Sunday, June 5, 2016

Weeping into Dancing; Sack-cloth into Joy (Proper 5C)


He Qi, Calling of St. Paul


“Weeping into Dancing, Sack-cloth into Joy”
Third Sunday After Pentecost; Proper 5 (Year C)
5 June 2016
Homily at 8 a.m. said and 10:00 a.m. sung Eucharist
Parish Church of Trinity, Ashland
The Rev. Fr. Tony Hutchinson, SCP, Ph.D.

God, take away our hearts of stone
 and give us hearts of flesh. Amen.

Weeping may spend the night,
but joy comes in the morning. 
You have turned my wailing into dancing;
you have put off my sack-cloth and clothed me with joy.

The idea here is this:  God is a savior who delivers us from distress.  It might be suddenly, literally overnight as here, or it might be over a long time. 

The old adage, “Time heals all wounds” is not accurate.  Many wounds heal with time; some do not.   I think most of us who have mourned know well that time does not make us forget the dead or miss them less.  It simply gives a chance to get used to missing them, a chance to get on with our lives in their absence.   Even after years, moments of intense yearning may come, where we miss them and feel the loss.  And there are plenty of situations where we pray that God relieve suffering, or fix a problem, but no response is apparent.  

But even so, God is a savior who delivers us from distress. 

That’s what the scripture lessons today are all about, in one way or another.  The story of Elijah and the son of the widow of Zarephath and Luke’s story of Jesus and the son of the widow of Nain both recount where God’s love brings back to normal life those who have died.   Critics have questioned both, saying the dead don’t ever come back to life, and if indeed something like this actually happened, those young men weren’t actually dead.  But this misses the point:  God is a savior who delivers us from death, whether we’re dead or near dead.   As the psalm says:

… I cried out to you,
and you restored me to health.
You brought me up …  from the dead;
you restored my life as I was going down to the grave.

The Galatians reading also is about God’s love turning things completely around: Paul’s conversion. Paul tells the story trying to convince people to return to his radical Gospel of faith in Jesus after they have lapsed into a more traditional faith focused on Jewish Law ornamented with stories of Jesus.  Paul says that he got his version of the gospel directly from Jesus, without any intermediaries like the pillars in the church—Peter and James—whom Paul’s opponents had been quoting. Paul is overstating things to make his point:  in Luke’s version of Paul’s conversion, after the vision, Paul seeks instruction in the basics of Christianity from those already in the faith.  In Paul’s own letter to the Corinthians, he admits that had received from others before him the basic Christian proclamation before passing it on (1 Cor. 15:1-8).   Again, this is beside the point:  for Paul, God saved him from futility and murderous religiosity by showing him the resurrected Jesus.  God is a savior who saves us from our deepest distress. 

In my life, I have experienced moments of such salvation, where God turned wailing into dancing, and sack-cloth into joy.    All are very personal.   All involve death of one sort or another, whether of a relationship, of hope, a sense of control and meaning, or the real death of a loved one or of victims of horror to which I was a bystander.    All shook me to me core, and made me question everything.  In all of them, I was healed and gained from the experience.   The pain was redeemed by grace, and joy replaced grief.   

It is important in preaching to share scars we bear, not any still open wounds.    We do this to give hope that wounds do heal because God is a savior who delivers us from our distress. 

One of the scars I bear comes from something that happened 27 years ago yesterday, June 4, 1989, when I saw people shot and others run over by tanks in the streets of Beijing.  I had severe PTSD as a result.  Messed up, but putting on a good front.  I could not and would not talk about it.  For months, I had flashbacks and was emotionally distant and withdrawn.  I did not admit, even to myself, exactly what I had seen.  But for years, I couldn’t see any track-treaded vehicle—even in a film—without getting violently ill.  I started and shied away from loud noises.   Each year when the first week of June approached, I suffered horrible nightmares that made me afraid to sleep.  Counseling and spiritual direction over several years helped this heal.   I was able to learn to forgive, and let my deep anger and resentment go, and in the process learned how different this was from simply saying bygones were bygones, and that maybe things hadn’t been so bad.  I learned that remembrance and deep concern for a past wrong were fully possible in a heart that had forgiven and let go of the past.

There are several other such experiences I have had, where weeping spent the night, but joy came in the morning.   But one is enough for today.

How do we embrace this saving God?  How do we let the All-Nurturing One nurture us and heal our pain? 

First, we must be completely honest in our pain.   The widow of Zarephath complains to Elijah about her son’s death, and expresses her anger with Elijah.   The widow of Nain is in an open funeral procession, with the public wailing and sack-cloth, before Jesus can take notice and be moved to compassion. 

Trauma and deep grief make it hard for us to recognize what has happened, to even know what we are feeling.  Grieving, really grieving, is hard, because our flight or fight response is so deeply imbedded in us.  Flight tells us to run from danger:  deny there is a problem, diminish its importance, say everything is alright or to be expected.  Fight tells us to blame someone else for our pain, to scapegoat them and think that somehow if we punish the wrongdoer, it will relieve us of our pain.  Again, honesty requires that we be open about who has caused us pain.  But scapegoating means we blame them and think that by causing them pain in return we somehow make things better.  Let me be absolutely clear here:  it will not.  Even killing a killer won’t bring the dead back to life.  Only God can bring the dead back to life.

Second, you must be open to compassion of others. Most often in this life, the grace of God works through the love of those about us. Be open to compassion, even if it seems misdirected or foolish.    Sometimes, seeking professional help is necessary to help us sort out complex and hidden feelings.    But simply being open to the compassion of others is often all it takes.

Of course—this puts a great responsibility on all of us.  We must have compassion for others, and actively pursue it and the justice it demands if we are to help others, and raise them to life.  

Third, pray.  Really pray.  Express your anger and hurt to God.  Your doubts.  Your fears.  Asking for what you hope for is a good way of finding out what you really are feeling.   It’s not that you’re telling God something he doesn’t know.  It’s not that you are trying to convince God to grant your wish.  Self-disclosure is a major part of intimacy.  And you must show intimacy with God before you can hope to recognize the intimacy God has been showing you all along.   



Together with Episcopal Church clergy throughout the nation, we are wearing orange stoles today to commemorate National Gun Violence Awareness Day, which was this week.   Compassion for all who suffer from gun violence demands that we seek effective measures to reduce and eliminate the scourge of violence through firearms in our society.   I urge all here to write members of congress and local and state officials calling for licensing of all owners of handguns, background checks and waiting periods for all purchases, and requirements for safety cabinets and trigger I.D. locking systems.   Such measures are part of the well-ordered context of the bearing of arms in a free state that the Second Amendment talks about.  We must not lose hope because this problem appears so intractable. 

Do you believe God is a savior who can save us?

We read in Isaiah:

[God says,] Why was no one there when I came?
Why did no one answer when I called?
Is my arm too short to reach out and redeem you?
Am I too weak to deliver you?
By my rebuke I dry up the sea, I make the rivers a desert… (50:2) 
See, [my] hand is not too short to save,
    nor [my] ear too dull to hear.
Rather, your own failings set up barriers
    between you and your God,
and your shortcomings have hidden [my] face from you
    so that [I do] not [seem to] hear. (59:1-2)

God is standing there with arms outreached to help us.  God is listening for us to speak to him.  We are the ones not reaching out, not communicating.  We must open our hearts, reach out, and really listen.

God is a savior who raises the dead to life again, who delivers us from our deepest distress. 

In the name of Christ, Amen.

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