Listen! I will tell you a mystery!

Ella Mae Greene is changed.

What a marvelous aching mystery.

 

On October 19 we got a call - my mother-in-law Ella Mae Greene had had a massive stroke. It did not look good. A week later, Mrs. Greene left this earthly life. I loved Mrs. Greene - still do - and I love her daughter Lisa. I had briefly hoped that they might allow me the honor of officiating at her funeral but that was not to be. Still, I had things I really wanted to say so I wrote the message below.

It is a gift - a gift to my beloved Lisa, a gift to Donna, a gift to Lonnie and to all those who knew and loved Ella Mae Greene. May her memory be a blessing.

The text is 1 Corinthians 15:51-57.

Listen, ladies and gentlemen! Listen friends and family! Listen all who have ears to hear!

I will tell you a mystery.

Ella Mae Greene has been changed.

The pain and sorrow, the body that didn’t function right; the heart that ached for hurting kittens, puppies, and children; the ears that didn’t hear so well; the knees and feet that hurt… all have been changed to something else entirely. Something without pain, tears, or sorrow.

It happened in a twinkling this past Monday. You might think that a change so big would be met with trumpets and streamers, announced on all the news channels, celebrated with wild joy and delight.

But it didn’t happen that way. In fact, the nurses didn’t even notice right away when it happened. It was quiet and quick. On this side of eternity it looked a lot like going to sleep – but oh what joy was in heaven on Monday morning, October 26! One of God’s own favorites had come home.

Now, I know that you – the people beloved by Ms. Greene, the people who loved her the most – cannot yet celebrate because it is too hard, too sad, too much a reminder of how awful and broken our world is. You would not have chosen this sorrow and pain, and God has not chosen it either. 

The God who created a perfect world teeming with life abhors the brokenness that leads to death. Abhors it so much that he sent Jesus to provide a way out of that sorrow. Mrs. Greene followed that way and many of you do, too. You seek the good that can come from a God who loves you, who is watching and crying alongside you. And that God – that Jesus – is the one that has welcomed Mrs. Greene home and the one who will be with you in the coming days and weeks and months.

That God who has enfolded Mrs. Greene into a blissful eternity will also give you moments of bliss as you live out your days here on earth. Maybe it will be seeing a puppy and thinking about how Mrs. Greene could charm even the most timid and fearful animals with her quiet gentleness, or remember her Shelly-Bell demanding treats and knowing without doubt that she would get them. Maybe you will see flowers growing in a yard and remember times that she was on her hands and knees, cultivating her own beautiful gardens; planting pallets of annuals on Mother’s Day. Maybe you were one of the people who felt the light of her smiling heart shine on you as she gave you safe harbor in her home when your world was much, much more broken than usual. Maybe you will remember the endless cups of coffee, the searches for forgotten presents, the dubious gifts of oil to grandchildren, the all-night story sessions, the much-delayed facebook posts and all the other things that make a life unique and that brought laughs then and will someday bring laughter again.

Those moments – and the stories that I know you will be telling each other for years to come – will be winks from God. Reminders of the love that is there for you and for everyone. Reminders that if a broken human being can love so much, then how can a perfect God who IS love leave anyone out?

There are many, many feelings here today – appreciation and regret, happiness and deep grievous sorrow. Maybe even all of those and more at the same time.

Please – give yourself permission to feel all of those feelings because like the life of a woman who packed so much life into a mere 87 years, 10 months, and 1 day, one feeling or word or image can never capture it all.

Most of you knew and loved Mrs. Greene for a long time – possibly even your entire life. Give yourself time to sort through all that, to feel every feeling and let it be a reminder that you never would have loved or been loved as much if life was not rich and deep, wide and layered.

But as you grieve, also know this:

Mrs. Greene has been changed. In the mystery that is heaven, she is safe in the unfailing, unbroken arms of Jesus and will also rise with all of us when the final trumpet sounds. 

The God that Mrs. Greene loved created this world to be perfect, sent Jesus into that world to show us how to live when the brokenness was too much, and is now tending the places prepared for us when we too will be changed. 

The Jesus who came to show us how to live never failed to help the poor and the helpless. Those sick in body, mind, and spirit. Those who were cast out. Jesus did not focus on the people who had privilege and position, Jesus focused on the ones who were being kicked in the streets. The one who couldn’t get a fair hearing. The ones with such incredible stories that nobody believed them – and therefore nobody bothered to help.

And what it got for Jesus was death, because that is what happens to human beings. Jesus died like Mrs. Greene has died. 

But then Jesus rose! 

I remember standing in the kitchen with Mrs. Greene around Easter time one year. She looked at me with shining eyes and an almost bewildered look on her face as she said “Jesus did that for me! Can you even believe it? That doesn’t even make sense… but isn’t it the most wonderful thing of all?”

Yes, Mrs. Greene. It IS the most wonderful thing of all. She knew it and believed it.

And so in the coming days and weeks and months when the grief comes crashing in waves, remember that God cannot be tamed and that God’s love will continue to carry you through. 

When you wonder something like “what difference do prayers make anyway?” be reminded that praying is for us. God already knows what is in your heart – is in all of our hearts – and is prepared to heal our every sorrow. Those prayers are a large part of learning to love each other through the pain.

The sting of death mentioned in our text today comes from sin and there is a temptation to give up and decide that death has won. BUT DO NOT BE FOOLED. When Jesus arose in the Resurrection, the sting was healed. 

Death has not won.

Death cannot win.

Because the stinger is removed.

And Mrs. Greene is now home with her Jesus, the same Jesus who will be loving you extra special much through everything yet to come.

May her memory be a blessing.

Amen.

A Wedding Message

 On Sunday, October 25 I was honored to officiate at the wedding of J and J, a delightful couple who had planned their entire wedding during the COVID pandemic and who ran into an array of pitfalls and difficulties that would have scared off many people. But not this couple. They persevered.

After the wedding I would drive to Augusta, GA where my mother-in-law would die the next morning from the effects of a massive stroke the week before. It was a huge contrast and working on the wedding message during the grief and sorrow of watching my mother-in-law decline into death made it all the more special. A new life together for J and J, and a life well-lived as my mother-in-law left this earth as her husband had done several years before, leaving her middle-aged children orphaned.

I'm not sure I would be sharing this otherwise, but given the circumstances, it's all pretty special to me. So here it is... the readings and wedding message from the wedding of J and J on Sunday, October 25, 2020.

The Art of Marriage 

by Wilferd A. Peterson

The little things are the big things. It is never being too old to hold hands.
It is remembering to say "I love you" at least once a day.

It is never going to sleep angry.
It is at no time taking the other for granted;
the courtship should not end with the honeymoon,
it should continue through all the years.

It is speaking words of appreciation and demonstrating
gratitude in thoughtful ways.
It is not expecting the husband to wear a halo or the wife to have wings of an angel.
It is not looking for perfection in each other.

It is cultivating flexibility, patience, understanding and a sense of humor.
It is having the capacity to forgive and forget.
It is giving each other an atmosphere in which each can grow.

It is finding room for the things of the spirit.
It is a common search for the good and the beautiful. It is establishing a relationship in which the independence is equal, dependence is mutual and the obligation is reciprocal.
It is not only marrying the right partner, it is being the right partner. 

***

The second reading you requested is from the New Testament of the Bible, 

In this passage Paul is speaking to the Christians in a place called Corinth who have been plagued with arguments. Paul is explaining a better way to be in relationship with one another with a rundown of the dos and don’ts of loving. Listen now:

1 Corinthians 13 

13 If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. 9 For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; 10 but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. 13 And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

Can you even believe you are standing here today? 

It certainly has been a long haul. A global pandemic that keeps dragging on.

Job changes – even if you thought you are in the same job!

Uncertainty about the weather… uncertainty about all sorts of things.

Delayed planning – because that’s how it goes in a time of global pandemic.

But HERE. YOU. ARE.

Standing here in front of your closest friends and family members and in front of God. Defying the forces that would keep you apart and refusing to give in to the negatives that are so readily available to all of us right now.

Today, Josh and Jen, you have stepped forward in this time of extreme uncertainty to do something very definite.

You are getting married.

And you know, marriage is not a contract. It is not a thing that you can say “well, we said this and that, and you broke the contract, so that’s the end of that.”

What you are promising today is a vow. A covenant. 

You are promising to be there for each other, to cling to one another, to turn away from everyone else and towards each other as you move through your life.

You are also promising that when things do not go well – and I am sad to tell you that there will be times when they most definitely do not go well – then you will work through it. 

You will remember the covenant that you would be there for each other and you will work it out. You will do what it takes, because you will be married to each other. 

We have talked about how you both think that Jesus was a pretty awesome person. That Jesus showed love in ways that sometimes did not make logical sense, but that always meant so much to the people being loved. 

Even in his death, Jesus somehow managed to take care of his own needs in ways that helped him care for others. That is the kind of love you have said you want to have for each other. And the passage you picked from 1 Corinthians 13 is a very nice summary of the kind of love that Jesus demonstrated constantly.

When you show that Jesus-style love to each other it will show up as being patient and kind, not boastful or arrogant or rude. Even when the fashion is to make fun of others, you will look at each other and decide… I have a covenant with this person. I will not hurt their beautiful heart. I will love them before I throw those sharp barbs.

This kind of covenant love never ends. It rejoices in the truth – even really hard truths that mean saying “oh… yeah… I was wrong about that.”

It bears all things, including watching your beloved struggle with pain that you cannot heal no matter how badly you want to do just that. And instead of trying to fix things anyway, you turn to each other in love and support and being present for and with each other.

It means that even when you are irritable with one another you will not WANT to be irritable with one another, and at the end of the day you will always turn back to each other and soothe the hurt feelings with the balm of love.

Today you are putting away childish ways of being together and choosing the adult way of caring for each other with a self-sacrificing love.

TODAY you are making that bond. No matter what happens in the future, today is the start of your marriage, the start of loving each other with covenant love that is worth the work it will take to make it endure.

And if you can remember that covenant to love each other, then someday when your dream of having children together comes true, those children will be born to parents who are bonded together.

When those children come, and you both love them to the moon and back, my hope is that you remember that being parents is not the same as being married. The best gift you will give your children is to love each other with the covenant love you are promising today. To make a home for them that is secure because you are secure with each other.

That will mean continuing to turn to each other even when the babies are crying, or the middle schoolers are being endlessly inconsistent or your grown children are so beautiful that you hardly have eyes for anyone else.

When that temptation comes, remember the vow you are making here today. Make sure to always have eyes for each other first.

Starting today you are binding yourselves to each other legally and emotionally, spiritually and physically. Today is the day you are announcing your commitment to the whole world – your intention to practice loving each other every day in the little things and through the big things.

Remember that joy. Remember that it is the love of Jesus you seek to share. Remember each other. 

Amen.