The Fourth Word from the Cross: "Why?"

"Christ nailed up might be more

than a symbol of all pain.

He might in very truth

contain all pain.

And a man standing 

on a hilltop

with his arms outstretched,

a symbol of a symbol,

he too might be a reservoir

of all the pain that ever was."

            --John Steinbec

Today we stand in the middle of the seven last words. Three words have gone before and three words will come after. So today we stand at dead center.

The first word, “Father forgive them…” was addressed to God for us all. It is a word of inclusion because it takes us all in.

The second word, “Today, you shall be with in Paradise,” was spoken to a thief in answer to his cry, “Jesus remember me.” It is a word of compassion.

The third word, “Behold thy son, behold thy mother…” was directed toward his mother and toward John. He gave them to each other, and so this is a relational word.

This fourth word was addressed to God. But I think there is more here than just that. Certainly Jesus spoke to God. It is the only question that we find in the seven words. But it is also a chilling, frightening, bloodcurdling kind of a word. You know it. We’ve all said it a hundred times. “My God, my God why has thou forsaken me.” This is the question Jesus railed out to God. “Why?” It is a word of abandonment. 

We’ve all asked this question. We’ve heard many other people ask this question, too. If we have ever lost a husband or a child or somebody who was special or the roof of our lives just caved in we have asked these words: “My God, my God why?”

If you have wandered through some fog of depression, some season in hell when the lights were out and you were trying to feel your way along—you’ve asked this question: “Why?”

If you have ever stood before someone or something that you couldn’t set right or heal or undo or just fix—then you have asked this question. 

Just yesterday I had a funeral for a young man who was 34 years old. He died of a drug overdose after years of struggle and pain. I have known him since he was a little boy. And sitting out there were his bereft parents and a sad congregation of their friends and we were all asking that question: “Why?” It really is a word of abandonment.

Does this question have any place in church? Of course I would rather be dealing with something positive and sunny and happy. But I think there is some connection between the awful things that happen to us and this fourth word. Do the terrors and the despair and the pain and the abuse have anything to do with this man called Jesus? Can these words be really uttered by the Savior of the world?

But I think the church did not leave this fourth word out, but put it in intentionally when they wrote the gospels. Even the placement. I think this, too is intentional. When the church sat down and collected his words and wrote them down they knew what they were doing. 

Outside the doors where they wrote a storm raged. Injustice raged. Unfairness raged. Hunger and poverty raged. The plague raged. Their little graveyard were dotted with all the names of the children they had lost and their husbands and wives and their neighbors. 

And so they put these gloomy words into the book—because they had all asked that question: Why? This word from the cross is a cry of delirium. All of us have a pain threshold and there on the cross Jesus had found his. But I think it is more than just pain. It is cry of desolation and utter aloneness so deep and black that all he could say was: “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani ?” My God, my God why hast thou forsaken me?

Did you know that these words are found in the 22nd Psalm.? Jesus probably learned them as a little boy from his mother. Like the Psalmist he was calling out a question to his Father.

We have no idea what this fourth word means. But we do know it means that if he cried and really did suffer and if he felt the aloneness that we have felt—then this word really means we have been heard and cared for and, like him, we will find hope in the darkest places in our lives.

Some of our funniest stories have been written by a man named Peter De Vries. He wrote The Tunnel of Love and a great many other books. But sandwiched in between some of his comedies there is this serious book about a man named Wanderhope. He had a little daughter who has been diagnosed with leukemia. The book was written, I guess sixty years ago at a time when there were no cures for leukemia. And so this distraught father, Wanderhope asked  his question, “Why?” over and over again. He kept asking why but no answer came. And so one day when her pain was so intense, the father in desperation went into a chapel and knelt down before the statue St. Jude, the patron saint of lost causes and hopeless cases. And this is what he prayed:

“I do not ask for her life to be spared for me—but for her. Or give us a year. We will spend it

as we did the last—missing nothing. We will mark the dance of every hour between the snowdrop and the snow: the crocus to tulip to violet to iris to rose. We will note not only the azaleas crimson flower but the red halo at the base when her petals fall. We will prize the chrysanthemums which last so long, almost as long as paper flowers…We will seek out the leaves turning in the fall. Everyone loves the beauty of springtime but who loves autumn after the leaves have fallen? We will. We will note the lost yellows in that bush that spills over our neighbor’s stone wall. We will seek out all the modest subtleties so lost in the blare

of oaks and maples…When winter comes, we will let no snow fall ignored. We will watch again the first blizzard from her window like figures locked snug in a glass paperweight. ‘Pick one out and follow it to the ground!’ she will say again. We will feed the plain birds that stay to cheer us through the winter and when spring returns we shall be the first out, to catch the snowdrop’s first white whisper in the wood. All this we ask, with the remission of our sins, in Christ’s name. Amen.”

Not long after he prayed for his daughter, little Carol went into remission and he knew his prayers were answered. But the remission did not last long. And suddenly everything went crazy and she was so sick and the doctors shook their heads.

In the middle of all this madness on the way to the hospital one morning, he’d stopped and bought a little cupcake to take to her. She loved cupcakes. When he got to the hospital he found she had died and he was not even there. 

The father just wandered around, in a daze, not knowing where he was. He still had her cupcake in his hand. He staggered outside and found himself on the steps of St. Catherine’s Church. Looking up, up, up over the door there was a stone carving of the Lord Jesus with his arms outstretched on a cross. He stared at the concrete Jesus for a long time. And then he took the cupcake and threw it as hard as he could. It hit the face of the crucified Jesus. Great blobs of icing began to drip down that face like tears and fell to the ground. And Wanderhope sat down on the steps and cried and cried and cried.

The writer, De Vries comments: Wanderhope had come to that ancient place where we all must come to. The alternative, he wrote, was the muzzle of a gun or the foot of the cross. The novel is autobiographical for the writer, De Vries himself lost a little girl and this story is really his story.

But let’s turn back to our text. We are told that some in the crowd misunderstood Jesus’ fourth word. He had said: “Eli…Eli…” and they thought he was praying to Elijah. And so the gospel says that a soldier, touched by the pain and pathos, took a spear and dipped a sponge into vinegar and sour wine and held it up to the parched lips. But others said, in derision, “Wait. Wait. Let’s see if his Elijah comes.” And they laughed and laughed. 

Do you remember what happened next? The text says: “Jesus cried again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit.” The Greek reads differently from the English words. The Greek says: “With a great shout he gave up the spirit.” And a soldier standing nearby had heard that shout before. It was the cry of a warrior coming back from battle after the war was over. Jesus died, not defeated and broken but with a victory cry. It was the cry the soldier had heard a hundred times. And that soldier said something so strange that those around him thought he had lost his mind. Looking up he said, “Surely this was the Son of God!”

What is this fourth word that came down from the cross? It is a word for the wounded. For anybody who has asked: “Why? Why? Why? No wonder the church, later linked what happened on that cross to those old words in Isaiah 53. “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried over sorrows…But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made was whole, and with his stripes we are healed.” (Isaiah 53. 4-6)

You see he can take our questions too. Like great blobs of cake we can even throw them at the cross. Jesus takes them one by one. And after all the question and the rage—the outstretched arms of Jesus still remain.

I close with the word of the Roman Catholic theologian, Karl Rahner that commented on these words: “If you prayed like this, O Jesus, if you prayed in such agony, is there any abyss so deep that we cannot call out from it to your Father? Is there any despair so hopeless that it cannot become a prayer by being encompassed within your abandonment? Is there any anguish so numbing that it must no longer expect its mute cries to be heard amidst heaven’s jubilation?

(This sermon was preached at the First Presbyterian Church, {Pendleton, SC, March 11, 2018)

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

The Third Word from the Cross: "Mother, Behold Your son..."

photo by Georgie Panwelo / flickr

The first Sunday of Lent we began a sermon series on the seven last words that Jesus spoke from the Cross. The first word was a word of forgiveness: “Father, forgive them…” The second word was spoken to a dying thief: “Today you shall be with me in paradise.”

Today’s word is the first of the seven words we find in John’s gospel. It is a powerful word. The scene is the cross. Four women stand there. Mary, Jesus’ mother; her sister Salome; Mary, the wife of Clopas; and Mary Magdalene. Four women. And with them stands one lone disciple: John. One gospel calls him the disciple whom Jesus loved. 

Four out of the five standing there were women. What in the world would we do without the women? Early in the story there is an Elizabeth and a Mary. Both pregnant. There there is that old woman, a prophetess named Anna that we meet in the temple shortly after Jesus’ birth. Of course all twelve of the disciples  were male but on the ledge of a well in a public place he asked water of a woman with a spotty reputation. You weren’t supposed to do that. When they threw a woman at his feet—caught in adultery. Jesus knelt down and wrote in the sand  and lifted her up and sent her on her way singing. Once again our Lord  broke all their rules in a single action.

Before the crucifixion our Lord’s feet were washed by another woman—much to Judas’ horror. The money spent on the perfume poured on Jesus’ feet could have been spent on the Building Program or feeding the hungry. Judas whispered “What a waste!” Right before his crucifixion Jesus stopped at the home of Mary and Martha when they had lost their brother. And the book says Jesus wept. And so at the cross there are four women and one man. If that were not enough—Mary was there to take her boy’s broken body down from the cross. But on Sunday—Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and “other women” the text says—they were there to anoint Jesus’ dead body. Last at the cross—first at the tomb. Wee know how the rest of that story ends Easter. Easter. The first European convert was a wealthy woman named Lydia. But the names geo on and on. Take the women out of the book and it would be poorer indeed.

But take the women out of our lives and where would we be? Florence Nightingale…Dorothy Day…Rose Parks…Mother Theresa…Oprah…Maya Angelou. And to those we might add your mother and mine and those thousands and thousands of others. Why we’d have to fold up the church without the women.

When our church was trying to introduce women deacons for the first time one of our women came up and said, "I'm against this woman deacons thing." "Why?" I asked. "Because we still need to give the men around here a little something to do."

photo by Chema Concellon / flickr

Working on this sermon I remembered there was always a Mary in my life. My own mother working 7:00 to 3:00 in a cotton mill every day until her retirement. Always. In High School I had this Journalism teacher who put up with my adolescent antics. She believed in me and nudged me to write. Nobody in my family had ever been to college and so one day she said, “Roger, I think you ought to go to college.” In the first church I had, next door was yet another Mary. She would knock on our door late in the evening and want to know if she could help with the baby. She knew we had no idea what to do. Her real name was Rosa Claire. And after a stormy business meeting she would come to our house bringing her own special communion:  unfermented grape juice and fruit cake. She would come and stay just long enough to lift us up and tell us it was gonna be all right. Years later the last time I went back there to preach I looked out and there she was. Victim of a stroke. Mouth drawn. She had aged. And shed looked up at me and smiled as best she could.  I could go on and on. And so could you.

photo by nicoreto / flickr

This third word is: Behold. Look. See what is there. Mary, Jesus’ mother needed someone to take care of her. John, his disciples needed somebody to take care of. Sometimes the reverse is true. Mary needed to take care of somebody and John needed to be taken care of. I want you to look closely for around that splintered cross Jesus created a whole new family.

The third word that came down is a command really. “Behold!” Look See. Open your eyes. See beyond the suffering. See beyond the confusion and awfulness of that day. See beyond the soldiers that gambled for his garments. See beyond every diversion of that dark Friday afternoon. Jesus saw his mother. Jesus saw his disciple, John. What would happen to them? “Mother look at your new son, John. John, look at your new mother.” This is a remarkable word. Even dying Jesus transformed every relationship. 

I think we’ve got our eyes closed today. Not much real looking. Little beholding. We’re so busy propping up the NRA we don’t see. What? All those Mamas from Sandy Hook to Parkland, Florida. Politicians don’t see them they see that $178,000 and a free parking place at Reagan National Airport. See. We Democrats and Republicans need to see what ought to be as plain as the nose on our faces. We are to be a United people and all we’re doing today is gouging at each other. Calling students that hid under desks and scared for their lives—actors. God help us when we don’t see. This third word is a word of relationship. We’ve got over 700,000 who think they will be forced to leave college and service and jobs and family and be sent back to a country where many of them cannot even speak the language and never remember living there. Look. These young people called Dreamers are as good as they get. And we are going to throw them away. See. I picked up Time Magazine last week.The editors sent a fine photographer James Nachtwey all over the country to capture pictures of real people caught up in this Opioid crisis. In 2016 alone we had 64,000 people dying every year from drugs. That is more than all these wars we have been fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan and the entire Vietnam war. Look.  It’s not pretty. One

Memorial service for seventeen gunned down in Parkland, Florida
photo by SacredHeartPix / flickr

mother said, “The fact that he’s still alive means that there’s hope.” Fifty miles away her 31 years old boy Billy sleep beneath an overpass in Boston. Another mother in that same article talked about her 24-year-old-daughter Michaela who was struggling with and addiction before she died in September. “Even though she was drug-addicted, she was just so alive. She was funny, she was smart. She was a 5-ft.1-in., 103-lb. dynamite.”

I know this is depressing business. But the third word says: “Look.” and maybe if we look long and hard enough we might just begin to do something about what matters most in this country. People. That’s the bottom line. Remember what Jesus said in the last parable he ever gave? Remember? He said, “Inasmuch as you do it unto the least of these…you do it unto me.” And they said, “Least? Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and did not take care of you?” And Jesus responded, “Truly I tell you as you did not do it to one of the least of these you did not do it to me.” We cannot avert our eyes if we follow this Lord Jesus.And since we’re talking about family he also said, “By this they will know you are my disciples, when you take care of each other.” Another version says: “When you love one another.” It starts right here…and stretches out to wherever you go.

Look around you this morning. Open your eyes, Jesus said. What do you see? Look around you. Look at this choir. We’ve got some kids here—look, really look. And we’ve got some couples and middle-aged people and old folks. Look around you. We have no unearthly idea what some people have been through. You and I have no idea what dangers, toils and snares some of the people in this very boom are sloushing through right now. It doesn’t matter if we are young or old or in between—Conservative or Liberal for rich or poor or scared or self-righteous or mean or kind as can be. This third word says that we are given to each other. Mother, behold your son. John, behold your mother. The only connection we can really claim today is this cross up there—a plus sign—connecting us one and all. With ties that are stronger than blood when properly understood. 

There is a very famous painting in which Mary, the mother stands at the end of Good Friday with all the pathos and sadness etched into her face. In her hand she carries a crown of thorns. John holds her up. The artist, I guess is trying to say that as she stood there to the very end. And as they took the broken body down she said, “Can I have that?” And they gave her his crown. And she kept it. In the painting John leads her away and she holds the crown of thorns in her hand. And the scripture says: “From that hour on, the disciple took her to his own home.” Jesus never wants anyone abandoned. 

This has been a hard sermon to preach. There are so many things out there I would just as soon not see. But we have to put down where we are with what we have beside this word that came down from the cross. It was not only for Mary and John. It is, I believe a word for us.

I think the story I am about to tell says what I am trying to say. It was Christmastime for the Preschoolers. And they had been taking clay and molding it into little bowls to give to their parents for Christmas. They worked for days. Sometimes they messed them up and they would have to start all over again. But they were so excited. They took those little clay bowls and put them in a kiln. On the last day before the Christmas holidays the teacher gave everyone their bowls. The kids had told their parents for weeks that we have a surprise for you for Christmas. Can’t tell you what it is—but it will be a Christmas surprise. So as school let out one little boy ran fast, trying to put on his coat and holds surprise at the same time. And he stumbled and fell down. The bowl slipped out of his hand and broke. No. No. No. He couldn’t believe it. And then he began too cry. His Daddy came over to him, patted him on the shoulder and said, “Son it doesn’t matter.” But the Mama came behind him, took the son in her arms and held him tight. She said, “Oh, but it does matter…it matters a great deal.”

And this is why we have dealt with this hard word. It matters, you see—it matters a great deal.

photo by Chema Concellon / flickr

(This sermon was preached one the third Sunday of Lent, March 4, 2018 at the First Presbyterian Church, 
Pendleton, SC)

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

Guns...Guns...Guns...Guns

photo by M & R Glasgow / flickr

How many times must a man look up
Before he can really see the sky?
Yes, and how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, and how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died?
The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind
The answer is blowing in the wind..."
            --Bob Dylan


I'm Preaching next Sunday on the third word that came down from the cross. From the cross Jesus saw his mother and spoke to her with a voice of great tenderness. Even as he died he remembered her. 

So I have been thinking of all those mothers from Sandy Hook to Parkland who are trying to deal with the loss of their sons and daughters. After the shootings--life will never, ever be the same again. Mrs. Robertson whose daughter was killed in the Sixteenth Street Church bombing said: "I was getting ready for church when my husband came home that morning to tell me that our daughter Carole had been killed by a bomb. Life was different," she said, "Always different after that."

I wonder in this yet-another-discussion of gun violence and safety ad nauseam--we need to stop and look at those mothers whose lives have been turned inside out. Funerals for fourteen-fifteen year olds were not what they signed up for as parents. 

All this stupid talk and all the pontifications of those who ought to know better--few mention the mothers who stand by their own personal crosses. Their faces and their grief have been lost in the shuffle. Doers the NRA care really about these parents? Has the President really stared at the pathos and pain of this yet-another-shooting? 

We don't need teachers packing guns. We do not need investigations about who fell down on their jobs. The Sheriff. His deputies. The Mental Health facility. The schools. The parents. The FBI. Or--God forbid--the Democrats. These last few months especially we have made a cottage-industry out of pointing fingers the other way. 

It is time, high time to do something about AR-15's. It is high time to do something about a non-law which says 18 years olds can buy these weapons made for war. It is high time to do something about real honest-to-God background checks. It is high time to dry up these gun shows where anybody can buy anything. It is high time to quit making money or power the bottom line in this gun debate. And for those who worship the Second Amendment--which says: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." The Originalist-addicts of this amendment forget when this sentence was added to the Constitution they had muskets in mind. They had slaves that might rise up and overpower their owners. They had people scared to death of Indian raids and attacks from England and other countries. They had wild hogs and huge bears in mind when they penned this document. 

There was no FBI. No Security systems. No 911. No police in every hamlet and city in this country. No National Guard would could come to our rescue as needed. Nobody will take our guns away--for hunting or even basic protection. Everybody knows this except maybe a few radicals.

But we do need to give attention when the most civilized country in the world is acting like the most uncivilized. Maybe our children will rise up and do what us adults cannot do. Maybe they will take to the streets by the millions until those in Washington might really hear the voices and the pain and the challenges of those who hid under desks and carried the caskets of their friends days later. 

Thomas L. Friedman, a columnist of the first order wrote last week about the utter gut-less-ness of our political leaders who are more afraid of their $174,000 annual paychecks and free parking at Reagan National Airport that they just look the other way when it comes to dealing with a problem that is killing innocents every day. It was first printed in The New York Times which is not particularly as fake as those who hide behind that word, fake to ignore the truth. Friedman ended his article by saying: "...never underestimate what some people will do for a $174,000 job and freer parking at Reagan National Airport."

God bless America--God knows we need it today as never before.

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

The Second Word from the Cross: "Today..."

photo by Rosa Helena / flickr

For this Lenten season I have chosen the seven last words that came down from the cross. Last Sunday we talked about that first word: “Father Forgive Them…” But today’s word is addressed to an outcast. Jesus speaks to a criminal who also hangs on a cross. If the first word Jesus spoke was a word of inclusion—it takes us all in. This second word is a word of compassion. 

We must remember that there were three crosses on the hill that day. Sometimes we forget the other crucifixions. But the Scriptures say that two others besides Jesus hung on crosses  that Friday afternoon. Some scholars think they were not criminals as much as revolutionaries. Remember that Rome invaded their country and was in charge of everything. And the Jews hated Rome and its Emperor and all it represented. Even their coins were Roman coins. So these two banded together with others to drive Rome out of their country. They wanted to take their country back. They lived up in the hills and they would slip into the cities after dark and steal from Rome what Rome had stolen from them. Sometimes they would slit a soldier’s throat just to make a point.

These bandits were rough and bloodthirsty. And one day in the temple area a terrible fight broke out. When the dust finally settled a Roman had been killed and three Jews were hauled off and charged with murder. Jews were not supposed to kill Romans. The names of these three culprits were: Gestus, Dysmas and Barabbas. Barabbas, you remember, was to take the middle cross. But the crowd gave him freedom thanks to Pilate and Jesus took his place. So on that hill that sad Friday afternoon were two bandits—one on Jesus’ right and one on Jesus’ left. 

Look at this first man on Jesus' right—our left. His name was Gestus. This is what the Bible says about him: “One of the criminals who was hanged railed out at Jesus, saying, ‘Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us.’” Jesus if you are who you say you are save us from this mess.

 We know Gestus, don’t we? If you are who you say you are—get us out of this mess. Fix it.

photo by J James Tissot / flickr

A very fine New Testament scholar says if we are to understand the Bible—we are to identify with the bad guys—not the good ones.  We Christians don’t usually do this. But we’ve all been there like Gestus. If there is anything to this religion business—take out the nails and stop the pain. Not only are those kids and parents in Parkland, Florida saying this. Out of their pain and shock they are saying: Fix this. Fix this. Do something about these guns. They’ve got the politicians on the run. In  this morning's paper they said that in 2017-18 50 bills have been presented to deal with the gun problem. Not a single one of these bills has been passed. Fix it, Jesus. We’ve said it too. This cancer. This unruly kid. This disastrous government. Fix this. This lousy job. More money. All these empty, empty pews. Listening to this old broken  down preacher—fix this. The economy. North Korea. All the hurt out there beyond these doors whose names are on those tombstones. Fix it. Make it better. “If you are the Christ—save yourself and us.”

Carlyle Marney , great preacher said one time year’s ago. “I have not asked the Lord God to fix race relations in the South for twenty years. I have not asked him. Why in the world would I do that when we have an absolute majority of preachers and Churches on every corner of the South. God will not do for us—what we can do for ourselves.” We can fix this thing. I think he’s right.

But now let’s turn to that other cross on Jesus’ left. His name, tradition says was Dysmas. He and Gestus had been partners in crime. They had fought the same battles. Told the same dirty jokes. Got drunk together. Maybe there were some other things they never told their wives. 

But this other man did not say: “Fix me.” He did speak, though to his buddy. “Do you not fear God since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? We indeed have been condemned justly,  we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man (Jesus) has done nothing wrong.”

Gestus, don’t you see? It’s plain as the nose on your face. We get what we deserve. We did what they said we did. We were caught red-handed and we are paying the price for our ugly deeds. Gestus, Jesus did absolutely nothing.

But Dysmas did not stop there. He turned his head as best he could to the central cross. And this is what he said, “Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom.” He did not say, “Fix me.” Maybe he knew what the soldiers did not know or Gestus or that mean, ugly crowd. Maybe Dysmas saw not a fix-me power—but a different kind of power. Maybe even in his suffering— maybe we might all find some redemption.

photo by Jason St Peter/ flickr

No fix me or rescue which we have all prayed a hundred times. He did not pray: Get me out of this mess. He simply said, “Remember me. Touch me. Help me.” For maybe the first time in a long pitiable life Dysmas saw clearly the wasted years. The broken relationships. The missed chances. And so he whispered, ”Jesus remember me. Can you heal me, even as I die?”

And now we hear the second word that came down from the middle cross. “Today you will be with me in paradise.”

If the first word was forgiveness—the second word is a promise. Remember old Glenn Campbell. In his prime (before the cursed Alzheimer’s) he would sing so wistfully: 

                                     “Take me home, country roads

                                       To the place where I belong

                                       West Virginia, mountain Momma

                                       Take me home , country roads

                                       Take me home, down country roads

                                       Take me home, down country roads.” 

Today—Jesus said you will be with me in paradise. Jesus remembered him and took him home and Glenn Campbell and one of these days—us, too. 

From that cross Jesus said it—even to the utter, utter hopelessness he said: “Today you shall be with me in paradise.” And so this second word from the cross is: Today. Look around you. Your today. It may not be what you want or what you thought. This today. It may be a far cry than what you dreamed when you twelve years old. Before the mistakes and sins and stupidities of your life piled up. Today. Waking up, opening your eyes and saying: “This is the day the Lord has made let us rejoice and be glad in it.“ Today. He said” Today is the day of salvation.Today? This day. Yes, this day. 

As I was preparing this sermon it all came back. I was a Pastor in Birmingham. And a couple came in one day and said they wanted to talk. As they sat down they were embarrassed and found it hard to say anything. And then they poured it out. “Our boy has lived in New Orleans for a long time. And he got sick with AIDS. We knew he was gay and we were so worried about him and he called us and wanted to know if he could come home. So many of his friends said their families had turned them away. But he said: Can I come home? “Couldn’t work anymore,” they said. “ And what we want to know is, if he decides to come to church—could he come here? Our church would not take him. Why even our best friends in our dinner group would not understand.”

photo by C.P. Lesley / flickr

And I said, “when he comes home have him come talk to me. I think we would take him. I would hope so.” And he knocked on the door one day and said he wanted to come to our church and maybe join. I told him that Jesus stretched out his arms to everybody. 

He joined. He was there about every Sunday. He didn’t look sick but after a while people knew he was not well. Lost weight. Looked terrrible. And two members—our biggest givers—came in one day and said: “What are you gonna do about this homo?” (Back then people thought you could catch this scary disease just by being in the same room.) “What are you going to do?” And I said: “We just open the doors and take whoever comes. And I am not going to turn anyone away.” Well—it got scary. People were mad. Some left. But we just kept opening our doors.

So when Tommy got so sick he couldn’t come anymore—and I would visit him in his parents’ home. And some of our members visited him and his mother and father. They were so devastated. They wouldn’t tell their friends—and they went to another church every Sunday—they didn’t think they would understand. So they kept quiet. But one day they called me and said, “The Doctor came by and said he’s not going make it.”  I brought the Bread and the Cup. And he took them slowly. Painfully. And I also brought my tape recorder and told his Mama and Daddy and Tommy—I want to play something. I asked them to hold hands--and to sing along with the song. And the recorder began to play: “Jesus remember me…Jesus remember me…Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom.” It was a a prayer. For Tommy. For his broken devastated parents. And for me and those two friends who had come with me that day. 

It was this second word that came down from the cross. And to a dying thief Jesus said, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” And we all need to remember this promise is for all of us. He does remember us. And he does stand with us. And he takes us home, too. All of us. Each of us. Thanks be to God.

photo by Rosa Helena / flickr

(This sermon was preached at the First Presbyterian Church, Pendleton, SC , 

                                     February 25, 2018)

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

Billy Graham: A Memory

 Photo by Brent Moore / flickr

Yesterday when I heard Billy Graham had died--I went back to another time and another place. The year was 1950. We lived in a little cotton-mill village a hundred miles from Atlanta. My Daddy and Mother worked in the mill across from our house most of their adult lives. Somewhere word came that Billy Graham was coming to Atlanta. Even then everybody knew about the Evangelist Graham. We had read his books, listened to his Hour of Decision on the radio. Every time we heard "Just As I Am" it would remind us of Billy Graham and the Invitations he always gave.

I wanted to hear the great Evangelist--but Atlanta was far away. In fact I don't think I had ever been there. I don't remember many of the details but I do remember my Daddy telling me we

photo by Ralph W. Hayworth / flickr

were going to ride the train to Atlanta and we were going to hear the great Billy Graham. I invited a high school buddy to come along with us. We had no car so I suppose we rode the bus down to the train station. I have no memory of that first train ride on the Man o' War. I don't even remember getting off the train, seeing much of Atlanta or where we must have eaten. What I do remember is sitting high up in a baseball stadium crowded with, I guess thousands of other people. I don't remember a thing the preacher said that night--but I do remember being touched when from all over the house people came forward at the end of there service hoping to have their lives changed. My friend told me later that night was the beginning of his faith journey which took him to college then Seminary then church after church until his retirement.

I have little memory of that evangelistic crusade. But what I do remember, looking back is what a sacrifice it must have been for my Daddy with his seven-grade education to plan that trip--and make sure it happened. He wanted his boy to do something he really wanted to do. Taking a trip a hundred miles away was like going to the moon. I never thought it would happen.

My father and I had little in common. He was near-deaf which meant communication was almost non-existent between the two of us. And an adolescent boy, selfish and impatient--I did not realize how hard it must have been for him to understand much that happened around him. But he wanted to please this son whom he hardly knew.

Looking back--there is a lump in my throat. I don't remember much about Billy Graham that night--but I do remember my father who did what he could with what he had. I wish I had told him how much that trip meant. How hard it must have been for him to pull it off. And as I look back on the churches I served, the places I've lived and the sermons I have preached--maybe, just maybe that Daddy and that trip has meant far more in shaping my destiny than anything I ever dreamed.

My father: John Lovett

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com