Easter 4 April 25, 2010

Easter 4
April 25, 2010

“Lo, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, because you are with me.”
I’ve spent this weekend so far literally in the valley of the shadow of death.
Yesterday I presided at the funeral service for Conna Fitzpatrick after spending Saturday morning talking with her family. She and her husband Jim had effective not been apart at all ever since they met in the early 40’s in wartime England. Almost sixty years of marriage—Jim is wondering how he can walk the next months and years of his life without her.
Thursday, Friday, and yesterday were my monthly volunteer three days as chaplain at Speare Hospital. One woman was coming to terms with the fact that she could no longer care for herself and needed to move permanently to a place where she could receive more intensive help. A group of neighbors had accompanied the ambulance carrying a neighbor who lived alone to the hospital, not knowing what was wrong, just knowing that she was gravely ill and that she had no one else to care for her. They’d settled themselves into the waiting room, prepared to stay as long as needed, to pray for their friend, to be there when, or if, she woke up.
All of these people, for different reasons, are walking through the valley of the shadow of death.

What a powerful image that is!
The word “valley”—valleys are low, closed in—in emotional valleys we can feel dejected and depressed, as if there is no way out.
And what do shadows do? They throw a haze over things, darken them, dim the colors. In the shadows, it’s hard if not impossible to see things clearly. In a shadowy landscape we have to grope our way forward, squint our eyes to catch even a glimpse of light.

I’m sure you are all familiar with the work of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross on death and dying.
In her writings she identified “stages of grief.” She said that when someone is grieving they experience denial, bargaining, anger, guilt, and acceptance (I would add fear).
These “stages” don’t occur (she tried to make this clear in her later writings) in any particular order, and they don’t happen just once. You might think you’re done with denial—you’ve worked hard and faced up to whatever it is—and then a few weeks later—wham!—you find yourself thinking—“it’s not really happening, they made a mistake, I don’t have to go through this.”
These stages of grief provide a map for walking through the valley of the shadow of death.

That map is not just helpful when we’re clearly in grief.
Have you ever taken one of those “how much stress are you in?” tests in Readers’ Digest or whatever? The first time I did I was amazed that events that sound pretty good like “moving to a new home” or “starting a new job” are just as stressful as clearly awful events like “losing a job” and, of course, the death of someone close to you.
That’s because change itself, even good change or change for good reasons, always takes us on a journey through the valley of the shadow of death.
It makes sense, because all change involves some sort of death. In any change, something familiar passes away, something new takes its place.
And in that journey from familiar to new, we inevitably find ourselves jumping back and forth from one of Kubler-Ross’ stages to another. Denial to bargaining, guilt to anger and back again, acceptance one day only to find yourself in denial the next. And sometimes, in the midst of it, flashes of excitement or joy.
It’s pretty obvious where I’m going with this.
This is the first time I’ve seen most of you since you received my letter announcing my intention to retire in June.
Tim came and a good number of you stayed after church last Sunday to talk with him. I know you’re talking and e-mailing one another, and that’s good.
But now, here I am and here you are. And for just a few minutes right now I’d like to switch this sermon from my talking to you to all of us talking to one another. I’m hoping that what I’ve just said about the stages of grief (and, more broadly, the stages that occur in all big changes), might help us all realize what’s going on in our hearts and our minds.
Are there questions or comments?: ………………..


Yearning
Active listening














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Thank you. I won’t use the sermon time for this again—we need to keep on pondering the relationship between God’s word and our lives re together as we’ve done for these past nine years.
But I do suggest that we all continue to be attentive to our emotions, our “stages” of grieving this change, and help one another with them.
And I’d love to meet with each of you personally during the next two months. Those of you who were here when I came know that many of us met over tea or coffee to get acquainted in those first few weeks and months. I would love to do that again for everyone willing to take the time.

To close, I want to remind you of something both Psalm 23 and today’s Gospel shout out: You are not lost sheep, you parishioners of Church of the Holy Spirit. You are found sheep!
Even walking through this shadowy valley, remember what the psalmist says, “I will fear no evil because you are with me.”
In the Gospel, Jesus says it even more strongly: “No one will snatch you out of my hand.” When I read that, early in the week, I cried because it seemed to be speaking directly to me and to us—“No one will snatch us out of Christ’s hand.”