Sit and Eat

Fashioned before they came to be

I preached this sermon at St. Lydia's on July 17, 2011, the day we voted to affiliate with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.  The text is Psalm 139; read it here. 

 

 

One thing you’ll learn working as a hospital chaplain (as I have been for the last six weeks or so), is that the way you cope with life, is generally the same why you’ll cope in a crisis.  If you are a nervous person, you will be extra nervous in a crisis.  And if you’re a mean person, you’ll be extra mean in a crisis.  The skills we develop to cope with everyday life are the same skills we have to work with when things go terribly wrong. 

 

A few weeks ago, I stood at the bedside of a rather extraordinary family as they removed life support so the matriarch or their family could die in peace.  I have never seen such a calm, trusting, fearless group of people, in the midst of such a terrible time. 

 

One of the family member’s explained the situation to me in simple terms:

She’s had a full, rich life.

She wanted to die gracefully. 

She misses her husband and she wants to go and be with God. 

 

We gathered around the bedside and read Psalm 139:

You trace my journeys and my resting places, 

and are acquainted with all my ways. 

If I climb up to heaven, you are there. 

If I make my bed in the grave, you are there also.  

 

 

The psalmist writes of a God who knows us so completely:

knows our every word before it is on our lips, 

knows the very substance our our being from before we were born. 

 

The psalmist writes of a God who is so present in our lives

that she is, in some way, inescapable:

a divine love that we cannot shake off, 

no matter how far away we run, 

or how dark the corners we hide in. 

 

Every part of us is known to God, 

even the bits we secret away in corners of our hearts. 

Even the bits we would rather not show, even to ourselves. 

The idea of that at first makes me want to rebel, 

makes me want to secret myself away even further. 

But when I allow myself to give into it, 

it’s incredibly comforting.  

Because it means that every part of me, 

every thought, 

every word, 

even before I speak it, 

is known to God. 

And if God knows me so completely, 

created my innermost parts,

knit me together in my mother’s womb, 

I must not have that much to hide after all. 

 

This is a wonderful and terrifying time in the life of St. Lydia’s. 

Wonderful because so much is happening to us. 

And terrifying because so much is happening to us!

We are in the midst of building all these new relationships: 

relationships with denominational bodies, 

and with bishops and canons and pastors and priests,

relationships with a whole new congregation 

who is graciously opening their arms to us, 

relationships with a whole new neighborhood full of need. 

 

Our community is like a shoot coming up from the earth.

There is new growth and new life -- 

because of that, the ground is giving way

beneath our feet,

cracking and breaking open to allow this shoot 

to push through. 

 

 

This week, I’ve been anxious about all this change, and my response to those anxious feelings has been to try and control things.  I want to make sure that our relationship with Redeeemer is really good!  And I want to make sure that we’re set up for a successful relationship with the Synod as we affiliate. 

 

I have questions:

like what if we run into conflict with the Synod?

Or with the Episcopal Diocese?

What if things are difficult when we get to Redeemer?

What if things are really really difficult?

 

And then I remember 

that they will be. 

Things will be new and difficult when we get to Redeemer. 

We will have to wrestle things out with the Synod, with the Diocese. 

That’s the whole point. 

 

We’re trying to figure out how to follow Jesus’ call to be one body. 

Trying to figure out how to be in relationship while sitting right in the tension of our difference. 

 

Being in relationship is hard. 

But, as a friend reminded me this week, 

conflict can be incredibly creative. 

We’ve already seen these last two years at St. Lydia’s,

that it’s the moments of conflict, of tension, of difficulty, 

that teach us who we are, 

and push us a little further into figuring out 

how to be a church together. 

 

Our job is to keep reminding each other of this. 

Reminding each other that this is the work that’s been set before us to do.

And that the work has more to do with putting down 

than taking up. 

 

I’ll tell you what I mean by that:

The Psalmist writes, 

Your eyes beheld my limbs, 

yet unfinished in the womb; 

all of them were written in your book;

my days were fashioned 

before they came to be.

 

God knows each of us, intimately, 

knit us together in our mothers’ womb. 

And God knows St. Lydia’s, intimately. 

Our future is already written in God’s book, 

our days already fashioned 

even before tomorrow comes. 

 

The wrestling we’ll do together, 

the building up and the tearing down, 

the struggle and the conflict, 

the confusion and joy and beauty, 

God knows it all, 

knows it intimately. 

 

A few weeks ago, I watched a family 

gather around a matriarch 

and acknowledge 

that her life belongs to God. 

 

Today I sit with all of you 

around these tables, 

and invite you to do the same thing. 

Invite you to acknowledge 

that St. Lydia’s belongs to God. 

And all that we might try to grasp or cling to, 

control or manage, 

was never ours in the first place. 

 

Let’s see if we can trust 

that what we need is here. 

That all of our days are written in God’s book, 

fashioned, before they even came to be. 

 

Betwixt and Between

I preached this sermon at St. Lydia's on July 3.  The text is Psalm 123; read it here. 

 

Getting from one place to another 

requires being in the middle for a little while. 

 

In the middle, 

betwixt and between, 

neither one place nor another. 

It’s a frightening place to be, and over the last few weeks working as a chaplain at the Columbia Presbyterian Hospital I’ve been learning how to stand in that middle place with all sorts of pilgrims traveling on all sorts of journeys. 

 

I’ve read them this Psalm, 

this Psalm for travelers, 

because so many of them have left familiar shores

to traverse some very deep waters. 

 

I have read Psalm 121 

to parents 

who’s tiny, premature baby 

was facing surgery the next day. 

To a daughter 

who told me that she was afraid that her aging father 

would die alone in the night when she couldn’t be near him. 

To a mother who had gone into labor much, much too soon.

To a family of 15, maybe 20, 

gathered around their matriarch as she moved slowly and steadily toward death. 

 

This Psalm was written to bring comfort to travelers who are journeying a treacherous and unfamiliar road.  It was written for pilgrims journeying the dangerous road to Jerusalem.  It was written to remind them that they are not alone as they travel. 

God will preserve them from all evil. 

 

I've read this psalm to patients, and it's brought them comfort.  But this Psalm has also brought comfort to me.  I leave the hospital at night knowing that so many of the people I’ve spoken to will remain there long into the night.  And many of them seem very, very alone.  Alone in their suffering, alone in their struggle.  I can’t stay awake by their side, but I can rest assured that God will.  God, who neither slumbers nor sleeps will watch over them. 

 

The people I’ve met during my time at the hospital, are traveling on a very particular, very difficult kind of journey.  But we’re all on some kind of a journey, most of the time -- all negotiating some variety of transition, crossing some kind of threshold, making our way from one kind of a shore to another.  In this community, we’ve been accompanying Rachel on her journey to the water as she prepares for her baptism.  Richard and Kathleen are her sponsors, and take special responsibility for walking with her as she travels, helping her negotiate that tricky space of the in-between. 

 

And Michael and Gihanni are setting out on the first leg of a journey today and in the coming weeks, as they say goodbye to St. Lydia’s and New York, and hello to Ashville, North Carolina, a new church, a new job, new roles, new patterns, new ways of living. 

 

Part of our job as a church is to mark and name these transitions. 

To remember that it’s hard to say hello 

until you’ve said a proper goodbye. 

So tonight we’re saying goodbye, and see you soon,

and blessing Gihanni and Michael, 

and thanking them for all they’ve brought to our community. 

 

St. Lydia’s as a church is on a journey too. 

It may not seem like a long way to travel over the Brooklyn Bridge, but negotiating the distance between this place and the next place will open us up to being in the middle, to being betwixt and between.  To not being quite sure for a while who we are or how we got into this funny place, where we hardly seem to recognize ourselves. 

 

The good news of this text is that, 

in the midst of the middle, 

we are never alone. 

Beside the hospital bed in the middle of a night that seems very long, 

we are never alone. 

On the way to the edge of waters that seem very deep,

we are never alone. 

With all our worldly possessions packed into boxes 

and a long road ahead of us, 

we are never alone. 

Whatever we encounter 

in the middle,

we won’t do it by ourselves. 

 

Behold the keeper of Israel 

will neither slumber nor sleep. 

The Lord will watch over 

your going out and your coming in, 

from this time forth, 

forevermore. 

 

Sometimes we just need to be reminded.