Sermons from Mission Hills UCC San Diego, California Rev. Dr. David Bahr [email protected] October 2, 2022 “The Power of Remembering” Lamentations 3: 19-26 –The Message Jesus I’ll never forget the trouble, the utter lostness, the taste of ashes, the poison I’ve swallowed. I remember it all—oh, how well I remember-- the feeling of hitting the bottom. But there’s one other thing I remember, and remembering, I keep a grip on hope: 22-24 God’s loyal love couldn’t have run out, his merciful love couldn’t have dried up. They’re created new every morning. How great your faithfulness! I’m sticking with God (I say it over and over). He’s all I’ve got left. 25-27 God proves to be good to the man who passionately waits, to the woman who diligently seeks. It’s a good thing to quietly hope, quietly hope for help from God. It’s a good thing when you’re young to stick it out through the hard times. The Book of Lamentations is very sad, which would make sense, I guess, since that’s its job. It’s a book of laments, 5 separate poems with 150 verses of cries and wailing and suffering. They may cry “why,” but they understand: “Our ancestors sinned; they are no more, and we bear their iniquities.” And so, now they’re in Babylon, where their captors make them sing happy songs for entertainment when all they want to do is weep. That’s one of the most beautifully mournful images in the Bible – weeping as they sit alongside the river with their instruments hung from the trees. How can we sing the songs of Zion in a foreign land? The prophets had warned for years that the true worship of God is to care for widows and orphans, the poor, strangers and the foreigners in your midst. When they didn’t adhere to the warnings of prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah and Amos, well, now their Temple and cities lay in ruin and as the lamenting poet says, “We have become orphans, fatherless; and our mothers are like widows.” The poetry of Lamentations is sincerely brutal, as well as beautiful in its honesty and sincerity. There is utter despair right to the very last line of the last poem that ends by saying, “Restore us to yourself, O Lord, that we may be restored: unless you have utterly rejected us, and are angry with us beyond measure.” The end. Amen It’s a book of a thousand midnights, except as we heard, 5 verses out of 150, the light of one small match the poet dared to strike. Right in the very middle. “I’ll never forget the trouble, the utter lostness, the taste of ashes, the poison I’ve swallowed. I remember it all—oh, how well I remember-- the feeling of hitting the bottom. But, there’s one other thing I remember, one; and by remembering, I keep a grip on hope: 22-24 God’s loyal love couldn’t have run out, God’s merciful love couldn’t have dried up. They’re created new every morning. How great is your faithfulness! I’m sticking with God (I say it over and over). God is all I’ve got left. 25-26 God proves to be good to the man who passionately waits, to the woman who diligently seeks. It’s a good thing to quietly hope, quietly hope for help from God. It’s a good thing. Long ago there was a king who ruled the land. He always had at his side an advisor who had strange habits that often annoyed him. No matter what happened, the advisor always responded by saying, “This is good. This is good.” One day the king was out hunting when his horse was startled by a large snake. The king was thrown from the horse and dragged through a field. In the process, his foot was badly cut and he lost a toe. As the king’s advisor knelt beside him to help, he said, “This is good. This is good.” The king was outraged. “How dare you call this good. You’re fired!” The advisor said, “This is good. This is good.” He stood up and went to the palace to pack his belongings. The king returned home and his foot eventually healed, minus the toe. One day he was ready to go hunting again. This time he became separated from his hunting party. Suddenly he was ambushed by a group who lived in the forest. The king was nervous but everyone around was smiling at him and gesturing how happy they were. He even heard them send word ahead to the village to prepare for a celebration. Very proper for a king, he thought. The king was marched into the village to the sounds of music and dancing and heaping tables of food. Servants came to wash his body and then began to decorate it. He wondered why his own people had never treated him so well. When they finished preparing the king for the celebration, a priest came toward him with a big smile and began dancing around him. What fun! And then the priest’s assistant handed him a huge knife. The king’s smile dimmed. As the priest was dancing, he began closely examining the king’s body, a little too closely. The king grew nervous about what was happening and then remembered stories about a group that lived in the forest. These people were preparing a celebratory offering to their gods. Him! The priest continued to dance around the king, carefully inspecting from every angle, poking his skin with the knife until suddenly he motioned. “Stop the music!” “This one’s no good. He’s already been cut” and pointed to the missing toe. The priest swung the huge knife toward the king’s head and pointed the way out. They set him free. As the king raced back to his palace as fast as he could, he remembered what his former advisor had said and summoned for him. He told him the story and said, “You were right. It was good that my toe was lost. Because of it, I was not sacrificed to their gods. But why did you say ‘this is good, this is good’ when I fired you?” “There is always some good to come out of things,” he said. “I’ve got all my toes. If you hadn’t fired me, I would have been along with you and they would have killed me in your place.” “Yes, that was good,” the king said. “Very good indeed. And because of your wisdom, you shall be my advisor forever.”[1] From the Book of Lamentations, “It’s a good thing to quietly hope,” another way to say wait. But the poet’s momentary recognition of a good thing is quickly replaced with dread once again. Only a few verses later the poet declares, not so quietly, “You have wrapped yourself with anger and pursued us, killing without pity; you have wrapped yourself with a cloud so that no prayer can pass through. You have made us filth and rubbish among the peoples.” This is good? This is good? Joan Chittister is a Benedictine nun, a force for social justice and a fierce proponent for women in the church. She belongs to the Benedictine Sisters of Erie, Pennsylvania, a community with whom I’ve spent a considerable amount of time. Among other things, Sister Joan is a brilliant theologian and prolific author. Today’s scripture filled with lament reminded me of a book she wrote about the gifts that are found in struggle.[2] Most of us want a life free from struggle. Why wouldn’t we? Who wants to struggle? But, she claims, there are so many gifts waiting to be unwrapped. She calls struggle the “seedbed of hope.” For example, we may struggle with change. The world is changing so fast. But not only the swift pace of change in the world but in our personal lives, through aging, through relationship ups and downs, and more… Well, there is a gift to claim. It’s a gift that we are free to change our mind, we’re free to go in new directions. Conversion. Conversion means we have a choice to make. We’re free to live differently because we’ve learned from our failures and can try again. Praise God for failure! When you’re feeling frightened of change, imagine life without change or the possibility to change. This is good. This is good. Or struggling with feelings of isolation. The pandemic provided some people quarters that were too-close-for-comfort with their family, all day, every day. Others struggled with isolation. But when we feel isolated, for whatever reason, we might also recognize that with isolation comes the gift to claim independence. I’m not isolated. I’m independent. This is good. This is good. Fears often arise for no good reason, and often, for very good reasons. Fear is often a very rational way to feel about a threat. But if we struggle with fear, we can also claim within it the gift of courage. Fear is the seedbed for courage. When else will we develop courage and then strength than in the face of fear? Thank God for fear! This is good. This is good. If we struggle with feeling powerless, there is within it a power of surrender. Not to be imposed but for us to discern when to let go of control. This is a gift we learn in the midst of powerlessness. Or, if we struggle with feeling vulnerable, there is within it a gift to discover limitations. We have the power to set limits. This is good. This is really good. There’s more. But as Sister Joan writes, within all the scars that result from suffering, there are gifts to claim. Lamentation is a legitimate and a natural response to our fears of change, or feelings of isolation, powerlessness, or vulnerability. But the poet stops for what is good within. Yes, I remember it all—oh, how well I remember-- the feeling of hitting the bottom. But, there’s one other thing I remember, one; and by remembering, I keep a grip on hope: In the midst of their suffering, the Babylonian exiles could remember their story of liberation from slavery. It’s written into every prayer. Remember you once were slaves and you overcame. Memory is sacred. For Christians, remembering is sacramental. Do this in remembrance of me. Every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you remember me. In the midst of the gloom and doom of lamentations, the poet stops. I remember it all – not just the good. Resurrection with crucifixion is meaningless. And that’s how I keep a grip on hope. Sometimes I struggle with the Book of Lamentations, with its nonstop misery and complaining. But I also know that a faith that only praises God doesn’t require faith. It’s not until we have experienced grief and sorrow that faith becomes real, that faith actually becomes faith. Regina Spiegel survived the concentration camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, slave labor in Germany, and was at Bergen-Belsen when it was liberated by the Soviet army on April 20, 1945. She said, “We who survived Auschwitz or other concentration camps advocate generosity not bitterness, gratitude not violence, hope not despair. We must reject indifference as an option.” One thing we can say with certainty. The poets of lament were not indifferent. They cursed, they cried, they complained, and remembered. This is good. The power of remembering is not to stop the pain. For Christians on this World Communion Sunday, it is to remember that Jesus already overcame. And for us to ask, how far have you already come? [1] Doorways to the Soul, “That is Good,” Pilgrim Press [2] Joan Chittister, OSB, Scarred by Struggle, Transformed by Hope, Eerdmans, 2003
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorI love being a Archives
March 2024
|