Sermon for the 3rd Sunday in Lent: March 23, 20014

Sermon for the 3^rd Sunday in Lent: March 23, 2014

Romans 5:1-11; John 4:5-42

PREACHER: Pr. Carrie Smith

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

First of all, a big “thank you” to this congregation for the gift of continuing education time. In the past, I’ve attended preaching conferences and theological conferences here in the States for continuing ed., but this time I was able to travel with my spouse to the land of Jesus’ birth, ministry, death, and resurrection, both to attend a ministry conference and also to meet with Bethany’s sponsored missionaries, Danae and Steve Hudson. It was such a treat to be able to walk the Way of the Cross in Jerusalem at the beginning of this Lenten season. Thank you, again, for allowing me the time to make it happen.

A little over one week ago, I was sitting in Jesus’ hometown of Nazareth, attempting to learn traditional Palestinian embroidery. 

Our teacher’s name was Margot, an Arab Christian woman from near Bethlehem, and she spoke very little English. Our lessons therefore consisted of her showing us a lightning fast stitch, and then barking at us, in Arabic, “Shway, shway" and “Yallah, yallah, yallah!” which translates roughly to “Slowly, slowly…now hurry, hurry, hurry!” 

We thought we were signing up for a three hour class, three days in row, with time for sightseeing and relaxing afterward. Oh, were we mistaken! The three hours were merely for instruction. Each afternoon (and evening, and middle of the night) were for doing the “homework” Margot gave us to finish. We embroidered for at least ten hours a day.

By the second day our backs were aching from sitting hunched over, and our brains were hurting from trying to understand Arabic. We were feeling frustrated that Margot would rip out work we had spent hours doing.

And…our fingertips were bleeding! Actually, this was just me. Apparently, I was doing it wrong. Thank God we were working on black fabric!

The other women I was with – three of our ELCA Young Adults in Global Mission and one ELCA missionary—commiserated along with me about the difficulty of this project. We were humbled! We were tired! We were certain we’d never produce anything worth looking at! And was it over yet?

At the end of the third day of class, having sewn half a shawl which only a mother would think was pretty, I walked over to the table of Margot’s completed shawls, bags, and purses, and picked one out for my mother. I had admired things like this for years, but now, bearing bloody fingertips as scars from the last three days, I fully appreciated the time and effort that went into making them. I paid full price—no bargaining down. I knew it was worth every penny. 

Our teacher, Margot, is on the left

I asked Suraida, the inn manager, to help me communicate with Margot about the price, and to tell her that this particular purse was going to my mother, all the way to Texas.

For some reason, this was unbelievably funny to Margot. She smiled hugely and said, in English: “It could even go to Colorado.” And then she laughed so loud she could hardly breathe.

Well, I didn’t know what to say! Was this funny? Is Colorado some kind of joke in Israel and Palestine? I had no idea! So I smiled nicely and nodded, until Suraida said, “You will have to forgive Margot. She has suffered greatly in her life. Laughing and sewing are the only way she can survive.”

Those words stopped me short. Margot had suffered greatly. I thought about her high standards and her patience (and impatience) with us. I thought about the hours we had spent together, and how language kept us from sharing more than embroidery stitches.

I don’t know what Margot had suffered, but I can imagine. I can imagine, because I know she lives in the occupied West Bank, in Beit Jala (a suburb of Bethlehem). She is an Arab Christian woman, a minority among a minority. I know that as an Arab woman, even in the Christian community, she has little recourse if she happens to be in an unhealthy marriage. (Ninety-nine percent of marriages “succeed” in Palestine, not because they are necessarily happy or successful, but because divorce is just not accepted.) As an Arab mother, I know it’s likely she has lost a child, a nephew, or a brother in the violence that erupts all too often between Israelis and Arabs. And I know that as an Arab Christian, she has watched as her community has gradually left the land of Jesus called home, because life under occupation offers so little future for the next generation of Christians.

I don’t know Margot’s story of suffering, but I know the story of others like her. So when I see the beautiful things Margot has created with her hands, I think of the passage we heard today from Romans, chapter 5:

“And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”

To me, Margot’s beautiful embroidery is a sign of hope—hope that springs from a  deep well of faith. My bloody fingertips are all but healed already! But what about Margot? What about her family? What about her community? What about her heart? When I look at her intricate handiwork, and see how passionate she is about passing on these traditional skills, I remember how so many beautiful things are born out of great suffering: art, music, literature, acts of resistance and acts of great love.

During Lent, we as a Christian community take time to contemplate the greatest act of love—the suffering of our Lord Jesus on the cross. We walk the Way of the Cross, lovingly interpreted this year by artists in our congregation. We take on spiritual disciplines—praying more, giving more, eating less—in order to be in solidarity, not only with Jesus Christ, but with all those in the world who suffer today. And we acknowledge the pain we ourselves have suffered or have caused, and the ways in which we have fallen short of the glory of God.

But as Christians, we don’t stay in that place of darkness for long. For Lent is when we also remember that the most beautiful thing of all, the thing that binds us together, the thing that gives us the strength to carry on—namely the peace and reconciliation we have with God through Jesus Christ—was born out of pain and suffering. During these forty days we remember that while we are indeed people of the cross, we have hope because we are also people of the resurrection, and we look with anticipation to Easter Sunday, when we will celebrate that beautiful gift in all its glory.

What is hope? The hope the Apostle Paul speaks of in Romans chapter 5 isn’t merely wishing for something or showing a preference for an outcome (like hoping your NCAA bracket isn’t a total failure!) Hope is having absolute confidence in God’s love, and in the peace that even sinners like us have through Jesus Christ, in spite of anything the world throws at us. Hope flows from the living water Jesus offered to the Samaritan woman at the well! As he said to her: “those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” Through Christ, our thirst for love and grace, acceptance and forgiveness, is satisfied forever. No matter what we face in life, this hope will sustain us. For we know that “suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us.”

Now, flash forward a few days into my Holy Land trip, and you would find me standing in the lobby of the American Colony Hotel in Jerusalem—one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever stayed. Robert, who had stayed there before, showed me over to a large frame on the wall, in which was housed the history of Chicagoan Horatio Spafford. 

You probably have never heard of Mr. Spafford, in spite of our proximity to Chicago. However, his was indeed a tale of hope in the midst of great suffering.  

Horatio and his wife Anna lost their first son to scarlet fever in 1870. The next year, they were financially ruined in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. Then, in 1873, Horatio planned to travel with his wife and four daughters to Europe, but was detained in Chicago for business. He decided at the last minute to send them on ahead. Sadly, the ship sank in the Atlantic Ocean after colliding with another sea vessel. All four daughters drowned, but Horatio’s wife, Anna, survived. She sent a telegram to her husband, with these two words: “Saved alone.”  

Horatio soon traveled to be with his grieving wife, and as the ship passed over the spot where his daughters died, he penned these words: 

“When peace like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.”

You may have never heard of Horatio Spafford, but raise your hand if you recognize those words… These words of hope, written out of a father’s great suffering and even greater faith in God, have become one of the most beloved hymns of all time: “It is Well with my Soul.” 

Why, you might ask, is this history hanging in the American Colony Hotel in Jerusalem? Because, in spite of all they had suffered, Horatio and Anna went on to have three more children. And in 1881, they moved with other Christians to Jerusalem to help found the American Colony, whose mission was to serve the poor. Today, the Colony serves mostly the wealthy who stay in its luxury hotel. But while the American Colony never became the Christian utopia he had planned, Mr. Spafford has left us an enduring legacy in the hopeful words of this hymn, a hymn which has helped countless Christians through stormy waters.

My dear sisters and brothers in Christ, no matter what you are enduring today, and no matter what you have suffered in the past, today it is my hope that you will hear again the words of the Apostle Paul, who assured us that “while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.” Yes, it’s true: While we were still weak from sin; while we were still weak from sorrow or suffering; while we were even still weak from doubt; just at the right time, God proved God’s love for us through the cross of Christ.  “For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life.” This is our strength. This is our hope. And hope does not disappoint us. Thanks be to God! Amen.