected not only to death, but to loss of any kind. Even good change causes grief. Mittchell and Anderson in their book, All Our Losses, All Our Griefs, point out six major forms of loss. There is material loss, "loss of material objects or familiar surroundings to which one has an important attachment." For example, children often learn of this kind of loss as a scoop of ice cream falls from the cone. On the other end of the seriousness is loss of a home. Margo mentioned she misses the furniture in her home which she and her husband purchased in their travels together in China.
There is also relationship loss: "the ending of opportunities to relate oneself to, talk with, share experiences with, make love to, touch, settle issues with, fight with, and otherwise be in emotional or physical presence of another human being." We may experience this loss through moving away, through divorce, or death.
The third form is intrapsychic loss, or the" the experience of losing an emotionally important image of oneself, losing the possibilities of 'what might have been', abandonment of plans for a particular future, they dying of a dream." This intrapsychic loss may be related to external experience, but it is an inward, personal experience.
Next there is functional loss. "Powerful grief can be evoked when we lose some of the muscular or neurological functions of the body." Going blind at eighty is not necessarily less painful than going blind at twenty, even if it does happen more often. And functional loss often carries with it loss of autonomy. In our very individualistic society, especially among the middle and upper classes, independence is highly valued and embedded in our identity. Loss of function and independence is painful and hard to accept.
The fifth kind of loss is role loss; the loss of a "specific social role or of one's accustomed place in a social network." Retirement is usually the first thing we associate with this kind of loss, but we can also experience it with a promotion, or when the kids move out of the home, just to name two other examples. Knowing how to be and act is in large part determined by the roles we receive from a particular group. If that role disappears, we may feel like we don't have a part to play. We may "lose our lines." Often there is trauma experienced by entering the hospital as a patient. The roles we assume in the world are removed and we become a patient, at the mercy of those around us. One also thinks of the victims of Hurricane Katrina: Their roles and identity were simply wiped away and they found themselves at the mercy of government officials or relief workers.
Katrina victims would also be experiencing the sixth form of loss, systemic loss. It is not just the loss of things and the individual people and relationships that cause grief, but how those things and people are connected to us and one another. Not only do we miss the daughter who goes off to college, or the husband who dies, we also miss how they relate, how they fit in the family and the world around us.
Loss of all kinds is a part of life. Whether we are powerful kings or poor peasants, we will experience grief because of loss. Rabbi Kushner, author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People, also wrote a lesser-known commentary on the book of Ecclesiastes entitled, When All You Have Ever Wanted Isn't Enough. In this latter book he tells of a man who told him his son's death was not a tragedy and that he should not be burdened by it. Speaking from a hands on perspective, he said, "'Nobody suffers in this world except people who want things they cannot have. When you learn not to desire, you will rise beyond suffering.'" Kushner says in response, "I believed that (the loss of my son) was supposed to hurt... Living sensitive souls are easily hurt...I become less human if I learn the art of detachment so well that I can experience the death of friend or relative, or watch a television news show about starving children, and not be emotionally affected by it."
But Kushner is not cynical. He doesn't believe suffering and grief have the final or most powerful word. Interpreting the author of Ecclesiastes Kushner writes, "I have examined all the evidence and come to the conclusion that nothing endures and nothing makes a difference. Everything is vanity. Human beings are born and die like flowers or insects and that is all there is to it. The evidence leads me to conclude that life has no meaning. But there is something inside me, which will not permit me to accept that conclusion... If logic tells me that life is a meaningless accident... don't give up on life, give up on logic... Instead of brooding over the fact that nothing lasts, accept that as one of the truths of life, and learn to find meaning and purpose in the transitory, in the joys that fade. Learn to savor the moment, even if it does not last forever. In fact learn to savor the moment because it is only a moment and will not last. Moments of our lives can be eternal without being everlasting.
In this light each decision, each action of each moment has eternal consequences. If we have eyes to see, each passing moment is a piece of eternity. The death of Jesus on the cross would seem to be the ultimate proof that life is futile and meaningless. Here was a man who lived each moment with love and integrity, healing the sick and binding up the brokenhearted. And what did it get him but nails in his hands and feet. The powerful executioner sits comfortable in his castle, and another no name threat eradicated. But the real threat to evil and vanity is the faith that love and grace, even a momentary life of it, is eternal. It is greater than all else. It just is. Somehow this truth will not die. Kill it and it will be resurrected, because it is the seed of the eternal God planted in our hearts
This is the essence of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the main reason for emphasis on Jesus we all need. I believe it is only after Christianity is wedded with the empire that Jesus as the only way becomes a threat against common non-believers. It does not mean nothing else matters, or nothing else is good. Jesus means that just a moment of God's love and grace is eternal, enough for everyone for all time. Regardless of our name, our blood line, our possessions, our role in society, our accomplishments, our power or our lack of those things, the grace of God seen in the person of Jesus Christ, whose ministry lasted all of three years, is enough. It is proof and justification for hope eternal. This basic momentary life of love and grace is greater than the threat of death and enough for all eternity.
Therefore, Paul says, we do not lose heart, but though our outer body is decaying, yet our inner being is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are temporal, but the things which are not see are eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)
And Isaiah, "Even youth grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall. But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow faint."
From Kushner's book again: On his seventy-third birthday Horace Kallen wrote, "There are persons who shape their lives by the fear of death, and persons who shape their lives by the joy and satisfaction of life. The former live dying; the latter die living. I know that fate may stop me tomorrow, but death is an irrelevant contingency. Whenever it comes, I intend to die living." May it be so for us all.
Thanks be to God.