"To an unknown god" - Sixth Sunday of Easter - April 27, 2008

What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. Acts 17:23b

In medieval Europe, a woman unable to care for an infant would sometimes place half a torn playing card among the child's effects before giving it over to the care of an orphanage, keeping the other half for herself. The card would be torn precisely so that there could be no question that the two halves belonged together. The mother hoped that, one day, she might be able to reclaim her child by reuniting the halves.

Imagine being such a child. If you knew what that torn playing card was for, it would be more precious to you than anything else you possessed, no matter how worthless it looked to anyone else. And if you didn't know exactly what it was for, well, you'd still treasure it, if only because it was something left with you by the one who gave you life. Either way, whether you knew it or not, it would be a priceless clue to finding the answer to the most important question of your life: Who am I?

When Saint Paul spoke to the learned Athenians at the Areopagus (Acts 17:22-31), his eye was drawn to one altar among the many dedicated to the pagan gods. Unlike the other altars, this altar was practically derelict: no elaborate sacrifices, no lush rituals, no myths to explain why it was there, no priests to maintain it. Someone, long ago, had set it up, maybe just in case some strange god was in that place, or maybe for some other reason... but who can remember?

And on that altar was engraved this dedication: To an unknown god. They might as well have carved a huge "?" in that stone. It was as if that altar was pleading, "For whom am I made?".

To anyone else, that altar would have seemed a worthless thing. But Saint Paul saw in it something like that torn playing card. He saw in it evidence that the pagan heart was aching with the question: Who am I? Which is really the question: For whom am I made?

And Saint Paul wanted those wise Athenians not just to ache with that question but to burn with it.

So Saint Paul gently but relentlessly unveiled for them the truth about that much neglected altar "to an unknown god" - that its very incompleteness is what made it the best and wisest and truest of all the altars. Why? Because of all the altars in the Areopagus, this was the only one that didn't pretend to be sufficient. It was the only one that left open the question: For whom am I made?

And it was therefore the only altar that left silence enough, and humility enough, for an answer to be given. That we are made for the God who raised Jesus Christ from the dead. That even though we grope for him, as if in darkness, he is truly very near us. That we are his offspring. That our calling is high - and to neglect it, perilous.

Every child born into this world has, among its possessions, a torn playing card. In its heart, there is built an altar upon which is written: To an unknown God. Worthless things, in and of themselves. Except that there is One who holds the other half. Except that there is One who longs to be known as much as you long to know.

Your incompleteness, your brokenness, is the only thing that God requires. If only you seek, God will give you everything else.

Welcome Fr. Chris King

Fr. Christopher King has joined us as our new priest in residence. We at St. James extend him a warm welcome and look forward to his guidance as we begin a new era in the history of our church. We wish Fr. Tony all the best in his retirement and thank him for his invaluable service over the past years.

A Memorial - Remembering David Clark

Sunday, February 25, 2007
St. James, Long Beach
By Fr. Tony Jewiss

Some of you will remember the days when funerals and memorials were always very somber. The priest wore black vestments and the service of Holy Eucharist was called a Solemn Requiem. The relatives and friends who came all wore dark suits or dresses and the women would usually wear a hat and veil. All that changed in the late 1960’s when a new theology surrounding our deaths was introduced. The splendor of the pageantry of life was brought to the fore; the idea of celebration was introduced. For had not the person we had loved so much on earth now transcended all that is hard and miserable, had they not been freed from the suffering and pain of their terminal illness, had they not made that fantastic and fabulous leap into the waiting arms of the creator? This was not a time, then, for too much sadness, though a little was always allowed. But sadness has a selfish component, the new thinking reasoned. Our thoughts should be reconciled and indeed happy for the one who had died, and our own, if understandable, feelings of loss be somewhat suppressed. Now the priest would wear white or gold, the lessons would reflect the awaiting joys of heaven and the hymns would tell out the triumphant news of victory over death.

In reality though, it is not so simple is it?

In fact, we are torn, and stretched dreadfully.

Of course we are happy that our loved one suffers no more, and of course we know that they are now at peace. But we don’t really know much about heaven do we? Jesus used allegories over and over to give us an idea of what heaven is like, but he did that because we simply don’t have the capacity to really comprehend. And the new theology simply does not provide what we who are left behind really need. It does not provide anything to fill the emptiness, to make the noises in the void that our special “he” or “she” used to make. It does nothing to justify setting the second place at the table, fluffing the pillows or shopping for something special for dinner. It cannot fill the emptiness in our arms, and it provides nothing for our hands to stroke.

It is a theology of good intention, and it is a theology of hope, but it is a poor theology of consolation. It is a theology that works in the long run, but not in the short term.

That is why we have to try to hold both in some kind of tension as our emotions take us on a roller-coaster ride that seems to last forever.

One thing is certainly true; we cannot and should not rely on those old clichés, you know the ones. “Try to forget”. “Get on with your life”. That is very bad advice; Better advice is to let the memories flood in, painful as they are. Let the sense of loss overcome you in waves that no sooner recede than they come again. Cry without shame or provocation. Those times call for Kleenex. That’s what they are for. In time, those memories become treasures. They could not become treasures if they are suppressed, but small and great wonders they will indeed become if allowed to mature, and find their own comfortable place in your life and in your heart.
Everything is a stretch at first, and so be it.

Our service today is something of a stretch, too.

Today is the first Sunday of the Lenten season. It is a time during which we are advised to reflect, to make some time available to ponder our lives, to take stock of where we are on our own journeys, to think of our own mortality and to re-examine our relationships. It is a somber season. We wear dark colors and the lessons remind us of the need to repent, a word which has a street-corner-preacher ring to it. It comes, though, from the Greek word to turn around, which gives it an entirely different perspective. We do not simply cast a glance of the shoulder to see what might be coming up behind us. We make an intentional turn, so that we might see clearly in a new direction, a direction we may never have noticed before, or possibly a direction down which we may have been reluctant to travel in the past.

I do not think it is at all inappropriate to allow the somber and reflective tones of Lent to inform the sense of loss we feel at the death of one of our own parishioners. We welcome the new born in the context of the Sunday service, bringing them into the family of believers in the company of parents and god-parents and friends. Sometimes, quite a few years later, they marry or join in commitment within the context of a Sunday Service, in the company of family and friends and all the parishioners who have always known them. Today we say farewell to David, whose ashes are before us.

That tension continues, because only last Wednesday we heard the words “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return” and we wore a smudge of dark dust on our foreheads to remind us and all who looked at us that we had had an encounter with reality. This dust is all that remains of the David upon whom we could once look, the David who used to come here so full of energy, so entertaining, so sure of himself. The David who had no intention of letting his cancer get the better of him. The David who had a kind of cavalier past, who had been to lots of places and done many things, who, when he was physically able, could build things, jump into the breach and work with friends to accomplish great things and who would think nothing of supporting them financially as well as physically. The David who was the equal and opposite of his Sally. Together they made a couple that was a kind of stretch in itself. So different, yet so complimentary. So opposite yet so polarized. So opinionated yet so conciliatory. So loving, yet so…loving. What a pair! So interesting and so compelling to all who knew them as a couple.

The dust in the urn here today is precious, but it is not the David we knew, it is not the David who was the other part of Sally. The ashes here are the respected remains, but the person who inhabited that body in good times and then very bad times, is gone.

We shall go, too. One of the messages of the Lenten season is this reminder. We shall go too. As we grieve, so we will cause others to grieve. As we seek meaning in loss, so we will in turn cause others to seek meaning in loss. As we struggle to sense the grandeur and pageantry of human life even as it slips away, so we will in turn cause others to struggle to sense the grandeur and pageantry of human life even as our own slips away. Yet there is indeed triumph. Not always easy to see or sense. The modern theology sees it and sometimes we have to try to focus through the tears to see it too.

“I am resurrection and I am life, says the Lord”.

These are the words we use to greet the remains of the departed one at the beginning of the Burial Office. They remind us of the great destination to which we can all hope to arrive safely. At this time in the Church’s year those words also remind us of the “how” and the “why”. One of the wonderful things about the cadence of the Church’s year is the way in which the events in human life gain their true relevance through the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ. These next few weeks will lead us almost relentlessly towards the events of Holy Week, during which we will hear on two separate occasions the story of the Passion and Death of Jesus Christ. The drama of those days will tear at our hearts, as with modern ears and imaginations we try to place those ancient events into our consciousness.

We are not strangers to injustice. “I see nothing wrong in this man” says Pontius Pilate “so I will have him flogged and then set him free”. How many modern examples of similar injustice have we known? It does not take much imagination to translate everything that happened to Jesus into events of our own time. Ruthlessness, injustice, inability to forgive, righteous demands for vengeance and revenge, the demands of the victims’ relatives to be present at the execution for the sake of “closure” – we know all about these things. Lent and Holy Week simply place before us the very need to seek transcendence from our base inclinations.

That transcendence comes on Easter morning, but first we must walk the way of the cross.

So it is as we prepare to commit our brother David to the ground. His journey is over and he has been transformed into that new life – a mystery to us, but very much a part of our hope in the Lord. “In death, life is changed, not ended” our Prayer Book reminds us. The life in which all that David Clark ever might have been is now fully realized.