The Old South Church in Boston

Hope! Really?

Sermon by James W. Crawford

Luke 24:1-12 and Mark 4:26-29*

Easter Sunday, April 15, 2001

A few years ago Time Magazine ran a cover those who saw it will never forget. It announced, “God is Dead.” Over the years other references to the death of things religious proliferated. We tout ours as a secular age. We moved into a post-Christian era. We hear from every corner in this pluralistic time that Christendom is dead. Well, I’m not so sure. Not only does your presence here this morning augur for life in the old body yet; but even more so, indicating Christendom may linger yet in the precincts of the Back Bay, I received yesterday in the mail from the Boston Red Sox my annual clergy pass.

As we gather here this morning the Red Sox find themselves amid a four game series with the New York Yankees. This year the Sox celebrate one hundred years of playing in the American League. In this last century the Red Sox have emerged victorious in six world series—the last in 1918 when their star pitcher, Babe Ruth, pitched 29 1/2 scoreless innings, and Woodrow Wilson was in the White House. In the last 100 years the Yankees have emerged victorious in 26 series, the last ending a string of three straight, four out of five, in the year 2000. And today, this very day, we are at it again. But for Red Sox fans there looms a dread fatalism. We know, for instance, opening day, a week ago Friday, was “the first day of the rest of our strife.” We crowd into a ballpark whose opening in 1912 was postponed by three days of rain and then entertained its first game the day the Titanic sank. We root for a team that, as one observer writes, can give the appearance of being mathematically eliminated while still in first place. In New England we know October to be the most beautiful month of the year, but in some hearts and minds it is the cruelest month, the month of death—no “Mr. Octobers” here. The most fervent prayer on the lips of New Englanders born after 1918 is, “Lord, please, in my life time.” Dan Shaughnessy of The Globe quotes an editorial from The Washington Post, concluding, “The baseball season in Boston is traditionally concluded in an atmosphere of recrimination, regret and bitter disputation infused with a certain amount of the occult.” And reflecting poignantly on this perennial October tragedy George V. Higgins writes, “The Red Sox are a religion. Every year we re-enact the agony and temptation in the garden. Baseball? Child’s play? Hell, up here in Boston it’s a passion play.” You get the picture.

Now, I don’t know how many of you this morning happen to be baseball fans—I don’t know how many of you may be headed for Fenway following this service—but you must know someone who goes through this hope and agony year after year. It smacks of a hope and agony permeating the New Testament. You see, the early church looked for and anticipated a new world of grace and peace promised by Jesus Christ; and it appeared nowhere. Forty years after Jesus’ death nothing had changed. The Romans controlled religion and politics with a cruelty and oppression no less fierce than when they crucified Jesus. That early church, puny, discouraged, rejected and persecuted by the religious and civil powers-that-be, hung by a thread, ready to quit.

And Mark? God bless him! Mark assures his friends all is not lost. He puts on the lips of Jesus a parable of hope even yet sustaining Christians through the change and turmoil of two millennia. Remember? “The Kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.”

In this parable of “The Seed Growing Secretly” we discover Mark’s way of meeting the discouragement of Christians in a turbulent and perennially suffering world. Mark sees the Cross—that bloody mess declaring to us that death and carnage apparently bear the last word—Mark sees the Cross signaling, incredibly, the love of God wending its redeeming way through even the most savage of human circumstances and brute tragedy. In light of the Cross, through and beyond its cruelty, Mark affirms the explosive presence of saving love—transforming even circumstances appearing to offer no way out, circumstances pointing to dead ends, slammed doors, blind alleys, yea, even death itself. In this parable of the seed growing secretly, Mark affirms a creative, compassionate presence deep within our history working on its own, bearing our common life toward a cosmic community where our human distinctions of race, sex, nation, class, religion dissolve and our alienation from God’s gorgeous yet threatening creation gains reconciliation. Mark sees regenerative power at work in our midst, impinging upon our lives as if it were a seed breaking through rugged, inhospitable soil, soaring toward the light . . . a seed growing secretly.

What does the hope signified by this powerful metaphor look like? What does Mark see for you and me in the promises of that seed growing secretly? Well, first of all, he sees the roots of our fully blossomed and rich humanity. Mark affirms, against all the junk that puts us down, all the self reproach we tangle with, Mark affirms for each of us, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, the scope of our abilities, our full humanity in God’s creation, our being sought through thick and thin by the grace of Christ. The real hope born by the Gospel, as though it were this seed growing secretly in a world where we might disbelieve any such hope exists for us, the real hope of the Gospel undergirds our self-respect, our self-regard, our self-perspective.

And how we need and crave a Gospel perspective on ourselves. Big time! May I tell you a story illustrating not only our need, but how such a perspective may dawn in each of us? It comes from that magnificently prophetic voice of our own time, Marion Wright Edelman, Founder and President of the Children’s Defense Fund. She tells us it is a fictional story, but one she witnesses in real life every day. “It’s about one schoolteacher, Jean Thompson, and one boy, named Teddy Stollard,” she says.

On the first day of school, Jean Thompson told her students, “Boys and girls, I love you all the same.” But we know teachers occasionally tell little white lies. Little Teddy Stollard was one boy Jean Thompson did not like. He slouched in his chair; he did not pay attention; he came to school unkempt and smelling badly. In every way he was a thoroughly unattractive boy and she just didn’t like him. But teachers keep records. And Jean Thompson had Teddy’s records. In first grade those records said, “Teddy’s a good boy. He shows promise in his work and attitude but has a poor home situation.” Second grade records: “Teddy’s a good boy. He does what he’s told. But he’s too serious. His mother is terminally ill.” Third grade: “Teddy is falling behind in his work and needs help. His mother died this year; his father shows no interest.” Fourth grade: “Teddy is in deep waters. He is in need of psychiatric help; he is totally withdrawn.” Well Christmas came and the boys and girls brought their teacher a present. And the presents were all nicely wrapped and they put them on Jean Thompson’s desk. All except Teddy’s, whose present she found wrapped in brown paper and held together with Scotch tape. And on his present Teddy scribbled in crayon: “For Ms. Thompson from Teddy.” Jean Thompson tore open the brown paper bag and there she found a rhinestone bracelet. Most of the stones were missing, and with the bracelet she found a mostly empty bottle of perfume. When the other boys and girls began to giggle, she had enough sense to put some of the perfume on her wrist and to put on the bracelet, then to hold up her wrist to the other children and say, “Doesn’t it smell lovely? Isn’t the bracelet pretty?” And taking their cue from the teacher, the children all agreed. At the end of the day, when the other children had left, Teddy lingered, and came over to Jean Thompson and said, “Ms. Thompson, all day long you smelled just like my mother. And the bracelet—that’s her bracelet—it looks real nice on you too. I’m really glad you liked the presents.” And when Teddy left, Jean Thompson got down on her knees, buried her head in the chair and asked God to forgive her.

The next day when the children came, she was a different teacher. She was a teacher with a heart and she cared for all the children—but especially the children who needed help—and especially Teddy. She tutored him and put herself out for him and by the end of the year he had caught up with a lot of the kids and was even ahead of some. Several years later, Jean Thompson received this note: “Dear Ms. Thompson, I’m graduating from high school and I wanted you to be the first to know. Love Teddy.” Four years later she received another note: “Dear Ms. Thompson. I wanted you to know the university was not easy, but I liked it. Love Teddy.” And four years later still another note, saying: “Dear Ms. Thompson, as of today, I am Theodore Stollard, MD! How about that? I wanted you to be the first to know I’m going to be married in July. And I want you to come and sit where my mother would have been seated because Dad died last year and you’re the only family I have.” And Jean Thompson went and sat where his mother would have sat, because she deserved to be there.

You see, Jean Thompson offered loving and creative power— like a seed growing secretly—making the difference in that boy’s life. This Gospel-like grace can bring hope to your life and mine, to those to whom we offer it, as well.

III

And yes, the hope proclaimed this Easter Day born by the promise of this seed growing secretly when everything else denies hope, this hope we proclaim today makes a difference not only for you and for me, it bears hope for our world as well. And most importantly I believe it bears hope for our world’s most intractable, and yes, perhaps most evil circumstances.

And some of them more than hint of evil. Just this morning, we read of Secretary of State Powell touring the Balkans overwhelmed by the ache of neighboring Albanians and Macedonians to torture one another. We blanche this morning at 10,000 innocents maimed, without hands or feet, legs or arms, ears or noses in Sierra Leone’s civil war. Jonathan Glover calls this last century with its Flanders Field and Hiroshima, its Gulags and Dachaus, a “Festival of Cruelty.” He broods over the words Dostoevski puts into the mouth of Ivan Karamazov, “No animal could ever be so cruel as a man, so artfully, artistically cruel.”

Why? Why this continuation of what a former Secretary of State calls “this problem from Hell?” Why this intense virulent tribal, national, unending religious hatred shredding community and destroying human life from Skopje to Bogota to Gaza, to Kabul to Belfast to Grozny, to Cincinnati to Boston, and most symbolically, perhaps, to the city where Easter’s hope broke through 2000 years ago, Jerusalem, where this morning mortars, tanks, Molotov cocktails, as one editorial observes, “Life by the Sword,” becomes the order of the day? Isn’t much of this a consequence of being chained to the past? Isn’t it imprisonment by myths festering for centuries? Isn’t it finding ourselves trapped and controlled by violent tribal, clan, national and racial memories, the legends of martyrdom told generation after generation loosing the demons of vengeance, fueling the engines of revenge?

Do you remember Dr. Kings’ wonderful illustration in his book, “Where Do we Go From here? Chaos or Community?” He tells of a novelist dying some years ago and leaving a list of suggested plots for future stories, as he writes, the most “prominently underscored being this one: ‘A widely separated family inherits a house in which they have to live together.’” Dr. King goes on to call this the “great new problem of humankind. We have inherited a large house, a great ‘world house’ in which we have to live together—black and white, Easterner and Westerner, Gentile and Jew, Catholic and Protestant, Moslem and Hindu —a family unduly separated in ideas, culture and interest, who because we can never again live apart, must somehow learn to live with each other in peace.”

You will excuse, please, an old story to make the point. The story tells of nine soldiers who received overnight passes from base camp. When morning came not one of the soldiers showed up for roll call. An hour after their absence was noted, the first soldier straggled back into camp. His company commander immediately confronted him. “I’m sorry for being late,” the soldier said, “but I had a date, lost track of time and missed the last bus. I wanted to make it back in time, so I took a taxi. About half way back to camp the cab broke down, so I went to the nearest farm and bought a horse. As I was riding, the horse suddenly fell sick and died. So I ran the last five miles on foot, and here I am.” The company commander felt somewhat skeptical about these odd excuses, but let the soldier off with a mild lecture on the virtues of punctuality. And then the second soldier arrived, and the company commander confronted him. “I’m sorry for being late,” this soldier said. “But I had a date, lost track of time and missed the last bus. I wanted to make it back on time so I took a taxi. About halfway back to camp the cab broke down, so I went to the nearest farm and bought a horse. As I was riding the horse suddenly fell sick and died. So I ran the last five miles on foot, and here I am.” The commanding officer, again, expressed mild skepticism yet reminded the soldier about the virtues of being on time and let him off. A third solder strolled into camp and again encountered the company commander. “I’m sorry for being late,” the soldier said, “but I had a date, lost track of time and missed the last bus. I wanted to make it back on time, so I took a taxi. About halfway back to camp, the cab broke down, so I went to the nearest farm and bought a horse. As I was riding, the horse suddenly fell sick and died. So I ran the last five miles on foot, and here I am.” One after another, five more soldiers ramble in with the same story: had a date, lost track of time, missed the last bus, took a cab, cab broke down, bought a horse, horse fell dead, ran the last five miles to camp. Finally, the ninth and last soldier stumbled into camp. Now, totally exasperated the commanding officer asked, “So what happened to you?” The ninth soldier replied, “Sir, I had a date, lost track of time and missed the bus. So I hired a taxi . . .” “Wait!” cried the commander. “Are you going to tell me the cab broke down?’ “No, sir,” replied the soldier. “The cab was great. The problem was there were so many dead horses on the road we couldn’t get through.”

Of course: so many dead horses on the road, we can’t get through. My soul! how we clog the means of reconciliation with these dead horses of national, ethnic, racial and religious pride. God grant on this Easter Day we celebrate our release from these things holding us back, trapping us, imprisoning us, driving wedges between us, and recover our true identity, all of us, as children of God, born of the depths of the love and grace we know in Jesus Christ.

And so we finish. Christ is risen, friends. That fact is like a seed growing secretly among us. It bears this truth: you are loved from stem to stern, head to toe, soul and body. And yes, our world, all of us, live now in a world house. Dare we call it Love’s home? A house of hope? God grant it may be so.

SCRIPTURE READINGS

Luke 24:1-12

But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.” Then they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.

Mark 4:26-29

He also said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.”