"Hemingway's Shortest Story" April 19, 2015

Luke 24: 36-48 Acts 3:1-12, 16-20 Ernest Hemingway was a Master story-teller, who once was challenged to tell a story with as few words as possible. Hemingway arrived at 6 words. “FOR SALE: Baby Shoes, Never Worn.” He said that encapsulates human disappointment, you identify with the characters, even without identification. There was a birth defect. Perhaps the pregnancy was lost. Possibly the mother died. Possibly the couple wanting a child, divorce. You do not know all the specifics, but identify with the emotion of Loss. There is the imperfect sense of a life-long hope, unfulfilled, unrealized, and that imperfect tense creates profound disappointment. Hemingway's story could have easily been “Engagement Ring Never Accepted” or “Retirement Dream Never Lived” “College 529 Savings Plan Never Enrolled." There is something in us as Human beings that desires the Future Perfect Tense: The Prince and Princess lived Happily Ever After... The family in the ICU who describe She survived and is still alive.. The 70 year old who gets up early the morning after Retirement because he has things to do... In Luke, walking along the road, two encounter a stranger and in Imperfect Present Tense state their disappointment: “But we had hoped, he was the Messiah, who would have been the one, who would have redeemed Israel!” With disappointment, instead of the statement being begun in the past open-ended continuing indefinitely, there is a definite period of change, as if “THE END.” The Crucifixion was intended for that purpose. The Empire intended Not simply to execute Jesus, but to intimidate the masses so deeply as to DESTROY HOPE, to grind in NEVER AGAIN. The two walking along the road, that Easter day, were wrestling with the meaning of things, as we all tend to do when accepting disappointment. Was he just a Teacher? Was he a Prophet? Jesus healed the Blind, cured the Lepers, Fed the hungry, was he a Miracle healer? Jesus was a larger than life figure, a friend who you want to attach yourself to because they are going places. Suddenly, he was killed, dead, making him smaller and smaller. He was a human being, a man. All the Parables, all the circumstances became what Jesus did in our lives, now robbed from us. Disappointment is destabilizing. Our peripheral vision closes in. We become numb. All we can see is the personal, that will not be. The Victory that will not happen. The Marriage that will not take place. The Children never born. As a congregation we are known for taking risks, for venturing into what other churches might not try. A few years ago, I recall a Saturday we had hoped to have a wedding, and the wedding was cancelled. The same weekend on Sunday morning where we had planned a baptism, and the parents chose to divorce. We are exceedingly blessed as a church, many have not celebrated a wedding or baptism in years, we do so as commonplace. But with that, we then need to own the disappointment when Marriages and Baptisms do not occur. However, along the road, after hearing the two describe what they thought Jesus was to them, Jesus explains what the Messiah is to the History of the World! Their minds are opened to possibility. It is Not that the Sacrament has a magic power when bread is broken, the person in long robes, saying the right incantation! NO, It is that having experienced and heard the word of God, they share in the sacred which is a routine of life, the sacred is as much an ongoing part of life as meals, and they believe. On Sunday morning in America, modern disciples come through the church door weighed down by loss, cynicism and stress. They are lawyers, engineers, scientists, journalists, teachers -- skilled practitioners in the seductions of the world, but nervous novices in the realm of the Spirit. They, like the first disciples, yearn for the living presence of God. But they are too preoccupied, scheduled, suspicious, too busy, having no time to actually recognize God. In the objective world of fact and truth, matter and money, the Church's world of mystery, meaning, risk, trust, love, relationship seems silly. So they are eager to debate the Idea of God, but unprepared to experience the presence of God. I know that after so many years together, there are those who believe Craig does not get it, all he ever preaches is trust and love. But I believe trust, love, forgiveness are the essentials of Christian faith. This week I was part of a discussion at Presbytery, where the leader was asking what are we supposed to do, are we willing and able to trust each-other, to trust the process and systems we have put into place. And I came to recognize part of what we need to trust in the current world is a certain level of chaos. Everything continues to be in transition, we do not know where the world is going, where the church is going, and we are at least thankful that life has not yet lost meaning. So we Re-Member not to live in the past, but to claim those who are unending parts of our body. But rather than the Enlightenment, which believed everything could be understood, that through reason we could Know everything, today we live with a certain level of chaos that the future has not yet been determined, so we have to trust, to trust one another and God. Chaos and Doubt are not the opposite of faith. Chaos is the opposite of control of certainty, but Control is different than trust and faith. Doubt, in fact, is a necessary ingredient to faith. Faith, by definition, is trust in spite of a lack of evidence, a lack of certainty. Faith is not knowledge. Faith is more tension-filled. Faith is acting as if something is true even when you have no proof that it will be true. Which means that when we talk about the “gathering of the faithful,” we’re not talking about the gathering of those who’s faith/knowledge is absolute or certain. We’re talking about those who have all kinds of questions and doubts but still find joy and wonder in this message of Good News about new life. Or maybe who want to find joy and wonder, haven’t yet, but keeping coming because of their unending hope. To better grasp this story from Acts, recognize that it actually comes ON The Day of Pentecost, as a parallel to “All the disciples went out and about 3000 were converted in power;” Peter and John, respond to one man, as a human being, in the name of Jesus Christ to be well. This Day did not start out as a Day of Confidence and Faith, but once again locked in the Upper Room for Fear. There the Disciples felt the Calling to go out into the world. We remember the Flames resting upon each, the speaking in various tongues. What we overlook was that in that chaos, the people each were able to hear them speaking to their own needs in new and different ways. This lame-beggar was not treated as a Man, was not treated as whole, was not treated as able even to enter the Temple to pray to God. But others daily carried his body to lay outside the gate, to ask for money. That same day, filled with the Spirit, Peter and John go to the Temple to pray, they have no money to give to him, but what they have is willingness in the midst of chaos, to see him as a human being, to look the man in the eye and speak to him. AND Second, they have have faith in Jesus Christ to not leave him there. The Imperfect Tense only remains in the imperfect, if this is an ending. Chaos is only really chaos, if that is all we allow to be. But if we see in the midst of the Chaos the opportunity for God, if we hear in the midst of the imperfect God calling Life to Be, then it is Good, even Very Good. If Hemingway's story is only about the disappointment, then Baby Shoes: Never Worn is the whole story, but the imperfect can also become Future Perfect by those shoes becoming the context, that for that couple there was redemption they found hope in each other, in redemption; and for another the Never Worn Baby Shoes were what they could afford for their child to learn to stand and to walk. On Friday, for the third year, I was invited to be one whom the 8th Graders interview about giving back to the Community. This year, as they ended, they asked a question, they had not before. “If you were going to share an insight with us, what would it be? What is important?” I told our 8th Graders, “There are going to be times you will fail, you will have your heart broken. You will. Never give up, you will fall in love again. You will succeed. But know we are watching over you, wherever you go this Village is part of you, and we continue to re-member you and claim you as part of our Perfect Future story.