Barriers Broken

If only there had been a pharmacist with some of today's knowledge about the disease back there in Bible-times, and for the many centuries since then!

What a difference that would have made.

From ancient times right up until the relatively recent advent of effective drugs,

the suffering person was simply told to leave his family and community,

never again to be close to those whom he loved,

always required to keep his distance from any person or house.

In Hawaii, the patients were transported to an isolated shore of the island of Molokai and dumped off there to live as best they could until they died.

The disease might strike rich or poor, the evil or the virtuous, young or old.

And the results were always deadly.

The barriers erected by those who feared the illness were insurmountable.

In today's Gospel lesson, the widow of Nain faces great barriers.

She is widowed, and now childless, in a time and place where one's social security was only in one's children.

Without children, there is no one to care for you when you are weak and ill.

So, she has lost every bit of personal and financial security.

There is a barrier between her and the rest of the community.

And what she feels most of all is the barrier between her and her son who has now died.

Barrier after barrier.

We have a different disease and different specific circumstances, but the effect is still the same as we gather today to remember Charles.

His sometimes gruff nature might be one kind of barrier.

His living at Valley View the past few years instead of being out and about in society is still another kind of barrier.

But the greatest barrier this day is death, which looks and acts like it has won.

We just do not have the possibility of communication with Charles in the old ways now.

What Jesus does in his relationship with people is to break down the barriers.

Again and again, what others see as hopelessness, Jesus knows as no problem.

Where others cannot or will not go, Jesus reaches across, breaking down the barriers of illness, fear, custom, or social situation.

By what he says and does, Jesus is giving a sign that any of the old barriers, even death, will not in the end “separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus”, as Paul says in Romans.

In his good time, he will wipe away every tear, as Isaiah says in today's first lesson.

Even where things have been so difficult now, finally there will be a time of rest and ease, a time of the great banquet, with the Lord Jesus as the host.

How can we be so confident about this?

Because God makes a promise when we are baptized;

a promise which he will surely keep,

a promise to hold onto each person baptized, no matter how difficult the situation.

In his professional activities in pharmacy, as well as in all of the other areas of life in which he was interested, accurate and continuing conversation would have been very important for Charles.

But this is not only a human thing; a “conversation without barriers” is one way to describe the relationship within God, the relationship of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

At Christmas time we celebrate the Good News that God is not keeping this Word to himself.

“The Word became flesh and lived among us,” as the Gospel of John says.

In the Sacrament of Holy Baptism, we are invited into the conversation with God which begins now and continues forever.

This is communication that God will not break or abandon, He promises.

Knowing this, having confidence in this, what shall we do?

Keep open the lines of communication with God and with one another.

Know that the barriers which we build, or which are forced on us by circumstances, are not the last word.

Every one of those barriers will be overcome in God's good time.

Whether the barrier is distance, or language, or customs, or arguments, or differences of opinion, illness, or death, or anything else – no such barrier shall be final.

God's promises shall prevail; that is what the resurrection of Jesus is letting us know, as Paul is talking about it in our second lesson today.

Let us embrace and joyfully use the open lines of communication which God establishes:

--being regular in worship,

--being diligent in study

--being instant in prayer.

Let's say and do those things which bind together family, friends, and community, rather than tear them apart.

Let's reach across as many barriers as we can,

the barriers of illness, or personal differences, or distance or whatever...

as a sign, and in anticipation of that great and final day

when Jesus will show how limited those barriers are,

when Jesus restores full community and communication with himself,

when Jesus makes communication complete.

Barrier-free is not just a legal and medical term.

For us today it is our confident theological hope as well, as we anticipate the fullness of heaven and remember Charles.

Amen.

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.