Kristin White Sermon - Patsy Pemble Funeral

A Sermon Preached

Kristin White

The Burial of Patricia Roberts Pemble – June 21, 2014

St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church – Wilmette, Illinois

In the not-quite two years since I arrived as rector of St. Augustine’s, many people have asked me what this church is like. 

“Down to earth,” I said, after an usher and long-time member pulled my husband aside on our first Sunday here to tell him, “Don’t feel like you have to wear a suit to church.”

“Faithful,” I said, after one Friday morning Eucharist followed by a rich discussion over coffee.

“Good humored,” I added, after laughing out loud in the sacristy with a gathering of Altar Guild members.

“Deeply caring,” I told someone, after learning that the Good Samaritans had set up a rotation for meals and visits and lawn care, following a parishioner’s serious bicycle accident last summer.

“Committed,” I said, after the members of this parish managed to put on a self-catered meal of delicious food…for the whole parish and our bishop…at last fall’s Stewardship Dinner.

Down-to-earth.  Faithful. Good-humored. Deeply caring. Committed. Those are all words I would use to describe our dear Patsy Pemble, as well.

On May 20th, I was in Royal Oak, Michigan, for a friend’s Celebration of New Ministry as Rector…the same day Patsy was admitted to Glenbrook Hospital for what would be the last time. I left the information about where I was on my outgoing phone message, so when Patsy called to tell me where she was, she found out about my trip. I went to visit her in the Intensive Care Unit as soon as I got home. In her characteristic manner, as I walked in the doorway of her room, she looked up and said, “So. You go to see a friend installed as rector, and come home to find me here. How’s that for a welcome home?!”

I could tell you about her wit, which you just heard about, and already likely know of…I could tell you about how she and Betty Jenkins started telling stories to Mary Jacobson and me about the real history of the women’s guild at St. Augustine’s. We laughed so hard and so loudly that I am still a little bit amazed that we didn’t get kicked out of Panera that day.

I could tell you about her committed and unsentimental generosity… about her donation to the church of the beautiful covering on our altar, lovingly vested at the beginning of this liturgy by her beloved friends and fellow members of the Altar Guild…

I could tell you about her faithfulness.  Just a couple of days before Easter, after deciding we would begin our Easter Vigil service by lighting the Paschal Fire outside in the columbarium, I shared with a few people that we would start 15 minutes beforehand, by chanting the names of all who were buried there. Patsy was having trouble with her breathing then, as she had so often over the past months. She needed to lean against the lower wall as she waited, but she was there. And when we came to The Venerable Richard Pemble, she stood up. And she sang his name: “Blessed Dick,” she sang; “Pray with us,” we responded.

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In his Letter to the Romans, the Apostle Paul writes, “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing to the glory about to be revealed to us.”

Patsy didn’t mince words. She struggled with a number of serious health problems in these past years, dealt with hospitals and tests and surgeries and recoveries in her practical and honest manner. Through it all, she showed herself to be tenacious in her faith. She believed fiercely that the suffering she encountered was not the whole of it. She had a sense of, and a trust in, God’s glory still to be revealed.

What I will tell you is this: she shared ways that she had seen pieces of that revelation. She shared stories of those moments with her children and her grandchildren, with her friends, and here at the church she loved so deeply. She shared her faith and hope, with members of her Saturday morning Bible study, and by joining the conversation at our small group gatherings in Lent. She shared in service, helping to cook and serve meals when we hosted people who are homeless here at St. A’s. She shared in ministries of care, organizing our Good Samaritans to provide meals, or rides to the doctor, or other ways of supporting each other during times of need. She shared her trust in God’s glory by witnessing to it in practical and substantive and everyday ways.

That first day I saw her after coming back from Michigan and finding her in ICU, I left church in such a hurry that I wasn’t well-prepared for the visit. Toward the end of our time, I asked what else I could do for her. Even in the midst of her pain and trouble breathing, Patsy turned to me with a twinkle in her eye, and said, “Well, communion would be nice.” I brought it to her when I visited early the next day.

“Who will separate us from the love of Christ?” Paul asks in his letter. Patsy’s condition deteriorated quickly in the days that followed, to the point that Hank and Sara asked me to come pray Last Rites with her by that next Sunday. She mostly slept, while her daughter, Sara, and her granddaughter, Nicole, and I sang “Seek ye first,” to her…as Dick had sung the same hymn to her in another hospital room many years before. Her eyes stayed closed as we prayed the prayers of that Last Rite. But when it was time for Communion, I broke off the tiniest piece of a wafer, dipped it into the wine. She opened her eyes, received it, smiled…and closed her eyes again.

“Who will separate us?”

I am convinced, as I believe Patsy was when she chose these words to be shared with you all here today: “I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

And so I give thanks. I give thanks for the life and witness of such a down-to-earth, faithful, good-humored, deeply caring, committed soul to help illustrate, help reflect back to us who we are, who we are called to be.

Godspeed, dear one.

We will chant you and Dick into our midst once more, together again at the Feast of the Resurrection.

Kristin White Sermon - Trinity Sunday

A Sermon Preached

Kristin White

Trinity Sunday – June 15, 2014

St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church – Wilmette, Illinois

Hear again the words of Psalm 8:

When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers,

The moon and the stars you have set in their courses,

Who are we, that you should be mindful of us?

Who are we, that you should seek us out?

You have made us just a little lower than the angels

You adorn us with glory and honor;

You give us mastery over the works of your hands,

You put all things under our feet.

Dr. David Lose says this about Trinity Sunday: “Trying to explain the Trinity in a sermon is a really bad idea.[1]”  I have to agree with the professor.

If I were to make such an attempt, I could toss around some $5 vocabulary words, like homo ousia (which is Greek for God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit being three distinct persons of the same substance), or perichoresis (also Greek, describing the perpetual relationship between the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit).  If I really wanted to get flashy I could try to impress you by sharing the fact that the word circumincession means the same thing as the word perichoresis.

We could explore the history of the early church, wandering through stories of bishops duking it out at the Council of Nicea in the year 325 over the heretic priest Arius’ claim that “there was a time when (Christ) was not,” or the subsequent council at Constantinople in the year 381 with its confirmation of the Nicene Creed.  Or later, the addition of the Filioque Clause, that place in the traditional interpretation of the Creed, when we say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son…those 6 words are one of the few things separating us from full communion with Eastern Orthodox traditions.

So I could talk about all that for the next 7-10 minutes, make a defensible claim that sums it all up for you…and you could do your best not to fidget in your pews and discover how very much more interesting are the announcements at the back of today’s bulletin, as your patience ebbs…as boredom sets in…

My friend Elizabeth Molitors says, “not everything that might be explained should be explained.[2]”  There is a time for highly technical vocabulary and elaborate recitations of early church history.  And, dear ones, there is a time for wonder, and awe.  Hear the words of the psalmist:

When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers,

The moon and the stars you have set in their courses…

Trinity Sunday is a big deal in the life of the Episcopal Church, the one Sunday of the year that celebrates doctrine.  The one Sunday of the year that celebrates…doctrine? 

Other celebrations in the church year give us something to attach ourselves to.  Christmas gives us God, right here with us, in the person of a baby to be held and loved.  Easter gives us a tomb that is empty of everything but the shroud and a promise, fulfilled.  Pentecost offers wind and fire and words and understanding…and Church.  And now?  This day?

Who are we, that you should be mindful of us? The psalmist asks.

Who are we, that you should seek us out?

This day gives us a moment to pause, and celebrate awe, defined as “an overwhelming feeling of reverence, admiration, fear…produced by that which is grand, sublime, or extremely powerful.[3]”

During seminary I was assigned as part of a team that included two other classmates to argue the heretical side of a debate, called a disputatio, about the persons of the Trinity.  We wore our black cassocks, we trotted out words like homo ousia and perichoresis and circumincession.  We named the major players at the councils of Nicea (325) and Constantinople (381), we argued for and against use of the Filioque Clause.  As I look back on that very valid classroom exercise (valid except for the fact that my team of heretics lost…I’m doing my best to live with that disappointment)…when I look back on it, I hear the Bishop, saying: “If you can explain it, it’s not God.”  When I consider how God could be three persons – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – and still one Person at the same time, distinct members of the same substance, perpetually connected, I hear my friend wonder if, by “practicing awe, we can come closer to appreciating – if not entirely understanding – the timelessness, vastness, and complexity (of God).[4]”

Who are we, that you should be mindful of us?

Who are we, that you should seek us out?

So what is it for you that offers such an overwhelming feeling of reverence, admiration…even fear?  Can you name those moments in your life when they have happened, when your breath caught, at the magnitude and majesty?

Have you stood on a mountain, seen the range of mountains disappearing into the horizon, above and below the clouds? Have you looked up at night in the wilderness, far away from any city lights, into a sky filled with more stars than your imagination could count?

When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers,

The moon and the stars you have set in their courses;

Who are we that you should be mindful of us?

Who are we that you should seek us out?

Have you been blessed by the weight of either of those extraordinary twin privileges, to sit with someone who is growing very near to death, or to sit with someone who will very soon give birth?

You have made us just a little lower than the angels;

You adorn us with glory and honor

In the face of all that, what I know of homo ousia and perichoresis and circumincession and councils and disputatios…all of that suddenly falls short.  And what I know of awe comes closer.  Because sometimes, the best witness we can offer is to stand in the midst of those overwhelming moments…and be overwhelmed…be overwhelmed by reverence and admiration, even fear. Sometimes, the best we can do is restrain ourselves from suggesting explanations with highly technical vocabulary and appropriate historical reference. 

Sometimes, instead, the best we can do is to stand still, to allow our breath to catch in our throats, and to give thanks for the God who created us, for the God who came to be right here among us, for the God who sustains us.

When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers,

The moon and the stars you have set in their courses,

Who are we that you should be mindful of us?

Who are we that you should seek us out?

You have made us just a little lower than the angels

You adorn us with glory and honor;

You give us mastery over the works of your hands,

You put all things under our feet.

[1] http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?m=4377&cat_id=36

[2] Rev. Elizabeth Molitors, Trinity Sunday sermon 2014.

[3] http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/awe?s=t

[4] Molitors

Bryan Cones Sermon - Easter VII

Bryan Cones

Easter 7A

Acts 1:6-14

I have been imagining this week being one of the Eleven

in today’s first reading,

            standing there watching Jesus ride away on a cloud,

and then “suddenly” to have “two men in white robes” appear

and ask an incredibly stupid question:

“Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?”

I think I would want to say something like:

“Duh, my rabbi, who was crucified just a few weeks ago,

            then came back to life

and has been appearing to us,

            just floated away on a cloud.

Where else would I be looking?”

Standing and staring is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

The story reminded me of a similar one in the gospel of Luke,

written we think by the same author.

It’s Easter morning

and the women have come to anoint Jesus’ body,

            most likely weeping and miserable.

And again, “suddenly” the passage says, two men,

            this time in “dazzling” clothes,

            ask an equally stupid question,

one that might even seem cruel to a grieving person:

“Why do you look for the living among the dead?”

Two questions, both rhetorical,

            and both kind of harsh,

            as if the women and the Eleven are being dull,

even though what they are doing is totally reasonable.

It is also curious to me that these two questions frame

            this Easter season we have been celebrating.

The first is asked at the empty tomb on Easter morning,

            when Jesus’ body had seemingly vanished.

The second one comes at the time of the Ascension,

            when Jesus’ body vanishes for good,

or at least until some unknown time in the future

when he will suddenly come back riding on his cloud.

What are we to make of these questions,

asked at such a crucial time in the history of the church,

asked now at the end of this Easter season?

What message was the evangelist trying to convey?

As I have been sitting with these questions,

they have begun to sound like warnings to me.

The first one comes at an empty hole in the ground:

“Why do you look for the living among the dead?”

You won’t find life in a graveyard.

Emperors and presidents may build monuments,

            but Jesus’ witnesses can’t live in the past,

            whether reliving former glory or nursing old injuries.

There is no life among the tombs.

The second question comes as the disciples

are worried about their future

and the ancient church is looking skyward,

wondering when, or if, Jesus is coming back:

“Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?”

There’s nothing but clouds up there.

Don’t waste your time looking up,

            wondering when all this will be over with,

            as if Christian life is just putting in time

until we are fully vested in the eternal retirement plan.

It’s as if the gospel writer had a crystal ball

and knew well the kinds of temptations

his community might fall into.

Or perhaps he was just well-acquainted with human nature.

On the one hand,

there is the danger of too much focus on the past:

            the way things used to be in the good old days,

            the “we’ve always done it this ways,”

            the inflexibility and unwillingness to change

that has indeed made some churches literal “empty tombs.”

On the other hand,

there’s the danger of too much focus on the future,

            either because we become so paralyzed by fear

that we can’t take a risk,

            or because we think so much about the hereafter,

            that we forget that the resurrection is not something

                        that happens to us after we die,

            but the pattern for how we are to live now.

And so the gospel writer gives us our two men

with their dazzling clothes and their uncomfortable questions,

blocking the way to nostalgia on the one hand,

            and escapism on the other.

And between them, there is an open space, and an invitation:

“You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem,

in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

Perhaps instead of looking down

into the past of the empty tomb,

or looking up toward some imagined future,

Jesus instead is inviting us to look out at the waiting world

            so in need of the good news we have to offer,

            so in need of the life we have to share.