A Sermon by Rev. Henley
Fayrene Stafford Farmer tells this story about her grandson:
“When six-year-old John-Mark arrived last weekend with his parents and his little brother, John-Mark’s cow, a large Santa Gertrudis, had just given birth. Our grandson was ecstatic...
His enthusiasm rivaled that of his grandfather’s two weeks earlier when a rather non-descript little black baldy cow not only had twin calves but immediately bonded with each to them and seem to have plenty of milk to raise them.
The birth of John-Mark’s calf was difficult. The calf was large and beautiful but even with an assisted birth he had breathing problems, and difficulty standing.
‘I really like my calf,’ John-Mark confided the next day, after yet another trip to the barn. ‘He lets me pet him.’ The cow, who was, as my husband said, ‘a little waspy,’ had to be put in the headgate when the calf was held up to her to allow it to nurse. She was fiercely devoted to her baby but not to the humans who were assisting him.
By Saturday night the new born was unable to stand. He was given milk from a bottle. My daughter and her husband worked tirelessly in an attempt to save him.
On Sunday we all realized that the calf was not going to make it, all of us but John-Mark that is. He was still petting the calf, talking to it, and believing that it would soon be alright.
Pa finally got … John-Mark, in the pickup and drove him down in the pasture to see the black baldy and her twins. ‘Son,’ Pa said, ‘How would you like to trade your calf for my set of twins?’ If anyone was a loser Pa wanted it to be himself, not this grandson with whom he had always had an almost mystical bond.
‘No, Pa, not now,’ John-Mark explained patiently. ‘But if my calf dies I will sure trade with you.’” [The Home Place Meditations on an Ozark Life by Fayrene Stafford Farmer]
Dear, sweet John-Mark, with the wisdom of a child, he knew went to let go of a dream and a much-desired reality. He knew when to move on. Disappointed he would be, and he knew that with a child’s wisdom, too, but when offered the gift of something else, he knew to accept that gift and move on with his life.
There are all kinds awful things that can happen to us, consequences of bad decisions, natural disasters, accidents, betrayal, to name a few.
When our plans are destroyed
When our dreams die
When our marriage fails
When the job we wanted is given to someone else
When our fiancé dies the day before our wedding
We know disappointment.
God, too, knows disappointment.
Our reading this morning from the prophet Isaiah is one of the most familiar scriptures of the prophetic literature in the Hebrew Scriptures. Isaiah does, what all the prophets do, call the Hebrew people to justice and righteousness. I see something else here, though. Something we don’t notice, or if we do, we don’t talk about, and that is God’s disappointment.
We are called to relationship with God and to one another. We are called, all faith traditions tell us, to a “higher purpose.” When we fail, when we don’t even try, when we ignore our own potential to be “better human beings,” God is disappointed.
Isaiah warns his people that God will not look kindly on their disregard of their covenant. And true, both the kingdoms of the twelve tribes are eventually destroyed, but time and time again, God and the Hebrew people renew their relationship.
God doesn’t get “stuck in the past.” God doesn’t hang on to disappointment. God moves on.
Karen Armstrong in her book The Great Transformation the Beginning of Our Religious Traditions tells us about the great religious ideas through the ages and throughout the world. God time and time again, despite God’s disappointment has sent to humankind religious insight and inspiration.
God does for us, what grandpa did for John-Mark. gives us a way to move on and face the future.
And if there was ever a time we had to look disappointment in the eye as a nation, it is now.
THE COUNTRY that is the “beacon on the hill,”
THE COUNTRY that is a helping hand to other countries,
THE COUNTRY that has loaned and written off more debt than any other country in humankind’s modern story, is facing, not only a financial crisis, but deep disappointment in the leadership of our country. There are questions about the character of our nation’s leaders: Congress, the Senate, our President, the Treasury, Finance, the presidents and CEOs of corporations and financial institutions.
I hear them on the bus.
There are also questions about the moral fiber of our country. I hear them on the subway, at the grocery store.
There is no finger pointing here. This is not a Republican, Democratic, or any kind of party problem. It is a challenge for a deeply disappointed American people.
We are all wondering how we will move on from here? No matter our age, we are affected by the turn of events that have swept over us like the tsunami of Indonesia in December 2004. But especially, I am concerned for our young adults, our children, and our grandchildren.
We have disappointments on a personal level, and, now, more than I can remember in my lifetime; we have a country facing a challenging future.
God time and time again, despite disappointment has sent to humankind religious insight and inspiration. God, unfailing, wants us to know our highest purpose. For us here today, we see Jesus as one who came to teach us how to “move on,” to face our future. Jesus is our balm of Gilead.
“Sometimes I feel discouraged and think my work’s in vain,
But then the Holy Spirit revives my soul again.
There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole;
There is a balm in Gilead to heal the sin sick soul.”
Armstrong wrote:
“We are living in a period of great fear and pain. [Great religious truths have] taught us to face up to the suffering that is an inescapable fact of human life… People who deny the suffering of life and stick their heads, ostrich like, in the sand are ‘false prophets.’ Unless we allow the sorrow that presses in on all sides to invade our consciousness, we cannot begin …”
And I paraphrase, “… we cannot begin…” to find our highest purpose.
God does for us, what grandpa did for John-Mark. After all, if God knows disappointment, and surely God must, then surely that knowledge is ours if only we open ourselves up to God’s lessons. God always has and always will show us a way to move past our disappointment and face our future, as a human being, and as a nation.
Readings
Hope Abides by Erica Block
“Hope is the thing with feathers,
that perches in the soul,
and sings the tune
without the words
and never stops at all.”
This little poem, by Emily Dickinson, was first given to me in a Charlie Brown comic strip. But I didn’t spot the cartoon in the paper. It came to our house instead within the contents of a letter from a grieving cousin. Her husband had dropped dead in the driveway while shoveling snow. And she was struggling to find light in the darkness.
I too grapple with darkness, as do so many in our time. We desperately cling to hope as we endure a sometimes unbearable present. Hope that things will get better. Hope that our needs will be fulfilled. Hope that things will change. Hope that the lion and lamb will eventually lie down together. Hope that an eating disordered daughter will finally come to embrace her being.
And in our common hope, which feeds off optimism and expectation, we become vulnerable to disappointment. As violence erupts again and again. As the cancer recurs.
As our prayers remain unanswered.
Thich Nhat Hanh describes hope, in fact, as an obstacle. Yes, hope can make the present moment more bearable as we believe in a better tomorrow, “but if you can refrain from hoping, you can bring yourself entirely into the present moment and discover the joy that is already there.”
And it is true. As we live into our darkness, our present moment, without expectation, we sense the thing with feathers, and we know that we have not been abandoned. This is Hope . . . the intangible, sustaining energy beyond reason. The gift of the heart.
Isaiah 5:1-7 (New International Version)
Isaiah 5
The Song of the Vineyard
1 I will sing for the one I love
a song about his vineyard:
My loved one had a vineyard
on a fertile hillside.
2 He dug it up and cleared it of stones
and planted it with the choicest vines.
He built a watchtower in it
and cut out a winepress as well.
Then he looked for a crop of good grapes,
but it yielded only bad fruit.
3 "Now you dwellers in Jerusalem and men of Judah,
judge between me and my vineyard.
4 What more could have been done for my vineyard
than I have done for it?
When I looked for good grapes,
why did it yield only bad?
5 Now I will tell you
what I am going to do to my vineyard:
I will take away its hedge,
and it will be destroyed;
I will break down its wall,
and it will be trampled.
6 I will make it a wasteland,
neither pruned nor cultivated,
and briers and thorns will grow there.
I will command the clouds
not to rain on it."
7 The vineyard of the LORD Almighty
is the house of Israel,
and the men of Judah
are the garden of his delight.
And he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed;
for righteousness, but heard cries of distress.