Sermons
The Times of our Lives
Gracious God—
Fill us with the urgency
that the frailty of our lives demands;
In your Holy Name we pray. Amen.
(Please be seated)
Good Morning!
The saying goes
in the preaching world
—that there are
text led sermons
and life led sermons.
This morning
is much more the later
than the former.
It’s been an intense week
—a concentrated week
here at All Saints’.
Starting with last Sunday
and our Annual Meeting tailgate party.
What a party it was
—we had brats,
beer,
the Rolling Stones,
a light show
and cheerleaders.
Quite possibly
the worst dressed cheerleaders
I have ever seen.
Worst dressed
—best rehearsed.
But more on that later.
Then on Wednesday
we had a funeral
for Lillian Scott Calhoun.
A parishioner here in the late 1990s.
She was an 82 year old woman
who was nothing short of a pioneer.
Lillian was
the first black woman
to work in the city room
of the Chicago Sun-Times.
She wrote front page articles
about the Richard Speck Murders
and Chicago politics and intrigue.
One of the well-wishing telegrams
she and her husband received
on the day of their wedding
was from Langston Hughes.
In the early fifties,
when she was working for
an integrated education magazine,
not long after the supreme court decision,
Lillian took an assignment
to go see
how integration was playing out
in the towns and cities around
Jackson, Mississippi.
If that wasn’t a daunting task
for a young African American woman—
I don’t know what was.
Her sister, who went with her,
said
she particularly remembered
when they drove into Philadelphia, Mississippi.
The tension,
she said,
just seemed to ooze
out of the streets and into their car.
But that didn’t deter Lillian.
In fact,
she rather thrived on it,
interviewing students,
teachers, principals,
board of ed members and random citizens.
Blacks, whites,
Christians and Jews,
Lillian spoke with everyone.
Lillian was a person
who saw obstacles
primarily as barriers
to be overcome or overturned.
She and her family
were the first black family
to move to Kenilworth.
She said it was easier
and cheaper to integrate Kenilworth
than it was to put four children
through the Chicago Lab school.
Lillian started attending All Saints’
in the late 1990’s.
She told me
on the front steps of our church,
after her first service here,
that she been looking for a new church.
And she’d asked around.
And someone told her,
“You ought to go check out All Saints’,
they have one of everything over there.”
She stayed for three years
until she moved into an extended care facility
and then later to New York to be with her son.
Lillian Scott Calhoun—a long life—well lived.
Then there was yesterday,
and Scott Garland’s memorial service.
Scott as you will recall
was one of cheerleaders at our annual meeting
—he was the head cheerleader.
Sunday after the annual meeting
with sweat pouring down his cheeks
he said to me—
“Thank you so much for asking me to do this
—this was great. I can hardly wait to get more involved.”
Who of us knew on Sunday
—that on Monday—
the Cessna he was in
would crash—killing all four of its occupants.
Scott was 40.
He has a wife, Jennifer,
and two children, 5 year old Gabrielle
and 3 year old Grant
—who I baptized three years ago.
His death
—brought up for me,
his family,
and I believe for many of us
—some very real theological questions.
After a lot of tears,
a lot of prayers, this is how and where I see God
in all of this.
There are no pious words,
theological phrases
or biblical passages
that will alter
the devastating reality
of Scott’s absence and death.
Nor can I tell you
that I believe in a God
—who would will this to happen;
a God who would
will Scott to die
for some unforeseen
—yet to be comprehended divine reason
or sacred plan.
That is not the God I worship
—that is not the Holy One
in whom we live
and move
and have our being.
So what—then?
What do we do?
What now do we know?
What I know
is that a part of God
died on Monday night
when that plane went down.
A part of God
now has a gaping wound,
a bloody hole
at the reality of Jennifer
going on with life
without her Scott.
Just at the thought
of Gabrielle and Grant,
going on without Scott
—our God is bleeding.
Ours is not a God
—picking planes from the sky.
Ours is not a God
who floats above our mind-numbing suffering.
Ours is a God—
who died on the cross.
A God fully immersed
in our world
who knows full well
what it means
to be naked,
exposed,
and completely unable
to stop, control or end the pain.
The God we worship
is the crucified Christ
the one who knows
more than any of us
the pain of loving and losing life.
Our God came to this place,
walked on this earth,
suffered and died,
and rose again
so that in moments like this
we might never be alone.
God holds us
—as we hang onto to each other.
God weeps
as the tears pour down our cheeks.
With every story we tell
God mourns
Scott’s short life and tragic death.
Our pain is God’s pain.
God will hold us and carry us,
when we cannot go any farther.
God will sustain us,
breathe for us
and literally pull us
from one day until the next.
For ours is a God
who knows what it means
to have someone
be there
in the midst of death.
Our God
knows what it means
to be at the foot of the cross
and
stand there
and
stay and not leave.
And what do we say?
What do we do?
We hold on tight
to one another
for that is
where we will find
God’s healing presence,
God’s Holy Hope.
We hold on tight
and we remember Scott
in all we say and do.
We embody with one another
his joy,
his goodness,
his raucousness and his passion
and
his courage
to finally see and know
that he was loved
for who he was, as he was—a holy child of God.
Our time in this world is fleeting and short.
My friends,
there are incredible people
sitting in these pews.
The All Sorts of Folks at All Saints-
people who have the gifts
and skills,
talents and abilities
to transform our world.
People who may not be here tomorrow.
I invite us, I implore us to move past our comfort zones and friendship circles and get to know more of each other. For together—I am convinced that we can bring the Kingdom of God at least two steps closer. To know and to be known is one of the basic calls from our God. May it be so in this community.
Amen.