Thursday, January 25, 2018

There's more to the story


To Honor the Death and Life of Donald Brekke                                                            
John 2: 1-11                                                                                                                                                       
How did this happen? I received a call last week from a young adult who grew up in this congregation. She had been grieving since she received news of Don’s death. She said something like this, “I thought he was fine and now, he’s gone…” I asked her how her life had overlapped with Don’s over the years, and she described how he had been like a grandfather to her, greeting her every Sunday. They had served in teams together, including a Call Committee, and after each meeting, he walked her to her car on his way to “my beautiful Shirley,” as he put it. She remembered that well. Even after Shirley and Don moved to Lyngblomsten, they still made it here on Sundays (in spite of the effort that took on their part), and they promised this young adult they’d be at her wedding, a promise they kept.

This was the Don that people at Christ knew, the Don who was present. He loved singing in the choir, although he stopped when it became too difficult. He painted alongside Clayton Knutson. He was a faithful part of the Men’s group, saying “it’s good for men to get together and talk with other men,” and he loved to go golfing with various men over the years. When he served on my Call Committee, he mentioned that although Christ has had very good pastors over the years, it’d be nice if someone would stay for awhile. That was a deep value—staying, showing up, and he didn’t really talk about his faith, not really at all… but week after week, he was present.

Now, people at Christ were also aware of another side of Don—the difficult side. Some remember his fierce arguments when he was a younger man, some remember his high standards and unfair critiques, and as I gathered with you, dear Shirley, and Mimi, Thomas, David, Jane… and two of your spouses and two grandchildren, this is what bubbled up—what we wish Don had been able to say, even just once—“I’m sorry for the hurtful things I’ve said and done. I love you. I’m so proud of you. I love you.” Out of this deep pain, finally expressed, here’s what was emerging, a deepening of your shared commitment to let this watershed moment be a new beginning, a moment when God might offer healing. In these times, we’d like it to happen all at once, a miracle of forgiveness and letting all the pain of the past disappear… and that may happen, but it may be also that we simply have to keep showing up for one another, sharing the words of love we longed to hear, practicing new ways of relating to each other, love without condition.

It occurred to me during this week of thinking deeply about Don, and a certain kind of Norwegian cultural heritage, that the whole world changed around Don. Expectations around what it meant to be a man and father all changed dramatically from the time he was a child to the time he was a great-grandfather. Here, in church, he was reassured that in baptism, God claimed him as his own, marked him with the cross of Christ, forever… and so as he laid with hands crossed over his chest last Wednesday, we spoke that same promise. Just as Christ died and was raised, so for you… you are beloved, child of God, not because of what you have done or failed to do, but because of God’s actions… the one who brings new life out of death, the one who mends all that’s broken, the one who heals broken hearts even daring to bring joy in the middle of grief.

Jesus, in the very beginning of the gospel of John, is at a wedding. He’s a young man, and when the party is running out of wine, his mother Mary turns to him and tells him to do something. Two weeks ago, when we heard this gospel, I noticed how sometimes, we need a nudge from someone who loves us to do greater things… but this time around, I’ve wondered, did Jesus look at his mom and think, “Really, will I ever live up to your expectations?” The only thing Jesus said to her sounds kind of rude, “Woman, you must not tell me what to do…” However, they both knew that in their culture, running out of wine would have been a terrible shame for these neighbors, and they both knew Jesus could do something about it… Jesus doesn’t say the words we wish he would, but what Jesus does is to go and quietly, behind the scenes, make a miracle.

In a time and place where water was typically not fit to drink (that’s at least one reason for all the wine…), Jesus took water meant for washing feet, probably gathered from a stream, not particularly pure, and he tells the servant to take it to the wine steward to drink. There’s the first totally surprising act—that the servant did it. I would think that person took it with trembling hands and a furrowed brow, and then, she got to be first witness to the miracle! Somehow through Jesus’ presence, something very ordinary became the very best gift that wedding couple could have received—more than enough wine for all their guests to experience joy at their wedding.

When my own grandfather died, I received a copy of a family Bible, and I really didn’t want it… I get a lot of Bibles, and then within the pages, I found a treasure. My grandfather, who was very hard on his own children, told this story about his life—that he had been abandoned by his mother & then by his father. This bitter story meant that there was a passing on of bitterness… but in the Bible, here’s what I read in his aunt’s handwriting, “George E. McDonald, adopted…” I had just read a book about how we get to decide how to craft our memories, we actually have far more choice than one would ever expect about how we shape the patterns of our brains, and we get to write our stories the way we choose.[1] My grandfather could have placed the emphasis in his story that way, and I like to think that now he does, now that he sees more clearly, face to face… But for me, this was a watershed moment, a moment when I began to tell my family story in a new way. See, it makes sense that now I am adoptive parent, there’s a precedent… my grandfather was adopted.

In a wonderful sermon by Thomas Troeger, he asks us to imagine more to the story. Just imagine… Jesus made literally a ton of wine, more than the wedding guests could ever have consumed. Just imagine… some kind person must have bottled all that excess of wine up for that couple, an amount that would have lasted their whole marriage. They would have shared it at their Sabbath table, and to celebrate each birth of a child, each milestone event along the way. And when they were very old, sharing the last bottle, and they looked back over the times of gladness and the deep griefs of their life, and how that wine had sustained them, just imagine this conversation.

Here they are on a chilly night. She is in front of the fire, trying to warm her feet and hands for they are always cold now. He pauses coming into the room where she sits on a bench pulled right up to the grate. He studies her in the light of the fire: the shape of her forehead, the deep creases in her face, and the lips he has kissed 10,000 times. All of a sudden, with a prompting he cannot explain, he blurts out: “Honey?” At first she does not hear him so he calls again, “Honey?” She slowly looks up, and he says, “Honey, what if we finish the wine tonight. The rabbi’s wine. There’s just one little bottle left.  It might warm you up a bit.” “Sure, sure,” she says, “that would be good.” So he goes and gets the wine and brings it back to the fire with the only clean cup he can find. He sets it down and uncorks the wine speculating: “I wonder if it will still be good, after all these years.” “Always has been,” she says. “the rabbi's wine has never gone bad, it's as amazing as the way he provided it.” The husband pours the first serving and hands his wife the cup. She sips and hands it to him. They look at each other and nod their agreement: the wine is as rich as the day they were married.
 They drink very slowly, and as they drink they start to tell stories.
She says: “I remember when Sarah was born. You would have thought nobody had ever been a father before, the way you carried on, calling in the whole neighborhood, they drank an entire crate of this wine, as if it were our wedding all over again.” “Well, you did just about the same, when Benjamin and Rebecca brought home our first grandchild.” The wife laughs a hearty laugh, “Yes, I did, didn’t I? Oh, those were such good times, good enough to want them never to stop.”
He pours some more wine, and they each take a sip and he stirs the fire, and they sit absorbed in the flame. She sees him out of the corner of her eye and notices he is trying to hold back tears. She knows what he is thinking: He is remembering when the third child died. Been terribly sick. Tried everything. But he died anyway. All she could pray for weeks on end was “My God, my God why have you forsaken us?”
They were both so distraught, and God didn’t seem to answer, they didn’t know what to do but blame the other one. One evening he came home and she had supper ready, and they set things out on the table without saying a single word, going through motions that had become rituals of habit, the only thing holding them together day by day now. When they sat down they realized she had not gotten water from the well and he had not brought home any wine from market. So he got up and found one of the bottles of wine from their wedding.
Might as well open it now. No sense saving it for special occasions anymore. So he opened it and poured some wine for each of them. And when the wine touched their lips they tasted grace in their hearts, and they broke down and sobbed together. The grief of their loss never went away —how could it— but the strength to carry the grief together, that was what the wine of Jesus gave them.
And now sitting in front of the fire, he turns to look at her, and hearing him move she turns toward him and they look at each other, and she takes his hand saying, “Yes, Honey, I know, I know.” He is silent, then holds the bottle upside down over the cup. There are a few last drops. He hands the cup to her: “Here you finish it,” She takes the smallest sip and hands it back to him pointing out there is still the tiniest bit at the bottom. He puts the brim to his lips and throws back his head holding the cup straight over him, then slowly brings it down and holds it between them. “That’s it,” he says with a voice that sounds both satisfied and sad. “All gone. None to pass on to the children or the grandchildren now.
Just the story of our wedding at Cana, and the rabbi who blessed us with wine. Just the story. But no wine.” “Not to worry” responds his wife. “Not to worry. As long as people come to his table, there will be more.”[2]
Today, we are gathered, in this moment of grief… and Don’s life is done, with all its joys and sorrows, with all that was done and all that was left undone, with all that was broken and all that was good.
And today, we’ll gather in just a few minutes around Jesus’ table and share Holy Communion. We’ll take a piece of bread, a sip of wine, and we can know that in this wine, we receive not only a little wine to warm us but the presence of Jesus, who brings forgiveness, re-connection, and the strength to carry the grief together. Here, today, is a new beginning, an opportunity to remember that we get to shape the stories from here on out, and that at Christ’s table (at all those tables where Jesus is guest and host), even if the wine appears to have run out… we don’t need to worry. As we gather around Jesus’ story and Jesus’ cup, not to worry… there will be more.

In closing, this is a prayer that some of us know from daily practice at Holden Village, and some of us know from Evening Prayer. I know it’s a prayer that you, Shirley, know by heart. If any would like to join with us in praying it, you can find it on page 317 (Evangelical Lutheran Worship).

O God, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending… by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown. Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go, but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.




[1] Remembering the Future, Imagining the Past: Story, Ritual, and the Human Brain by David A. Hogue.

[2] Troeger, Thomas H: 10 Strategies for Preaching in a MultiMedia Culture, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996

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