The Rev. Peter
M. Carey
16 December 2012
Advent 3 – 8am –
Sermon
St. Paul’s
Memorial Church - Charlottesville
We are all in
Newtown
May the words of my mouth and the
meditations of our hearts be always acceptable O Lord, our strength and our
redeemer. Amen.
On this day we
all are in Newtown, Connecticut.
We grieve for
the loss of these wonderful people, we are angry, scared, frustrated, sad,
confused….
Our hearts are
with those in Newtown, today, and our prayers go out to them.
My own heart is
with all those in Newtown today, and when they sometimes say, “this hit close
to home,” I would say that is this case, Newtown is one of the places of home
for me. I spent some significant time in
Newtown, where both of my parents grew up, and my mom went to Sandy Hook
Elementary School. My aunts and uncles
were married, where many thanksgiving meals were eaten, where I used to bake
with my grandmother and hike with my granddad.
Newtown is also where I mourned the death of my grandparents, and where
I led the funerals for them both.
Newtown, for me
is a place of warm Thanksgivings, of joyous Christmases, of kickball games
behind my grandparents house, of games with cousins, of marvelous 4th
of July parades, and of God’s love pouring out through the love and life of
family. Saturday mornings were full of
granola and fresh donuts that Granddad would go and buy in the wee hours of the
mornings. For me, Newtown was one of the
places where God’s love was made manifest in the lives of family and friends. My grandmother, before she began to decline,
was the quintessential “church lady” and I was really thinking about what she
would be doing today. I have a feeling
that she would know these families, and she would be out serving them.
My own heart and
mind are having trouble catching up with the news of the last two days. Images of warmth and love and kindness are in
conflict with images of pain and evil and death. My own heart is broken with grief for all
those who have died, and for those families whose hearts must also be broken.
I have trouble finding
a way to wrap my mind and my heart around these events. And I’m sure I’m not alone. However, the sadness, grief and anger are
real, and I have a knot in my stomach about all of this.
In the midst of
this event, our hearts are broken, and we mourn for all those who have
died. We turn to our loved ones and we
hug our families and friends. We also reflect on all that we have, and on all of
those who we love. Our hearts are
broken, broken open. One thing about a
broken heart is that we become vulnerable, and even if we tend that open heart
we can be open to one another’s pain and suffering. A broken heart, when it heals, the question
will it become hardened, with scar tissue? Will it become hardened (like
Pharoah’s), or will it be open, soft, supple, vulnerable?
I began to think about responses to this event, and of course I thought about my own
kids. I think about the ways that we are
vulnerable to folks who slip into extreme mental illness and get their hands on
guns. We know that we cannot stop every
evil, but there is much that we can do.
Surely we need to have a serious discussion about guns in our society, and
about access to mental health treatment.
Will this prevent all these tragedies from happening? Probably not.
But we do need to get busy. There
is much we can do, and that we should do.
As Christians, we have a specific call to remind the world that we are
called to create a world of love, compassion and reconciliation, even in the
midst of tragedy.
On this day, we
are all in Newtown, Connecticut, and our hearts are broken, broken open.
We can allow our
hearts to be broken open, so we can respond to a world in need.
In this time, we
turn to God so that we can be reminded of that wonderful sentiment from William
Sloan Coffin who said “Hope is a state of mind independent of the state of the
world.” We cannot allow what we see
around us to determine our hope, for our hope is in God; is in Christ. We can embody this audacious hope, hope, even
in the midst of sorrow and pain. This
audacious hope. Hope that things will
change, especially when we turn our open hearts to one another and to God, and
when we get busy. As Dave Matthews sang
in concert here in Charlottesville on Friday, “We gotta do much more than
believe, if we’re going to change things.” And obviously we have to begin with
our belief, and our hope, but then get busy.
We are not
alone, as we approach Christmas, we are reminded of the audacious hope given to
us in Jesus. As God became human, as a
vulnerable child, God showed his love for us.
The love of a daddy; the love of a mommy, for the likes of us. God entered this world. Jesus entered into
this world, this world of tragedy and turmoil, this world of sorrow and pain,
but also this world of hope and love, despite all the odds.
My own mind and
heart are still trying to wrap around the events of Friday in Newtown,
Connecticut. But I do feel that we have
a call to let our hearts be broken, and let them be open to one another, and
find ways to get busy, and keep our hearts supple and vulnerable, even and
especially, in this difficult time.
Almighty God, we thank you that in your
great love you have fed us with the spiritual food and drink of the body and
blood of your Son, Jesus Christ, and you have given us a foretaste of your
heavenly banquet Grant that we may receive this as a comfort in affliction and
a pledge of our inheritance in that kingdom where there is no death neither nor
crying and the fullness of joy with all your saints, through Jesus Christ our
Savior. Amen
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