REMEMBERING MOM

REMEMBERING MOM

ELIZABETH JANE SWANK BAVARIA

February 6, 1935 - April 9, 2019

The last thing Mom said to me…well it really wasn’t to me…it was to both me and Dad, was “Just leave me alone.”  Dad had just hugged her and kissed her and told her he loved her…which he did every half hour or so;).  And I leaned in to ask about her pain.

Four words.  Four last words.  I think of all the significance that is given to last words.  I wonder how many books have been written on last words?  Last words are a big deal. 

JUST 

Mom was a reducer. Somehow when I would come to Mom with a problem, which I did frequently because she was such a safe-straight-shooter, she would reduce it to the essentials and then say something…that from anyone else…would have sounded thoughtless.  Something like, “Dearheart, what’s done is done now it’s time to move on.” Or reduced further “Get over it!”  But it wasn’t at all thoughtless.  And the reason it wasn’t was because she would then be with you all the way. She always did the follow-up! 

Mom was JUST that way.

LEAVE

Mom was a good ‘leaver’. You’d have to be to live the life she led.  She left her native home, her native culture, her rooted family.  And she began a life with Dad filled with leavings.  Most people can’t do that.  Actually, Dad could only do it because Mom was good enough at it to lend him her residual.  She wasn’t sentimental.  I think that’s a great compliment. There is too much sentimentality and not enough deep caring. Mom’s leaving ability was grounded in deep caring.  Where there is deep caring…leaving isn’t really leaving. How else does one account for the staying power of friendships forged in a life with so many short stays?

Taking LEAVE was a temporary condition for Mom.

ME
Oddly, Mom’s use of the word ‘Me’ was not self-referential…yes, I know, that sounds like a contradiction.  But…I rarely worried about Mom.  I never worried that she couldn’t handle something…or anything.  When she used the word me it was to let you off the hook.  Now that could get frustrating…because sometimes you didn’t want her to do that. Say for instance…letting the Doctors off the hook.  She would simply say “I know my body” even if her own ideas about best therapies contradicted the Doctor’s sound evidenced-based diagnostic expertise…Mom knew her body!  Unlike the popular slogan…Mom was sneaky about making it ‘all about you’.

For Mom, ME was about ‘you’.

ALONE

This word is tricky. I don’t know Mom’s Myers-Briggs identifier but I’d say Mom was damn near an introvert.  Though perfect in crowds, alone time meant a lot to her.  I remember…we all do as it has become part of family lore…how on our very first family ski trip, Mom took a bad fall and never put skies on again. Was it a bad fall…really? Or did Mom just figure out…brilliantly…how to secure for herself WHOLE days…even weeks…of alone time?  Not to mention freeing herself from the drudgery of standing in endless equipment rental lines, lacing up countless ski-boots, accompanying scared 10-year old’s on their first T-bar!  Brilliant! It wasn’t until recently that I thought about this.  Dad traveled so much, and Mom was solo parenting quite a bit.  Good for you Mom, for securing some alone time!

Being ALONE was a treasure Mom relished.

JUST LEAVE ME ALONE

Coming from anyone else I might have heard harshness. But coming from Mom it was more like “Remember who you are talking to here…I’ve got this!”

And she did.

Now that's a HOME*

Fourth Sunday of Lent

Psalm 32

2 Corinthians 5:16-21

Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

No matter how many times I hear this parable

It always seems to have something else to say

Ten days ago 

When we gathered for our Soup & Supper Evening

We began with the previous 2 parables

...the Lost Sheep and The Lost Coin

We talked about how they both culminate in rejoicing

The first two are resolved…NICE. NEAT. TIDY.

Even if there is plenty of strangeness

A shepherd doing something a shepherd would never do

And 

A woman throwing a party that cost more than the value of the now found coin

There is Lost. Found. Rejoicing.

NICE. NEAT. And TIDY.

The third…not so much.

Traditionally it has been called the parable of the prodigal son

But even though all of our Bibles are punctuated by such titles

They aren’t actually part of scripture

And they are like leading questions

They turn us toward a certain focus 

This title leads us from the outset to hear the story

With our focus on the younger son.

But lately, I’ve heard other titles 

The parable of the forgiving father…or the lovesick father

The parable of the self-righteous/pissed off older brother

But the one I landed on this week is

The parable of the Lost Sons 

They are both lost!

And I believe that what they are lost in
is RESENTMENT

They are both eaten up with resentment
It’s easy to notice the older son’s resentment

It is so obvious in his speech

He catalogs all the commandments 

he has never…not once…broken
and as he does he betrays 

how he has been keeping a careful account

He resents the father’s over the top reception toward 

“this son of yours”

TRUE

The father isn’t being fair…he just ISN’T

And there is more
Note what the older son says:

“I have SLAVED for you…
What does that say about how he understands his place in the family?

He thinks of himself as a slave!

The younger one’s resentment is less obvious

His immature idiocy is clear enough

But below the surface I see resentment

When he asks his father for his inheritance 

He is basically saying 

“Sorry pop, I just can’t wait until you are dead”

He resents

He resents having to be attached…

He resents having to be connected…

He asks for his substance…the greek word is ousia

Ousia…the ground of his being
…that upon which he stands…his tradition…his family heritage

…his identity

He doesn’t want the ‘ground of his being’ 

attached to anything but his own desires…

In a nutshell

HE DOESN’T WANT A LORD

When I think back 

When I was younger…in my 20’s -  30’s

I might call them my Frank Sinatra days

“when I did it my way”

I was soooo smart…you could have asked me;)  

I can see 

(I know…hindsight is 20/20 and all)

that it was a kind of youthful immature resentment

It was a ‘younger son’ resentment

It was the sin of Adam and Eve in the Garden

“It’s been swell God 

You’ve done just a spectacular job here

So far…but you know

I think I can take it from here!” 

I wouldn’t have said it in these terms

But I didn’t want a Lord

And I certainly didn’t need a Lord…

Now… the Older son’s resentment

His is the kind of resentment that creeps up on me

Even today
It is sneaky
I don’t notice it…UNTIL

Until it rears its ugly head 

-in a comment I wish I could take back

-in the consequences of a decision I made for all the wrong reasons

-It surfaces when I hear myself talking like that older son

…When I am defensive and judging and stubborn

Underneath it all 

There is, I feel quite certain…resentment

Things just aren’t fair

And let me show you the ledger book!

I can prove it!

Instead of not wanting a Lord

This is more like
you know…come to think of it

I think I can do a better job at this Lordship thing

I feel comfortable guessing that all of us have experience with that demon--resentment

SO…all that I’ve said so far is bad news

But there is another character in the story

If you can

Call to mind a time when you have experienced mercy

God’s mercy

--we do it here ritually in the penitential rite--

And often, for me, 

The Mercy of God comes through 

The healing of a broken relationship

In the story of the two sons and the father

We are of course like the sons

We are, from time to time

Either demanding of our substance our ousia

…thank you God, but I think I can take it from here

OR

We bury our faces in our careful calculations of fairness

And comfort ourselves by thinking what a wonderful LORD we would make

But then there is the crazy, indulgent, father 

With his questionable parenting skills

We are invited to live in the world of that father

We are invited, in fact, to become that Father

Everything…almost everything 

In the Word of God today

Is asking us to contemplate

And not just contemplate…but to celebrate

The Mercy of God

Psalm 32 with its vivid description of

Living without coming clean before God

And Paul…who reminds us that reconciled we become a new creation in Christ

Over and over again

But the Mercy of God takes on weight…

It shows up the brightest when it is part of life's rhythm 

It is brightest when next to our contrition and sorrow

But we mustn’t forget that Mercy is always first
God doesn’t need to be coaxed into being merciful

It is simply who God is
God’s name is mercy

It is always there…always on offer
there is simply no accounting for it

God is apparently not good with equations

We celebrate the Mercy of God

Because it restores us to life…to the unburdened life

To a NEW CREATION

Partnering with a Lutheran Pastor friend

My sister who is a Therapist and Grief Counselor

Visits a women’s prison in Denver 

We talked a couple days ago

And she was telling me how she grieves for these women 

who have so many stumbling blocks to overcome
along the way to experiencing mercy 

Forgiving themselves…so very hard

Forgiving those who have so hurt them 

betrayed them throughout their lives…so so hard

One reason it is so hard
is that it is almost too good to be true
Do I dare believe?

The Father in the Story

Is to me…HOME

The younger son needs to learn to say ‘Father’ again

And the older son needs to learn to say ‘Brother’ again

The Father longs for both his sons to be HOME

HOME is where his arms can reach around them both

Where they can both-together be in his heart

HOME is the large embrace

HOME is the celebration 

We are at times both sons

But we are also, especially after we leave this place, 

ever more like that Father

We are HOMES

open wide 

making good room
ready to forgive

having left our ledgers behind

Every Sunday 

We confess and are absolved
sometimes it may seem just too rote

It happens without our focused attention
but it lays in
years and years of praying that way

Changes us

And when we are sent from here

We go as ‘the father’ in the story

We go as a warm and welcoming HOME

And in our way

We contribute to building a society 

A whole society

A whole culture even

Worthy to be called 

HOME

A HOME where it is true
There is no running out of Mercy or Forgiveness or Welcoming or Celebration

For every sheep, every coin, every son and every daughter

HOME
 

SEEN

Wednesday in the Third Week of Lent

Deuteronomy 4: 5-9

What other great nation

has a God so near to it

as the Lord our God is

whenever we call to him?

I call to mind that Taize chant 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_gfim2bySg:

See, I am near, says the Lord

See, I make all things new

There was a time 

when the thought of the Lord 

being THAT near was a clear encroachment!

It is the experience of my some-things being made new

My some-things that ever fall short of my dignity

My some-things seen and lamented

But ultimately transformed 

I just slightly turn my gaze 

and I find myself face to face with Mercy

Me:
It doesn’t frighten me

That you see the all of me

It is now to me like taking in a deep breath

And resting in place

Refusing to hide

I know

I know 

I did it again
Don’t you ever tire of making me new?

God:

 Daughter, It is what I am made of

A Purse-Full*

7th Sunday after Epiphany/Ordinary Time

Genesis 45: 3-11, 41-42

Luke 6:27-38

(homily preached at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, New Harmony, Indiana)

Last week…

We heard the beginning of Luke’s sermon on the Plain.

…who is blessed…the poor, the hungry, the mourning

…who is in trouble…the rich, the satisfied, the laughing

Matthew’s version of the Beatitudes doesn’t jump to the woes so quickly

It is still tough but a bit easier to contend with

This Lucan version

its more difficult…more challenging

Both to interpret and to follow

Last Sunday I was sitting next to Ken at Coffee Hour…

I don’t remember the conversation but in response to something Rose said

He answered “well I’m already doomed…I’m not hungry and I can pay my bills…”

Something to that effect;)

It sounds so crazy impossible that…well

We don’t know what to do with it

Best to just move on to the next passage…

But no such luck

We are just picking up where we left off

The crazy impossible continues

Loving your enemies? 

…what happened to common sense?

Sounds like a good way to get smacked ONE MORE TIME

Doing good to those who hate you?

Any good therapist would name that CODEPENDENCY 

…or maybe even masochism!

Giving to every outstretched hand?

If you keep that up you’ll become a beggar!

…and when you are one you’ll find out that most people don’t give to every outstretched hand!

And finally, why not help the robber out…just hand over your shirt after he steals your coat?

-----

One night…this week…after supper 

I asked for Rob’s help

I read this Gospel out loud

When I was done

I looked at him

And all he had to offer me was two words…

and I quote:

Eazy. Peazy.

So for, Rob and Ken

And I’m guessing most all of us

this teaching of Jesus is 

well…either too much or completely lost in translation

what are we to do with it?

We have to do something

its Luke’s Sermon on the Plain

It’s central to the Lukan story

And to Jesus’ vision of the Kingdom of God 

-----

Typically the first reading is chosen to support the Gospel

…To echo a theme

Today we heard the end of the Joseph story from Genesis

And it was chosen because it is a powerfully dramatic scene of MERCY

The Joseph story is a long saga

And we only get a minor recap

BUT these brothers did worse than just sell him into slavery

There was a grand cover-up with the false evidence of the bloody coat

And Egypt was no picnic…

Years spent in prison

These brothers had a long rap sheet

This is just a GRAND story of MERCY

And it is MERCY 

precisely because 

they SOOOO DON’T DESERVE IT!!!

No.  They deserve punishment!  Retribution!

MERCY is mercy because it is purely gift…purely grace

MERCY doesn’t live in the world of ‘deserving’ 

-----

One of my favorite scenes of Mercy

Comes from the book/play/movie, Les Miserables

Jean Valjean

Who stole a loaf of bread as a teenager

Spends years in prison

And when he is released he is starved and half dead

He finds himself at the home of a Bishop

Who invites him in

Feeds him

Sets him before a warm fire

And offers him a safe place for the night 

Valjean awakes in the middle of the night

Grabs a sack and runs off with the silver

He gets caught by the local police and 

surprise---they don’t believe him when he says that the Bishop gave him the silver

Handcuffed, they bring him to the Bishop

And here’s the important part

The camera goes from Valjean to the Bishop and back

And back again

There is this long pause

A holy pause

What will the Bishop do?

And finally: “My son, I am so glad to see you. You forgot to take the candlesticks---I told you they will fetch a very good price.  God bless you, son.”

(not an exact quote)

Unless you know the story

The viewer almost always expects retaliation

The voice inside my head says “now you’ve got him…!”

-----

Between stimulus and response there is a place for pause

In that pause we are free to choose our response.

And our accumulated responses become who we are

I think the gospel is calling us to reflect on those potentially holy pauses

We may be hard-wired to respond with retribution

It is sneaky and seductive

It even feels at times that returning evil for evil is just plain necessary

A matter of survival even

But we are free to choose

-----

I don’t live as a denigrated minority 

In Roman occupied first century Palestine

And experiencing real hunger and daily scarcity of food

Is not an experience I am familiar with

But I know…

Even in the safety of my quiet southern Indiana life

I know ---a little--- of this mechanism.  

Every time I want to take back something I have said

Something hateful or spiteful

Or when I want to take back something I’ve done to hurt or punish

How many times have I said “If only…if only I hadn’t …

If only I hadn’t pressed SEND!

If only I had just paused  

If only I had slept on it

-----

Loving those who love me back

Lending to those who pay me back

Helping those who will later come and cut that tree limb off my roof…

It is a picture of life as one long tally 

A kind of running balance sheet

The first half of today’s Gospel 

Is an invitation

To take a HOLY PAUSE

So that we have a better chance to choose Kingdom Living

-----

The second half of the reading:  

Don’t judge and you will not be judged

Don’t condemn and you will not be condemned

Forgive and you will be forgiven

Give and it will be given to you

At first glance

doesn’t this sound like accounting too…tit for tat???

But these aren’t IF/THEN statements

No.  These are statements of truth.

The truth here is that our decisions

Our personal actions

Create the world in which we live

Our community actions

Create the community we live in

What we think is harmful to others

Is in fact 

Harmful to us

Our choices 

To not condemn and not judge

to give and forgive

these choices move us toward our potential of being images of our life-giving God

From the beginning 

The very beginning 

We hear the we are made in the image and likeness of God

…well we have 100% potentiality anyway

Our model to imitate is Jesus

He’s a tough model

But there you have it.

A 5 sentence story:

Jesus was walking down the road with his disciples.

Some people threw stones at him and cursed him.

Jesus blessed them.

The disciples asked him,

“Master, why do you bless those who curse you?”

Jesus replied,

“I can only give what I have in my purse.”*

I love that visual

What do I have in my purse

My briefcase

My glovebox

Or my cargo pockets?

This is where we come 

to clean out our purses

to get rid of a few recently accumulated stones

and to replace them with blessing

...with the grace on offer here

WHY?

So that

when complaining, and finger-pointing, 

and all forms of nastiness

Begin to swirl

I remember to take a holy pause

I remember to look further than those always convenient stones

I remember to dig deep into my purse

            To find there
            blessing to share

---

*John Shea, The Relentless Widow, The Spiritual Wisdom of the Gospels for Christian Preachers and Teachers, 47-51.