Doing A Great Work in Trying Times

Sermon by James W. Crawford

September 14, 1997

Nehemiah 6:1-9

A colleague of mine tells of an experience his brother-in-law underwent some years ago. It seems his brother-in-law, whose name was Miles, took piano lessons as a boy. As all of you who went through this experience recall, one of the goals of every piano teacher is to assemble students for recitals; mine used to be in Kilbourn Hall at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y., and the occasion brought tears of fright from me--and tears of shame from my teacher. In any case, our little friend Miles, playing on a Wurlitzer piano at home, learned to locate Middle "C" just beside the letter "W" beginning the word Wurlitzer on the keyboard cover of that piano. Miles mastered a piece well enough to manage inclusion in a recital.  And on the appropriate evening, dressed in coat and tie, his every hair in place, he marched assuredly to the piano prepared to dazzle his audience and justify his family's pride. All he had to do was locate Middle "C" right next to the "W". As he sat confidently at the piano, he froze in horror. The piano was a Yamaha.

Do you ever feel like that? Disoriented by change? My colleague looks out on the world and our churches and suggests that change comes so quickly in what he calls "computerland, mallworld and the global village with its triglycerides, gigabits, and paradigm shifts--and now color on the front page of that old Grey Lady The New York Times! (Is nothing sacred?) Change comes at breakneck speed and compels us to ask, "What can a person believe in a world like this? Is there any firm ground? Any immovable anchor? Any sure foundation?"

I

As we begin our new program year I want to introduce you first of all to one fantastic person who, with trouble, threats, trials and change surrounding him, stakes out his moral ground and holds it. His name? Nehemiah. Nehemiah serves as cupbearer to the Persian monarch holding the Jews in captivity in the fifth century BC. The Persians allow the Jews to return from exile to their homeland. And what do they do first? They set about rebuilding the temple--the heart and soul of their identity. Even as they build the temple, however, they look around and see the rest of the city in shambles. Jagged holes breach the walls. The gates lie in ashes. The sight of that scorched and ravaged city drives the returning exiles to near despair.

Nehemiah, in distant Persia, shocked by the news of the desolation, begs and receives permission from his sire to return to Jerusalem in order to rebuild the piteous ruin.

And, wonder of wonders, Nehemiah succeeds. But too well. Jerusalem's  resident thugs, Mafia and powerbrokers seek to sabotage his work. He stands against them with will and energy, exhorting his construction crew, arming them, prodding them to vigilance. His antagonists, jealous of his success, seek to inveigle him to a phony conference where they intend to murder him. And Nehemiah from his perch atop the city wall replies bluntly, "I am about a great work; and I cannot come down."

Nothing daunted, Nehemiah's enemies devise another plot to assassinate him, but he blows the lid off their cynicism. And finally, as a result of his perseverance and courage, the walls of the city are rebuilt in 52 days. "I am about a great work. And I cannot come down."

II

In changing, challenging, trying times can we stand with Nehemiah? What great work are you about? What great work am I about? What great work is this church about as we seek to hold our ground in trying times?

In the first place, it seems to me, one of the great works of this or any church in trying times lies in pointing human life toward the ground of our true security, the transcendent, indomitable and indefatigable love of God.

I don't know how many of you witnessed the funeral last Saturday of the Princess of Wales, Diana.. Surely it was an occasion bearing a thousand meanings. But one of them--and perhaps the most important one--was articulated by St. Paul, as Prime Minister Tony Blair read the 13th chapter of Paul's letter to the church in Corinth. Do you remember? He read it beautifully, but I am going to paraphrase it for just a moment. If writing it today Paul might say something like this:

"I may have a Ph.D., a corner office, a huge bank account, a pile of honorary degrees, a ton of connections, but if I have not love I am a stringless violin or a reedless bassoon. I may be a friend of Bill's, make a claim as progeny of the Mayflower, be clothed by Armani and fragranced by Chanel, but if I have not love, I am no more than a bag of fools' gold. Our worship may be doctrinally orthodox, musically resplendent, theologically profound, but if we bear no love, it is simply a barren menu, a hackneyed wasteland."

And Paul continues: He makes clear that what we tend to claim as our own, whether it be money, or knowledge, or wisdom, or reputation or family or position melts away and evaporates. He tells us religious types that our churches, our doctrines, our buildings, our music, our highest achievements--whatever security we claim--dissipates, changes, dissolves, disappears, collapses, vanishes, fades, perishes. Just as life itself!

"For now," he says, " now we see in a mirror dimly; now I know only in part. Now, through the mystery and discontinuity, the illogic and tragedy of human life--now abide faith, hope and love--but the greatest of these is love."

I must tell you, friends, (and I hope I'm not being sentimental) as we meet under this Cross, where in faith and in hope we see love abiding through the most loveless of circumstances, if there is one great work we must be about, and from which we must never retreat--it is by word and deed to convey to one another and to this neighborhood and our world that even when--and as the old King James version has it--even when we can see only through a glass darkly, when love itself seems at stake, we trust--we trust--finally love has the last word. Now that is a great work, from which we dare not come down!

II

The second of our great works in trying times flows naturally from this first.  Oh friends, I ask you this: please, sustain our work in nurturing and deepening authentic human relationships. That is a great work in any time, but in this day and age when jobs and residences and venues change so rapidly, we may find it more difficult.

Do you know what a working pastor finds from time to time? (And I will bet you find it too.) You will discover an acquaintance or friend who seems to be at the top of her game--a big deal--and you and your fiends stand on the margin admiring the radiant success of this super achiever. And then you discover something. In intimate conversation they will tell you it is rubbish. They will tell you with tears in their eyes they have it all; been there, done everything: headlines, wall plaques, professional citations. But from a deep hole in their souls they ask, "Does anybody love me? Does anybody really care about me?" It is the deep relationships that count.

It was great having the children and teachers back in church and church school today. It is wonderful having the families of these children here this morning. I noted in the paper the other day a 24 million dollar study indicating early bonding of children with at least one parent is the best "guarantee of a teenager's health and the strongest barrier to high risk behavior."

Well, I'll say "Amen" to that, though I am not sure it took 24 million dollars to confirm it. In any case, families and children are an important matter, and as we head into this new year together I hope we take as a great work from which we dare not come down, the strengthening and the nurturing of children and their families.

It can be a tough job. Heaven knows kids can be rough on one another, and siblings can be as rough as anyone. As one little girl remarked, "You shouldn't stand in a bucket of water and touch an electric fence just because your brother tells you to." And a little boy shares this advice: "You should never pick on your sister when she has a baseball bat in her hands."

And as we think about deep relationships and families--being myself the father of four--let me give a little pitch for dads today. I am going to do it with the words of Erma Bombeck, wise, gentle, on the mark. Back in 1973 she wrote a little piece entitled, "When God created Fathers." It goes like this:

When the good Lord was creating fathers, He started with a tall frame.

A female angel nearby said, "What kind of father is that? If you're going to make children so close to the ground why have you put fathers up so high? He won't be able to shoot marbles without kneeling, tuck a child in bed without bending, or even kiss a child without a lot of stooping."

And God smiled and said, "Yes, but if I make him child size, who would children have to look up to?"

And when God made a father's hands, they were large and sinewy.

The angel shook her had sadly and said, "Do you know what you're doing? Large hands are clumsy. They can't manage diaper pins, small buttons, rubber bands on ponytails or even remove splinters caused by baseball bats."

And God smiled and said, "I know, but they're large enough to hold everything a small boy empties form his pockets at the end of day, yet small enough to cup a child's face."

And then God molded long, slim legs and broad shoulders.

The angel nearly had a heart attack. "Boy, this is the end of the week, all right," she clucked. "Do you realize you just made a father without a lap? How is he going to pull a child close to him without the kid falling between his legs.?"

And God smiled and said, "A mother needs a lap. A father needs strong shoulders to pull a sled, balance a boy on a bicycle or hold a sleepy head on the way home from a circus."

God was in the middle of creating two of the largest feet anyone had ever seen when the angel could contain herself no longer. "That's not fair," she exclaimed. "Do you honestly think those boats are going to dig out of bed early in the morning when the baby cries? Or walk through a birthday party without crushing at least three of the guests?"

And God smiled and said, "They'll work. You'll see. They'll support a small child who wants to ride a horse to Banbury Cross or scare off mice at the summer cabin, or display shoes that will be a challenge to fill."

God worked throughout out the night, giving the father few words, but a firm authoritative voice and eyes that saw everything but remained calm and tolerant.

Finally, almost as an afterthought, God added tears. Then He turned to the angel and said, "Now are you satisfied that he can love as much as a mother?"

The angel shutteth up.

Deep, gracious human relationships among us, perhaps like a Divine family--a great work in a trying time.

III

And just once more: as we pursue our high calling here on this corner we dare never abandon the work of bringing the human community closer to the reality of the Dominion of God. If the New Testament draws an image of anything, it illustrates a human community no longer fragmented by barriers we erect to justify our social position, our economic status, our genes, our race, our gender. It suggests our great work consists in seeking justice, deciding and acting for peace, working to dissolve the barriers separating the sexes, the races, the classes, the nations. The great hope of what the Bible calls the Realm of God we dare never set aside.

And heaven knows, our efforts in behalf of the kingdom will not be simple. We religious types may be just a bunch of sentimentalists. The cynics may have it right. Henry Miller wrote, somewhere, "It's silly to go on pretending that under the skin we're all one human family. The truth is more likely that under the skin we are all cannibals, assassins, traitors, liars, hypocrites, poltroons." Maybe so. There is enough going on in the world to confirm his grim observation.

But after these two global public funerals, one amid the pomp and circumstance of Royalty in a glorious medieval Abbey and the other, for all of its military trappings, amid  poverty and disease in a city's soccer stadium, we detect between these almost polar opposites, as the world would define them, something deep and pervasive grounding us all under the skin as one human family and calling us to service and action in our desperately needy world. As that Saint of the Gutters, Mother Teresa, whose heartbeat could be heard 'round the world, remarked, "Each of us must find our own Calcutta," prepared as she was to live by the words of the ancient seer, "You have seen your brother; you have seen your sister-- you have seen your God."

Oh friends, the work you take on, the work I take on, the work this church takes on for the love of Christ--this is a great work and we cannot -- we dare not -- come down!