2024-11-01
Brooke Strong
Sermon Text...
October 27, 2024 Hamilton Coe Throckmorton
Psalm 126; Last Sunday at Federated The Federated Church, UCC
It is stunning to me that we have come to this day. It’s a day I have both anticipated and dreaded. The feelings for me are almost more than I can bear. So much of what has filled my life over these last twenty years has been intimately wrapped up with you. So the thought of parting is tender beyond words, a source, for me, of deep grief.
At the same time, though, this is also a time of promise. Not unlimited promise! For my part, I don’t think I’ll be skydiving or trying the trapeze. It’s a tad unlikely that I’ll be joining the New York City Ballet. And I don’t imagine I’ll be starting a grunge band—though you never know! For me, though, this cusp moment is the beginning of a whole new chapter which will give me a chance to visit family and friends and to try new things that I cannot yet imagine. Newness awaits.
And it awaits for you, as well. In today’s lilting, hopeful psalm, the people of Israel look back at the wonders that have engulfed them, the simple blessings that have made their lives rich beyond belief, and they look to God to keep doing it. “[T]hose who planted their crops in despair will shout hurrahs at the harvest, . . . those who went off with heavy hearts will come home laughing, with armloads of blessing” (Psalm 126, vv. 5-6, The Message). The same is true for all of us. While today is not without its palpable grief, I also trust, as do you, I imagine, that a new chapter awaits, that both for me and for the life of this marvelous church, there will emerge fresh and as yet unimagined blessings. Undreamt of gifts will flower. And it will be good. “[T]hose who went off with heavy hearts will come home laughing, with armloads of blessing.”
Before we move on to those new vistas and blessings, though, there are a couple of things I feel called to do. The first is that I need to say goodbye to you. In this family of God’s people, I have found a deep and nourishing and richly blessed life. I have sensed your love for me. And I have loved you in return. You and I have been through searing grief together. We have struggled with relationship and work challenges. We have watched as the church all over this country has shrunk and become far less important in the culture. We have wrestled with questions about how best to allot the resources of this congregation, and what the most responsible use of our properties is, and how, ideally, to staff the church. As with all eras, these twenty years have had their share of trying times.
At the same time, though, we have also had enormous joy together. We have celebrated births and baptisms. We have laughed uncontrollably. We have lived the parable of the talents and celebrated a Delighting in God festival. During the COVID pandemic, we persisted in anticipating that we would, eventually, in the words of the musical Hamilton, “be back,” and it has happened. And through it all, we have loved each other fiercely. We have witnessed to a just and loving world, and have sought to make this congregation a big tent, where all know that they belong.
I cannot tell you what a joy this has been for me. It has fed me at my core. It has brought a lightness to my step and beauty and grace to my heart. My gratitude to you is boundless. And it is painful but necessary for me to say goodbye to you. Goodbye meaning we are now separating, of course. But goodbye meaning, as well, literally “God be with you.”
As we say goodbye, as we say “God be with you,” there are three facets of what’s to come that I want to lift up this morning. The first is that this church has a significant and distinctive ministry in this community. In a world in which it is easy simply to look out for oneself, here, instead, people reach beyond themselves. They serve meals. They knit blankets. They give rides. They bring flowers. They serve communion. Not only that, but this church strives, at God’s bidding, to embrace racial equity, to break down religious barriers, to dismantle tribal fear and hatred, to treasure this Earth and its infinite blessings. It honors God’s embrace of all people. All people. All people.
The value of this came home to me vividly a year or two ago, when I was part of a clergy witness of support in the face of vocal and violent resistance to drag performances in Chesterland and Chardon. The obscenity and fury of those who opposed the drag shows was bracing. When I arrived at the church in Chesterland, a fence surrounded the whole church. Police stopped every car and searched inside and outside and underneath for weapons. The tension was thick. And as I stood there to witness for a more peaceful way, a little girl arrived at the show in a flowing chiffon dress. And as she walked to the door of the church, she threw her arms over her head, and twirled around exuberantly, and danced with delight. And I, who had been so shaped by the vitriol of the moment, had to turn away as the tears—tears of joy and of relief—poured down my face. Federated stands for something. And I saw the fruit of that commitment in the joy and delight of that little girl. God has done, and is doing, great things for us.
The first thing that’s true about Federated’s collective future is that that mission of inclusiveness and belonging will continue to exercise its grip on this church. The second thing that calls this congregation forth, it seems to me, is to continue to encourage and support each other in that holy mission. Our mission, of course, is partly to continue to do things for each other—to deliver meals and provide support and offer rides and share our resources with others in need. The things that we do for each other and the wider community mean the world. In remarkably vivid ways, they change the world. They cast it in a new light.
It matters that we affirm that doing. More than that, though, it’s the way we do these things that likely matters most. When we serve with a smile. When we care with patience. When we reach out with warmth and affection. Yes, the doing matters. More than that, though, it’s the attitude that transforms. It’s the manner of engaging in these ministries that most leavens the loaf. More than just doing, are we transmitting joy?
As important as the work that is done here is, at least as important is the way we treat each other, and the spirit we bring to being church together. A speaker said to a bunch of us ministers once years ago, “Once you’re gone, the people in your congregation won’t remember what you said in your conversations or your sermons. But they will remember the way you made them feel.” I suspect that’s true for all of us. We remember not just what others have done for us, but also and especially the way they have made us feel.
Three years ago, at the height of the pandemic, a woman named Emilia Epstein was scheduled to take the Graduate Record Exam. She got a phone call from the testing center the night before reminding her of the next day’s test. The message meant so much to her that she saved it.
The message was from a woman named Tameka Rooks, who worked at the testing center. The message “started out like any other standard courtesy message, explaining where to report and what to bring to the test.” But then Rooks, a stranger to Emilia, “turned sincere and personal.
“Come confident and well-prepared. Miss Emilia, this is what you studied for, this is what you worked hard for. Bring your best girl confidence. Bring your best girl magic. It’s called girl power. Girl power is the best power, ain’t nothing better than that! So put in your head that this is what you want. Don’t come nervous.”
And she finished this way: “Other than that, honey, I will see you tomorrow in the afternoon. And come with a smile because I’ll have one ready. Have a great evening” (The Plain Dealer, June 28, 2024, p. A12). Doesn’t that just make you want to go take the GRE! Tameka assumes the best. She trusts that things will go well. Her enthusiasm and encouragement are utterly contagious. We’re not called to be critics. We’re not called to “improve” each other, God forbid. We’re called to look for the best in each other. We’re called to laugh together. We’re called to support each other and to affirm each other and to enjoy each other. God has done, and is doing, great things for us.
So the first thing that calls us together is that, at the behest of God, we have a crucial mission to the community and the world. The second thing is we are beckoned to do what we do together with spirit and energy and joy—in the words of the psalm to “shout hurrahs,” and “to come home laughing, with armloads of blessing.” It’s this that will make our life together joyful and full. The third and final thing this psalm calls us to is a life of hope. God has been “wonderful to us,” says the psalm; “we are one happy people” (126:3). And that’s because, even though they don’t know the future, they trust that God has good things in store for them. The future will unfold with ample and unexpected blessings.
James Carroll has written a marvelous autobiographical volume called An American Requiem. In it, he writes of an episode from his young adulthood. Carroll had gone to seminary to become a Roman Catholic priest. The seminary, not surprisingly, was a place of material deprivation, but he developed some wonderful friendships there.
One autumn day, he and a number of his classmates got into an argument about when the lake on campus would freeze over. Guesses ranged from November to January.
“Finally,” he says, “one of my classmates, a short, stocky Boston kid named Patrick Hughes who had said nothing until then, declared, ‘On December eighth, I’ll skate across the lake. Who wants to bet on it?’ [And we did bet on it. We bet the most valuable thing we could wager at that spartan seminary: desserts. Desserts were our] one source of power [there. S]oon Patrick had desserts for the next four months riding on his ability to skate across that lake on December 8.
“By Thanksgiving the lake showed no sign of freezing. Patrick would get up early every morning, don his cassock, slip down to the water to check, and then walk up to the chapel for morning prayer. We all knew what he was praying for. On December 3, when we woke up, there it was, the first thin glaze in the corner of the lake. That afternoon there was a delicate necklace of ice around the shore. Having bet against him, we gathered on the shore and groaned. By December 5, a thin sheet had spread all across the lake, but it would hardly hold a leaf. On the nights of the sixth and seventh, the temperature dropped, and in the daytime the sun hid, because on the morning of December 8, the ice looked good—or bad, depending on your bet. Desserts: . . . all that power. [The atmosphere was charged.]
“Right after chapel, hiking our cassocks, we clambered down to the water’s edge. Not water. Ice. Someone picked up a rock the size of a softball and dropped it on the surface, and the ice held. We all groaned except for Patrick, who sat down to put on his ice skates. Then someone else picked up a bigger rock, the size of a football, and threw it out. The rock broke the ice easily and disappeared. We all cheered. But Patrick, [who was obviously very experienced,] kept [deftly] lacing up his skates. . .
“I stepped out onto the ice with one foot. I bounced it a couple of times, then my foot went through. ‘Pat,’ I said, ‘you can’t do this. It’s impossible.’
“My words registered not at all with him. He stood and went up the hill a little, to get a running start. I felt a real fear for him. [Then suddenly] he took off, launching himself out onto that shimmering surface. He hit it in stride, his legs pumping away. But he hit it with a great crack, and sure enough the ice broke. It was too thin. It was too soon. Oh, Patrick!
“Then we saw that the ice was breaking and opening not under him but behind him. He was ahead of the break, skating so fast and so lightly that even the thin ice was support enough for the instant he needed it. All of us on that shore, watching him barreling across that lake, were transformed. We forgot our desserts and all they meant to us. We began to cry after him, ‘Go Patrick! Go Patrick!’ As he shot across that ice, leaving behind a great crack, a wedge of black water, we knew we had never seen such courage before . . .. We had never seen such a capacity for trust” (pp. 98-101).
You and I prepare to go into our respective futures. And in many ways, we have no real idea what is to come. The truth of the matter, though, is that “God [has] restored the fortunes of Zion” (126:1), that God has restored the fortunes of Federated, and that, because of that track record, God will make it possible to “come home laughing, with armloads of blessing.” You and I will skate across our ponds, and the ice may crack. But when it does, it will crack behind us, and it will hold beneath us, and we will soar into new and as yet uncharted vistas. “God has done great things for us” (126:3). And God will now do new great things for us. May we go in peace, rejoicing in the promise of wonders yet to come.