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Back to Sermon ArchivesNovember
2, 2008
The Rev. John Auer
Scripture: Joshua 3:12-17, Psalm 107:1-9, Matthew 23:1-12
Follow That Ark! The More We Cross Over, the
Deeper It Gets”
Do we know the name Studs Terkel? He died Friday in Chicago where he lived
nearly all his life -- and never drove, always took public transportation! -- died
at age of 96 – probably of terminal shame at the Cubs! Studs was a “saint-maker,”
a “saint-revealer” of sorts. He wrote 12 books of oral history, one receiving
the Pulitzer Prize. His last memoir, Touch and Go, meant as he said
of himself in recent years, “I’m still in touch, but I’m ready to go.” I never
met him – though we attended some same rallies through the years – but everyone
in Chicago had their own way of “knowing” Studs. For 45 years he conducted
daily interviews on Public Radio, WFMT, Chicago -- more than 9000 interviewees
altogether!
He always wore a red-and-white checked shirt that looked like the table cloth
from a diner. Studs grew up in the residential hotel run by his parents --
a few blocks from Bughouse Square. His gift throughout life was for watching,
hearing, and loving people. Studs sought out and brought the “saint” in each
person he met – who they were in their essence, at their core – the whole person,
the image of God in them. Like Jesus, he would talk with anyone. Like
the Bible, he saw the purest history was oral tradition. Studs coined the
phrase, “Ordinary people are capable of doing extraordinary things, and that’s what
it’s all about,” he would exclaim -- “They must count!” With a
mind, a heart, a mouth all his own, Studs signed off every show with this life-advice
– “Take it easy, but take it.”
When we sing, as we will in a moment, “O Lord, I want to be in that number,” we
are giving voice to this deeply biblical concept: People are meant to count!
And to be counted! A little bit like what elections are supposed to be all
about. That everyone counts! Everyone matters. Everyone makes
a difference. Everyone “belongs” – one way or other, some place or other,
to some one or other. Each of us takes a rightful place in that “bigger picture,”
at that “bigger table” of life – where we say in our tradition, Christ alone is
the host. There is room enough, food enough for us all. We are all in this
together!
How easy it is for us to dismiss another, or numbers of others -- he or she just
“doesn’t count!” They don’t count! They don’t “amount” to anything.
They don’t deserve any attention. They mean nothing to us -- like the rich
man passing by Lazarus, we don’t even know they are there! Speaking of Lazarus,
I sent this letter to the paper -- asking, “Does it occur to anyone in the current
debate that “distributing wealth,” sharing, giving as we are given to – these are
deep and abiding principles of our Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition? Since
the essence and resource of all wealth – the earth herself! – is created equally
and without cost for all of us anyway?” Is that not in part what this communion
becomes for us? Sharing the wealth of the goodness of earth and the grace
of salvation?
I went on, “Speaking only for the tradition of Jesus, we are not to store up treasures
on earth but to sell our possessions and give to the poor. We are to close
the gap between Lazarus the beggar and the rich man who passes him by every day
without even noticing him. We are to offer food, drink, clothing, shelter, visitation,
healing – without any questions asked, any credits established. In the life
of the earliest church, each contributed as they could and received as they needed.
Socialism? Or just plain old human love – compassion, concern, and care –
for each other as for ourselves?” “Jesus found no place to rest,” I concluded.
“Would he find anyone to vote for?” Would he? . . .
When I say “counting” is a biblical concept, I’m thinking there is a whole book
of the Hebrew Bible, between Leviticus and Deuteronomy, called – what? Numbers!
It begins by listing the numbers of a census of the Hebrew people. Just as
Jesus was born in a time of Roman census – to establish who was to be taxed. Just
as in any democracy, any common-wealth, we are all born to be taxed. It is
part of belonging to one another, of looking after one another. So long as
we are taxed fairly and justly – and have something to say about where taxes – not
to mention “bailouts!” – go. A huge prize of these elections is control of
legislative redistricting following from the next census just two years from now!
The basic idea of census is that ALL the tribes (represented here by twelve priests
– as in the early church by twelve disciples) – ALL the clans, all the families
have a continuing place of belonging, a perpetual place “in that number” of Israel.
Each of us, by that promise, has a stake, an investment, an entitlement even – in
all the promises of this “Promised Land” God is giving to all the people.
No one gets lost in the process. No one slips through the cracks. Once
you belong, you always belong – like a union! Like the United Methodist Church!
A community of the numbered! We are the “censused,” the counted, the invested,
the entitled. Moving from what feels like “Judgment Day” this week to the
one at the end of the Church Year in just three Sundays, we are those willing to
be “accountable” – that the full promise of God is not lost to any last child of
God.
What a text – at the river we stand! Guide our feet, hold our hand!
One more river to cross! Forty years! Since Dr. King asked “Where Do
We Go from Here? Chaos or Community?” Wilderness or Promised Land?
What a text for All Saints Sunday – those who “cross over” before us! What
a text for such an election. We know deep within us, however nervously, it
is “God” who brings us to such moments. “Follow That Ark!” we proclaim!
That treasure of God’s living, guiding Word! Bravado no sooner uttered
than we fathom the consequences -- for the saints as for this election--“The
More We Cross Over, the Deeper It Gets!”
Are we not tempted to hold ourselves back? To play it safe? To
choose even the Wilderness we know so well over the Promised Land we only hope
and dream of? Will we not need, whatever happens Tuesday, more assurance
than ever that we can endure together? Will we not need that fullness of
vision, that “larger picture,” that perspective on things, so attributed to
saints and elders? Will we not all need each other – every last one of
each other – to risk crossing over? To risk going deeper? Not only
once, but again and again!
Every biblical water story reminds us, in baptism, we have nothing to show but our
faith! That’s who we are as saints – those with nothing to show but our faith!
With no one but “Christ” before the world confessed! Not to be successful
so much as faithful to the end! The end of all time and space, yes!
But the end of God’s unfolding purpose and unveiling truth. The first of many
scary cross-overs! (Crosses-over!) Think what crossing this river means
to our people. To those who struggle with bondages and addictions to sin and
to death, this is the river to cross. To those who stand at the doors of death
itself, this is the river to cross. To slaves crossing rivers into free states
or free countries, journeying through the Underground Railroad, this is the river
to cross – the river into new life for us all!
It is so tempting to find a convenient and comfortable way to stop the river from
rushing on. Scribes and Pharisees try to stop it with super-legalism and super-piety.
They are so convinced they possess the Law and how to keep it. They may teach
well, says Jesus -- but they are not able to practice what they teach! Saints
are called not just to know good answers, but to do good works – to walk our riskiest
talk. We do not ask or expect of others what we do not risk ourselves. We
do not do what we do to be seen by others. We are not attracted to special
treatment, to places of honor and gestures of respect. We do not seek to be
singled out – for saints know their own good is intimately and infinitely tied together
with the good of everyone else. Saints have seen “the big picture.”
Saints have seen all on earth with the eyes of the one in heaven – one whose “Promised
Land” is large enough for us all -- who plays no favorites among all the children
of heaven! Saints know the greatest among us are servants. Everyone
can be great: Everyone can bear witness and service. So saints are not afraid
to face death as a big part of our lives. Let us be moved to think through
the meanings of our lives, and how we would like them remembered. Let us talk
about them -- jot them down -- commit to live now by our ultimate meanings
each day. For sainthood is only fulfilled in death. It starts now!
We live with our dead all the time. I know my father better now nine years
after his death than ever before. Death leaves so much of itself behind for
us to keep on growing life.
Sr. Joan Chittister lives in religious community where “memory services” (like All
Saints services) honor the living and lingering presence of one who has died.
“We remember out loud what we will miss,” she says. “Most of all, we remember
what we ourselves must embody if the empty places left by those gone first are ever
to be filled again.” Why not when we get the chance, ask one another to say
more about our saints? How are we filling the places they leave among us?
I am closing with further reflections of Sister Joan -- “Death is the process it
takes for the rest of us, still here, to live life seriously, gracefully, in
God. It brings us to watch this life go by in ourselves a heartbeat at a
time, . . . Death begs us to be aware of what we, too, will eventually
leave behind to guide the lives of those who come after.” “When we’re
gone, life is what lives on in others because we were alive.”
“It is not necessary to understand life before we die. It is only necessary
to live it well when we understand it least.” “Death is what stops us from
living life superficially.” “To be fully alive, to live well, is to learn
to find the good that oozes through everything, even the good we cannot see yet.”
“We are meant to ripen, not to stagnate.” “Death is the advent of the last
great adventure in life. As Estelle Winwood said, at age 100, ‘I wouldn’t
mind being dead – it would be something new.”
It’s hard to remember today, not all of our saints are old. Some of the hardest
prayers in Prayer Group for me acknowledge how children, too, live closely with
death. Many die much too young. We pray for them as confidently as for
all – that their lives, far beyond all reason, may come to be seen as completed
in God. “When the young die before us, they take a piece of ourselves with
them.” “Love of life makes us willing to risk pain in trust of triumph.
‘I shall not die of a cold,’ Willa Cather wrote. ‘I shall die of having lived.’”
I shall die of having lived!
Now let the saints go marching in! And let the church say, Amen.
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