conjectural navel gazing; jesus in lint form

sermon for memorial day

Follow the link below for the text to the sermon. It is a bittersweet Sunday.

This is my last sermon as the intern here at North Shore Baptist Church. It seems appropriate somehow that I have you all to myself on some level. Doug and Carol are not here to catch me if I falter. Brothers and sister, it appears that the training wheels have come off.

Lord, help us all.

A week ago, I was in Washington DC for the Festival of Homiletics. It is a preaching conference held every year in a different part of the U.S. The host church for this years conference was The First Baptist Church of Washington D.C. It was a glorious time. And, just so you know, I took a bunch of notes. I wanted to make sure that I came back to Chicago with as much as I could. One preacher in particular helped me see something different about a sermon. Rev. Beecher Hicks of the Metropolitan Baptist Church preached a sermon that just blew me away! His choir sang. His band played. He got us up on our feet and literally had us in the aisles singing.

Don�t worry, I won�t ask you to do that, but if you feel so moved, never think that I would be the one to stop you.

I remember almost every word of that sermon. It was a powerful word about Noah and his call. The message was succinct and thorough�the sermon just the right length. I left the conference that night feeling like Rev. Hicks preached to me, that he had remembered me and that I was transformed by his word. It was a monumental sermon, one fitting for a city of monuments.

In the style of Rev Hicks, I want to tell you up front what today�s sermon is about: It is about remembrance. There is Jesus in the upper room asking to be remembered. There is Jesus in the upper room remembering all of us in the generosity of his gift of the Lord�s Supper. We remember Him and Christ remembers us.

Washington, DC is a city of monuments and memorials. The First Baptist Church is one of them. Jimmy Carter worshiped in that church. It has been a presence in DC since 1802. It helped establish George Washington University. It is a monument.

While in the city, my friends and I visited the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, the Korean War Memorial, the Vietnam War Memorial and last, but certainly not least, the World War II Memorial.

I mentioned last year on Memorial Day weekend that my grandfather and his two brothers fought in WWII. I brought the hat again in case you needed the reminder. So, it was for them, and for my father, that I went to the memorial.

Why my father? I remember my grandfather�s funeral in 1991. I remember my father and my uncle sitting by the graveside as the undertakers folded the American flag that draped my grandfather�s coffin. My father is not one given to great emotion, at least not to expression of grief or sadness. His face reddened as they folded the flag. He wept when they handed it to him.

This is a difficult memory for me. My grandfather�s death was not an easy one. Nor was his life after his return from Europe back in the 1940�s. Our relationship was uneasy. The memory of his funeral is frustrating and painful. But somehow, I knew that going to this memorial was something I needed to do.

If you have the opportunity, watch some of the news coverage about its commemoration. The monument is huge, its symbols generous. A large pool is surrounded by pillars�one for each state that sent its children to serve. One of my friends remarked that it resembled Stonehenge. It is that impressive.

The pool in the center calls to mind the Pearl Harbor memorial in Hawaii. But, in DC, you can wade in the pool. Children played in the pool. It seems inappropriate at first, until you realize that the men and women who served and died did so for that very thing: for a future for their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. Children are supposed to play in those waters.

I thought of my grandfather and of his older brother who passed just a couple of years ago. I miss them. It saddened me to think of them. But as troubled as I was, the faces of the veterans told of even more difficult stories. Men in wheelchairs�their medals displayed on their chests or the brims of their hats. Hearts, stars and ribbons all signs, symbols and memorials to a time I do not know and only can remember through the memories of others and monuments built in cities.

These monuments often call us to remember things we would often rather not. There were over 400,000 American casualties alone. These are sometimes difficult memories. The can be memories of death and loss. There are also often memories joy and happiness that attend. In either case, it takes courage to recall these things, to stand in a public place, a place set aside for such memories and simply remember, remember the faces and the names. It takes courage to move on. It takes courage to allow them to change our present. It takes courage to take these memories with us into the future. They are sometimes burdensome, but we are to take courage and to remember.

This same kind of thing happens all the time for us. It does not necessarily take a monument to get us to remember. Sometimes the memories come flooding in unwanted and uninvited. Sometimes these memories, positive or negative, transform us as well. They call us to be different people than we may have anticipated. We change careers and relationships because of these memories. Sometimes the transformation is involuntary.

You know the kind of memories I am talking about? I have this memory of my mother�s parents� house in Arlington, VA. Arlington is a suburb of Washington. When I was small we would visit fairly often. I remember the glass bottles my grandmother had. Their colors would shimmer in the sunlight. I remember conversations and toys. I also remember the chimes at the nearby Lutheran Church. In the afternoon, at 5:00, those chimes would play. Every day. I did not know the tunes then, but my grandmother did. She would sing them. She would walk my brother and I around the block and we would sit on the stoop across the street and listen to the chimes. This is a powerful series of memories for me, and I assure you they have a lot to do with my being a musician and (hopefully) a pastor. I am trying hard to take courage and live into these memories of chimes, simple chimes.

Do you have a memory like this? Do you have a memory of something that seems small, maybe inconsequential, that you have had the courage to live into or that have gradually transformed you?

From the upper room Jesus gave us memorials, monuments if you will of Bread and Wine. We are asked to remember these things, but to what purpose? We are asked to �do this in remembrance� of him. Again and again we do this. Once a month in some traditions, weekly or even daily in other traditions. Whatever the tradition, there is a remembrance of this upper room. There is a remembrance of Christ.

I dare not become sentimental. I dare not declare what is a right or a wrong memory. But I must declare that our remembering Christ is more than just an exercise of the gray-matter. It is more than a casual recollection. No. It is, in stead, a re-entering the story. Christ remembers us by giving us this moment. This is an ordinance but not in the sense of a "blue law." It is not a parking regulation. It is not empty by any stretch. It is rife with the grace and love of Jesus.

There he sits with his friends asking that they remember him. How could they forget? How could they ever forget the one who has changed them so? Yet, they would. They would deny him. They would run off into the hills to hide from those who might hurt them for being the friend of Christ. One would even betray him utterly. He would give his life for the memory of His friends and the promise of God to always love God�s own creation.

Then he appears to them again. By the sea over breakfast, in a conversation on the road to Emmaus, in a room to Thomas�sharing again Christ�s own vulnerability, �Touch my side, Thomas. Remember me. Do not forget me.� This is God grace pouring out upon us all. For this grace, the grace of memory, the followers of Christ took courage and came out of hiding. They took courage and proclaimed God�s love to the ends of the earth. It is this we remember.

Our remembrance of the upper room, Christ�s sacrifice and his resurrection is a grace from God. It puts all our recollections, our seemingly unimportant memories, in the context of the upper room. Our acceptance, our participation, our adoration and even our betrayal are gathered into this one room, into this one meal, into the memorials of wine and bread. When Jesus said, �do this in remembrance of me,� his words cut through time and are spoken to us here. In this, God's Son came to save us.

Like the memories that shape us on a daily basis, this remembrance does the same. We may celebrate it monthly, but it echoes through our lives, claiming us slowly and inexorably. We are to do this in remembrance of God. Christ institutes them in remembrance of us. Christ has not forgotten us. We can take courage and come out of our hiding places. We can take courage and proclaim the love of God to the world.

Our very lives can speak to our remembrance of Christ. How we love one another, how we work, play, raise our children�

This is a fearful world. Some of you know of the three children found dead in Baltimore. It is a grizzly tale. It boggles the mind. It is impossible to imagine, like death on a cross is impossible to imagine. Can we come out of hiding and speak love into this world? Dare we take courage? Dare we stand like Christ, share our vulnerability and say, �I remember you?�

Standing at the WWII Memorial, it was hard not to think that we are again a nation at war. We are again a nation trembling. We are afraid of the dark places of the world. We are even afraid of our own power. As the followers of Christ, can we take courage in this as well? Can we stand in a world where doubt thrives, where fear and violence appear to rule, and proclaim the wounds of Christ? Do we have that kind of courage? Can we remember the upper room? Can we remember the bread and wine? Brothers and sisters, we can. For God has promised to be there with us. God will actually precede us into those places of darkness. God�s light already shines there, proclaiming release to the captives, hope for the dying and love for the world. Proclaim that love. Proclaim that hope. Proclaim that release. You are the light of the world.

Take courage.
Remember.
For God is with us until the end of the age.

Posted by tripp at May 30, 2004 08:17 AM