Today was my last at field education. The last two years at St. Anne's were wonderful and formational. This is the sermon I preached... based on the readings for Easter 5 year B. Enjoy!
Good-byes are rarely
easy, even when they may have been anticipated. When I was working in the
hospital I said goodbye frequently. Usually those good-byes were happy
occasions. Often, saying goodbye to a patient meant that he or she was well
enough to go home. Sure, I would miss them; But our goal was healing that
resulted in homecoming. Because of the conditions I specialized in, I had many
long-term patients. They were always the ones who were hardest to say good-bye
to.
There is one
girl in particular who immediately comes to mind when I think of good-byes. Nancy was a 4-year-old child of immigrants.
Her parents did not speak English, but Nancy was bilingual. Because of their
work at a factory several hours from the hospital, Nancy’s parents were not able
to visit very frequently. She would spend days or even weeks waiting for a
visit from her parents. They were good people, but the language barrier
coupled with a less than cooperative employer made visiting difficult. Nancy became one of my special patients.
During her
4-month stay at the hospital I had a standing date with Nancy everyday, Monday
through Friday, at 3:25 in the afternoon. Nancy’s favorite television program
was on everyday at 3:00. I couldn’t always watch the show with her, but I made
the commitment to be in her room everyday in time for the closing theme song.
Sometimes I had to run through the hallways in order to make it on time. Some days
I would be late, and on rare occasions I missed our date. But I never forgot
that I was supposed to be there.
One Thursday
afternoon I showed up at her room to sing the song and found her room cleaned,
reset, and ready for a new patient. I was perplexed; Nancy had been there in
the morning when I’d run past on my way to another room. I knew I would see her
at 3:25 so I didn’t worry about it. But when 3:25 rolled around, Nancy was gone.
(Don’t worry: Nancy was okay!)
We are almost at
the end of the Easter season, two weeks from now we will be in the last week of
Easter and we will celebrate Jesus’ Ascension into Heaven. The passage from John’s Gospel that we read
this morning is from what is called Jesus’ “final discourse.” This is where Jesus is preparing to say
goodbye to the disciples by imparting his last lessons about the love of God
and the commandments to keep. In doing this Jesus is also enabling them to say
goodbye to him.
But Jesus does
something a little bit tricky, Jesus tells the disciples to abide in him as he abides in them. Hold up, do you see what he did there? He
indirectly told the disciples that he is still going to be around, in a way. Through
the commandments he leaves, the lessons he has taught them, and the love that
is always available from God, He is here. He said all of that when he said the
word, “Abide.”
Abide isn’t a
word you hear very often, unless of course, you are a seminarian thE
Virginia Theological Seminary. I must now give pause to thank one of my
brilliant and faithful classmates who gave a sermon in the seminary chapel that
focused on the word abide. Since that sermon a few months ago, the word pops
out at me when I am reading scripture and causes me to pause. I hadn’t realized
the power contained in that word before her sermon, and I know I will never
forget its power now.
You see, I used
to think that Abide meant, “to rest in.” –I was wrong. (That does happen from
time to time…) What abide actually means is: to uphold, adhere to, or stand by –
but it can also mean to remain, persist, or live on. Some might say that my
definition, “to rest in” was close enough, but I disagree: Abide is an action
verb and I was making it passive. Yes, it is true that “technically” to rest is
an action very… but, let’s face it, the “resting in” I was talking about had
nooooo action involved in it. The “resting” I was talking about meant that I
would sit back and let God come to me.
One of the ways
I talk about refreshing myself is in allowing myself to be washed in the word,
which sounds like a passive act, until we look at it in the context of our
Baptism. All of a sudden, when we look at being “washed in” the word in the
context of Baptism it becomes an action. Baptism is a choice we make, or a
choice made on our behalf until we are old enough. It is a choice to adhere to
God’s law and accept God’s love. Baptism is a choice to Abide in God. Abiding
isn’t just lying there letting things happen to you; Abiding is acting, even
when it is still, abiding is an action based decision. By
telling the disciples to Abide in him, Jesus is communicating that they do not
have to do their future ministry alone: he will be a persistent presence in
their lives as long as they actively choose to adhere to God’s commandments and
remain faithful in their love of God in Christ.
This idea of
Abiding has been close to my heart as I prepare to say goodbye in so many parts
of my life and to so many people who have been walking with me. St. Anne’s is a
big part of that I intend to Abide here
with you all, even though this is my last Sunday at St. Anne’s. So, this seems as appropriate a time as any
to tell you about a a spiritual practice of sorts that I engage in each week as
I sit up front with the altar party. It
started my first Sunday at St. Anne’s and continues every sunny Sunday
morning and I’d like to share it with you today.
The key word in
my Sunny Sunday Spiritual Practice, is sunny… this practice doesn’t work when
it is cloudy out. What I like to do is
to watch the shapes that the sun casts around the room through the windows. I
like to watch them as they gradually re-member themselves by the end of
the 11:15 service. I will explain: You
see those diamond shaped windows up to the sides and then up at the back?
During the fall and winter months the sun shines through those windows and at
the start of the 7:45 service the shapes they cast are slivers of triangles
that begin on the ceiling, as we progress through the 9:00 service the
triangles move and bend and distort as they travel from the ceiling into the
pews effectively blinding a number of you as the services continue. But while you are reaching for your
sunglasses or otherwise shielding your eyes, I am noticing that the effect of
the triangles of light is like a halo. Even if just for a moment, you look like
angels in that light. The light moves
and hits different people from minute to minute. On Sunny Sunday mornings I look into the
congregation and I see a room full of illuminated angels.
The Epistle
reading this morning from 1 John reminds us to Abide in love, because it is in
abiding in love that we abide in God. I love you. I love the people of St.
Anne’s. There have been times when it has been a struggle to get up early and
drive out here early on a Sunday morning, but I always leave grateful that I
was here. You have been kind, generous, challenging, comedic, encouraging, and
thoughtful. You have pushed me to be better. And you have supported me when I
was struggling. A major constant in my life in the past two years has been my
time with all of you; I thank you for that. I intend to abide in you. I will
abide in your call to social justice. I will abide in your inclusive nature. I
will abide in your desire for intelligent conversation. I will abide in your
love of Jesus Christ. I will abide in you.
You have taught me
that I can be creative in Adult Formation curriculum and in liturgical
planning. You’ve taught me to be curious in conversations as I meet new people
at coffee hour. You have taught me to be faithful but relaxed in my sermon
preparation and to be open to critique. My lay committee, Audree, Emily, David,
Rachel, and Jim have taught me to assert my boundaries, be confident in my
abilities, and claim my authority. I will carry all of this with me as I abide
in you. Because we are collectively called to abide in God’s love, and abiding
in that love together is a universal bond that eternally unites us to one
another.
Good-byes
are rarely easy, even when they may have been anticipated.
That Thursday
afternoon when I arrived on the unit to see Nancy I was devastated that I
didn’t get to say goodbye. I knew we had been working for weeks on transferring
Nancy to a hospital closer to her parents but there had been no indication that
this was going to happen soon. I had
taken for granted that Nancy was going to be there when I ran past that
morning. I knew I would get another
chance to say goodbye so I hadn’t stopped. But upon further reflection I
realized something: with every loving interaction I’d had with Nancy we had
been saying goodbye, because we were creating memories in which we could Abide.
The truth is, Nancy and I said goodbye to one another everyday at 3:25 when we
sang her theme song together:
Goodbye, for now, until we meet again.
Amen.
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