Saugatuck: Learning to Love and Serve
DATE: January 24, 2010
SCRIPTURE: Luke 4:12-23
Friday night my wife Linda and I watched a portion of the telethon held to benefit the Red Cross, the World Food Programme and other agencies that are working in Haiti. Interspersed between musical numbers presented by folks ranging from U2's Bono to Madonna, other celebrities offered up words encouraging support for the relief effort. I was especially struck by one such report that spoke of Haiti's children. Unlike here, where children are out of school fairly early in the afternoon, Haitian children are in school late into the day. That is why so many of them were caught in their classrooms by the earthquake. They were just turning pages, writing on the blackboard, reciting multiplication tables, when all of sudden their world came crashing down all around them. Just like that, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye they were gone. It is a devastating thought. Thousands of them were literally learning right up to the last moments of their lives. Yet, at as horrific as it is, it does hold out a lesson for all of us. For how important it is for us to be learning. Every day. All the time.
I am reminded of a stamp issued by the Post Office many years ago now. It had a geometric design in blues and orange. Across the bottom were the words: "Learning Never Ends."
How profoundly true! And it is, indeed, part of the reason that our vision statement's final line doesn't read, "Loving and Serving God and Neighbor," but rather the much more humble "Learning to love and serve, God and neighbor." Love and service are not things we can memorize, like a spelling list or the conjugation of a particular verb. Rather they are things we can be forever learning, if we so choose.
And where better than in a congregation? Where better than in a community of Christ, where we live together in covenant? For it is here, as part of this congregation, that we can, and should, learn how best to love others, how best to love God. It is here where we should be able to be so vulnerable that we can both serve and be served. It's not always easy. In fact sometimes it is very, very hard. But William Sloane Coffin was right when he said, "Church is where we learn to be free, strong and mature by sharing with one another our continued bondage, weakness and immaturity." (Credo, 149)
As most folks know, the tragedy of 9/11 struck just one day after Linda and I arrived here in Westport. Indeed the very next day, I sat on the stage at Staples High School, along with my good friend Bob Orkand, and other clergy and civic leaders here in town, as we offered up prayers and words of hope for a people as shaken as the people of Haiti are today. There were so many things that we learned together in those days. So many lessons about caring for one another, loving God and serving our neighbors.
Two weeks after that shattering event, I was invited back to River Edge to conduct a Memorial Service. That's not how it's normally done. Once a pastor leaves a place, he or she really leaves. But there was no interim and they were extraordinary times, and this was for a young woman who was trapped in one of the towers. Her name was Jennifer. She had been one of my parishioners. She was funny and bright and hopeful, for not many months before she had been declared cancer free after a long siege.
I mention Jennifer, in part, because she believed that life is full of lessons. She was forever reminding herself and others that every event in life has something to teach us. I don't know what lessons she would have drawn from the experiences of our nation in the early part of the last decade. But I suspect I know one of them. A lesson worth remembering in these days after the Haitian earthquake. A lesson Pat Robertson would do well to remember.
One day, about a year before 9/11, when Jennifer was in the throes of her cancer, having lost her hair and having to cope with other side effects, she said to me, "If I should die from cancer, just let everyone know I don't blame God." Thank you Jennifer, you were young, but you didn't stop learning, and you always were able to teach simply by being yourself.
George Mangold lived to be far older than Jennifer, but he too understood the importance of learning. George died back in 2003, but not before he and I could co-teach a course on Islam. It was a direct response to the attacks of 9/11 and the rampant prejudice against Muslims that followed that event. But George believed that knowledge is the best weapon, if you will, in the war against hatred. And so together, we co-taught that course.
George was especially fond of Sufism, the mystical branch of Islam. At his memorial service I quoted from the Sufi poet Rumi. In one of his best known poems, "Elephant in the dark," Rumi talks about how a group of men go into a dark room and discover an elephant. One feels the trunk, and thinks it's a water pipe. Another feels its leg, and thinks it is a column like on a temple. Another feels the ear, moving back and forth, and assumes it's a fan. "Each of us," writes Rumi, "touches one place/And understands the whole in that way." But, says the poet, "If each of us held a candle there/And if we went in together/We could see it."
What a powerful way to envision the church. All of us, holding candles together. Learning how to be the light of the world. Thank you George. Thank you for teaching all of us an important lesson.
I've been offered many kind words about my work here as a teacher. Encouraging words about my efforts in the classroom and in the pulpit. Most of you have been my students in one way or another—on Sunday mornings, on Wednesday nights, on retreats and mission trips, and maybe most wonderfully on Wednesday mornings as a group of about twenty of you have joined me in exploring the Bible. We've traveled with Moses through the wilderness, celebrated the victories of King David, mourned his failures, examined the words of Paul to the Romans and Galatians, and been amazed at the profound wisdom and love of Jesus. But the truth is, while I have been your teacher; I have also been your student. I have learned so much from this congregation about loving God, about serving our neighbors. Folks younger than Jennifer, and older than George, and so many in between, I have taught me lessons I hope to always remember.
Our scripture lesson is about Jesus' return to Nazareth where he teaches in his hometown synagogue. It is a powerful story, as he quotes from the ancient prophet Isaiah, and reminds his listeners of the importance of serving our neighbors by being advocates for the poor and the down trodden. I've sometimes wondered what it would have been like to sit at Jesus' feet and listen to one of his lessons. Yet, the truth of the matter is, I have. For I have sat at your feet. I have learned from Jesus as he has spoken in and through each one of you. For I take very seriously the notion that the face of Jesus can be found in all people. I take very seriously the idea that the wisdom of God is imparted to us in and through the everyday events of life. And you and I, my dear sisters and brothers, we have shared much life over these last eight plus years.
I was going to list some of the lessons that I've learned here at Saugatuck. How I'd learned from Ned Dimes that a church meeting really can be done in less than an hour. How I'd been reminded by Edna Yergin, John Canning and Bob Bosch that God is in the details. How Dorothy Bryce taught me that everyone can be a star. How the young people who went with me on mission trips reminded me that stereotypes about teenagers are just plain wrong. How Doreen, Lisa, Charlotte, Marge, Dave, John, Nancy and Paula all helped me really understand that love does indeed make a family. How Lisa Tantillo, Andrea Cross, Don O'Guin, Susie Benton and Eileen Flug showed me that the right person can get most anything accomplished. How Russ Brenneman and Cece Saunders showed me anew the importance of tending the earth. How Ed Mitchell and Ed See taught me that economic class and social station have nothing to do with integrity, goodwill and friendship. How Marj Potter, Betty Jennings, Paul Van Orden, Gary Stuart, John Walsh and each one of our moderators, showed me what real dedication to the church is all about. How Marcia Harrington demonstrated time and again that laughter really counts in life.
I was going to list some those lessons, and I guess I have, but then I realized that there are really far too many to enumerate. So many names I'd leave out. And so I stop there, and thank each and every one of you. For in your own ways, you have all taught this preacher, this teacher, this student, a thing or two about church and faith and love. In your own ways, you have been Jesus in my life. It has been an honor, and a privilege, to sit at your feet and learn how to better love and serve our God, and our neighbors, whether they are the children of Haiti or the ones sitting next to us on Sunday morning. Thank you. Might the lessons we've learned together help us all as we move separately into the next part of our lives.
Amen.
John H. Danner