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