A friend of mine died -- a friend I've known for more than two thirds of my life. I went through confirmation with his son, and now I minister to his family, from the other side of experience. It's by grace that I'm back in Calgary and able to sit with the family in our grief.
But funerals suck.
Sermon for the Funeral of Erich Scherer
Friday, May 01 2009
Text: John 11:21-27 (Isaiah 25:6-9, Revelation 21:2-7)
I don’t want to be here.
Like many – like all of us gathered today – I don’t want to be here. To say ‘goodbye’ to a dear friend: a husband, father, grandfather; I can’t list all those relationships that Erich made in our lives. But I can tell you this, from my own heart – Erich was a good friend.
He was one of the first group of people from this very church who encouraged me to walk the path of ministry; to pursue the life of faith I saw and so greatly admired in his own example.
Erich was a farmer. He nurtured and tended crops – I nurture and tend to people. I only hope to be as good a minister as he was a farmer.
Oh, but it’s hard to say goodbye. I can’t pretend to you that I think this is part of God’s plan for our lives, or that Erich’s death was God’s will. I think that this is horrible time, a time of grieving and pain and sorrow.
It’s important to give those emotions their space; they’re expected, and normal. No matter how as Christians we view death and the life beyond, we still grieve. And we will, for quite a time to come. Grief is normal.
It is normal for us, it was normal for Jesus.
Jesus went to the funeral of his friend Lazarus, a man so close to him that he was described as ‘the one whom you love.’ Jesus arrived four days too late to cure Lazarus of his illness, too late to perform the same miracles of healing that he had done before.
And Martha, the sister of Lazarus, was pointed in her grief: “Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died.”
Even as we may be inclined to say, “Lord, if you had been here, Erich would not have died.”
Like Martha our grief brings us to Christ in whom we trust and we too are pointed in our grief. This isn’t fair. But even as turn our grief – and all it’s baggage – to Christ, we are reminded of the same thing as was Martha. We are reminded of the cornerstone of Erich’s Christian faith, his powerful faith in the promise of Christ that we will, each and every one of us, rise again with Christ in the Resurrection – that is the promise of our baptism.
When I visited Erich in the hospital the first time, I asked him if he’d be going home. In his own dry sense of humour, he smiled at me at pointed ‘up’. More than anything, my time spent with Erich reminded me of both his love for his family, and his trust and faith in the promise of God.
And it is with that same trust, and love, and faith that we gather here today. Both to begin the process of saying ‘goodbye’ to a dear and trusted friend and also to remember the faith that kept and sustained Erich in his life and now we trust rewards him in his death.
That Jesus Christ is the Resurrection and the life, and that those who believe in him, even though they may die, they will live.
That is the promise of God to Erich, to his family, and to us: that we will one day see the vision of the prophet Isaiah fulfilled, on the day that death is swallowed up for ever and every tear that we have shed is wiped from our eyes by the very one who will take our hand and lift us up out of the valley of the shadow of death.
In the day of the new heaven and the new earth, when everything old has passed away and spring dawns upon the Earth even as it did when Erich tilled the soil, God will dwell with us, and our mourning and crying and pain will be soothed. And we will rejoice with Erich again, our bodies whole and perfect, in the presence of our Savior.
Because through Christ that we have the promise of new life. To all who are thirsty, to Erich, to us, we have been given water as a gift from the stream of the water of life: the very gift of Jesus Christ to us through grace.
Erich is God’s good and perfect child, even as we are. Even as we mourn, may Christ strengthen our faith – forged in love and formed through our own relationships – that we may rest in the promise of God.
That in that new creation, death will be no more, because we live and trust and have faith in the Living God, and God who has come down and lived among us and tasted grief and death. The Living God, who shattered the bounds of death on that first Easter morning so that we too may feast in the Resurrection.
The same God who will raise us up on the last day, to rejoice with Erich that our joy has been made complete, when the memories of our sorrow and pain are washed away and we are reunited with all those whom we love in the presence of Him who loved us first – loved us enough to face death himself so that we may join him in Resurrection.
May Christ walk beside us as he walked with Erich. May Christ lift us up when we stumble, as he bore Erich up in times of pain and struggle.
May we share Erich’s faith, that in that New Creation we will all be whole, and perfect,
And loved.
Amen.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Saturday, April 18, 2009
up and about
I had a busy day today. Men's breakfast meeting in the morning, and then I was the guest speaker at the local Women's Auxilary (ELW) conference convention.
A pretty neat experience, really. It's a good thing I enjoy talking :)
A pretty neat experience, really. It's a good thing I enjoy talking :)
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Christ is Risen! Christ is Risen indeed! Alleluia!
Easter HomilySt. John
Let all pious men and women, and all lovers of God rejoice in the splendor of this feast; let the wise servants blissfully enter into the joy of their Lord; let those who have borne the burden of Lent now receive their pay, and those who have toiled since the first hour, let them now receive their due reward; let any who came after the third hour be grateful to join in the feast, and those who may have come after the sixth, let them not be afraid of being too late; for the Lord is gracious and He receives the last even as the first. He gives rest to those who come on the eleventh hour as well as to those who has toiled since the first: yes, He has pity on the last and He serves the first; He rewards the one and praises the effort.
Come you all: enter into the joy of your Lord. You the first and you the last, receive alike your reward; you rich and you poor, dance together; you sober and you weaklings, celebrate the day; you who have kept the fast and you who have not, rejoice today. The table is richly loaded: enjoy its royal banquet. The calf is a fatted one: let no one go away hungry. All of you enjoy the banquet of faith; all of you receive the riches of his goodness. Let no one grieve over his poverty, for the universal kingdom has been revealed; let no one weep over his sins, for pardon has shone from the grave; let no one fear death, for the death of our Saviour has set us free: He has destroyed it by enduring it, He has despoiled Hell by going down into its kingdom, He has angered it by allowing it to taste of his flesh.
When Isaiah foresaw all this, he cried out: "O Hades, you have been angered by encountering Him in the nether world." Hades is angered because it is frustrated, it is angered because it has been mocked, it is angered because it has been destroyed, it is angered because it has been reduced to naught, it is angered because it is now captive. It seized a body, and, lo! it encountered heaven; it seized the visible, and was overcome by the invisible.
O death, where is your sting? O Hell, where is your victory? Christ is risen and you are abolished. Christ is risen and the demons are cast down. Christ is risen and the angels rejoice. Christ is risen and life is freed. Christ is risen and the tomb is emptied of the dead: for Christ, being risen from the dead, has become the Leader and Reviver of those who had fallen asleep. To Him be glory and power for ever and ever.
Amen.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Good Friday sermon
Good Friday Sermon
April 10, 2009-04-08
(NB: with help from Barbara Brown Taylor – The Perfect Mirror)
It is finished.
The table – the altar – is clear. The font is empty. There are no banners on the wall. No joyous acclamation or proclamation today.
It is finished. Peter weeps out by the city wall. The women wail at the tomb. The rest of the crowd sits in stunned silence; the two pieces of the curtain in the Temple sway in the afternoon breeze. Judas runs, hangs himself. One final fatality in this long drama.
There are thousands of ways in which we tell this story – some in glorious detail, every lash of the whip sounded out; every groan of pain endlessly detailed. Some paint pictures, or sculpt representations. According to John, the story centered around a melding of religion and politics. Pilate and the chief priests who remained enemies while collaborating to rid themselves of a perplexing problem, while Jesus stood at the centre like a mirror in which all around saw themselves for who they really were.
To see ourselves for who we really are – exposed, bared down past the bone until our souls are shown in their own slimy reality. Our own pride – in our accomplishments, in our judgements, in our own opinions. When we see where our trust really lies – not in the Son of God – but in money, and power, and politics. Jesus hangs on the tree, and we congratulate ourselves that we exercised our own common sense to avoid the same fate.
So often when we tell this story we try to view like it’s playing out on a TV screen. We sit back and relax, try to remain impassive while our hero dies gloriously. We like it like that – cold, sterile – because we resist getting involved in the story. We like our boundaries.
But the truth of the matter is, no matter how hard we try to keep ourselves out of the story, we’re right in the thick of it. We could be Pilate, or even a Pharisee – but the truth is we’re much worse. We’re his friends. We’re the ones who leave Jesus, deny him, let him be led away without so much as a whispered complaint.
You’ve seen it before: whenever someone famous or exceptionally well-known is in trouble, the media flock for statements from friends. And what do they do? Do they support them, or tell them that they’d seen trouble coming for some time? One of the worst things a friend can say is exactly what Peter said:
We weren’t friends, exactly. Acquaintances might be a better word. Actually, we just worked together…I don’t really know him at all.
How many times do we repeat that in our own lives, when we step aside from support or responsibility, and instead say:
- It’s a terrible tragedy, but they brought it on themselves.
- I never supported that idea, and it failed just like I said it would
- Why bother getting involved?
And then, we say, it is finished - but not in the same manner of Jesus’ declaration from the cross. Instead we, like Pilate, want to wash our hands of the whole affair and any complicity we may have in it. Rather than risk our selves we stand back and stand by and let someone else suffer.
Feeling powerless to stop a tragedy without involving ourselves, we stand alongside the assembled throng and watch as the One we proclaimed the Christ is crucified on a barren hill outside Jerusalem. We are stunned as we realize that only hours ago we stood in the courtyard and called for his death, desperately afraid that at any moment we would be unmasked as his followers. We are breathless at the scope of our own denial of Christ – the realization that our trust has rested not upon God, but upon the power that we sought and aspired to in our world.
And even though we are aware of our complicity, though we may deride ourselves for it, we daily remain with the crowd crying out for his death because we cannot stand to be naked; to be exposed in the light of Truth, to have our own motivations and thoughts thrust into our sight where we cannot hide them any longer. We find it easier to turn away from the cross, to ignore what goes on around us, than to turn to Christ. We find it easier to place faith in ideas, concepts, and wordly powers than in Jesus Christ.
One thing that we can say is ‘true’ about the Apostle John’s story, it’s that Jesus was not betrayed, tried, and killed by atheism or anarchy. He was killed by good, old-fashioned common sense. Powers of the world -- law and order allied with religion -- always a deadly mix.
If there’s a point that we need to let pierce us through from St John’s Gospel, it’s to beware of those who claim to know the mind of God and who are prepared to use force, if necessary, to make others conform. Or worse, beware of those people who claim they don’t need God to know they’re right, or righteous. Beware of those who cannot tell God’s will from their own, when ‘common sense’ indicates that it’s better to let one person die than risk upsetting the status quo.
In the mirror of truth – perfect truth, as Christ is revealed to be – we are responsible for the death of Christ and we keep contributing to that crucifixion in our own lives.
I remember Barbara Taylor’s insight, that what happened then keeps happening now. Where the integrity of Christ, who stood silent before his accusers, is present, our own ego and pretentiousness is exposed. In the presence of his constancy – his willingness to stay the course even though he knew at the end of it was his own agony and death – our cowardice is shown to us. In the presence of Christ’s great self-giving and self-emptying love our own hardened hearts are revealed.
But take Christ out of the room, then – send him away to death – then all those things become relative. I am no worse than you; nor you than I. But leave Jesus in the room and we’ve no place to hide, because he’s the light of the world.
In his presence, people either fall down and worship him, or do whatever they can to extinguish his light. And we almost always choose to live in shadows.
Because you see, a cross and nails are not always necessary. There are a thousand ways to kill him – some are obvious, like choosing to stand on the side of the strong while the weak struggle and die. Other ways are more insidious, as we keep our mouths shut when someone asks if we know him.
The grim agony of Good Friday for us – Good Friday, as we celebrate that someone; no, GOD - died a bloody and agonizing death for our own sin – is that for once we cannot turn away. Today we must force ourselves to look in the mirror. Today, we bring out our shame in the face of his humanity. Today, if we finally stop lying to ourselves we cannot shut our eyes and pretend we can’t see as we are revealed in the light of the sacrifice on the cross..
A light that shines in the darkness. A light that shine in our darkness, and even our darkness cannot overcome it.
Martin Luther wrote that the life of a Christian should begin by every day rising again with Christ, only to die again. An endless cycle, our lives lived in the rhythm of him who claimed to be the Resurrection and the life. It means daily exposing ourselves to the spit, to the shame, to the suffering of life even as our Saviour did – and then realizing that truly, this man was the Son of God.
When we reach that point, that point where we have nothing left to pretend to be concerned about, nothing left to waste time worrying about -- then we’re finally ready to understand what Christ means when he says “my yoke is easy.” Then, we’re finally able to take upon ourselves the burden of being ‘Christian’ and stand at the cross without pretensions, without ego, without power, willing to die.
Because it has to be better to bear the yoke of Christ and mark of Christian – even if it means dying to all else that we thought important in this world; even to all things that we strive for in this world – than to die surrounded by the empty riches and sickening mirage of a world where seeking money is better than loving God. If we do not place our entire hope in Christ, then we are not Christian and stand condemned alongside him on crosses of our own.
Only in Christ do we find hope. As he has been lifted up, let us lay our burdens down and let our selves die with him -- to live, and to love, and to serve.
It is finished. The work of salvation, of our redemption, is complete. Our work, the work of faith, the labour of the Gospel, is just beginning. In the midst of this darkness of frailty, mortality, and death we sense the light that tugs at the edges of darkness. In that light, we slowly begin to see ourselves as Christ sees us, not as consumers in an economy but rather as true Christians, as contributors to the work of the kingdom of God.
Here, revealed as naked in heart as our ancestors in the Garden, the darkness we so prefer gives way to something glorious. Timidly, we wait, straining to see the first slim fingers of a new day, a new creation. For us here at the foot of the cross, at the closed and silent tomb- for us here, who stand forgiven -- it’s almost dawn.
April 10, 2009-04-08
(NB: with help from Barbara Brown Taylor – The Perfect Mirror)
It is finished.
The table – the altar – is clear. The font is empty. There are no banners on the wall. No joyous acclamation or proclamation today.
It is finished. Peter weeps out by the city wall. The women wail at the tomb. The rest of the crowd sits in stunned silence; the two pieces of the curtain in the Temple sway in the afternoon breeze. Judas runs, hangs himself. One final fatality in this long drama.
There are thousands of ways in which we tell this story – some in glorious detail, every lash of the whip sounded out; every groan of pain endlessly detailed. Some paint pictures, or sculpt representations. According to John, the story centered around a melding of religion and politics. Pilate and the chief priests who remained enemies while collaborating to rid themselves of a perplexing problem, while Jesus stood at the centre like a mirror in which all around saw themselves for who they really were.
To see ourselves for who we really are – exposed, bared down past the bone until our souls are shown in their own slimy reality. Our own pride – in our accomplishments, in our judgements, in our own opinions. When we see where our trust really lies – not in the Son of God – but in money, and power, and politics. Jesus hangs on the tree, and we congratulate ourselves that we exercised our own common sense to avoid the same fate.
So often when we tell this story we try to view like it’s playing out on a TV screen. We sit back and relax, try to remain impassive while our hero dies gloriously. We like it like that – cold, sterile – because we resist getting involved in the story. We like our boundaries.
But the truth of the matter is, no matter how hard we try to keep ourselves out of the story, we’re right in the thick of it. We could be Pilate, or even a Pharisee – but the truth is we’re much worse. We’re his friends. We’re the ones who leave Jesus, deny him, let him be led away without so much as a whispered complaint.
You’ve seen it before: whenever someone famous or exceptionally well-known is in trouble, the media flock for statements from friends. And what do they do? Do they support them, or tell them that they’d seen trouble coming for some time? One of the worst things a friend can say is exactly what Peter said:
We weren’t friends, exactly. Acquaintances might be a better word. Actually, we just worked together…I don’t really know him at all.
How many times do we repeat that in our own lives, when we step aside from support or responsibility, and instead say:
- It’s a terrible tragedy, but they brought it on themselves.
- I never supported that idea, and it failed just like I said it would
- Why bother getting involved?
And then, we say, it is finished - but not in the same manner of Jesus’ declaration from the cross. Instead we, like Pilate, want to wash our hands of the whole affair and any complicity we may have in it. Rather than risk our selves we stand back and stand by and let someone else suffer.
Feeling powerless to stop a tragedy without involving ourselves, we stand alongside the assembled throng and watch as the One we proclaimed the Christ is crucified on a barren hill outside Jerusalem. We are stunned as we realize that only hours ago we stood in the courtyard and called for his death, desperately afraid that at any moment we would be unmasked as his followers. We are breathless at the scope of our own denial of Christ – the realization that our trust has rested not upon God, but upon the power that we sought and aspired to in our world.
And even though we are aware of our complicity, though we may deride ourselves for it, we daily remain with the crowd crying out for his death because we cannot stand to be naked; to be exposed in the light of Truth, to have our own motivations and thoughts thrust into our sight where we cannot hide them any longer. We find it easier to turn away from the cross, to ignore what goes on around us, than to turn to Christ. We find it easier to place faith in ideas, concepts, and wordly powers than in Jesus Christ.
One thing that we can say is ‘true’ about the Apostle John’s story, it’s that Jesus was not betrayed, tried, and killed by atheism or anarchy. He was killed by good, old-fashioned common sense. Powers of the world -- law and order allied with religion -- always a deadly mix.
If there’s a point that we need to let pierce us through from St John’s Gospel, it’s to beware of those who claim to know the mind of God and who are prepared to use force, if necessary, to make others conform. Or worse, beware of those people who claim they don’t need God to know they’re right, or righteous. Beware of those who cannot tell God’s will from their own, when ‘common sense’ indicates that it’s better to let one person die than risk upsetting the status quo.
In the mirror of truth – perfect truth, as Christ is revealed to be – we are responsible for the death of Christ and we keep contributing to that crucifixion in our own lives.
I remember Barbara Taylor’s insight, that what happened then keeps happening now. Where the integrity of Christ, who stood silent before his accusers, is present, our own ego and pretentiousness is exposed. In the presence of his constancy – his willingness to stay the course even though he knew at the end of it was his own agony and death – our cowardice is shown to us. In the presence of Christ’s great self-giving and self-emptying love our own hardened hearts are revealed.
But take Christ out of the room, then – send him away to death – then all those things become relative. I am no worse than you; nor you than I. But leave Jesus in the room and we’ve no place to hide, because he’s the light of the world.
In his presence, people either fall down and worship him, or do whatever they can to extinguish his light. And we almost always choose to live in shadows.
Because you see, a cross and nails are not always necessary. There are a thousand ways to kill him – some are obvious, like choosing to stand on the side of the strong while the weak struggle and die. Other ways are more insidious, as we keep our mouths shut when someone asks if we know him.
The grim agony of Good Friday for us – Good Friday, as we celebrate that someone; no, GOD - died a bloody and agonizing death for our own sin – is that for once we cannot turn away. Today we must force ourselves to look in the mirror. Today, we bring out our shame in the face of his humanity. Today, if we finally stop lying to ourselves we cannot shut our eyes and pretend we can’t see as we are revealed in the light of the sacrifice on the cross..
A light that shines in the darkness. A light that shine in our darkness, and even our darkness cannot overcome it.
Martin Luther wrote that the life of a Christian should begin by every day rising again with Christ, only to die again. An endless cycle, our lives lived in the rhythm of him who claimed to be the Resurrection and the life. It means daily exposing ourselves to the spit, to the shame, to the suffering of life even as our Saviour did – and then realizing that truly, this man was the Son of God.
When we reach that point, that point where we have nothing left to pretend to be concerned about, nothing left to waste time worrying about -- then we’re finally ready to understand what Christ means when he says “my yoke is easy.” Then, we’re finally able to take upon ourselves the burden of being ‘Christian’ and stand at the cross without pretensions, without ego, without power, willing to die.
Because it has to be better to bear the yoke of Christ and mark of Christian – even if it means dying to all else that we thought important in this world; even to all things that we strive for in this world – than to die surrounded by the empty riches and sickening mirage of a world where seeking money is better than loving God. If we do not place our entire hope in Christ, then we are not Christian and stand condemned alongside him on crosses of our own.
Only in Christ do we find hope. As he has been lifted up, let us lay our burdens down and let our selves die with him -- to live, and to love, and to serve.
It is finished. The work of salvation, of our redemption, is complete. Our work, the work of faith, the labour of the Gospel, is just beginning. In the midst of this darkness of frailty, mortality, and death we sense the light that tugs at the edges of darkness. In that light, we slowly begin to see ourselves as Christ sees us, not as consumers in an economy but rather as true Christians, as contributors to the work of the kingdom of God.
Here, revealed as naked in heart as our ancestors in the Garden, the darkness we so prefer gives way to something glorious. Timidly, we wait, straining to see the first slim fingers of a new day, a new creation. For us here at the foot of the cross, at the closed and silent tomb- for us here, who stand forgiven -- it’s almost dawn.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
so yeah, the last post was an April Fool's joke. Apologies to those who missed the 'joke' part -- but know that I laughed at your expense. I'm a bad man.
This past Sunday was Palm Sunday of the Lord's Passion. Long name, I know. It begins with a procession -- waving palm branches as we remember the way that the crowd welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem -- and continues through an account of Jesus' death. As the crowd, we who acclaimed Jesus as Lord then shout for his death. Too true.
For your friendly neighborhood Vicar, this Sunday was supposed to be pretty straightforward. Some bits were different, but I was okay with that.
Was not planning on my supervising pastor having food poisoning -- or something -- in the morning.
The first part of the service went all right -- I could tell he was a bit under the weather, but I thought he'd hang in there. Then came communion. Shortly before he stood up for the dialogue, he turned and whispered to me "you're going to take care of it."
I can do this, I've led at the table before. Once the Words of Institution were spoken and the blessing said, my supervisor announced that I would be leading the meal and then he bolted. Right. Down. the. Aisle.
And folks, I mean bolted. Undstandable, considering that he would have to ungird himself of pectoral cross, chasuble, cinture, stole, and then alb before he could actually go to the bathroom. But it looked really funny. Since it's Lent the liturgical colour is purple, and he looked like nothing less than a giant grape fleeing for his life with the Welch's people hot on his heals.
There were a lot of people, too -- talking about 270-300, I think, so about halfway through communion he comes back and sits down. That made me happy; I was a little afraid he'd pass out if he hadn't sat down. So I kept glancing over to him, just in case he wanted to segue in at the end, but once when I looked up, he was gone. Totally gone. No idea where.
I didn't think much of it until the end of the service, when I saw him standing at the back of the Sanctuary, sans liturgical garb. We made eye contact, and he pointed at me. As in "hey, intern, guess what?! You get to bring the ship into port!"
So I did. Gathered and covered the communion elements; motioned the assisting minister over and asked the congregation to rise.
"Now may the body and blood of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ strengthen and keep you into life everlasting," is the bidding, and I didn't miss a beat. Not bad, for never, ever having said it before. Especially from memory. And the assisting minister said the post-communion prayer and I walked to the front, raised my arms and said "receive the benediction of the Lord,"
And nothing, but nothing, came out.
I have been leading worship regularly since I was 19. This is almost 10 years now, folks, and I've said the Aaronic benedication at just about every service I've ever led. I memorized it in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek on a lark.
And there I was, standing in front of 270-odd people, with my arms raised and mouth open like an ape stretched between two bananas. The benediction from the order of service is short -- like "Almighty God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit bless you now and forever," or something like that.
Could I remember that? No. Could I remember anything? No. After what seemed like an eternity standing with my arms up and open (though the co-Director assured me it was just a few seconds), finally the Hebrew words of the benediction filtered into my mind.
"That's all right," I thought, "though my supervisor will call me an arrogant prick. I can do this."
So I began to speak them. And what came out? English! What!!??
"May the Lord bless us, and keep us.
May the Lord make his face to shine upon us and be gracious unto us,
may the Lord look upon us with favour, and give us peace,
In the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit,
Amen."
well, 'amen' to the Spirit blowing where it chooses.
Next time, I'm practicing the whole darn service, just in case.
This past Sunday was Palm Sunday of the Lord's Passion. Long name, I know. It begins with a procession -- waving palm branches as we remember the way that the crowd welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem -- and continues through an account of Jesus' death. As the crowd, we who acclaimed Jesus as Lord then shout for his death. Too true.
For your friendly neighborhood Vicar, this Sunday was supposed to be pretty straightforward. Some bits were different, but I was okay with that.
Was not planning on my supervising pastor having food poisoning -- or something -- in the morning.
The first part of the service went all right -- I could tell he was a bit under the weather, but I thought he'd hang in there. Then came communion. Shortly before he stood up for the dialogue, he turned and whispered to me "you're going to take care of it."
I can do this, I've led at the table before. Once the Words of Institution were spoken and the blessing said, my supervisor announced that I would be leading the meal and then he bolted. Right. Down. the. Aisle.
And folks, I mean bolted. Undstandable, considering that he would have to ungird himself of pectoral cross, chasuble, cinture, stole, and then alb before he could actually go to the bathroom. But it looked really funny. Since it's Lent the liturgical colour is purple, and he looked like nothing less than a giant grape fleeing for his life with the Welch's people hot on his heals.
There were a lot of people, too -- talking about 270-300, I think, so about halfway through communion he comes back and sits down. That made me happy; I was a little afraid he'd pass out if he hadn't sat down. So I kept glancing over to him, just in case he wanted to segue in at the end, but once when I looked up, he was gone. Totally gone. No idea where.
I didn't think much of it until the end of the service, when I saw him standing at the back of the Sanctuary, sans liturgical garb. We made eye contact, and he pointed at me. As in "hey, intern, guess what?! You get to bring the ship into port!"
So I did. Gathered and covered the communion elements; motioned the assisting minister over and asked the congregation to rise.
"Now may the body and blood of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ strengthen and keep you into life everlasting," is the bidding, and I didn't miss a beat. Not bad, for never, ever having said it before. Especially from memory. And the assisting minister said the post-communion prayer and I walked to the front, raised my arms and said "receive the benediction of the Lord,"
And nothing, but nothing, came out.
I have been leading worship regularly since I was 19. This is almost 10 years now, folks, and I've said the Aaronic benedication at just about every service I've ever led. I memorized it in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek on a lark.
And there I was, standing in front of 270-odd people, with my arms raised and mouth open like an ape stretched between two bananas. The benediction from the order of service is short -- like "Almighty God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit bless you now and forever," or something like that.
Could I remember that? No. Could I remember anything? No. After what seemed like an eternity standing with my arms up and open (though the co-Director assured me it was just a few seconds), finally the Hebrew words of the benediction filtered into my mind.
"That's all right," I thought, "though my supervisor will call me an arrogant prick. I can do this."
So I began to speak them. And what came out? English! What!!??
"May the Lord bless us, and keep us.
May the Lord make his face to shine upon us and be gracious unto us,
may the Lord look upon us with favour, and give us peace,
In the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit,
Amen."
well, 'amen' to the Spirit blowing where it chooses.
Next time, I'm practicing the whole darn service, just in case.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)