In her day Ruth might have
been called a “sour puss” or perhaps a “gloomy Gus.” She was one of many elderly shut-ins at a
previous parish where I served and I just called her Ruth. She was taxing, to say the least, and
visiting her was exhausting. Our monthly
conversation was always monologue; a prolonged, detailed, graphic litany of
ills, anguishes, and perceived slights (I heard enough from her about goiters
to last me a lifetime). Her ancient
stories of injustices were so well rehearsed I could almost repeat them verbatim
as she spoke. She droned of her
exaggerated health problems; the only skeleton structure supporting her
personality, near as I could tell. And
no matter how long I stayed, it was never long enough. “Do
you have to leave so soon,” she would say after an hour of rambling on
about her afflictions. “But you just got here!” she lamented
as the sun sank low in the afternoon sky.
I always left feeling deflated, disheartened, and inadequate.
One day I learned Ruth had
fallen and broken her hip. She had been
taken to a hospital 60 miles away and then transferred to a remote nursing home
some distance beyond that. I carved time
in my schedule so I could get away and made the lengthy trip to call on
her. Given how miserable she had been
when she suffered just from perceived illnesses, I was apprehension about how I
would find her now that she was truly incapacitated.
I walked into her drab, sparse
room and to my surprise found Ruth to be in near beatific joy. In spite of the pain, in spite of the nursing
home environment, and in spite of the changes her injury would surly mandate to
her lifestyle, Ruth was upbeat, even glowing.
She told me her long-estranged daughter was coming from Florida to be with
her. And she told me her daughter and
her daughter’s live-in boyfriend (an arrangement of which she disapproved in
the past) insisted she move to Florida to live with them as soon as she was
able to travel. Ruth had been estranged
from her daughter for years and over the course of that time they never spoke,
much less visited. But in a matter of
days it was all going to change and the restoration of the mother/daughter
relationship completely transformed Ruth’s countenance and personality. It is a miracle and a healing so stunning I
have never forgotten it.
Today is the last Sunday of
the season of Pentecost, the last Sunday in the Church year. Known as Christ the King Sunday, its theme is
found in the Collect of the Day: “Almighty
God, whose will it is to restore all things in your well-beloved Son...” The reign of Christ and the work of the
Kingdom are all about restoration. It is
the work of mending the torn fabric of our society, our relationships, and our
lives.
In the end, at the last, we
believe this work will be finally and firmly accomplished. But the Spirit, moving and active in our
lives, stirs in us with a prodding suggestion: “Why wait until the end? Why not
begin the process of restoration now?
Why not experience the life of God’s Kingdom in this life by allowing the
healing work of restoration to begin?”
The gospel reading points to
this possibility. Scholars note Luke’s
narrative of the Crucifixion differs from other gospel accounts in that it
portrays Christ as reigning victoriously while on the Cross. Luke does not record the words of Jesus, “Abba, Father, why have you forsaken me?”
because he wants to convey even the Cross could not rupture the communion they
enjoyed with one another. In Luke’s gospel
Jesus reigns as he forgives his persecutors because they do not know what they
are doing. And in Luke’s gospel we learn
of the conversation between the other two men crucified alongside him. Notice Jesus does not condemn the one mocking
him, rather his focus is on the possibility of restoration with the one we
refer to as ‘the penitent thief.’ “Today,” Jesus says to him, “You will be with me in Paradise.”
Not even the agony and the
shame and the pain of the Cross are able to keep Jesus from doing the Kingdom
work of restoration. In fact, in his darkest
hour we find our clearest glimpse of God’s nature. We see the core disposition of God’s
Kingdom. It is a place where all things
are restored in Christ. Because Jesus is
able to lift up this work even as he is lifted up on the Cross we learn the
work of the Kingdom is stronger than the bitterest brokenness we have
experienced and the worst we are capable of doing. We learn the power of the Spirit to bring
about restoration is more compelling than all the pain and injury we create or
suffer. And because Christ is able to
continue this work on Cross, we who live by faith see in this moment not a
human being nailed to a plank of wood, but a Lord and Savior reigning from a
throne.
It is popular (but mistaken)
to believe the Old Testament paints of picture of a God who is judgmental and
consumed with wrath. We live into this notion
by imagining God is constantly looking over our shoulder (as it were), wrathful
at our every wrong thought, action, and motive.
Today’s Old Testament reading from Jeremiah gives us a very different portrait
of God to ponder. Jeremiah states
clearly bad shepherds (and here he is referring both to religious and to
political leaders) have scattered the people.
Their actions have led to Israel’s fall to the Babylonians and
subsequent exile.
Now if Jeremiah believes God is
a God of judgment you might expect him to wax eloquent on how the people get
exactly what they have coming to them; to connect the terrible events of the
day to some communal sin or short-coming.
You know what I mean, a kind of statement that might say, “We got what we deserved because we
__________.” You can fill in the
blank.
But Jeremiah does not even
address question of why this
misfortune came about. He moves right to
what God will do in response to the
people’s brokenness,
“I myself
will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the lands where they have been
driven, and I will bring them back to their fold. And they will be fruitful and multiply. And I will raise up shepherds who will
shepherd them, and they shall not fear any longer, or be dismayed, nor shall
any be missing,” says the Lord.
The prophet gives us a vision
of God who works not to judge, not to condemn, but rather to restore all
things.
Restoration is something so
desperately needed in our time. I don’t
need to tell you there is a tremendous civic and cultural divide in our
country. What does it look like for
America to a have a sense of unity and common purpose? How can such a thing be restored? I don’t have an answer beyond a hope it is
God’s intention for this to happen, so it falls to each one of us as people of
faith to move toward what God seeks to do.
We do this through our prayers, by the transformation of our attitudes,
and with a change in our actions.
I once had lunch with a
colleague who talked of officiating at the burial of a small child. The parents, he told me, have not come back
into the church. They report all they
can see when they enter the worship space is the tiny casket of their dear child. What does restoration look like for these
grieving parents? My friend says to
them, “That image stays with me too. But when I am in the church I also see an
image of the time you two were married.
And I see an image of the time when we baptized your child. And I see an image of the time when your child
was in the Christmas pageant. And I
remember this place as being more than a sanctuary of pain. It was also a place of great joy and
celebration and thanksgiving.”
Obviously no mere words will turn the heart of a grieving parent and my
friend realizes it may be lifetime before some sense of restoration occurs, but
our faith holds and hopes God is working to restore all things… even, and
especially, the broken hearts of grieving parents.
So we come to this last Sunday
in the Church year and are reminded God seeks to mend the torn fabric of our
community, our relationships, and our lives.
As I ponder the brokenness in my life I come face to face with the
realization either I can join God in this work or I can resist it. What does it mean, in practical terms, to
join God in the work of restoring those things broken in my life? What strength and healing do I need to find before
I am ready to allow God’s work in such a way?
These questions are far too personal for me to elaborate on in a sermon
(and probably the answers are far too boring for you to hear), but they are
real for me and I realize again the preacher’s challenge: It is one thing for
me to do the work of writing a sermon while it is another thing for me to allow
a sermon to work on me.
I invite you to walk for a
while with a couple of Kingdom questions:
What is broken in your life?
Where is God working to bring about restoration? How might you join in this work in order to
make our future hope a present reality?
The great irony of Ruth’s life is that she had to fall and break her hip
before the real brokenness of her life could be mended. A thief had to be crucified next to Jesus
before he found Paradise. Two grieving
parents still struggle to find what God wills and works for them. What is broken in your life and how can you
join in God’s work to bring about restoration?
