She was there because He is there . . . On the witness of our sister in Christ, Nancy Hitt Parrish

      On behalf of the family, I would like to thank all of you who attended the service in which we remind ourselves intentionally of the promises God has made to each of us who call upon the work and person of Jesus Christ.  I would also like to thank those folks who came to the visitation but skedaddled before the worship service began.  From a preacher’s perspective, those visitations can be invaluable.  We get to hear lots of stories about those who died.  Often the stories range from great humor to admiration, though I have found it also common to hear some stories that those deceased might not find flattering, were they able to speak up.

     I must confess that, although I am the rector of Adventer, I never had the pleasure of meeting Nancy.  She left about eighteen months before I arrived, heading south to Florida to avoid this wonderful winter weather we have in Nashville and to be closer to her daughter, Teresa.  When Scott called me about the funeral, I am guessing it seemed awkward, or at least, he expressed that it was.  For my part, I was really only worried about the answer to my question about the “family friend” being able to celebrate and preach Nancy’s funeral.  Scott did not know it, but we clergy get lots of inquiries about “internet” ordained friends doing services in our church.  Since many of you are Episcopalians, you likely understand it is not allowed in our church.  But, those conversations are usually with people who are inactive Christians, at best, and those who are looking for an appropriate setting for weddings and funerals.

     Imagine my surprise though, when Scott said it was Fr. Polk.  Episcopalians and Anglicans do not believe in Purgatory, and to be fair our Roman brothers and sisters no longer accept that doctrine either, but any woman who can remain a great family friend of Polk for decades has done an incredible work of supererogation.  Those of you wondering if you missed a great joke can ask those laughing after the service.  Polk served the diocese for many years and did great work in Murfreesboro, but we still like to tease our brother and sister clergy from time to time, especially when they are retired and rubbing it in on us active clergy!

     The reason Scott wanted Polk to bury Nancy, though, stemmed from that perceived awkwardness.  Polk knew her and her family very well.  It would make sense he would be a great pastor in this.  Unfortunately, though, we clergy are doing more and more funerals for people whom we never knew, as more and more people quit remembering the reason they were called to attend churches in the beginning.  Having heard a number of your stories, I wish I would have known her.  I am fairly certain we would have gotten along well.  In fact, I bet we would have gotten along better than that, as she seems to have been a woman who took her faith and her life seriously.  At heart, I am an evangelical.  I believe that we are taught and equipped to go forth into the world loving others into or inviting others into God’s kingdom.  I shared with Scott and Teresa at the burial of Nancy this morning that I thought I would be preaching on Psalm 121 this afternoon.  There was a bit of teasing about “you think?” I shared how I thought the sermon was of God, and your stories have only confirmed it for me.

     Now, before I get too far down this, I need to do two things.  First, the illustrations are from Nancy’s life.  Even though we mourn with the family over their loss, over the fact that the woman they knew and loved is no longer with them, their mourning is not without hope.  Nancy has been teaching her family, her friends, her patients, and probably more than a couple doctors with god-complexes about her faith for the vast majority of her life.  She has been preparing her children all their adult life for this horizon.  So, if I have done a decent job, I am simply putting to words the preaching and teaching she has done as she lived her life!

     The second thing is that I will be preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ from Psalm 121.  Seeing the confused looks, I will remind us all this afternoon that everything in Scripture is about Jesus.  Jesus Himself said it, and the Father’s Resurrection of Him that Easter Morning reminds us that He told the truth.  Everything in Scripture is about Jesus.  Everything.  The Gospels, the histories, the prophets, and even the Psalms are about Him.

     Now, unknown to Teresa and Scott, I had a built-in affinity for Psalm 121.  They did not know it, but my second daughter graduated from Hollins a couple years ago.  I am a stitcher, and my daughter had requested that I stitch her the Hollins seal for a framed office hanging.  None of you likely have ever heard of Hollins.  It is a small, all-female, liberal arts college not too far from Roanoke, VA.  Think Harpeth Hall, but on steroids.  The college was founded and nestled along the foothills of the Appalachians range, and the Blue Ridge Mountains more specifically.  And their motto, chosen in the 19th century is levavi oculus—Latin for “I lift my eyes.”  If you look in the back of our Psalter in the BCP, that is the title of the psalm!  Every time I have gone to drop off or pick up my daughter, four times a semester for eight semesters, I was confronted with that psalm in that setting.  Like Nancy, who may have only looked out the back windows of her house on Forest Acres, the very environment reminds me and you of the observations of faithful Hebrews.

     The psalm, as some of you may know, was part of the Psalms of Ascent.  In fact, when you go home, if you check your Bibles, and especially your annotated Bibles, you will learn or be reminded that faithful Israelites would say these Psalms of Ascent as they pilgrimaged from the bottom of the hill up the Holy Mountain to the Temple.  The psalms served an obvious function.  Imagine climbing the hill up Lakemont.  Most of us could do it, but few of us would enjoy it.  Add stifling heat or bitter cold or rain, and such climbs are just yucky.  But even in great weather, like we are experiencing today, the climb would not be a “walk in the park,” by any stretch of our imaginations.  The Psalms of Ascent helped distract climbers much in the same way we use music to distract ourselves during exercise or driving our cars or doing our work.  Just as our favorite tunes help us accomplish what we are doing, the psalms helped the faithful pilgrims climb the hill.

     Typical of God, of course, the psalms also served more than one purpose.  Not only did the psalms help faithful Israel climb the mountain physically and mentally, but they also reminded Israel of God’s faithfulness.  Through their singing, Israel pilgrims would remind themselves of God’s faithfulness to His Covenant people.

     Psalm 121 does this in both an overt way and in a more subtle way, at least to our modern musical and theological sensibilities.  The overt way, as only poets among us might see, depending upon the English translation, was the author’s use of anadiplosis.  Sounds like a medical word, doesn’t it?  Maybe a good rash on our bodies?  Maybe an immune response issue?  It certainly sounds like a word Nancy might have used when talking to other healthcare workers about patient care.  At its core, though, anadiplosis is a fancy way of describing stair-step poetry.  Anadiplosis is the name of the practice of ending a line of poetry and beginning the next line with the same old, or close synonym, in an effort to build to something.  Think of it as the lyrical working toward a crescendo.  Poets use the lines effectively to build to an important message or teaching.  As readers and hearers read or listen to the poem, they are elevated to the truth or teaching or emotion that the poet wants to explore.  I see some impressed looks of comprehension.  Yes, the psalmist wrote a psalm whose teaching elevated faithful pilgrims even as they physically climbed a hill to go to Temple.  Yes, now you know why we Christians believe all of Scripture to have been inspired by God.

     The conveyed truth of this psalm was the reminder that God would care for them, through all life’s joys and vicissitudes, in the very same way that He cared from Israel through its dangers, beginning with the Exodus, but including any number of other challenges to their existence, until the reigns of David and Solomon. More importantly, perhaps to the psalmist, God would be there in the midst of their trials and sufferings. In this psalm, in particular, the psalmist reminded Israel repeatedly of the Hebrew word shamar.  We translate shamar as “protect” or “watch” or “keep.”  Those of you looking at the psalm now may notice it is used three times in the last two verses.  To put it in the language of anadiplosis, the elevated understanding that the psalmist and God want readers and hearers to understand is that God shamars His people.  The psalm begins with the reminder of Creation and the shade and light of the Exodus and speaks specifically of battles.  But the final teaching of the psalm is that God watches over everything in His peoples’ lives, not just corporately, but individually.  He watches over our coming and going both now and ever more.

     God is so attentive to the needs of His people, God is so paying attention to what befalls us, God is such a loving Father to us, we should know that He is always paying attention to us, even when we think or hope He is otherwise distracted.  Those who knew Nancy and wonder where this wonderful God was when she died might rightly challenge us, or her, where He was in this last great challenge of life.  If God is so loving, so caring, so good, why did He let her die?  More perplexing would be the question of why she believed?  After all, she was a nurse.  She better than most understood the ravages of disease, the nearness of death, and the dysfunctions of families exacerbated by the stresses of dealing with disease and death.  Her love of this psalm convinces me that Nancy understood that God’s faithfulness in her past, and in the past of those who came before her, was that God would shamar her even in the face of death.  How could she be so confident?

     Nancy rightly understood that our Lord was a God of redemption.  So often, we think so much is up to us.  Our healthcare system likes to think and teach that a right procedure or right medicine or a right “lifestyle” change can postpone death.  But in those wars of life and death, Nancy realized the truth that life is truly a fragile gift.  Doctors and nurses can labor with all their expertise; no matter how hard they work and how much they know, however, death is ultimately unconquerable . . . for us.

     In our tradition, we remind ourselves that Jesus was not just a Savior but also the Teacher of how we should live, that His life provides for us a pattern for holy living, to quote the Collect.  Though He lived a sinless life and should have been recognized as the Anointed One of God by the various signs miracles that pointed to the fact He was the One predicted in the writings and teachings of the Prophets, and rabbis, and even the priests.  For His faithfulness, they put Him to death, even as the crowd, those whom He came to save, cheered them on.  Thankfully, in the midst of such defeat, God was not done.  He raised Jesus from the dead and gave Him authority over all.  Now, by virtue of our baptism, we have a share in both His death and Resurrection.  And so we remember that hope in the midst of such seeming finality.  The same God who raised Jesus from the dead has promised each and every one of us who proclaim Him Lord that we, too, will share in that Resurrection.  That promise, and God’s persistent faithfulness, gives us hope.  His promise and faithfulness through generations who came before us allowed us to stand at her grave and make our alleluias, trusting that God would keep His promise to her, that even death could not separate her from His love.

     How do I know Nancy share such hope and determined faith, even if I never met her?  The easy way is the stories that have been told.  Yes, family members and Adventers have shared some wonderful stories about Nancy, but it goes deeper even than that.  No doubt some of you will look around and notice that some who were sharing stories about Nancy, some of those who in their way mourn her loss as do we gathered here, are not with us for this Eucharist.  They, too, though, came to pay their respects.  In an age when people can post “I’m praying for you” at the losses of our loved ones, they showed up in the Parish Hall, told their stories, and asked their questions.  Their willingness to do in person something that the rest of the world does with scornful posts and tweets, tells us all something about her witness.

     As I was working on the Order of Worship last week, Scott and Teresa sent me a number of her favorite Scriptures and songs, as well as that lovely Nightingale liturgy.  In truth, I had not thought much about it since seminary.  For those of you unaware of her faith, Florence Nightingale was an Anglican.  Had she been living and worshipping in the United States, she would have come to an Episcopal Church like this one.  In our church, she is what we call a lesser saint or a holy woman.  She is not quite at the level where all Christians around the world celebrate her faith and witness as we do a Valentine next week or the life of one of the Apostles.  But we celebrate her in our church on August 12 each year, reminding ourselves of her mystical faith, and her willingness to live her faith in the world around her, bringing not just God’s kingdom to her profession or calling, but even to the wider world.  By all accounts, Florence had a mystical understanding, an unfailing certainty that God was there in the midst of everything she did to care for the patients entrusted to her care.  From learning new techniques or procedures to dealing with their extreme attitudes to everything in between, Florence was certain that God was there for the suffering.  She ministered and cared for her patients as if she truly believed and understood that she was caring for one created in the image of God.  Looking back at her radical behavior, we might see that she perceived herself to be caring for Jesus, or for someone created in His loving image.  Over time, she was recognized as “being there” for her patients, and we see that observation recognized in the litany read by Erin, herself a NICU nurse and, given her understandable difficulty getting through the litany, a nurse cut from the same cloth and faith as both Florence and Nancy.  As all nurses recognize, it is not the time spent in the career, but the difference that their presences, and the difference those presence made in each peculiar circumstance, that we and they remember when one of them dies.

     As beautiful as the tribute is—and we acknowledged some of the circumstances in our reply “she was there”—it pales in comparison to the truth that Nancy clearly understood, and the faith by which she lived her life as a mom, as a friend, as a colleague, and as a caregiver.  She was there, because she knew He was there.  In the midst of a patient’s suffering, He was there.  In the midst of trouble with teenage smart mouths and attitudes, He was there.  In the midst of watching her husband precede her in death, He was there.  In the midst of telling a doctor to do his job right, He was there.  In all her comings and goings in life, in all her life’s joys and sadness and madness, He was there.  And now, even as we, her brothers and sisters at Advent, her family, her friends, and even her colleagues lament her passing, He is here.  Better still, we give thanks that now she is there, with Him, her Saviour and her Redeemer, and that where they are, one day, we who proclaim Him Lord and trust in His promises like Nancy, may one day be!

 

In Christ’s Name,

Brian†

Did he just compare our evangelizing to Chuck Norris' hunting?

      Earlier this week, I found myself in the Family Room alone with Hannah.  I was flipping channels and came across a great 1980’s action flick called Delta Force.  I see some nods.  Yes, this is a Chuck Norris flick.  Of course, I had not seen a good roundhouse kick in some time, so I stopped on the movie to instruct Hannah on the virtues of Chuck Norris.  Hannah, for her part, has heard all the jokes.  She just does not have all the background of his movies or television show.

     Now, based on the age of many present today and some of the confused look on your faces, I am going to assume you do not know much about the cult of Chuck Norris jokes out there on the interwebs.  I was introduced to them more than a decade ago playing World of Warcraft.  Sometimes, a good Chuck Norris joke was required to join a raid.  Sometimes, people just told jokes in the cities and pubs.  It was a thing.  My personal favorite was: The last thing the boogeyman does before going to sleep is to check under his bed for Chuck Norris.  Ah, I see that’s a new one for some of you.  There were other good ones:  Chuck Norris makes onions cry.  Chuck Norris does not read books; he stares at them until they give him the information he needs.

     One of the more popular ones, though, was Chuck Norris only goes killing.  Hunting allows for the possibility of failure, and Chuck Norris never fails.  Good, everyone is mostly laughing but with a confused look on your face.  In the background, everyone is wondering what in the heck this has to do with spiritual gifts and our readings today.  Bear with me.  It might make sense later.

     Our story from Luke is fairly famous.  If you have ever travelled to the Holy Land, it is even more famous than we think.  I think folks from St. B’s told me after their last trip to the Holy Land that there were maybe 6 sites that claim to be the place where this event took place.  It sounds like anywhere along the coast there was a natural amphitheater, people decided to try and make some bucks off Christian tourists.

     Jesus is preaching and teaching, as He often is doing.  His preaching and teaching, we were reminded last week, were full of grace.  His hometown friends and neighbors were shocked by His eloquence and wisdom, even as strangers were drawn to Him.  Unsurprisingly, as he teaches and preaches, the crowd grows.

     If you have ever been in a crowd and tried to hear someone talking, you know the difficulty.  Add a kid or three, someone reaching into their pockets to unwrap candies, sneezes and coughs, and, well, y’all get the idea.  The more people present, the greater the distractions.  Naturally, everyone keeps pressing in on Jesus to hear Him better.

     Jesus spies the two boats and asks one of the fisherman, whom we learn is Simon Peter, to put out into the lake with Him in it.  Simon does as he is asked.  This gives Jesus a boundary from the crowd and allows them to hear Him better.

     Jesus preaches and teaches for some time.  When finished, He commands Simon to toss his net out in the deep water.  Simon, for his part, knows fishing.  Luke shares that the fishermen were out the night before and caught nothing.  Simon is humoring the Master, at this point.  He has zero expectation of catching anything, based on his lifelong experience fishing this lake and the recent experience of the prior night.

     Imagine his surprise, though, when his net is filled to near breaking!  Simon has so many fish, he calls to his partners to come and help get the fish out of the net and into the boat.  Peter has caught so many fish, Luke shares, that both boats nearly sink!

     Simon Peter recognizes that what has happened is miraculous.  He begs Jesus to go away, because he, Simon, is a sinful man.  Jesus, as we all just read, tells Simon not to be afraid and further instructs him that from now on He will be catching people.  For their part, Simon, James, and John all lay down their equipment, abandon their boats, and follow Jesus.  What has all this to do with gifts?

     One teaching I want us to notice is really counter-cultural to us living in a post-Christendom Protestant United States.  What do I mean by that?  We are too individualized for our own good, even those of us who claim to be active Christians.  Christians are called to live in community.  We gather as a group of people to encourage one another and be encouraged, to pray for one another and be prayed for, to instruct one another and be instructed, and to faithful obey God His effort to draw the world to Himself through us.  Think of our vows at Baptisms.  Our first vow, after the Creed, is the promise to continue in the fellowship of Christians.  Yet how often, how easily, do we fail to keep that vow?  I mean, in the grand scheme, it’s a pretty easy vow, right?  But sometimes it seems so hard to drag ourselves to church.  Ugh, I am tired.  Man, Brian is going to put me to sleep anyway, why not just stay in bed?  I can get through this on my own; I don’t need help.  Things are great; I don’t need God right now.

     For my part, and I get I am the “professional” Christian here, I have that conversation over and over and over with people in our community.  As long as I have the Bible, I have God.  I don’t need to go to church.  I don’t need to write checks to church or take Communion or pray with others to be a real Christian.  We get so myopic that we miss the point that God calls us into community.  We have talked more about that on Trinity Sunday, but you and I are called into right relationship with the Trinity through the work and person of the Son.  The Son restores us through His death, Resurrection, and Ascension; and the Holy Spirit empowers us to accomplish God’s will in our midst.  Even when people are called to a life of a prayerful hermit or hermitess, that vocation is acknowledged in community.  The Body affirms and commissions the called.

     This focus on individualism, though, affects every effort to evangelize.  How many of you, before this question, knew Jesus was telling Simon that Simon would be fishing for people?  It is not a statement found in Luke.  But what happens?  We hear that we will fish for people and we become like the great fishermen that we know in our lives.  We look to the weather, we look to the sky, we consider the fish we are trying to catch, and we consider the water in which we will fish.  Then we place a reflective lure in sunny weather or a red lure in murky waters or the tried and true worm and bobber and cast our rod.  Then we hope to catch a fish.  Most of us do it singly, hoping to catch fish one at a time.

     We think evangelism must work the same way, right?  If I have the winsome words; if I do the right service; if I have the answer to their questions; they will choose God.  Hopefully, many of us are vaccinated against that attitude thanks to last week’s reminder that Jesus was rejected by people, and He had all the knowledge and answers and the power to miraculously cure or provide or cast out.  If He can fail, what are our chances of guaranteed success?

     Notice, though, the two communities present in this story.  On the one hand, there is the crowd.  Jesus is teaching and preaching to a crowd of people who want to hear what He has to say.  He is not standing on a street corner condemning passerby’s.  Jesus is teaching about God and God’s love for all humanity.  It is almost like He is casting a net . . .

     The other group, of course, are the fishermen.  We know fishermen, so these men seem relatable to us.  They probably knew every inch of that lake.  They probably told tales about the big ones that got away.  We assume they drank some; they likely cussed.  You are laughing, but understand that when I talk about fishermen, you already have an image in your mind.  You know men and women like Simon and James and John, or you have seen them on Deadliest Catch, right?  And, yes, Jesus switches the bait, so to speak, but it is clear He is fishing among two distinct groups in this pericope, tossing a net to catch as many as possible for God.

     Think of our ministries around here, and the communities in which we fish for the glory of God.  We just served the homeless in our community last night.  Our community came together to fish in another community.  Sitting there you might say, well, I’m not like Dale or Larry or Betty or Anoosh or Gregg or Lynn or whoever.  You are correct.  Betty herds the cats.  Anoosh washes and prepares the bedding.  Gregg & Lynn cooked the pork butts.  But, do you contribute faithful to the parish and the work that God has given us to do?  Do you pledge or offer financial gifts?  Do you pray that the ministry will glorify God?  Do you tell your friends about it?  Then you are a part of that work.  You are part of the Body that we call Advent that is seeking to serve those without a roof over their heads and to remind them that God loves them dearly, even if the world seems to have forgotten them.  What about those who are food insecure in our midst?  It’s the same thing, but we add some strong backs for unloading on the third Thursday each month.  What about those in need of counseling for mental health but who lack the resources necessary to pay for what it is worth?  Again, through our support of Insight, which we all make possible, we are reaching into another community to honor God, to remind them we think mental health is as important to God as physical health.

     I see some looks of understanding now.  That’s right.  We are intentionally casting nets into communities we believe God is calling us to fish.  We are not in search of a single fish.  We are not looking for a lost lamb, those God goes after them to.  We are a community ministering to several communities in our midst.  And what does Jesus have to say about our faithful obedience to His calling on our community?  Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.  Like the Chuck Norris joke about killing, we have no chance at failure if we are obeying God.  Now, success from God’s perspective may not align with our own or that of the world, but that’s our problem.  We know that when we obey God faithfully, He accomplishes His purposes.  Heck, we know that when we disobey Him, He is going to accomplish His purposes without us; but He desires that we all choose obedience and remember repentance when we disobey.  But the glorious news is that we cannot fail.  He has called us to catch!

     One last lesson I want us to notice here in Luke’s lesson.  We are in the season of Epiphany, the manifestation of God in the work and person of Jesus Christ.  What is the sign that manifests to the fishermen that Jesus is of God?  Right, the full nets.  Place yourself in the crowd on the shore as you see this unfold.  Would you recognize the catch for what it is?  Or would you assume Simon saw a school and cast his net over it?

     Jesus gives the community of fishermen the very sign they need to identify Him.  It is incredibly specific.  They failed to catch anything the night before.  Now they have so many fish that their boats are sinking!  Against all their wisdom and experience, that cast of Simon should have been as worthless as all their casts throughout the night.  And yet  . . . Simon immediately recognizes he is in the presence of someone from God.  Simon has zero idea at this point that Jesus is the Anointed One of God, be he knows without a doubt Jesus is from God.  His address of Jesus changes from one of Master to Lord.  He bows at Jesus’ feet and begs Jesus to go away because he is a sinful man.  What does Jesus do?  He tells Simon not to fear and invites him to follow Him.  Such is the confirming sign, that the fishermen leave everything behind to follow Jesus.

     Adventers talk a good deal about our desire to see great miracles in our midst.  Some go so far as to tell me that the lack of big miracles hinders their ability to do God’s work in their lives.  The problem with “grand” miracles is that they are almost too big.  Certainly, they did not cause everyone to follow Jesus, as did the three fishermen in this story.  How many in the crowd turned to God when Jesus fed the 5000 men plus women and children?  How many in the crowds turned to God when Jesus called Lazarus out of the tomb?  Over and over the so-called big miracles do not seem to cause mass repentance and more determined faithfulness.

     Notice, though, the responses of those who benefit from the healing, the casting our, the unplugging of ears, or the cure in a synagogue.  How do the recipients often respond?  They often, not always, but often recognize the healings, the provisions, the miracles for what they are.  And they become those who catch the people in their respective communities. 

     Brothers and sisters, each of us have particular stories, particular experiences with God in our lives.  We are called into a community we call Advent to share those experiences, to test those experiences, to exhort and encourage others in the same situation to trust God, who is incredibly faithful to each and every one of us, and to take what we have heard, what we have learned, what we know of Him into the communities in which we work and play.

     So often, we think this process we call evangelizing is complex, that it requires a specific set of words or actions or who-knows-what to be successful.  Yet all it requires is faithful obedience on our part.  All we have to do is to listen to God, to attune ourselves to His nudges or guides or whispers, and then to act accordingly.  We are each involved in who knows how many communities out there, beyond these walls.  And it is our involvement in those communities that makes us fit ambassadors for His efforts to redeem them.  Yes, we might risk our reputations?  Yes, we might be perceived as not entirely fitting in.  But our job, as His sons and His daughters, is to draw others into the only Community that truly matters, the only Community that will exist long beyond our time in Nashville or even this world.  All He asks is that we cast the nets which He has provided each of us, into the communities in which He has placed us, and to fear not!  He is in the business of catching people into His saving embrace, and we know, thanks to how He caught each one of us, what a great catcher He is, and the amazing love we feel in that embrace!

 

In Christ’s Peace,

Brian†