What Do We Say on This Memorial Day

The best sermons are those when the Preacher speaks to himself or herself. For if he or she deals with the concerns and matters of the heart—those words are likely to go out to everybody.

And this Memorial Weekend I wish I could talk about fireworks and flags flying and parades and how great everything is in our country. But I can’t do that today.

A Strange Story

But I stumbled on to a story that might just help me and you, too. Numbers 13-14 tell the story of Moses and his people. Years before they had fled Egypt and slavery and struck out on a journey. It must have been a brave or desperate bunch. They crossed the Red Sea which seemed impossible. And then  they wandered in the wilderness for years and years. Many of them wanted to choose a new leader and head back to Egypt. For in that wilderness day after day and year after awful year they faced seemingly impossible dangers. Fear. Scorpions. Sickness. Mean and scary tribes at every stop along the way. They would cut your throat in a minute. Think of the terrible heat and the awful winters. 

But some of them remembered that God had promised these ex-slaves a new land, a place flowing with milk and honey. Freedom for them and their families. A promised land somewhere out there. They dreamed of such a place when their children cried in the dark. Hungry. When they fought or encountered obstacle after obstacle. When they buried their dead in the desert. When they hated Moses.

Good News

Finally…finally they were  told that the promise land was not very far off. But, guess what? That new land was inhabited with whole tribes of people.  Deadly. Foreigners who did not know their God. Mean. Deadly. How could they possibly take this place God had promised. So Moses chose twelve men and sent them out to spy the lands and bring back a report. Days later they came back. Telling the people this truly new land was really flowing like milk and honey. Why they came back with grapes and pomegranates and all sorts of fruits on their shoulders. 

Bad News

Then the bad news. Numbers says: Yet the people who live there are strong, their towns are fortified and very large. And if that was not enough there were giants there. Huge. The tallest people they had ever seen. Called the sons Anak.

And the stragglers began to murmur. Ten of the twelve spies said there is no way we can take that land. No way. But Numbers says Caleb and Joshua calmed the people down. It took a long time. But they said Yes, there are giants in that land but God has led us all the way. Yes. Will he turn his back on us? We will go ahead and take that land. Yes. God has promised. Yes—he said we can  do it. But those 10 spies the majority said: are you crazy there are giants in the land and they will devour us all. There are too many people. We are out numbered. No, no, no we cannot do this.

Yes. No. Yes. No.

And on those two little words hung their future. Yers or No. Would they face a locked door—big and heavy they could not open. Or would they come together and push that door open to this new land. Yes or No. What would it be? And we now know the rest of that story.

And I lay down that story beside us on this Memorial Day weekend. Memorial means to remember. All those thru the years that served this country. And made it better. All those Mamas and Papas and friends that lifted us up and carried us along and made us better. All those in this church from 1789 until today. So many through these years I am sure they must have said: We can’t do that. Impossible. Are you crazy. No. No. 

But you are still here and so am I. “Through many dangers toils and snares we have already come. This grace that has led us far and grace will lead us home.”Some preachers here hung on to that. Yes. Some Elders hung on to that. Yes. And people with all sorts of burdens have come here year after year after year or this church would not be here today. Yes.

Wilbur and Orville

But the no’s are pretty strong. There were two brothers that lived in Dayton, Ohio. And they kept looking at the skies and the birds that just kept coming. And they talked among themselves wouldn’t it be something if we could fly up there like the birds. So they began to try all kinds of experiments. Some were successful and some were downright failures. But these two weird men not too handsome—eccentric…had big ears and kept to themselves—but they began to build what they called gliders. And finally they took all their supplies and left Dayton for North Carolina. They were told the coast would be a good place to try out their dreams. And so they came to Kill Devil Hills near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.  And they kept trying to do something up there in the skies. Back home gossip of course was everywhere in their hometown of Dayton. And people began to mutter: “Well, somebody might be able to fly but it shore won’t be nobody from Dayton,Ohio” But on December 17, 1903 near Kitty Hawk they completed the first powered flight aiming up into those skies. And we know the rest of the story.

Folks can’t you see a little of that story in Numbers where they were told there were giants in the land. Every step in our nation’s history there have been a whole lot of No’s. Some days it looked like the No’s would have the day. 

Giants In Our Land

We have our no’s today. I don’t know a time when this country has been so negative and afraid. This cursed virus has taken away one million of Americans. And I am told behind those million there are at least nine people they left behind that are grieving today. That’s close to 9 million people.  19 kids and two of their teachers shot down in Texas. Ukraine with all its heartbreak and devastation. And we cannot seem to get things done in Washington. I don’t watch much the news today. I turn on the tv in the morning and minutes later I turn it off. Read your history. Read the Good Book. We have been here before and before and before. And good Christians looked around and said No. We are going down the tubes. And people all over this country have just shook their heads in despair. No. No. No.

Hope

But I keep remembering  that story in Numbers. It is our story too. There were giants in the land and some looked ten feet tall. No we can’t go in—they will kill us all. But two out of twelve—the minority— Caleb and Joshua kept saying over and over,. With God’s help we can take that land. God has promised us. Yes…yes…yes.

We can’t do it fighting one another and accusing each other. Saying over and over it is hopeless. But we remember this story and remember our nation’s history. No and Yes. No and Yes. 

And who knows. Part of the story might just be with a group of people in Pendleton, South Carolina. Who said yes…because even through all our ups and downs we remember those stragglers in the wilderness and we remember two strange men from Dayton, Ohio.. And we have hope because God has told us over and over “I will be with you.” And as the Psalm says: “Even through we walk  through the darkest valleys thou will be with me.” Yes…Yes…Yes. Thanks be to God.

(This sermon was preached on Memorial Day Weekend at the First Presbyterian Church, Pendleton, South                                                                       Carolina  May 29, 2022)

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

A Sermon for Today's Discouraged

Jesus’ disciples came to him and said, “Lord, teach us to pray.” They had followed him. They had watched him. They had seen how the Pharisees and all the others tried to trap him. They knew his power came from those moments when he would leave them, go off by himself, kneel in the dust on his knees and list his head toward heaven.

We all know Jesus’ answer. He gave them the Lord’s Prayer. I digress with a funny story. A man was speeding one day and a cop stopped him. Blue lights and all. Cop got out, hitched up his pants and came to the man in the driver’s seat. “Do you know how fast you were going? Fifteen miles over the speed limit.” “Officer,” the man said, “Yes I was. But I am a preacher and I am late for church. That’s why I was going so fast.” “You are a preacher. People say that all the time just to get off. But if you really are a preacher let me give you a test.” The man nodded. “If you are a preacher recite the Lord’s Prayer.” And the man said, “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want…” The Cop thought just a minute and said, “You’re right, preacher Go on your way.”

Teach Us to Pray

But we all know the difference from the 23rd Psalm and the Lord’s Prayer. Jesus answered their request; “Lord, teach us to pray.” He gave them the Prayer we still know. “Our Father which art in heaven…” But he wasn’t finished. He underlined the prayer words with a story. A parable. 

The custom was if you had a guest to arrive at your house one evening and asked for food—you’d set him down at your table, open the pantry and there was no food. “I told her to go to the Grocery store!” He had nothing to offer his guest. So he told the man to wait. It was getting dark—real dark. So he went down the street to a friend’s door. Not a lamp burning in the house. “Maybe he can help me.” Everything was quiet. “They must be asleep”.  He knocked on the door anyway.  Silence. So he knocked again and from inside the house he heard his neighbor say:’ Who is it?” And the man said I need some food. I have a guest and I have no food. Could you spare me, say 3 loaves.” From the other side of the door the neighbor said, “Are you kidding Everyone is asleep and I don’t want to wake them up. Sorry.” 

You see in that tiny house inside the door the animals slept. A goat. Two sheep fast asleep. They kept them in the house at night to keep them safe from wild animals.  And beside them were four kids side by side. And then on a raised pallet the man and his wife slept. If he answered the door he had to be careful not to wake his wife. He would also have to crawl over his sleeping children and the animals. Everybody would wake up. “I can’t do this,” he said.

But the man outside kept knocking, “Help me! Help me!” And I can’t tell you the man’s response because we are in church. I delete the expletive that we find in the Bible. But to stop the knocking and the noise the owner got up crawled over everybody. Found three loaves pushed them through the cracked door and said goodbye to the man.”

Keep on Knockin'

And Jesus told his disciples, “You see because of the man’s repeated request. Kept knocking on the door he finally got the food he needed. So Jesus wrapped up the story by saying: “If you are persistence in prayer…and don’t give up…you’ll get what you need.”

That story used to bother me. Was Jesus saying: Don’t give up and finally God will give you what you asked just to make you shut up.” My daughter  used to come up while I was watching the ball game or reading the newspaper. “Daddy, I  need you to…” I kept reading the newspaper. But my daughter just pulled my sleeve and said, “Daddy.” Then she took my face in her hands and turned my head toward her and said, “Look at me…look at me.”” I finally got the point. She was persistent and she got through to me.

When Luke wrote out this story years  later he looked around at the early church having real problems. The central problem then was apostasy. Falling away. All those who started out to follow and believed but then the hard times came and they just fell away. Quit going. Throwing in the towel.

What does persistence have to do with prayer? Everything. What does persistence have to do with faith—everything. And when we read “they all forsook him and fled” it was one of the saddest words in  the Bible. Remember Jesus, in frustration asked that little handful, “Will you also go away.”  

For you see prayer is not just words. Real prayer is also what we do. That’s what we call putting legs on our prayers. Somebody said, “Pray without ceasing. When  necessary—use words.” Which means, I think, prayer is a whole lot more than what we say.

I think this is the heart of the parable. Action.A missionary taught the natives a chorus. “Go on…Go on…Go on…Go on. That’s prayer too. What we do.  

There were good reasons why many in the early church fell away. Sometimes they just got tired of the squabbling. Sometimes they were just tired of being tired. Sometimes they were scared to death of Rome. If they did not bow down before that huge Caesar’s stature that he had erected to himself and forced all his subject  to say: "Caesar is Lord.” But Christians refused and said: “Jesus is Lord. If Rome heard about these traitors they could lose their jobs. Their children would go hungry. They could be hounded out of town. Many of these Christians would be crucified. And were. No wonder some of them fell away. It was just a hard, hard time.

It's About the Boat

We’re all in this same boat. To keep on keeping on is hard business. We all know that. We wonder about Ukraine and all that suffering. We wonder about this cursed virus that has killed over a million Americans. And we are told that of those million that died there are about 9 loved ones left behind grieving…grieving. We keep gouging each other in this country. Democrats. Republicans. Lord, we hate all those others. Keeping on is not easy. We lose health. We battle cancer. Some of our kids are on drugs. Or life has not turned out the way we thought it would. We lose heart. All of us facing one thing or another. I picked up the Greenville News this week and on the front page was a picture of the sweetest little three-year old girl smiling. Big bow in her hair. Pretty flowery dress on. Victoria Rose Smith. Dead  Beaten to death by foster parents. Dead.  It just kills me. 

And so Luke’s story comes down to us. After 2,000 years. Why do we still have it? Because looking back at all the heartbreak and agony through the years…plagues, wars, unfairness and injustice—I turn to this crazy, crazy story. Keep knocking. Don’t give up.

Someone asked Mother Teresa one day, “Why do you do what you do? You pick up one child and it’s already dead. You pick up another and then another and another. And out there in the streets are hundreds more. “Why do you do what you do?” And she looked at him with piercing eyes and said, “Young man, I do what I can. Where I am. With what  I have. If that’s not prayer I don’t know what it is. 

Finishing my coffee yesterday morning there came on the news which showed the two remaining survivors of the holocaust. One man was 99 years years old. The other man, a doctor was 101. And they are smiling and hugging one another and laughing. And the commentator said, “The Doctor—101 years old—is still practicing.” “Still practicing?”  After all the hell which we cannot even imagine they went through and they are smiling and hugging and practicing medicine. 

Hang in There

This is a hard sermon and a hard parable. But I keep coming back to this very strange parable. Keep knocking on the door. Hang in there. Some of us are barely hanging only by our fingernails. Hang in there. Worried about the church or our flickering faith. Hang in there. Worrying about gas or retirement or that bad report or that hurting back. Hang in there. Worried just about everything. Hang in there.

Langston Hughes was a black poet. And he lived in a hard age for blacks and many others. So he wrote these words in 1922. His poem is called: “Mother to Son.”

“Well, son, I’ll tell you:

Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

It’s had tacks in it,

And splinters, 

And boards torn up, 

And places with no carpet on the 

floor—

Bare.

But all the time

I’se been a-climbin’ on,

And reachin’ landin’s, 

And turnin’ corners, 

And sometimes goin’ in the dark

Where there ain’t been no light.

So boy, don’t you turn back.

Don’t you set down on the steps

‘Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.

Don’t you fall now—

For I’se still goin’, honey,

I’se still climbin’,

And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.”

“And let us not grow weary in well-doing: for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.”

Hang in there.

(This sermon was preached at the First Baptist Church, Pendleton, South Carolina, May, 2022)

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

Mama...Mama...Mama

My Mama - Ruth Lovette

 

  I am looking at this  picture of my Mama. I do not know old she was when this picture was taken. She must have been 19 or 21 years old. She sits on this bench looking off in the distance. She is dressed to the nines. Beautiful black dress trimmed, it looks like in velvet. She wears hose of course. Everybody did. And the shoes were tied with black ribbons. Her hair is jet black. 

I wonder what was going through her mind. What dreams did she have?What longings there must have been sitting there on that fancy bench. She was born at the turn of a new century—1905. Seventeen years later she married my father.

These were the depression years which turned this country upside down from 1929 until 1938. But you would not know the hard times yet to come looking at her picture.

The Hard Years

Those were hard years especially for the farmers and in desperation, this new bride and husband fled their home and moved to a place of promise 120 miles away. They had heard you could get a real job paying real money in some cotton mills in Georgia. And not only that but they were told the mills provided housing as well. It was hard to believe those houses had electric lights, running water and indoor toilets.b Rick Bragg would tell the story of these folk in his book, The Best That Ever Was.

Home

How could they not move? So they put their paltry belongings of a wagon and headed 120 miles away. They first moved into a three room apartment with friends. They stretched a sheet in the bed room where the two couples slept in privacy. They got jobs and every week a real paycheck. making $17.00 a week. At first they worked from seven in the morning until five in the afternoon six days a week. One the other side off town they did not know the well-heeled would call them lint heads. 

Sitting there in her fancy dress on that stool she had no idea she would work in that mill until she was 65 years old. They would move from that first apartment into their own three room place and later a four room house. She must have been happy. A real job. Real money. Warm, with lights that turned on and a refrigerator bought on time and a bathtub and a wood stove for their kitchen.

They wanted children but no children came. But 17 years later I was born in the mill house where I would grow up. My mother named me Roger because she said, “he makes me laugh.”  Four years later in that same house my brother would be born.

With a pittance of a paycheck my mother made sure her boys had the clothes we needed. I never heard her complain about the pretty clothes she could have bought. Her boys came first.

We never had a car. Why would you need a car when the bus stopped at the corner every few minutes? We attended the red brick Baptist church with the tall pillars on the front. She was a Baptist and it took. Sometimes in the kitchen cooking supper I could hear her quietly singing: “ I Can hear my Savior calling” or “Blessed Assurance” or the “Old Rugged Cross.”  The myth went that Baptists didn’t drink. So when we needed whiskey for the Christmas cakes she would send the black woman who worked for us to the Liquor Store after dark. She didn’t want anyone to know that the whiskey would be for us.

Sacrifice

But she continued to grow. Years later she could come into our den and see my son drinking a beer. “What are your doing?” she asked. He said, “I am drinking this beer.” After a long pause she asked, “Could I taste it?” And she did swirling the drink in her mouth. And this Baptist woman did and said, “I believe I’ll get me some when I get home. She read books, listened to the radio, she kept up. She crocheted and made quilts. She longed “to make something of herself”. Little did she know how her life in that cotton mill village would not be the parameters of her world.

Nobody in our family had ever gone to college but I still remember the morning she got off work, came home and helped me pack my foot locker. A friend drove up, he helped me load my foot locker but my mother stayed on the porch. She waved but she did not want me to know she was crying. But she let me go.

In the mail week after week she would send me Fifteen dollars those four college years. I never realized what a sacrifice that was for her. The wrote often and when I would come home the fatted calf would always be killed. About every three weeks a package of a homemade cake would arrive. The boys in the dorm always had a feast.

Mama

That wisp of a girl in that back dress trimmed in velvet had no idea how she would one day fill the word mother full and running over. 

Her life was hard but she did what she could and more. Once I dedicated a book to her. And when she died we cleaned out her old cedar chest and found a scrapbook filled with clippings and letters and photographs mostly of me. I never knew she kept all those things.

She died when was eighty-eight. But really on this day my memory swirIs. She would never know that long after her passing her l supposedly simple life. 

Her name was Ruth and this day and so many others I will always remember. 

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blospot.com

 

Hate is still With Us

Carson McCullers the novelist once said, "It is a strange fact about the human race when everybody needs somebody to look down on."

I thought about her words as I hear: "Don't say Gay." Democrats hating Republicans...Republicans hating Democrats." The utter sadness in Ukraine. Hate crimes against the Jews here and so many places." The Palestinians. The divide between blacks and whites. The chasms between rich and poor. "

Reminds me of some words by the man watching TV; "I hate Jews, Catholics and Niggers." His friend said, "I hate everybody."

Reckon Jesus' words about responding the least of these is at the heart of the matter.

 

Mother Teresa said: "If I look at the mass I will never act. 

If I look on the one, I will."

Easter! Easter! Easter!

Every Easter the memory comes back. I had a chance to see the Passion Play in Oberammergau, Germany several years ago. The play opened with Jesus riding into Jerusalem for the last time. The play ended with the Resurrection. For almost six hours the audience followed the story of Jesus’ last days on earth.

 I was not prepared for the Resurrection scene. The crucifixion had been particularly graphic and disturbing. After Jesus’ body was carefully taken down from the cross the stage went dark.  Suddenly a dim light came on which illuminated a small cluster of weeping women. They stood before huge doors that represented the locked tomb. They knocked on the door. Nothing happened. Frantically they tried to pry the doors open. The doors did not budge. Suddenly an angel came on stage and without saying a word began to unroll a white aisle cloth from the closed door down the steps toward the audience. As the women looked on, the door creaked open and dazzling light slowly filled the stage and finally the whole room. Through that open door Jesus came. He walked down the steps. And from left and right laughing children came running forward, hugging Jesus’ legs. In the background a Choir sang.

I can’t improve on that Easter scene. It was as close to the wonder of the Resurrection as anything I know. Who can put this special day into words? Surely not the merchants hawking their Easter wares. Surely not the bunnies, the Easter lilies, the corsages, or those wonderful multi-colored eggs. Surely this day is more than the coming of spring and the end of winter.

Easter is light, hope, new beginnings, love and laughter. Somehow our old nine to five calendar pages are disturbed once again. The predictability of our days are thrown off kilter. And whether it is worry about money or retirement or health or children or just the troubled world-- most of us find ourselves pausing on Easter morning.

People who never darken the door of a church put on our finery and slip into some sanctuary. 

This is not the time for any preacher to chide those who only come on Easter morning. It hardly matters if they are dragged along by some wife or child. We all need something to shatter life’s flatness. A bad lab report. That funeral last week.Ukraine, endless Ukraine.   A disappointment so heavy that we wonder if we can make it. Like those women in the play we all know something about locked doors and sealed-up tombs.

And Easter comes. Saying that despite the darkness which is very real and the trouble we all carry, there is another word. There is light, so blinding it hurts our eyes. There is wonder so strong that we may find it hard to hold back the tears. There is joy and laughter at the heart of life despite its rawness and its difficulty. 

What changed those petty, cowardly disciples and turned them inside out? There is no explanation except that Easter brought with it light, hope and new life for them and for their world. They wrote the story over and over until we have four gospels. They founded a church, which has endured despite its all-too-human members and preachers. That little group of first believers passed the torch until the greatest story ever told could be our story, too. Wishful thinking? Some say so. I choose to remember large open doors and a blinding light and at the center Jesus come back from the dead. But what I remember most after all these years is the laughter of all those children.

(I have published this Easter piece in newspapers and articles. You will find it on my blog more tha once. This mystery is so great it is hard to put it into words.)

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

Do We dare stand and look at the Cross

 

On this day I remember an old story I heard years ago. Gruenwald, a 15th century artist lived In the midst of the terrible outbreak of the black plague. So he painted a crucifixion scene for the Hermitage of St. Anthony. The hermits there took it upon themselves the mission of nursing the sick and burying the dead from the plague.

Many of the victims suffered from the sympton called "St. Anthony's fire." The circulation would stop and the lower limbs became gangrenous and putrefried even as the person lived. In the days before scientific medicine there was little the hermits could do for the victims but cool their fevers and be with them in their agonizing deaths.

Over the altar inthat monastery Gruenwald painted the figure of Christ on the cross--dead, twisted and repulsive, gray and green with corruption. Christ's legs were swollen with St. Anthony's fire. The artist painted the backdrop of a black sky and a dead sea. 

The hermits did not know what to do for their victims. But one thing they did was to leave each arriving patient alone on his pallet before that painting. Many of the sufferers were to sick to even lift their heads.  But now and then one of the victims would look up above the altar at the painting of the dead Jesus. One whispered to a hermit, "In a few hours I must go to my death through foul and meaningless pain. But so did He and God turned that experience to the salvation of mankind. If that is so, what then can He not do for me?"

We call this dark Friday because it is a good time to remember that the One on that center cross died for you and me. So let us stop and remember. Those arms were stretched out for all of us. So He takes us all in. And like those plague victims he does for us what we need. Heartbreak after heartbrerak in the Ukraine. And all over where is pain and suffering physical or emotional those arms are still outstretched. There is no pain too heavy and no condition so hopeless that those nail-scarred hands cannot touch. So bring whatever you carry and whatever all the others may carry to the foot of the cross. No wonder we call this day Good Friday.

Langston Hughes a black poet in a dark time in our history wrote this prayer:

"At the feet o' Jesus,

Sorrow like a sea.

Lordy, let  yo'mercy

 come driftin' down on me.

At the feet o' Jesus

At yo' feet I stand.

O, ma little Jesus, 

 Please reach out yo' hand.

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com