WHEN YOU KNOW THE ENDING

        We were watching the North Carolina basketball game last Sunday when it came time to leave for a meeting at the church.  “I’m going to record the rest of the game,” I told my wife.  “And if it is an exciting finish I want to watch it when we get home.”  I’m not a Carolina fan, but since I have a daughter who graduated from UNC, a grandson who is a student in Chapel Hill, and another grandson who lives and dies with the Tar Heels, I was pulling for them to win.  They were also representing our state and the ACC.  I wanted Carolina to beat Kansas. 

        I heard the final score before I returned home.  I promptly erased the recording.  It makes a difference when you know the outcome.  It’s hard to be excited when you know the ending is not good. 

        This Sunday at high noon hundreds of people from area churches will gather at the Square in front of the old courthouse for a Community Palm Sunday Celebration.  It will be a festive atmosphere.  You will hear shouts of “Hosanna!  Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!”  Trumpets will sound, worshipers dressed in their Sunday finest will wave Palm fronds, different choirs dressed in colorful robes will sing “All Glory, Laud, and Honor,” and the local clergy dressed in liturgical vestments with purple stoles will pray, read Scripture and proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ!

It will be a celebration which raises an interesting question.  How can we celebrate when we know that the ending will not be good?  If we follow Jesus throughout Holy Week, we will find tensions building in Jerusalem as he drives the money changers out of the Temple, the religious authorities will conspire against him, the people will turn against him, and finally one of his own disciples will sell him out for a pocketful of money.  Jesus will be arrested, paraded back and forth between political leaders, victimized by a travesty of a trial, and finally sentenced to die by crucifixion.   His closest followers will go into hiding, he will be severely beaten and ridiculed, and after a humiliating death march through the city forced to carry his instrument of torture and execution, he will be stripped of his garments, nailed to a cross, and lifted up for all to see on a public hill called Golgotha just outside the city walls.  

Just knowing that this will happen tempers our celebration, but yet, we still celebrate.   We know that even though the immediate ending is not good, there is a greater ending that transcends all human expectation and experience—a greater ending that transforms our very existence.  It teaches us that the worst case scenario is never the last word.  There is always hope, always light, and always a reason to lift up our heads and hearts and yes, celebrate, even in the most desperate situations. 

As people of faith we understand that pain, suffering, injustice, and death are all a part of life.  We can erase the recording, but it doesn’t change the reality.  It’s how we view the reality of suffering that makes all the difference.  Left on its own, suffering, pain, affliction, and failure will overwhelm us, driving us into a deep, dark abyss of depression and despair.  Life loses all meaning and purpose and we are plunged into hopelessness.  But if we understand that Jesus not only died for us, but he died to suffer with us, we can allow him to absorb our anguish and despair through his crucifixion.  Fredrick Buechner wrote, “Because of the cross our greatest pain endured in love and faithfulness, becomes the greatest beauty and the greatest hope.”  Therefore we can sing, “In the cross of Christ I glory!”

And so this Sunday, Palm Sunday, we celebrate precisely because we know how it will end.  And next Sunday, Easter Sunday . . . well, nothing can ever erase that ending!

Scheduled to appear in The Dispatch, March 31, 2012

       

Elsie Banks Loved to Laugh

          We are in the midst of a Lenten sermon series on the Fruit of the Spirit.  This Sunday we are talking about goodness.  I was thinking about the best way to define goodness, and I thought about Elsie Banks.  Elsie personified the meaning of goodness.   But last Sunday we talked about kindness.  Kindness defined Elsie’s life.   And there was love, and joy, peace, patience . ..

        In Elsie’s life the Fruit of the Spirit were not only present, but active, vibrant, transparent and contagious.  

        Elsie died at her home Tuesday night after an extended illness.  Her funeral service was Saturday at First Baptist Church where she was an active and faithful member for the majority of her life. 

        There are nine “fruits” of the Spirit.   While Elsie displayed all nine in her life, perhaps the one that stood out above all the rest was “faithfulness.”  

        Elsie did not have an easy life.  She was raised at the Junior Order Home, and while that was a difficult journey in many ways, Elsie would quickly point out all of the positives, the love, the support, the life-lessons, the encouragement that we received there.  

        She experienced a great deal of loss in her life, her parents, her husband, her brothers, but most painfully, her son.  For many years she battled a serious and life-threatening illness.  But through it all, while some would have become bitter, callous, and angry with God—Elsie was faithful. 

        In good times and bad, Elsie was faithful.  In times of sickness and distress, Elsie was faithful.  Through heartache and loss, Elsie was faithful. 

        She loved First Baptist Church.   It was her extended family.   And it was rare that an event was taking place at our church without Elsie.  Whenever the church bus or one of our charter buses pulled out of the church parking lot on a trip, Elsie would be on board.  We had some great times traveling together and Elsie was always at the center of the action, her joy and enthusiasm were contagious.  Everyone loved to be with Elise. 

        Elsie’s joy was communicated through the sparkle in her eyes and her loveable laughter.  All I had to do was mention a memorable experience from one of our trips, like the banana pudding we had at Natural Bridge, Virginia that didn’t have any bananas, or the trip to West Virginia when it rained the entire time and we had chicken for every meal, or the continental breakfast we had in Williamsburg at which everyone was rationed two mini-muffins, or my 50^th birthday Cruise when we hit the Nor’easter coming back up the East Coast and everybody in the group was too sick to eat the cake, or the time we celebrated Martha Kinney’s birthday in Savannah and everybody on the bus was laughing, but no one can remember the reason why—and Elsie’s eyes would sparkle and she would laugh.  

        In the 31^st chapter of Proverbs, the wisdom writer is describing a virtuous woman and he writes:  Strength and dignity are her clothing and she laughs at the time to come.  To be able to laugh in times of distress, sadness, pain, and suffering, is the visible sign of faithfulness.  The writer goes on to say:

She speaks wisely.
She teaches faithfully.
She watches over family matters.
She is busy all the time.
Her children rise up and call her blessed.
Her husband also, and he praises her.
He says, "Many women do noble things.
But you are better than all the others."

The passage concludes by saying:  Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.

THE DAY MR. LOONEY DIED

        There are two things I read in my hometown newspaper—the obituaries and a feature called, “A Look Back” that reports on what was going on in my hometown 50 years ago, back when I was a boy. 

        I’ve often told the story of my first encounter with death.  Mr. Looney was a kind policeman who often worked the school crossing on Main and Milner Streets.  Back when I WAS A BOY, I would walk to school!  (Yes, it was rough back in the day!)  The Main and Milner crossing was one block from my house, two blocks from the school.  (Okay, give me a break!  It was only 3 blocks but I was just a kid!)

        Mr. Looney knew us all by name, or at least our family name.  I was “little Howell.”   He would joke around with all the kids, sometimes let us play with his handcuffs, and he would make sure we were safe and sound. 

        One morning I saw Mr. Looney on the way to school.  I’m sure he called me “little Howell” and had some encouraging words for me.  He wasn’t there when I walked home.  I stopped at my grandmother’s house and she told me that Mr. Looney had died.  It was a sudden heart attack, just after working the school crossing. 

        My memory doesn’t always serve me well because in my mind we got in her car right then and went to the funeral home.  More than likely it was the next afternoon when we went to the funeral home.  It was the old Peck Funeral Home up on the hill across the tracks from the Hartselle Depot. 

        We walked into the viewing room and I remember flowers everywhere.  And there, in the middle of the floral arrangements, was a casket with Mr. Looney, dressed in his police uniform with his hat resting to his side.  My grandmother walked up to the casket.  She beckoned me to come join her but I was reluctant.  I had never seen anyone in death before. 

        She started talking to me, telling me that this was just Mr. Looney’s body.  His spirit, she said, was already in heaven.  Mr. Looney was rejoicing in heaven.  He was up there with Jesus and all of his family and one day, we would be there too. 

        Then she said to me, “Do you want to touch him?”  

        Well, I didn’t, but Nana didn’t give me a choice.  She took my hand and placed it on Mr. Looney’s cold hands.   A chill went up my spine.  She was teaching me a life lesson about death.  “Death is a part of life,” she always said.

        That event had quiet an impact on me.  Obviously, I have not forgotten my first encounter with a dead man.  The other day in my hometown paper, I read that 50 years ago Police Chief Looney had a sudden heart attack and died.  His funeral was scheduled for First Baptist Church.    

        So it has been 50 years.  I would have been an eight year old boy in the second grade.  And I never remembered him being the Police Chief.  Of course, my hometown was so small there were probably just a handful of policemen.   But even so, it was the Chief who worked the school crossing and made friends with all the kids.   Fifty years later, Mr. Looney is still influencing me. 

        Now, here is the “rest of the story.”   I don’t know if that experience had anything to do with it—but I think it did—when in college I got a part-time job at a funeral home.  I certainly wasn’t scared of being around the dead.  My grandmother saw to that when I was in the second grade. 

        I have always felt that my experience in a funeral home gave me a better understanding of how to relate to families at a time of death, which I do right often as a minister. 

        And here’s another interested twist.  Having experience at a funeral home in college led me to find a job with Bright Funeral Home in Wake Forest when I was in seminary.  When I went to work at Bright, they were still running ambulance service, so I was certified as an EMT.  When I was called to my first church, they quickly found out that I was an EMT with ambulance experience so I was soon a volunteer with the rescue squad.  My youngest brother, Jon, came to see me and went on an ambulance call with me.  He must have liked it, because he later got a part-time job with an ambulance service.  Today, he is the CEO of HEMSI, the emergency medical services of Huntsville, Alabama.  

        Somehow there is a connection that goes back 50 years to the day that Mr. Looney died.   Death, after all, is a part of life.