In Spite of Sorrow

In my family: I remember my grandmother telling me about her father's sorrow about his brother Herman, who got on a train one day and went west to look for gold, and was never heard from again.

“I'd give my best horse to know what ever happened to Herman,” he told my grandmother Aleda.

My grandfather's aunt Annie and uncle Clark left a row of tiny tombstones in Roundtop Cemetery for all their babies.

They adopted their orphaned nephew, my grandfather, in order to have someone to help work the farm.

There is the unspeakable sorrow this summer in Somalia and Kenya as thousands try to walk somewhere, anywhere to get food and water, forced to leave child or spouse dead along the road, and then to be brutalized by soldiers who are supposed to protect them.

All these kinds of harshness are supposed to be overcome in our enlightened and modern society, but they are not.

The folks gathered here this evening know all too clearly about a situation of monstrous evil, injustice, hardship, as well as just plain old sorrow.

To not be able to be with relatives in this time of illness, death, and bereavement is a bitter thing for you to endure.

People in Bible times had it easier...or did they?

What would it have been like for Rebekah to say “Sure, I'll go with this servant and become the wife of a man of whom I have never heard, in a far-off land...and oh, by the way, I'll probably never see my birth-family or homeland ever again, and yes, we're leaving in 10 minutes, so I'll just hop on this camel here and away we go.”

The Bible does not report any hesitation on her part, then or later. Amazing!

What trust she has in the God who brought Abraham's servant to her doorstep!

But still it could not have been easy.

And Jesus had an interesting relationship with his mother Mary and her family.

They want to be proud of him, but Jesus keeps saying these things that stir up the officials, get him chased out of his home-town synagogue, threatened with death, and are just plain embarrassing to the family.

And then there is the scene that we heard from Luke this evening.

The family would like to bundle him off to a quiet corner so they can talk some sense into him, and get him to sop inflaming the situation.

It is just not safe for any of them; the Romans lined the roads around Jerusalem with literally thousands of crosses to execute loudmouth trouble-makers.

But Jesus will not be dissuaded from his course.

The most important thing for him is not tied up with particular relatives, but with speaking and doing the truth.

My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God, and do it, he says.

Wow! we have to take a deep breath and think about that line awhile!

We might regard that in several ways, but for the moment let's settle on just one:

As bereft and as lonely as Carlos and others feel this evening, they and we all have not been left alone.

Even though we are not able to be in Venezuela, nor the folks there, here, still, the Lord God has seen fit to surround us with others who live and love and care in the ways that are needed this evening and the days ahead.

Thank you, Lord God, for these tremendous gifts:

for the gift of life and the blessing of a natural family, and an extended family in Christ Jesus.

for surrounding us with persons to speak and do,

for the promise that the Lord Jesus will hold onto each of his people,

for the promise that the Lord Jesus will lose none of those whom he has called, including Evelia.

for this chance this evening to laugh and cry and speak and sing in the name of Jesus,

for the gift of memory,

for the gift of anticipation,

and for peace in your name.

The church's bedtime prayers include this petition: let's breathe together as I speak it for us....

O Lord, support us all the day long of this troubled life, until the shadows lengthen, and the evening comes and the busy world is hushed, the fever of life is over, and our work is done. Then, Lord, in your mercy, grant us a safe lodging and a holy rest, and peace at the last; through Jesus Christ our Lord. 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.