SERMON FROM THE GARDEN
The Rev. Aron Kramer 2 Pentecost (Proper 5) Sunday, June 10th 2007“There is a kind of death which we all expect to feel that carries terror in the very sound, and all its circumstances are shocking to nature. The ghastly countenance, the convulsive agonies, the expiring groan, the coffin, the grave, the devouring work, the stupor, the insensibility, the universal inactivity, these strike a damp to the spirit, and we turn pale at the thought. With such objects as these in view courage fails, levity looks serious, presumption is dashed, the cheerful passions sink, and all is solemn, all is melancholy.” This is the opening to a sermon written by Samuel Davies, at one time the president of the College of New Jersey, otherwise known as Princeton.
Deaths uncertainty, its randomness, its unexpectedness does nothing to make us feel better about the life we live. We are told to live life to the fullest, to eat dessert first and to do those things that make us happy. If death decides one day to walk into our lives, well, I am not sure, it simply does, death is scary, it is sad, it can be completely immobilizing. Imagine the woman walking along side her dead son, this widow, walking alongside the only person left who would take care of her, the last person left who would watch with her as she waited for her own death to come, the woman was now completely alone, having lost her husband, and now her only son. She, in the moment of her son’s death had become an outcast, someone less than human. Many people would have seen her position as a widow as God’s judgment upon her and her family and would have cut ties, ended any relationship with her they might have had. The last thing this forlorn woman would have expected was any sort of compassion. And so, Jesus saw the widow and had compassion. Jesus saw the woman and felt a necessity to reach out, Jesus saw the woman and healed her only son.
I wish that Jesus would show up among us and to each of us who are experiencing illness, to each of us experiencing death and say to us, “rise”, so that we may be made to live again. It is hard to watch so many people struggle with cancer, with illnesses, with job and vocation insecurity, divorces. It is so hard to watch and then much less expect you to come and lift this place off its feet. It is hard to walk out into the community gathered and see the hurt, the pain, the strife many of you are or have experienced and say, let us grow the Garden, let us make this place new. I was asked this week if God gives you only that which you can handle? My answer surprised even me, I said I do not believe God doles out punishment, God does not test us or try to make us stronger by bringing great challenges into our lives, but what I do believe is that God is with us, that God is present in those moments of despair, of hopelessness, God is there when we think God is no where to be seen. It is in those moments that I understand with greatest clarity what Theresa of Avila meant when she said, “God has no hands but ours.” For it is in those moments of challenge, of hopelessness that the hands of those who love me, hold me up, lift me up, care for me bring me the strength I need and help me to see that God is near.
“God has visited his people!” the Gospel says was the people’s response to their witnessing of the young man’s resuscitation. God has come among us and visited God’s people. In that moment, for many people God’s presence was profoundly felt and understood. Death transformed into life, hopelessness transformed to truth. Fear was replaced with joy and singing.
The second paragraph of the sermon by Samuel Davies gets to his point about the nature of Spiritual Death, and the purpose of his sermon, he says, “But there is another kind of death little regarded indeed, little feared, little lamented, which is infinitely more terrible, the death not of the body, but of the soul: a death which does not stupefy the limbs but the faculties of the mind: a death which does not separate the soul and body, and consign the latter to the grave, but that separates the soul from God, excludes it from all the joys of God’s presence, and delivers it over to everlasting misery: a tremendous death indeed!”
“There but for the grace of God go I” is a phrase attributed to an Englishman by the name of John Bradford. While watching criminals being taken off for execution he did not say, “They go to get what they deserve”, but said, “There but for the grace of God goes I, John Bradford.” It is grace that has made us alive with Christ; it was grace that healed the young man on the way to the funeral. In the previous section of Luke’s Gospel Jesus heals another person and in his work declares the Gentile who asked him to heal that person as having more faith than all of Israel. Spiritual death was rampant in Jesus’ time; Spiritual death was rampant because of the laws, the regulations, the policies that prevented people from seeing God as intimate as close. Spiritual death was why God put on human flesh in order to bring hope; God came and visited us so that we would no longer experience the death of our spirits.
Some of us need to be healed, and as long as we do not keep our wounds to ourselves, there are people here who can heal us. Some of us need to be loved, and as long as we do not hide our loneliness, there are people here who can love us. Some of us are spiritually dead and if we do not hide our fear or shame, there are people who can seize our souls and breathe life back into us. We are not on this earth to be alone, we are here to be in community, to live and love not as individuals, but as people belonging to the one Holy and living God.
In our DNA, Noel Cadwell will tell you, in the DNA of the Garden is a history of healing, a history of loving, compassionate acts that show forth the grace of God in the world. A few years after Gethsemane was founded, a hospital was started to help care for those who were in need, those who needed healing. That hospital, first known as the Cottage Hospital I believe, slowly grew, and soon became St. Barnabas Hospital. Today, after sitting empty for years, it has been re-imagined and has again become a place of healing and empowerment, a place where young people who have lived on the streets can begin to get their life back and learn how to live in the world. It is an example of an enduring dream of a congregation that gave great hope to the world.
Jesus commanded the seventy to go to all the towns he would come to, and once there, heal their sick and proclaim to all the Kingdom of God. I find little coincidence that the first Gospel we have as we begin the long liturgical season known as ordinary time, to be one that calls us to heal and to proclaim. We should dwell on God’s act of seizing us and empowering us for tasks that we never could have imagined ourselves accomplishing. “God has looked favorably on Gods people”, the Gospel declares, we have been seized and filled with the spirit to bring alive what was once dead, to make new what has been old, to be filled fully with the grace God has given us.
Deaths uncertainty, its randomness, its unexpectedness does nothing to make us feel better about the life we live. We are told to live life to the fullest, to eat dessert first and to do those things that make us happy. If death decides one day to walk into our lives, well, I am not sure, it simply does, death is scary, it is sad, it can be completely immobilizing. Imagine the woman walking along side her dead son, this widow, walking alongside the only person left who would take care of her, the last person left who would watch with her as she waited for her own death to come, the woman was now completely alone, having lost her husband, and now her only son. She, in the moment of her son’s death had become an outcast, someone less than human. Many people would have seen her position as a widow as God’s judgment upon her and her family and would have cut ties, ended any relationship with her they might have had. The last thing this forlorn woman would have expected was any sort of compassion. And so, Jesus saw the widow and had compassion. Jesus saw the woman and felt a necessity to reach out, Jesus saw the woman and healed her only son.
I wish that Jesus would show up among us and to each of us who are experiencing illness, to each of us experiencing death and say to us, “rise”, so that we may be made to live again. It is hard to watch so many people struggle with cancer, with illnesses, with job and vocation insecurity, divorces. It is so hard to watch and then much less expect you to come and lift this place off its feet. It is hard to walk out into the community gathered and see the hurt, the pain, the strife many of you are or have experienced and say, let us grow the Garden, let us make this place new. I was asked this week if God gives you only that which you can handle? My answer surprised even me, I said I do not believe God doles out punishment, God does not test us or try to make us stronger by bringing great challenges into our lives, but what I do believe is that God is with us, that God is present in those moments of despair, of hopelessness, God is there when we think God is no where to be seen. It is in those moments that I understand with greatest clarity what Theresa of Avila meant when she said, “God has no hands but ours.” For it is in those moments of challenge, of hopelessness that the hands of those who love me, hold me up, lift me up, care for me bring me the strength I need and help me to see that God is near.
“God has visited his people!” the Gospel says was the people’s response to their witnessing of the young man’s resuscitation. God has come among us and visited God’s people. In that moment, for many people God’s presence was profoundly felt and understood. Death transformed into life, hopelessness transformed to truth. Fear was replaced with joy and singing.
The second paragraph of the sermon by Samuel Davies gets to his point about the nature of Spiritual Death, and the purpose of his sermon, he says, “But there is another kind of death little regarded indeed, little feared, little lamented, which is infinitely more terrible, the death not of the body, but of the soul: a death which does not stupefy the limbs but the faculties of the mind: a death which does not separate the soul and body, and consign the latter to the grave, but that separates the soul from God, excludes it from all the joys of God’s presence, and delivers it over to everlasting misery: a tremendous death indeed!”
“There but for the grace of God go I” is a phrase attributed to an Englishman by the name of John Bradford. While watching criminals being taken off for execution he did not say, “They go to get what they deserve”, but said, “There but for the grace of God goes I, John Bradford.” It is grace that has made us alive with Christ; it was grace that healed the young man on the way to the funeral. In the previous section of Luke’s Gospel Jesus heals another person and in his work declares the Gentile who asked him to heal that person as having more faith than all of Israel. Spiritual death was rampant in Jesus’ time; Spiritual death was rampant because of the laws, the regulations, the policies that prevented people from seeing God as intimate as close. Spiritual death was why God put on human flesh in order to bring hope; God came and visited us so that we would no longer experience the death of our spirits.
Some of us need to be healed, and as long as we do not keep our wounds to ourselves, there are people here who can heal us. Some of us need to be loved, and as long as we do not hide our loneliness, there are people here who can love us. Some of us are spiritually dead and if we do not hide our fear or shame, there are people who can seize our souls and breathe life back into us. We are not on this earth to be alone, we are here to be in community, to live and love not as individuals, but as people belonging to the one Holy and living God.
In our DNA, Noel Cadwell will tell you, in the DNA of the Garden is a history of healing, a history of loving, compassionate acts that show forth the grace of God in the world. A few years after Gethsemane was founded, a hospital was started to help care for those who were in need, those who needed healing. That hospital, first known as the Cottage Hospital I believe, slowly grew, and soon became St. Barnabas Hospital. Today, after sitting empty for years, it has been re-imagined and has again become a place of healing and empowerment, a place where young people who have lived on the streets can begin to get their life back and learn how to live in the world. It is an example of an enduring dream of a congregation that gave great hope to the world.
Jesus commanded the seventy to go to all the towns he would come to, and once there, heal their sick and proclaim to all the Kingdom of God. I find little coincidence that the first Gospel we have as we begin the long liturgical season known as ordinary time, to be one that calls us to heal and to proclaim. We should dwell on God’s act of seizing us and empowering us for tasks that we never could have imagined ourselves accomplishing. “God has looked favorably on Gods people”, the Gospel declares, we have been seized and filled with the spirit to bring alive what was once dead, to make new what has been old, to be filled fully with the grace God has given us.
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