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United Church of Paducah
4600 Buckner Lane
Paducah, KY 42001
(270) 442-3722
Worship Times
Sunday Service: 10:00a
Refreshments &
Fellowship: 11:15a
Christian Education
For All Ages:
11:20a - Noon
Nursery Services Provided Handicap Accessible
All Are Welcome!
A Congregation Of The
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From November 4, 2007
Never Separate
Romans 8: 28, 31-39; John 20:
11-18
Most of the time I forgive my mistakes but
the one I made in Albuquerque still bothers me. I was a
student, learning the ins and outs of hospital ministry, and
one night it fell to me to be the on-call chaplain. My pager
went off in the wee hours of the morning, summoning me to
the cardiology floor for a code blue; a woman's heart had
stopped and responders were trying to revive her.
I waited in the hall for her family. They arrived breathless
and I knew their questions even before they asked. What
happened? Would she be OK? When could they see her?
Problem was, they spoke Spanish and no interpreters were on
duty. My heart ached for them and so I used my very limited
Spanish to respond. But then they wanted medical updates,
and even though I knew better, I tried to give them.
Which was my big mistake. Because somewhere between my
Spanish and their distress, they understood the crisis was
over. But within the hour, their loved one was gone.
Such raw expressions of grief I had never witnessed before.
They sobbed, the family did. They wailed. They gripped their
loved one's hands and shook them vigorously. They cupped her
face in their hands and called out her name, again and
again, commanding her back into the room. When this did not
happen, someone began crying in Spanish, "I want to go with
you! I want to be with you!"
This response is not as uncommon as you might think, this
wish to follow a loved one into death. It occurs not because
we no longer want to keep on living but because we want to
keep on loving.
When his young son died in a tragic accident, rock musician
Eric Clapton's loss moved him to compose Tears in Heaven, a
song that touches on this emotional territory that so few
ever give voice to. As he sings, we find that Clapton has
tiptoed into eternity to seek out his son, even as he's
unsure about this reunion. "Would you hold my hand, if I saw
you in heaven? Would you help me stand, if I saw you in
heaven?"
When a death occurs, the heart is not alone in the ache. The
body, too, shares in the loss.
A detail in John's gospel addresses brings this point to
life. The gospel's author describes how, following Jesus'
crucifixion, Mary Magdalene rises before dawn to go to the
tomb that holds Jesus' lifeless body. As she weeps, Mary is
addressed by angels who cannot console her, and then by a
gardener whose identity is revealed only when he calls her
by name.
"It's you! It's you, Rabbouni!" Mary shouts in joyful
recognition. This is no gardener, no ordinary man. This is
her newly-resurrected Savior, her life, her dear Jesus. This
is him, standing beside her, every bit as alive as he was
before. More so, even.
Mary does what anyone would. She reaches out and takes hold
of her Rabbouni, her Jesus, this one she intends never to
lose again. "Do not," Jesus says to her. "Do not hold on to
me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father."
Jesus' somewhat mystical remark calls to mind his
instructions to the disciples following the Transfiguration.
Like them, Mary is tempted to freeze this moment, to try to
inhabit it, try to preserve it. But this is an
impossibility. While we are here on earth, love continually
calls us forward into life.
"Go," Jesus tells Mary. "Go and tell the others what you
have seen." Indeed she does, an act of faithfulness that
prepares the disciples for their own experience of the
Resurrected One.
If only Mary's experience were ours. If only our loved one
could appear to us and call us by name, like Jesus did. If
only we could touch them again, even smell them, and know
with all our senses that they are not dead but eternally
alive.
And then with that, if only they do for us what Jesus did
for Mary.
If only our loved one could help us to let go of our impulse
to cling or clutch. Not that holding on is bad; it's just
that it can take on a life of its own, preventing us from
encountering the life-giving reality of resurrection. If
only, following a death, you and I received what Jesus gave
Mary: encouragement, no, empowerment, to go forth to share
the good news of eternal life.
Of course, we cannot and should not command our experience
of loss. Especially in a culture that is suspicious of grief
and often ignorant of its ways.
A television host recently interviewed family members who
had suffered the unexpected loss a loved one. After asking
them to tell their stories, the host quickly ran through the
five stages of grief, and then asked her guests to pinpoint
where they in the grieving process.
Evidently the host thought of grief as a ladder. Down at the
very bottom is denial. Then a person steps up to the second
rung--bargaining. Then anger. Then depression. Climb up onto
acceptance, the final rung, and you're ready to step back
into the world again.
But grief doesn't unfold one emotion at a time, in tidy
phases, and then we're done. It dips and weaves and circles
back, sometimes to territory we thought we had already
covered. Because grief isn't sequential, we must take care
not be impatient or unkind, either with ourselves or others.
Grief takes us where it will, when it will, however it will.
Even years after a loss, grief can manage to catch us by
surprise. So many times at funerals, I'm aware of this.
We're there to grieve a present loss and yet feel the impact
of other losses, other deaths.
Even today with our Totenfest names in the bulletin and a
fixed number of candles on the communion table, some of us
may find ourselves with a catch in the throat or a tear in
the eye as we remember someone who passed away years ago.
One loss may connect us to other losses.
Loss also connects us to one another.
There is a moving ritual enacted in some Hispanic Catholic
churches on Black Saturday, the day following Good Friday.
Those who go to church that day consciously suspend
knowledge of Easter's joy in order to enter fully into the
dark reality of the tomb.
Waiting for worshippers at the church on Black Saturday is a
mannequin dressed as the Holy Mother, her face covered by a
veil of mourning and her body positioned in a posture
reflecting sorrow and despair. One by one, the faithful go
to Mary's side to offer their condolences. "I am so sorry
for your loss," each one says. "I, too, have experienced a
loss," each worshipper goes on to say, whispering the story
of sorrows from the previous year.
In this way, a community of caring and solidarity is knit
together, so that no one is left to feel separate or alone.
We do the same here today. We give ourselves over to the God
of love, the God who is ever with us, the God who inspires
us to live the words Brian Wren so aptly expresses in one of
his hymns, "I will weep when you are weeping."
Here on earth, we live touched by loss, longing, and limits.
Just as my Albuquerque family was earth-bound that night
their loved one was heaven-bound, just as Eric Clapton
confessed he did not yet belong in heaven, Totenfest reminds
us that we are still here.
And yet in spite of this, Jesus teaches that even here, even
on earth, heaven can be known. Not heaven's perfection, of
course. Nor its eternity.
Still, heaven comes to earth in the language we speak and
the circle of caring we create. Language and actions that go
by the same name: Christ's love alive in us. Love that is,
even now, our light, our life, and our eternal home.
Amen.
© Rev. Karen Winkel
United Church of Paducah (UCC) Tears In
Heaven
by Eric Clapton and Will Jennings
Would you know my name
If I saw you in heaven?
Would it be the same
If I saw you in heaven?
I must be strong
And carry on,
'Cause I know I don't belong
Here in heaven.
Would you hold my hand
If I saw you in heaven?
Would you help me stand
If I saw you in heaven?
I'll find my way
Through night and day,
'Cause I know I just can't stay
Here in heaven.
Time can bring you down,
Time can bend your knees.
Time can break your heart,
Have you begging please, begging please.
Beyond the door,
There's peace I'm sure,
And I know there'll be no more
Tears in heaven.
Would you know my name
If I saw you in heaven?
Would it be the same
If I saw you in heaven?
I must be strong
And carry on,
'Cause I know I don't belong
Here in heaven. |
"Never place a period where God has placed a comma." - Gracie
Allen
Check the Announcements and
Calendar pages to
keep up to date on current church news and events.
Please join us for a special viewing of
Paper Clips
on May 4th at 12 noon.
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