Tag Archives: eternal life

On Celebrating Life, Death, and Movies…

04 Wednesday Oct 2023

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Photo credit: https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/28/tech/netflix-dvd-rental-movies-ending/index.html

Well, it finally happened.  Netflix’s DVD business closed last Friday.  Now I recognize that acknowledging I still received DVDs from Netflix may make me seem old-fashioned.  Even a contemporary exclaimed recently, “Do people even have the equipment to play DVDs anymore?!?”  I took a good ribbing, but the truth is I love movies, and Netflix’s DVD business allowed me to watch movies that were not available via streaming services.  I was constantly finding new gems, and still had over 100 movies in my queue that I hoped to watch some day.

For those of us old-timers still watching DVDs, the closing of Netflix’s DVD branch has been tinged with nostalgia and a tiny bit of grief.  Over the course of 18 years, I watched 667 films, each story sparking my imagination, eliciting pleasure, sorrow, excitement, indignation, laughter, and hope.  Obviously there will be other ways for me to revel in the artistry of filmmaking, but there is a certain finality to the closing of this chapter. 

Despite my wistfulness, I commend Netflix for the way they have handled this change.  Instead of wallowing in grief, or attempting to apologize for market changes beyond their control, instead, they have handled this “death” with grace and joy.  Knowing the closing was coming, this year they used their iconic mailing envelopes to feature celebratory artwork honoring how a whole generation has been shaped by their service.  On the week of their closure, the sent a “gift” to every member – a summary of the highlights of our membership – what movies we had watched each year, milestones in our membership, and even the list of movies in our queue in case we want to find another way to see them.  Instead of a death, it has felt like a celebration of life.

In a lot of ways, it has reminded me of the ways the Episcopal Church approaches death.  When someone we love passes, we use the burial office to celebrate life – certainly the life of the one who has died, but especially the promise of eternal life promised in Jesus Christ.  But I’ve been thinking about it over this last week, and the Church honors “mini-deaths” all the time:  the ending of a ministry that is no longer needed or effectively utilized, the retirement of a ministry leader after a successful tenure, or the blessing of a parishioner or staff member who moves away from the community.  All those transitions can be hard because they make us remember fondly the ways ministry blessed us in the past.  But those transitions are also often the source of new life:  a new ministry we could never have imagined five years ago, a new leader whose fresh ideas opens up new opportunities, and new members who shape and mold us into a new community.

I wonder what things feel like they are dying in your life right now – what things you thought would always be there are undergoing change.  Where might the Holy Spirit be inviting you to see new shoots of growth in the midst of something withering on the vine?  How might those “mini-deaths,” be tremendous gifts to you or your community?  How might we take a cue from Netflix, and find ways to celebrate those endings with dignity and joy?  I am grateful for the ways a secular business is helping me see the sacred in our own life cycles.  Let’s celebrate together!

Sermon – Matthew 28.1-10, ED, YA, April 9, 2023

30 Tuesday May 2023

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I have a friend who does one of the most unconscionable things in life:  she flips to the end of every book and reads the ending first before going back to the beginning to start.  When she first told me about this habit, I was mortified.  How could you ruin the suspense, ignore the carefully crafted character development, and destroy the experience of imagination so callously?  For her, the answer is simple.  She needs to be assured that everything will turn out okay – the only way she can trust the journey the author will take her on is if she knows how the journey will end.  Now I have certainly read my fair share of books whose ending made me furious, so I get her logic.  But I have yet to be converted to her method, even by the bad endings.

Sometimes I think Easter Sunday is a bit like flipping to the end of the book.  We want to know Jesus rises from the dead, forgives our sins, and restores us to the promise of eternal life.  But that is not where the story starts today.  We are told that Mary Magdalene and the other Mary go to see the tomb.  These two women do not come to prepare the body with spices like in the other Gospel narratives.  They just come to see the stone-cold reminder of death and lay down all that has been.  In any death, there is a flurry of activity – the realization of pending death; the calling in of loved ones to say goodbye, or in the case of sudden death, the shocked gathering of grief; the funeral plans and details so complicated all your brain can do is make one decision at a time; and then the receiving of condolences and public marking of goodbye.  But in any death, eventually everyone leaves, and the mourning are left doing what Mary Magdalene and Mary do – going to sit at the tomb with the stark reality of all that has happened.[i]

In some ways, that is our posture as a church today.  If we participated in Holy Week at all, we walked the last meal of Jesus, his washing of feet, his agonizing prayers, his betrayal and denial, his torturous death, and the finality of his tomb.  Of if we participated in Lent, we walked through the depths of our sinfulness, doing the hard work of repentance, even being reminded we are dust and to dust we shall return.  Of if we go to church on a regular basis, we know that Jesus is just the final act of God in response to the ways the people of God broke their covenant with God again and again – ignoring prophets and sages, ignoring the sins of their ancestors, ignoring all the blessings and glimmers of hope from God and instead doing our own will, not God’s will.

Once you know that whole narrative, humbling dragging our baggage of misbehavior, misdeeds, misguided wills, then the story we hear today is not just a “and then they lived happily ever after” ending.  Today’s story is profound, unbelievable, and, as the text says, literally earth-shattering.  What God in Jesus does today is entirely undeserved, nothing we are remotely entitled to, and utterly full of love, forgiveness, and grace.  When we carry the weight of that entire book we have been reading, then today’s text is the very reason we say alleluia over and over again today.  Today’s text is the reason we make our way to this place, whether we have never been here before, are not entirely sure we want to be here, whether our faith journey has begun to be renewed here, or whether this place feels like home for us.  Today’s text is the reason we have any hope at all in this conflicted, messy, seemly unsavable world.

But here is the funny thing about this beyond happily ever after ending:  this is not the end.  After the earth is literally shaken at its core, the appearance of an otherworldly angel, and even an encounter with the risen Christ, the story goes on.  Mary Magdalene and the other Mary go witness to the other disciples.  We are told they go with fear – even though both the angel and Jesus tell them to not be afraid.  We are told they go with joy – because even though this new thing is terrifying, this new thing is terrifyingly joyful.  We are told they run – run to share the best beginning they have ever heard.

That is our invitation today.  In Christ’s death, we hear the best beginning we have ever heard.  Knowing all that we know of the prelude, we know that this is terrifyingly joyful news.  But this is news that we are invited not just to share, but to run and share.  I do not know to whom you need to run to today.  Maybe someone in your life needs this terrifyingly joyful reminder of resurrection.  Maybe someone you have never met before is waiting for you to run into them.  Or maybe you just need to run into your downtrodden self and remind yourself of this good news.  When the clergy today says, “Let us go forth into the world rejoicing in the power of the Holy Spirit, alleluia, alleluia,” our response is not just a verbal one.  Today we are invited to run and share the good news!  Amen!

[i] Kathryn M. Schifferdecker, “Dear Working Preacher:  The Foundation of Christian Hope,” April 2, 2023, as found at https://www.workingpreacher.org/dear-working-preacher/the-foundation-of-christian-hope on April 5, 2023.

Sermon – John 20.1-18, ED, YA, April 12, 2020

23 Thursday Apr 2020

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I have to confess to you, I have been dreading preaching this Easter.  My dread has not been because I do not think we need some joy.  Lord knows, we could use all the joy we can get!  But there is something that feels off or forced about saying, “The Lord is risen indeed!” or singing “The strife is oe’r” or even, “Jesus Christ is risen today!” because, well, the strife is not over.  Death rates are on the rise, cases of Coronavirus are expected to surge here soon, our overburdened medical professionals and essential works are already strained with anxiety, and we have at least two more months to go in our stay-at-home order in the Commonwealth.  This strife is far from over.

Knowing how hard this day would be, and longing to be authentic about where we are, I went back to where we always go – back to the text – back to Holy Scripture.  Songs and Prayer Book aside, John’s gospel has been especially comforting to me this year. The comfort from John has not been because John’s gospel demonstrates a people ready to celebrate today.  Quite the opposite, three of Jesus’ closest disciples – Mary Magdalene, Peter, and the beloved disciple – have encounters with the risen Lord that are almost comically human.  On the promise of good news, Peter and the beloved disciples race, one beating the other but not going fully in the empty tomb; the other going in but not saying anything; neither understanding what is going on; and both just leaving – just going home without a word to one another or to Mary Magdalene.   Then there is Mary Magdalene, who in shock, runs to the disciples; when left alone a second time, she weeps; angels try to comfort her; Jesus himself speaks to her and she does not immediately recognize him; when she does finally recognize her beloved teacher, she is not allowed to touch him; and finally, finally, she shares her testimony – not what it all means (because I am not sure she knows) – but what she saw.   Nowhere in John’s gospel does Jesus say, “The strife is over” or “Alleluia, the Lord is risen indeed!”  Instead, Jesus seems to be saying, “Hey…calm down…relax…I know you – you are mine.  This is a good thing.   I cannot comfort you in the way you want, because I am not done yet, and some even more amazing things are coming.”

Today’s message from Jesus is certainly good news – but mostly Jesus is promising good news still coming – the promise of eternal life once Christ ascends to the Father in fifty days from now.  Somehow, all of that “stuff” today in our gospel lesson has been oddly comforting.  Disciples running around, not understanding what is happening, going back home without a word, desperate attempts to control the situation, and soothing, knowing words from Jesus despite our lack of understanding has been supremely comforting to me today.  John’s gospel today is not a fait accompli.  John’s gospel is a promise:  a promise of hope that everything will be okay.  And like every promise in a crisis – whether a crisis of health or a crisis of faith – the promise is not the announcement of something being done or accomplished, but a gift of hope that goodness is coming.

And for me, that is what I need today.  Not a worship service that declaratively says, “The strife is oe’r,” but one that gently and comfortingly says, “The strife will be oe’r.”  Not a worship service that says, “The Lord is risen indeed,” but “The Lord’s rising today is a promise for you going forward.”  Our service today is not a service trying to force you to put on fancy clothes (because I imagine some of you are still in pajamas watching from home) or trying to force you into some false happiness.  Our service today is about hope, a quiet confidence, a gentle reminder as Christ calls you by name, that death does not have the final say; that Christ is walking with us through this pandemic, and will be with us to restore us when we emerge on the other end.  We do not know what that other end looks like; but we hear today that Jesus is with us in the midst of this, calling us by name, giving us hope for tomorrow.  The return of our alleluias today is not a naïve proclamation that everything will be okay.  The return of our alleluias today is an invitation to reclaim the hope that can only come from the risen Lord, that can sustain us in our grief, hold us in our confusion and doubt, and embolden us to honestly witness even in our uncertainty.  The church says with us or for us today, “The Lord is risen indeed,” until we can believe those words with conviction for ourselves.  Thanks be to God.

On Grieving Together…

22 Wednesday Aug 2018

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Photo credit:  https://www.everplans.com/articles/how-to-make-sure-your-legacy-lives-on-after-youre-gone

Grief is a funny thing.  We all experience it differently, respond to it differently, and let it impact us differently.  Sometimes we let grief do its work and then we are done; sometimes the grief sneaks up on us; and sometimes the grief never fades, a constant companion.  This week my grandmother passed away.  We knew this call would come soon.  I had taken my girls to see her months ago for a goodbye.  She had been in Hospice and had stopped eating.  But in the flurry of living – of clothes strewn about, water sloshing around, story-telling, cleaning, and brushing, the news of death was jarring.  For a moment I thought I would wait – share the news with the girls at a more appropriate time.  But then I remembered there is no appropriate time.  Death happens when it happens, and its companion, grief, comes as it will.

My initial work was helping my girls navigate their grief.  Upon receiving the news, my younger’s eyes got wide, and she was quick to assert that we needed to leave so that we could “take ‘Mee-maw’ to the hospital and take care of her.”  I tried to explain that it was too late, but she insisted that if we rushed, we could help her.  Once her disappointed face registered reality, she proclaimed, “Well, I’m not going to die!”  Then began a conversation about mortality and eternal life.  And a new level of grief began.

Meanwhile, the older child seemed to hold her thoughts and emotions at bay, being equally distracted by her sister’s reactions.  We talked about it briefly as I tucked her in, and she seemed okay.  The next morning, after I had dropped her off at camp and was heading back to my car, she ran back up to me and gave me a big hug and started crying.  “I’m sad about what happened yesterday.”  I honestly wasn’t sure what she was talking about until she explained her delayed reaction to Mee-maw’s death.  Time stood still as we grieved together.  A minute later, she was drying her face with the back of her hand and running to catch up with friends.

My own grief finally caught up with me as I watched an emotional movie later that night.  The truth is, my grandmother was a complicated woman.  She was the matriarch of the family who sometimes ruled with an iron first – even if you were only aware of her power subconsciously.  She was intimidatingly smart, held a wealth of knowledge in her mind, and could talk to any stranger.  I loved and respected her, and also saw her many flaws and the ways she hurt people.  She was not really a loving, doting grandmother, but a woman who held everyone to high standards and pushed us to be our best.  I was often afraid of the woman who insisted on the title “Grandmother Andrews.”  But in these last years, I loved seeing her humanity as a new generation of greatgrandchildren called her “Mee-maw.”

As I wade through grief this week, I welcome your prayers.  Even pastors need pastoring sometimes.  But also know that I am praying for you and the ways in which grief continues to be your companion:  for the grandparents, parents, spouses, and friends lost; for the marriages, jobs, and pregnancies lost; for the possibilities, dreams, and loves lost.  You especially have my prayers as grief reminds us all of our own mortality.  As you hold me, I also hold you in the promise of eternal life, a new reality in Christ Jesus.  May that grounding strengthen each of us as we stand together in the already and the not yet.

Almighty God, look with pity upon the sorrows of your servants.  Remember us, Lord, in mercy; nourish us with patience; comfort us with a sense of your goodness; lift up your countenance up us; and give us peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.  (BCP 467, amended)

On Resurrection Living…

19 Thursday Apr 2018

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I have been thinking a lot about death lately.  That probably sounds a bit morbid, but given my profession, should not be much of a surprise.  I think death has been on my mind for lots of reasons:  we celebrated the death of an incredible woman at our parish last week, our Adult Forum series during Eastertide is about death (end of life care, wills, legacy giving, funeral planning), and this Sunday’s lessons, although beloved, are quite common readings for funerals.  Everywhere I turn seems to offer reminders of death, and yet here we are in the season of Easter – a time to honor resurrection – to honor Christ’s victory over death!

One of the reasons we are freed up to talk about death in Eastertide is because death is changed through the resurrection of Christ.  In light of the resurrection, we see our life and death differently.  We proclaim that difference in the Book of Common Prayer at funerals.  “Life is changed, not ended,” we say in the burial office.  Whereas the secular world would have us consume life to its fullest, ignoring the inevitability of death; would have us preserve our bodies and make ourselves look younger to ignore our natural aging; would have us avoid conversations with our loved ones and community about death, the Church says something different.

The Church says Christ’s resurrection changes life so much, talking about death is no longer morbid.  The Church says, the promise of eternal life allows us make those funeral plans with a spirit of joy, not a spirit of dread.  The Church says that our time among the living is meant to bless and honor others, so making that will and designating those legacy gifts to a church are in great congruence with our understanding of resurrection living.  An Adult Forum series on death (or Resurrection Living, as we have called it) or reading lessons from funerals during Eastertide makes perfect sense.  Those exercises free us from seeing death as final, encouraging instead a life of resurrection hope and joy – a life lived in the light of eternal life.  I hope you will join us this week at Hickory Neck as we dive into that new identity and welcome the transformation of life in the light of the resurrection.

 

 

Homily – John 11.21-27, Cemetery Memorial Service, March 19, 2016

29 Tuesday Mar 2016

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“Lord, if only you had been here, my brother would not have died.”  These are the words Martha says to Jesus in our gospel lesson today.  The weight of that phrase, “if only,” is heavy.  We all know that weight.  If only he hadn’t caught pneumonia.  If only she hadn’t taken the car out that day. If only we had known about the cancer earlier.  If only they were here now.  We know the sickening power of “if onlys.”

One of my favorite movies is a movie called Sliding Doors.  The movie follows a woman who is fired from her job.  As she makes her way home she has seconds to catch a train.  The movie divides into two at that point.  In one storyline she catches the train home only to find her boyfriend cheating on her at home.  In the other storyline she misses the train and is none the wiser about her boyfriend’s affair.  The two stories unfold in parallel, letting her life unfold from that one moment of a missed or caught train.  Her story is the ultimate “if only” story.

Martha knows the feeling of “if only.”  She knows that if only Jesus had been there, he would have healed Lazarus.  She also knows that if only Jesus had not taken so long, he probably could have made the trip in time.  That phrase, “if only,” hangs in the air for Martha.  But Jesus does not let Martha linger in the past, dreaming about what might have been.  Instead, he points Martha to the future – reminding her that her brother will rise again.  Martha already knows this.  Resurrection life was standard Jewish teaching in their day.  By Martha’s quick response to Jesus, we know that his reminding her about the future of resurrection doesn’t offer Martha much comfort.  But then Jesus does a funny thing.  He twists time all around, telling Martha that “the future is suddenly brought forwards into the present.”[i]

When Jesus says to Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life,” he is not just talking about a doctrine.  He is not just talking about a future fact.  The resurrection is a person, standing here and now in front of Martha.  Jesus invites Martha to exchange her “if only,” for an “if Jesus…”  As one scholar explains, the “if” changes:  “If Jesus is who she is coming to believe he is…If Jesus is the Messiah, the one who was promised by the prophets, the one who was to come into the world…If [Jesus] is God’s own son, the one in whom the living God is strangely and newly present…if [Jesus] is resurrection-in-person, life-come-to-life…”[ii]  You see, when Jesus changes Martha’s mourning to a pondering about what resurrection means, Jesus pulls her out of the past, with an eye on the future, that bursts into the now.

The last time we gathered, we did so in the darkening days of winter.  We watched Christmas approach, and the grief of “if only,” was heavy upon us.  But today, out tone shifts.  Spring is trying to emerge, the days are gifting us with more light, and Easter is approaching.  We have journeyed through a season of darkness.  The Church now invites us to journey toward the light.  The way that we make that transition is not by mourning the “if onlys,” but cultivating the joy of the possibility of “if Jesus.”

Isn’t that how we ever truly face death, though?  That is the eternal gift of our faith in Jesus Christ.  We are promised eternal life through the Savior who came among us, who taught us, loved us, died for us, and rose again.  And through his existence, resurrection is no longer a future longing, but a promise for the here and now.  Our loved ones are celebrating in the resurrection life, because as Jesus says, everyone who believes in Jesus Christ, even though they die, will live and everyone who lives and believes in him will never die.[iii]

As we approach Holy Week and Easter next weekend, I invite you to journey with Christ through the last bits of darkness, holding fast to the promise of the light of Easter – when we shout our joy to the world for the Savior who makes resurrection life possible in the here and now.  The church will journey with us as we loosen our grips on the “if onlys” of life and we attempt to embrace the “if Jesus” ponderings of life.  Today we recognize the ways that the “if onlys” try to haunt us.  But today we also lean on the church for support to hold fast to the “if Jesus” part of our loved ones’ stories.  When we hold on to the power of the future made present, we are able to rejoice this Easter with fullness and joy.  Amen.

[i] N.T. Wright, John for Everyone, Part 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), 6.

[ii] Wright, 7.

[iii] John 11.25-26

O death…

16 Wednesday Sep 2015

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This past week I have been thinking a lot about death.  It’s probably a function of being a priest, but death is ever a part of my journey.  Many days I can avoid thinking about it.  But I imagine that is not really what God wants.  Just to prove the point, I find that deaths usually come in threes.  No one can avoid thinking about death when they come in threes.

That was the case last week.  Within 24 hours, a parishioner, a family member, and an acquaintance all died.  The parishioner was retired but was living a full life.  She went in to check on some pain and within four months she was gone.  The family member was much older.  She had lived a full life and the journey toward death took a long time.  We were sad, but ready.  The acquaintance was around my age and had three kids at the same nursery school one of my daughters attends.  She got sick and within a week died.  Three children.  My age.

That’s the funny thing about death.  We can pretend it happens only to old people (which we never are – even when we are).  We can pretend it is far away and will come when we are fully prepared and ready to join our God.  We can pretend that death is non-existent.  But we know that is all pretend.  We know that pretending is just our way of masking how scary death is.  For those of us who believe in eternal life, we like to say that life is changed, not ended.  But that is what we say about others.  I wonder how much we can proclaim it for ourselves.

One of my favorite songs from the film “O Brother, Where Art Thou,” soundtrack is called “O Death.”  In the song, the artist sings, “O, death, won’t you spare me over til another year.”  The singer’s voice is haunting.  And while there is a part of us that knows we should not fear death, there is something in that song’s words that resonates with us.  We want one more year.  One more decade.  One more lifetime.

And yet death comes.  Sometimes death comes within a week – within a day.  I wonder what you would do differently with your life if you were willing to let that reality slip over you.  What has God been calling you to do that you have been avoiding?  What have you been meaning to say to someone that you don’t say because you are afraid?  Does the reality of death make you want to move?  Though the questions are heavy, as is the topic, I think there is freedom in the questions too.  We can let go of all that is weighing us down and start living.  The promise of earthly death is a blessing – one that frees us to live this life with abundance, grace, and joy.  How will you start living into that joy today?