Tell me a story. My daughter asks me all the time for stories, and she wants them to be interesting. What makes a good story? They need to have plot twists and they need to keep her attention. Whether it’s Winnie-the-Pooh, or other, lesser literature, it is the unexpected part of the story that keeps us interested. It is the unexpected twists and turns that keep our attention, make us laugh or cry, that make us care what happens to the characters. What’s your favorite story? I love the classics – Jane Austin and Charles Dickens are two of my favorites. I also love TV – I’ve been following Lost since it first came on – and movies like Indiana Jones. I love to follow their characters as they make mistakes and get surprised by life. It is deliciously frustrating to see pitfalls coming and to watch them fall into them in spite of their best intentions. And it is gratifying, after all of that frustration and trouble, to finally see them reach their happy ending – the kind ones receive kindness, the mean ones receive just rewards, and those who deserve to, live happily ever after. Tell me a story.
But of course, in real life, it is never so much fun to receive plot twists. It is never so delicious to follow frustrations and pitfalls. No, in real life these surprises are often painful and all too costly. Even when they are of our own making, they often lead us to unexpected and unwelcome journeys. It is difficult to see how anyone gets what they truly deserve in life. It is difficult to see how anyone ever expects to live happily ever after. But that is just when God says, “Tell me a story,” just as in the reading today he said to Hagar, “What troubles you?” God is not asking an idle question here. God is not toying with Hagar. He truly wants to know her story – what brought her here, what frightens her, what she expects of the future. And then God pulls that story to God’s self, and makes her story his own.
In the story that we read today from Genesis, Hagar and Sarah and Abraham are three people who got caught up in the twists and turns of their story. Sometimes these twists are of their own making. Sarah and Abraham had received a promise from God, the promise that they would be the parents of a great nation, and their offspring would be as numerous as the stars. But they misunderstood the promise. Believing that the promise was only for Abraham, Sarah insisted that he have a child with Hagar, her maid. Of course, anyone who knows anything about stories knows that this will only lead to trouble. Abraham is a good man, and he treats his first-born son as a good man should. Perhaps he also treats his son’s mother well; perhaps he even loves her. Whatever the case, Sarah is going to be jealous. We know it before it even happens, because this is what happens in stories. Already, Sarah has brought trouble on herself. She now has to adjust to a future in which she is no longer the only woman in Abraham’s life. Worse, she has to adjust to Abraham’s first-born son, by tradition his heir and possibly his favorite, being the son of another woman. Whether or not she bears the promised son, we know that there will be trouble. Luckily for Sarah, she already knows the promises God has made for Isaac’s future. She just doesn’t want to share them. Now Sarah must adjust to a new and different future, one of her own making.
Abraham must adjust to a new and different future as well. He had gotten used to being childless, and God informs him that this will change. He has gotten used to having Sarah for his wife, and Sarah informs him that he must take another woman into his bed. When at last he has not one but two sons to inherit the promises, he is informed that he must part with one of them. He must send his first-born son, Ishmael, and the boy’s mother out into the wilderness. We know that he loves Isaac, the child of Sarah. And we also know that he cares for Hagar and her son, that he was distressed on account of them. He had likely been looking forward to an old age watching the boys grow up together, enjoying their company, and being the patriarch of a large household. Now he must adjust to a new and different future, one in which the jealousies of the women and the rivalries of his sons are the deciding factors. Luckily for Abraham, he already knows that both boys will receive God’s favor, that God will take care of Ishmael as well as Isaac. Now, though he is assured of their future, he must adjust to his own.
Hagar has to adjust to a new and different future as well, one which, as far as she knows, holds nothing for her and her son but fear, probably even death. She is completely at the mercy of others. As a slave, a handmaid, she has no choice but to leave when she is cast out. No one defends her claim, and she must leave. Friendless, defenseless, forced first to lay with a man not her husband, then to bear his child, now she is being forced to leave his camp, going to certain death in the wilderness. She must adjust, not so much to a new and different future, as to a lack of a future, both for herself and for her son. She has been forced into it by others’ meanness and jealousies, by others’ lack of trust. She has not heard any word of promise or assurance from God, as Sarah and Abraham have. What kind of story can she look forward to? What troubles you, Hagar?
What troubles you? What kind of story do you look forward to? Hagar has a story in her mind that is primarily about death for herself and her son. That is the story that many of us here at Abbot Northwestern are familiar with. And there are many other stories going on here today – stories of loss, pain, anxiety, even some stories of celebration. Despair is just one of the thousands of stories held in these walls. What troubles you? God is asking. God really wants to know. When we have given up on happy endings or just desserts, God is asking, “what troubles you?” It is easy to miss God’s question. When we are hurting, or when we are watching loved ones hurting, our focus closes in, and all we can see is this moment, this time, this story. All we hear is this moment, this time, this story. It is easy to block out God’s question, to miss God’s gently urging to share, “what troubles you?”
Like the rest of us, Hagar’s focus has closed in to the story in front of her, and she is not hearing or seeing what God has put before her. What Hagar forgets in her moment of despair, what she perhaps never knew, is that hers is not the only story at work. Her story is part of a larger story, the story of God’s work in the world. Even as she despairs over the end of the story, God is at work making this story God’s own. Sarah had heard God’s promises for Isaac, and Abraham had heard God’s promises for both of his sons, but it is not until here, in the desert, when things are at their very worst that Hagar is assured of God’s promises for her own son. Finally, when she is most uncertain of her story’s end, God assures her that her story is also God’s story. And suddenly, her focus opens up! Her eyes are opened and she sees the well of water. Her focus expands, and she finds refreshment and a future. “She went and filled the skin with water, and gave the boy a drink.”
“What troubles you, Hagar? Do not be afraid, for God has heard.” It seems odd that all throughout this story, Hagar’s son has been called “the boy” or “her son.” Nowhere in the story is he called by his name, Ishmael. But when read in Hebrew, something wonderful appears. The name Ishmael means “God heard,” and so verse 17, “And God heard the voice of the boy,” when read in Hebrew, (Vayishma Elohim) says “Ishmael.” In hearing the boy’s cries, God names the boy. In naming him, God claims him, drawing Ishmael’s story, and therefore Hagar’s story, into God’s story, making them God’s own.
We also are named and claimed by God. Though I am not named Ishmael, Ishmael is a promise to me that God hears, even and especially when I feel lost and in the wilderness. As Paul reminds us in his letter to the Romans, in baptism we are united with Christ. Our story is joined to the story of our crucified and resurrected Lord, who names and claims us in our baptism. For Christians, Jesus is God come into the world, and we know that God has claimed us. God went to death on a cross in order to join each of us where we are, in our suffering, in our despair. God went to death on a cross in order to join each of our stories to God’s. When we say, tell me a story, this is the story that we are told. This is the story: that my life, and your life, each one, is joined to the life of Christ, to the death of Christ, and to the resurrection of Christ. This is the story: that my story, your story, each one, is joined to God’s story. Knowing that, we know that God hears, and that God responds. Just like Hagar, we will receive refreshment, and comfort in knowing that God holds us, and hears us, even when we feel alone. That is our new and different future. That is our happy ending.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Weeds & Wheat - sermon on Matthew 13
Are you a weed or are you wheat? That’s the first place our minds go when we hear this parable – will I end up in the fire or the barn? Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a handy little quiz to help us figure it out? I actually had a quiz planned for you – I was working up this really clever little sermon, full of wit and punch, based on a magazine quiz that would tell you at the end which you were. But as I wrote it, it sounded trite. It sounded insincere. It sounded like I wasn’t quite serious. Also, it just wouldn’t work. My quiz kept coming up inconclusive, and I couldn’t make it work. Every question just proved the point I hoped to make at the end, which is that you just don’t know. I can’t tell which I am by looking at me, much less which you are. So that’s definitely one level of this story, one place that we can carry the metaphor. That’s where I was headed with the terribly clever sermon that I was going to write. But then I started writing this one and it went a whole new place, one that surprised me as I wrote it. So I left off of the sermon I was planning and went with the one that came out. Here it is.
Jesus told parables like this because he was trying to make a point in a way that people could get their brains around. Most of the people listening to this parable would have known a lot about raising wheat – it was an agrarian society, and they spent a lot of time in and around wheat fields. They relied heavily on the harvest to get them through the year. If the harvest were to come up short, they could be certain that there were going to be hard times ahead. As for me, I know very little about raising wheat. If I want bread, I go to the store. The closest I come to wheat is buying flour and baking my own bread… with a bread machine. I might see a little bit of a change in the price if the harvest is bad one year, but not by much.
However, I have been doing some gardening in the past few years, and I’ve learned a few things about it. I’ve learned that weeds usually come up in the best soil, where you’ve tilled and amended and fertilized. They also tend to plant themselves right next to another, better established plant. They take advantage of the work that other plants to breaking up the soil and reaching for nutrients, and then they follow. That means that their roots can get wrapped up with those of the more desirable plants. If you pull one, you often pull both. Another thing I’ve noticed is that weeds have developed over time to look like the plants they cozy up to. That’s what happened in this parable.
The weed that Jesus is talking about is known as “darnell.” When it’s young, it looks just like wheat. If the workers were to go out into the field then and start trying to pull up the weeds, they wouldn’t have much idea which one they were pulling. If they pulled half of what was there, they would be just as likely to pull all wheat as they would be to pull all weeds. Better to leave it at that point. Of course, as it gets older, you can tell the difference, and you could go out and pull all of the darnell out. But by then, the wheat and the weeds have grown up so close together, that you would pull both out by their intertwined roots. Either way you’d be left with half a harvest at best.
So what if you leave it, what are the consequences? Well, having weeds in the field means that there will be a lower yield. The weeds will suck up some of the nutrients and water that would otherwise go to the wheat. This means a lower yield at the harvest. Also, darnell is a poisonous plant, so if any of it is left in at the harvest, there will be poison mixed in with the wheat that goes into the barn. The harvesters will have to be extra careful, and the harvest will take more energy this year than normal. But overall, they will probably get closer to a full harvest by leaving the weeds where they are than they will by pulling them, either early in the season or later. So that’s the background of the parable. We can look at Jesus’ time and see how there were a lot of people that were being left out of the religious and political systems, people that Jesus spent more time talking to than most. We can imagine that Jesus was trying to encourage society not to judge others too quickly, that he was telling the Pharisees to lay off with their strict purity laws, or that he was telling the Romans to ease up on their persecution. We can also imagine that Matthew, who wrote this all down, was dealing with a church full of Gentiles and Jews, and that he was trying to get both groups to chill out and live together in some kind of truce. We can all imagine, and apply lessons learned to today’s community. But there’s something else about this that was bugging me as I was trying to write that sermon, where I ended with those lessons about how we can’t judge better than God.
I think one reason that I couldn’t go with the cheeky magazine quiz sermon is that I’ve been spending this summer serving as a chaplain at Abbott Northwestern hospital. Every day, I meet someone new, who is certain beyond certain that he or she is nothing but a weed in a field of wheat. When I walked into Rosa’s room, the shades were drawn and the lights were off. Rosa was lying on her side, curled up in a ball. The nurses had told me that I could go in and see her, but they didn’t expect I’d get much out of her. Her speech was slurred, they said, and she was barely coherent. Her chart seemed to have written her off as a hopeless alcoholic. Get her sober enough to get well, and get her out of here. When my eyes had adjusted, I saw that Rosa was wearing a hospital gown, no makeup, and her glasses were on the nightstand. She was ready enough to talk to me. When I told her I was a chaplain, she sat up a little, tried to adjust herself to be more presentable. She started to tell me about herself. Her speech was clear enough, though she had a central American accent, and a slight lisp. Of course, she had been stung in the face by a bee, and her tongue had swollen up, so that was to be expected, I guess. She told me that she had been trying for some time to overcome alcoholism, and had even had periods of sobriety. She had been sober for several months before this last bender. But she had to go back to his house, back to get her belongings and her immigration papers. He talked her back in the door, and she thought she could stay sober. He started drinking around her, and she thought she could have just one drink. He started beating her, and she numbed the pain. When she came to the hospital for this allergic reaction to a bee sting she had been drunk for several weeks straight. She desperately wanted to get better and to turn her life around. At the moment that I met her, she was awash in shame. Unfortunately, that was not helped by the attitude of the doctor who came in during our visit and patronizingly told her that she needed to get sober. It was obvious that he was thinking, “this is never going to happen, but I have to say it anyway.” I asked Rosa if she ever prayed. She responded, ““How can I pray, when I am so ashamed to talk to God? How can I pray when I have been living like this?”
Rosa has bought the messages that have been given to her for years. She has absorbed enough of the attitude of the doctor and others like him that she believes it herself. She has been beaten by her fiancée, sexually assaulted, verbally abused by her mother, and God only knows what else. And she drinks. She knows she shouldn’t drink but she can’t help it. She knows she shouldn’t love her fiancée, but she can’t help that either. And worst, she thinks that because she does these other things that she shouldn’t do, she shouldn’t pray either. How can she pray, when she is so ashamed? As far as she can tell, she has let her whole patch go. She’s given up fighting them, and she’s ready to raise a weed garden. But she also senses that there are other options. She senses that there might yet be beauty and fruit to be harvested. Rosa, like the rest of creation, is longing for redemption. Rosa, like the rest of creation, waits with eager longing. Rosa, like each of us, groans inwardly while waiting for adoption, and the redemption of her body.
But Paul tells us in today’s reading from Romans, “you have received a spirit of adoption… we are children of God.” This is an already-done thing. Even though we continue to long for redemption, the promise that we have from God, the promise to which we are heirs, is that the judgment has already happened. Christ is God’s judgment on us, and that judgment is that, in spite of all that we have done, in spite of all the weeds in our patch, we are adopted, we are children of God, and we are heirs to God’s promise of freedom. God’s judgment is that while we were yet sinners, God loved us, just as we are, weeds and all. God’s judgment is that God came to earth to be with us, and in Christ took all of our alcohol and abuse, our shame and pain, and everything else that we carry. Acting in Christ, God took it all with him up on the cross, and died for it, not to deepen our shame, but to remove it, to carry it away from us, and set it aside once and for all.
Each week we come in here and confess our sins and receive the assurance of forgiveness. Each week we come to the table and receive the promise of forgiveness and redemption in Christ’s body broken and blood poured out. Each day we wake up and try to live in the freedom that Christ has won for us. But every day, new weeds sneak in. Daily, then, we are tending this field, with God’s help. And daily God sends harvest workers, and helps us to gather up the weeds and discard them; helps us to gather up the wheat and shine like the sun in the kingdom. That’s why a community garden is such a good thing. We can’t do this alone. If we do, we wind up seeing nothing but the weeds. We wind up like me the time that I pulled a whole bed of forgotten seedlings, thinking they were weeds. We wind up focusing on the weeds, forgetting about the good plants. We focus on all that we’ve done wrong, and we begin to hide ourselves from God, too ashamed to even speak to God.
It is only in community, only through the others that God has sent into our lives, that we can recognize the gifts that we have, the freedom that we have received. It is only through the others that God has sent into our lives that we can recognize ourselves as heirs according to the promise, children of God who have already received a spirit of adoption. It is a community garden that we tend. Though we each have our own patch, we help one another out, with support, encouragement, some watering, even some weeding and harvesting. And then we share the fruits of our work with one another. If I’ve got too many tomatoes, I give them to my neighbors. If they’ve got too many zucchinis, they share them with me. But we are free to work together in this garden because we are already children of God; we have already been adopted, or gathered into the barn, or whatever metaphor works for you at this point in the story. However you want to put it, it’s a done deal.
I saw Rosa again. A couple of weeks ago, I was out taking a walk at lunch time. I don’t usually take walks at lunch – it’s not like there’s a beautiful park or garden there, just hot, dirty, often smelly and noisy, city streets. But this was a nice day, and I thought I could maybe make a phone call while I walked, so I went out. I was almost back to the hospital entrance, and I had put my phone away, when a woman stopped me to ask directions. She was smoking a cigarette, and she seemed to be harried, in a hurry. I stopped to offer the best directions I could, though I don’t really know the area well. At first I didn’t recognize her. She was wearing makeup and glasses; she was dressed up and had her hair done. But then I said, “aren’t you Rosa?” She was startled that I should know her name, but said, “yes, I’m Rosa.” “I’m the chaplain who visited you when you were in the hospital here.” She grabbed me, and pulled me into a hug, and kissed my cheek. Tears began to come to her eyes, and she said, “this address is the alcohol counseling center, and I’m late and I’m lost. I overslept, and I almost didn’t come because I was afraid that I would be late, and then I stop someone for directions, and it’s you! You are a sign from God that I need to go. God sent you to make sure that I get there.” I told her that she still had almost 5 minutes and she was only 2 blocks away. She hugged me again, and went on her way, swearing that God had sent me. I think she might have been right. God sent me, as he sends all of us, to tend the community garden.
Wee
Jesus told parables like this because he was trying to make a point in a way that people could get their brains around. Most of the people listening to this parable would have known a lot about raising wheat – it was an agrarian society, and they spent a lot of time in and around wheat fields. They relied heavily on the harvest to get them through the year. If the harvest were to come up short, they could be certain that there were going to be hard times ahead. As for me, I know very little about raising wheat. If I want bread, I go to the store. The closest I come to wheat is buying flour and baking my own bread… with a bread machine. I might see a little bit of a change in the price if the harvest is bad one year, but not by much.
However, I have been doing some gardening in the past few years, and I’ve learned a few things about it. I’ve learned that weeds usually come up in the best soil, where you’ve tilled and amended and fertilized. They also tend to plant themselves right next to another, better established plant. They take advantage of the work that other plants to breaking up the soil and reaching for nutrients, and then they follow. That means that their roots can get wrapped up with those of the more desirable plants. If you pull one, you often pull both. Another thing I’ve noticed is that weeds have developed over time to look like the plants they cozy up to. That’s what happened in this parable.
The weed that Jesus is talking about is known as “darnell.” When it’s young, it looks just like wheat. If the workers were to go out into the field then and start trying to pull up the weeds, they wouldn’t have much idea which one they were pulling. If they pulled half of what was there, they would be just as likely to pull all wheat as they would be to pull all weeds. Better to leave it at that point. Of course, as it gets older, you can tell the difference, and you could go out and pull all of the darnell out. But by then, the wheat and the weeds have grown up so close together, that you would pull both out by their intertwined roots. Either way you’d be left with half a harvest at best.
So what if you leave it, what are the consequences? Well, having weeds in the field means that there will be a lower yield. The weeds will suck up some of the nutrients and water that would otherwise go to the wheat. This means a lower yield at the harvest. Also, darnell is a poisonous plant, so if any of it is left in at the harvest, there will be poison mixed in with the wheat that goes into the barn. The harvesters will have to be extra careful, and the harvest will take more energy this year than normal. But overall, they will probably get closer to a full harvest by leaving the weeds where they are than they will by pulling them, either early in the season or later. So that’s the background of the parable. We can look at Jesus’ time and see how there were a lot of people that were being left out of the religious and political systems, people that Jesus spent more time talking to than most. We can imagine that Jesus was trying to encourage society not to judge others too quickly, that he was telling the Pharisees to lay off with their strict purity laws, or that he was telling the Romans to ease up on their persecution. We can also imagine that Matthew, who wrote this all down, was dealing with a church full of Gentiles and Jews, and that he was trying to get both groups to chill out and live together in some kind of truce. We can all imagine, and apply lessons learned to today’s community. But there’s something else about this that was bugging me as I was trying to write that sermon, where I ended with those lessons about how we can’t judge better than God.
I think one reason that I couldn’t go with the cheeky magazine quiz sermon is that I’ve been spending this summer serving as a chaplain at Abbott Northwestern hospital. Every day, I meet someone new, who is certain beyond certain that he or she is nothing but a weed in a field of wheat. When I walked into Rosa’s room, the shades were drawn and the lights were off. Rosa was lying on her side, curled up in a ball. The nurses had told me that I could go in and see her, but they didn’t expect I’d get much out of her. Her speech was slurred, they said, and she was barely coherent. Her chart seemed to have written her off as a hopeless alcoholic. Get her sober enough to get well, and get her out of here. When my eyes had adjusted, I saw that Rosa was wearing a hospital gown, no makeup, and her glasses were on the nightstand. She was ready enough to talk to me. When I told her I was a chaplain, she sat up a little, tried to adjust herself to be more presentable. She started to tell me about herself. Her speech was clear enough, though she had a central American accent, and a slight lisp. Of course, she had been stung in the face by a bee, and her tongue had swollen up, so that was to be expected, I guess. She told me that she had been trying for some time to overcome alcoholism, and had even had periods of sobriety. She had been sober for several months before this last bender. But she had to go back to his house, back to get her belongings and her immigration papers. He talked her back in the door, and she thought she could stay sober. He started drinking around her, and she thought she could have just one drink. He started beating her, and she numbed the pain. When she came to the hospital for this allergic reaction to a bee sting she had been drunk for several weeks straight. She desperately wanted to get better and to turn her life around. At the moment that I met her, she was awash in shame. Unfortunately, that was not helped by the attitude of the doctor who came in during our visit and patronizingly told her that she needed to get sober. It was obvious that he was thinking, “this is never going to happen, but I have to say it anyway.” I asked Rosa if she ever prayed. She responded, ““How can I pray, when I am so ashamed to talk to God? How can I pray when I have been living like this?”
Rosa has bought the messages that have been given to her for years. She has absorbed enough of the attitude of the doctor and others like him that she believes it herself. She has been beaten by her fiancée, sexually assaulted, verbally abused by her mother, and God only knows what else. And she drinks. She knows she shouldn’t drink but she can’t help it. She knows she shouldn’t love her fiancée, but she can’t help that either. And worst, she thinks that because she does these other things that she shouldn’t do, she shouldn’t pray either. How can she pray, when she is so ashamed? As far as she can tell, she has let her whole patch go. She’s given up fighting them, and she’s ready to raise a weed garden. But she also senses that there are other options. She senses that there might yet be beauty and fruit to be harvested. Rosa, like the rest of creation, is longing for redemption. Rosa, like the rest of creation, waits with eager longing. Rosa, like each of us, groans inwardly while waiting for adoption, and the redemption of her body.
But Paul tells us in today’s reading from Romans, “you have received a spirit of adoption… we are children of God.” This is an already-done thing. Even though we continue to long for redemption, the promise that we have from God, the promise to which we are heirs, is that the judgment has already happened. Christ is God’s judgment on us, and that judgment is that, in spite of all that we have done, in spite of all the weeds in our patch, we are adopted, we are children of God, and we are heirs to God’s promise of freedom. God’s judgment is that while we were yet sinners, God loved us, just as we are, weeds and all. God’s judgment is that God came to earth to be with us, and in Christ took all of our alcohol and abuse, our shame and pain, and everything else that we carry. Acting in Christ, God took it all with him up on the cross, and died for it, not to deepen our shame, but to remove it, to carry it away from us, and set it aside once and for all.
Each week we come in here and confess our sins and receive the assurance of forgiveness. Each week we come to the table and receive the promise of forgiveness and redemption in Christ’s body broken and blood poured out. Each day we wake up and try to live in the freedom that Christ has won for us. But every day, new weeds sneak in. Daily, then, we are tending this field, with God’s help. And daily God sends harvest workers, and helps us to gather up the weeds and discard them; helps us to gather up the wheat and shine like the sun in the kingdom. That’s why a community garden is such a good thing. We can’t do this alone. If we do, we wind up seeing nothing but the weeds. We wind up like me the time that I pulled a whole bed of forgotten seedlings, thinking they were weeds. We wind up focusing on the weeds, forgetting about the good plants. We focus on all that we’ve done wrong, and we begin to hide ourselves from God, too ashamed to even speak to God.
It is only in community, only through the others that God has sent into our lives, that we can recognize the gifts that we have, the freedom that we have received. It is only through the others that God has sent into our lives that we can recognize ourselves as heirs according to the promise, children of God who have already received a spirit of adoption. It is a community garden that we tend. Though we each have our own patch, we help one another out, with support, encouragement, some watering, even some weeding and harvesting. And then we share the fruits of our work with one another. If I’ve got too many tomatoes, I give them to my neighbors. If they’ve got too many zucchinis, they share them with me. But we are free to work together in this garden because we are already children of God; we have already been adopted, or gathered into the barn, or whatever metaphor works for you at this point in the story. However you want to put it, it’s a done deal.
I saw Rosa again. A couple of weeks ago, I was out taking a walk at lunch time. I don’t usually take walks at lunch – it’s not like there’s a beautiful park or garden there, just hot, dirty, often smelly and noisy, city streets. But this was a nice day, and I thought I could maybe make a phone call while I walked, so I went out. I was almost back to the hospital entrance, and I had put my phone away, when a woman stopped me to ask directions. She was smoking a cigarette, and she seemed to be harried, in a hurry. I stopped to offer the best directions I could, though I don’t really know the area well. At first I didn’t recognize her. She was wearing makeup and glasses; she was dressed up and had her hair done. But then I said, “aren’t you Rosa?” She was startled that I should know her name, but said, “yes, I’m Rosa.” “I’m the chaplain who visited you when you were in the hospital here.” She grabbed me, and pulled me into a hug, and kissed my cheek. Tears began to come to her eyes, and she said, “this address is the alcohol counseling center, and I’m late and I’m lost. I overslept, and I almost didn’t come because I was afraid that I would be late, and then I stop someone for directions, and it’s you! You are a sign from God that I need to go. God sent you to make sure that I get there.” I told her that she still had almost 5 minutes and she was only 2 blocks away. She hugged me again, and went on her way, swearing that God had sent me. I think she might have been right. God sent me, as he sends all of us, to tend the community garden.
Wee
Kissing Crosses
“When a 92-year old woman looks at you and tells you she wants to make peace with God, you don’t argue.” That’s what the bedside nurse told me when I arrived. Gertie was lying facing away from the door when I came in, and when I told who I was, she said, “Bless you, thank you for coming.”
I sat down and she asked me to pray for some peace. She was anxious about misunderstandings with God, and she couldn’t rest. There was a prayer, she said, that had brought her peace, and she wanted to hear it again. But she couldn’t remember it. I prayed with her, and then I read the 23rd Psalm. “Such a beautiful, peaceful psalm,” she said. “I almost know it by heart.” “Shall I read it again?” “Always,” she said, “Always read it again.” So I did. By the time I left, I must have read it a dozen times.
As I read and prayed with her, I noticed that her hands wandered a lot. They could come up to her chest, where her gown was open at the neck, and they would stroke the skin there. Then they would move to her stomach and feel her belly. I wondered if she was thinking about leaving her earthly body behind – this body that had borne children, nourished and comforted them. She kept asking where her kids were. I wondered what year it was for her. Were her kids still grown, or babies in her mind? She continued to run her hands over her body, preparing, I thought, to leave it behind, to say good-bye to it.
The hardest moment for me was when she asked to pray the Our Father. I just spend the spring teaching Grace this prayer, and as Gertie and I prayed together, I prayed, too, for Grace. I gave thanks that I had taught her a prayer that she will carry with her all her life, and use when she doesn’t have words for prayer. I was grateful that the prayer we teach at the beginning of life sustains until the end of life.
I continued to think of Grace throughout the time I spent with Gertie. Gertie’s anxiousness and restlessness were keeping her from sleeping. “I just want to lie down and rest,” she kept saying, “why can’t I rest? Why can’t I just go over there and lie down?” I read the psalm again, and then stroked her forehead as she tried to sleep, making the sign of the cross on her brow and stroking her hair back from her head. I do this for Grace as she sleeps, sometimes, or when she’s tired and resting on my lap. Gertie’s mother used to do this for her, when she was a little girl, and Gertie did this for her own daughter, and probably granddaughter. I thought of them, and I thought of Grace, and I was moved by the circle of care that we are part of, the comfort that we give each other from cradle to grave. I was glad to have been a part of Gertie’s circle of comfort.
That night, as I tucked Grace into bed, we read a story from her children’s Bible. Then I asked her if she wanted to pray with me. Together we said the Our Father, call and response, one line at a time. Then I brushed the hair back from her face and gave her our special kiss. One cheek, then the other, then chin, nose, forehead, then the corner of her right eye, ending at the corner of her left eye, making the sign of the cross in kisses all over her face.
I sat down and she asked me to pray for some peace. She was anxious about misunderstandings with God, and she couldn’t rest. There was a prayer, she said, that had brought her peace, and she wanted to hear it again. But she couldn’t remember it. I prayed with her, and then I read the 23rd Psalm. “Such a beautiful, peaceful psalm,” she said. “I almost know it by heart.” “Shall I read it again?” “Always,” she said, “Always read it again.” So I did. By the time I left, I must have read it a dozen times.
As I read and prayed with her, I noticed that her hands wandered a lot. They could come up to her chest, where her gown was open at the neck, and they would stroke the skin there. Then they would move to her stomach and feel her belly. I wondered if she was thinking about leaving her earthly body behind – this body that had borne children, nourished and comforted them. She kept asking where her kids were. I wondered what year it was for her. Were her kids still grown, or babies in her mind? She continued to run her hands over her body, preparing, I thought, to leave it behind, to say good-bye to it.
The hardest moment for me was when she asked to pray the Our Father. I just spend the spring teaching Grace this prayer, and as Gertie and I prayed together, I prayed, too, for Grace. I gave thanks that I had taught her a prayer that she will carry with her all her life, and use when she doesn’t have words for prayer. I was grateful that the prayer we teach at the beginning of life sustains until the end of life.
I continued to think of Grace throughout the time I spent with Gertie. Gertie’s anxiousness and restlessness were keeping her from sleeping. “I just want to lie down and rest,” she kept saying, “why can’t I rest? Why can’t I just go over there and lie down?” I read the psalm again, and then stroked her forehead as she tried to sleep, making the sign of the cross on her brow and stroking her hair back from her head. I do this for Grace as she sleeps, sometimes, or when she’s tired and resting on my lap. Gertie’s mother used to do this for her, when she was a little girl, and Gertie did this for her own daughter, and probably granddaughter. I thought of them, and I thought of Grace, and I was moved by the circle of care that we are part of, the comfort that we give each other from cradle to grave. I was glad to have been a part of Gertie’s circle of comfort.
That night, as I tucked Grace into bed, we read a story from her children’s Bible. Then I asked her if she wanted to pray with me. Together we said the Our Father, call and response, one line at a time. Then I brushed the hair back from her face and gave her our special kiss. One cheek, then the other, then chin, nose, forehead, then the corner of her right eye, ending at the corner of her left eye, making the sign of the cross in kisses all over her face.
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