Double-Edged Sword, June 28, 2009

2 Samuel 1:17-27
Mark 5:1-21
There is a double-edged sword in the circumstances of our lives.
This day, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, the whole community will turn out to celebrate in the park at Graduation. We celebrate and cheer accomplishments. Yet, more even than the fulfillment of their basic public education, this is a turning point. As names are called out, as the tassels are moved from one side to the other, as they leap from the break-wall into the lake, as they add up scholarships so as to afford college, as they pack the family car to be oriented to the next stage of their lives, a part of each of us grieve that they are no longer our babies. Childhood has ended, as they soar from the nests they have known.

As much today as we celebrate and give thanks to God for the births and lives among us of Allen and Evelyn; for Will and for Katheryn, there is a loss of their being the only child of their parents. There is a change for Tracy and Jim, for Kristen and Mark that their lives will never be the same. The human mind has this amazing gift of amnesia, that they probably cannot recall life before Ace and Evelyn, let alone, before the birth of children, when it was just the two of them.

Life is double-edged, there is joy and celebration and claiming of what is new that come at a cost. We are a culture that denies GRIEF, that avoids mourning. How ironic, that Memorials which represent TRADITION would be so Counter-Cultural! Because of our avoidance for what is real, and personal, when there are occasions for public affirmation of the death of celebrities, we are caught up and cannot look away, from mourning for Michael Jackson, and Farrah Fawcet and Ed McMahon, we have endured over a year of daily coverage of the murder of Kayleigh Anthony and her mother though arrested will not come to trial for at least another year. These are not heroes, they are celebrities from whom we cannot look away. Because if we should look out of our periphery, if we do not remain focused on what is safe, we might recognize ourselves.

This week nearly 150 years after the War of Northern Aggression, the War of Southern Cessation, the Civil between the States, among all the Legislation that is approved, there was finally a Bill that we as a Nation acknowledge and apologize for Slavery. A Century and a half, a Civil war that costs more American lives than any other war, and finally we can name that the buying and selling of human lives was wrong. Our legislators were careful to include, that nothing is owed because of this, but Slavery in the Home of the Free was wrong.

Among all the monuments in our Nations Capital, actually among all the monuments in all the world, the most visited is the Viet Nam War Memorial. Between all the pristine Marble columned temples, a twisting jagged scar cuts through the lush green grass. Upon its polished surfaces are row upon row of all the names of all those who died. The beauty of the stone polished to a mirrored finish, is that looking at the names, reading them one after another, we witness ourselves reflected, their names written across our faces. This is a part of our Nation's history from which we have not yet healed. We covered the wounds and moved on. We refused to look at that time, or to dwell on the circumstances. But the problem of a wound untreated, covered up, where air and light cannot get in, is that the wound festers and becomes infected. This is true, not only of cuts and burns to the skin, but emotional wounds as well, we need light and air and claiming the reality in order to heal, in order to finally move on.

We tend to remember the Old Testament David as the Shepherd boy, who played the harp, who killed Goliath, who married the wife of Uriah, and who was the best loved King of Israel. But what we ignore, that David would not allow the nation to forget, was that he became King through the deaths of King Saul and the King's son/David's closest friend Jonathan. David had killed Goliath of the Philistines and went to live in the palace of King Saul as a trusted intimate part of their family. After a series of outbursts, in a rage King Saul through a spear at David, who recognizing his life was in danger fled, fled to live as leader of the Philistines. And David and the Philistine Army went into battle against the Warrior King Saul and Jonathan and the army of Israel. And David WON, which is to say that Israel lost and was conquered. The Second Scroll of Samuel does not begin with Triumphal Consecration and anointing of the new King; but rather, the beginning of the Second Scroll of Samuel, last among the Leaders known as Judges, begins with a remembrance of battle. There is acknowledgement by the victor, that the Sword of King Saul never retreated. The arrows of the bow of Jonathan perpetually struck flesh. And the King who sits on the throne of Israel and the Philistines, does so fully aware of the double-edged nature of circumstance.

The story of the Healing of the Geresene Demoniac is almost more like a PARABLE than a healing. In the Gospel of Mark there are code phrases. On the one side of the sea were the Jewish villages, on the other side of the sea were the Roman and Greek Gentile Cities, so when ever we read phrases like Jesus went in a boat to the other side, it is reference to a switch from Judaism to Gentiles. For a Jewish audience, listening to this story, pigs were non-Kosher, vile beasts, so for the evil spirits to come out of the man, to go into the swine, seemed too appropriate. And once the evil spirits go into the swine, the pigs are so tormented as to run off a cliff into the sea, which we remember from Genesis represented Chaos. But also, when Jesus asked a name for the man, what did he say? Our Name is LEGION. The LEGION was the Roman Mercenary Army, who fought among themselves, who raped and murdered and stole, because they were powerful. A Legion numbered 2000 to 6000 soldiers. This is a man rejected by society. The tombs were not a prison or hospital, these were desolate caves, sink holes in the ground, where the corpses of the dead had been buried. He was chained up there, so as to set apart from decent people. Yet he routinely broke the chains and shackles, the torment within him was so strong.

But the point of this as a PARABLE is the reaction of the people. Imagine there is this one, you have known about and tolerated all his life. No one claims him, no one wants him, he is a tormented soul who screams, tears his clothing to shreds, he is filthy and disgusting and dangerous. They have repeatedly chained him up and left him to die with the corpses of those already dead. Jesus comes and heals him. GOOD NEWS, but the other side of the sword, now how do we relate to him? We knew how to fear him. We knew how to chain him up, to ignore him as if dead. But to relate to him as healed, requires something from the community, not just from the man or Jesus. He wanted to go with Jesus and the disciples, but instead he is sent to go to the very people who rejected and mistreated him.

Fifteen years ago, in another community, the former pastor's widow called up one day. She described that their son had served in the Viet Nam War, and had been Missing in Action. For the remainder of her husband's life this had been an unresolved wound. Recently, through Government channels, they had learned that their son had died in battle. For over twenty years, the Army had collected a salary for him, in the event that MIA, he might come home. Now they had given her this money, along with the knowledge her son was dead. She asked if a Memorial could be established for $5,000 to remember her son who had grown up in the church? A month later, a family was going to Washington and volunteered to do a grave-rubbing of his name off the Memorial. We listened to stories of their family. That prior to marriage the mother had wanted to be a Missionary, but she had married a minister and raised a son instead. We also contacted the International Missions Offices of the Church, and recommended that the $5000 be used to create a Missionary position in Viet Nam. The mother was so delighted, she increased this to $50,000.

This week, as we prepared for Dr. Eastman's memorial, his brother called up from Texas. He described having visited our website, that his church wanted to create a mission memorial.
So this day, as we cheer the Graduates, we also weep a tear. As we Baptize and affirm life, we know we each are baptized into his death and resurrection!