September 28, 2003
Nineteenth Sunday After Pentecost
"Singing With Tears In Our Eyes"
(Jame 5:13-20, Psalm 137:1-6)
Rev. Billy D. Strayhorn
Rev. Leslie K Byrd
This was a "Tag Team Sermon" that my Associate Leslie Byrd and I did. We alternated portions of service and the sermon.
"There was a farmer whose only horse ran away"
"Oh, that's bad."
"No, that's good. the next morning it returned bringing three wild horses."
"Oh, that's good."
"No, that's bad! the farmers son tried to ride one of the horse, fell off and broke his leg."
"Oh, that's bad!"
"No, that's good! The following day, the military officials came to draft young men into the army, saw the broken leg and passed him by."
"Oh that's good!"
"No, that's bad! The officer had the flu and the son got sick!"
"Oh, that's bad!"
"No, that's good! He met a nurse, fell in love and got married."
"Oh, that's good."
"No, that's bad! She's as ugly as sin!"
"Oh, that's bad."
"No, that's good! Because she's nearly as rich as Bill Gates."
"Oh, that's good!"
"No, that's bad! Turns out she's a control freak won't give him a cent to spend."
"Oh, that's bad."
"No, that's good! She bought him a big house, fancy cars and servants."
"Oh, that's good."
"No, that's bad! The house burnt down."
"Oh, that's bad."
"No, that's good! She was in it and he was her sole heir."
Have you ever noticed just how much life is like that old joke? Every event in life has a BOTH/AND NOT EITHER/OR aspect. Every event in life is filled with good news and bad news. It's like a coin, both heads and tails. Or the proverbial half of a glass of water. It's both half full and half empty at the same time. James talks a little about that in the reading for this morning.
James 5:13-20 (NRSV)
[13] Are any among you suffering? They should pray. Are any cheerful? They should sing songs of praise.
[14] Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord.
[15] The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up; and anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven.
[16] Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective.
[17] Elijah was a human being like us, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth.
[18] Then he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain and the earth yielded its harvest.
[19] My brothers and sisters, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and is brought back by another,
[20] you should know that whoever brings back a sinner from wandering will save the sinner's soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.
James talks about both hurting and singing. He talks about how God is present in the good and the bad. He understood the BOTH/AND NOT EITHER/OR aspect of both life and faith. We see and live that BOTH/AND NOT EITHER/OR aspect of both life and faith everyday.
What is it about that magic and cursed number thirteen, especially when it comes to our kids. One minute you have a little angel, adorable and amenable in every way. Then they turn THIRTEEN and you start trying figure out when the aliens kidnapped your child and replaced them with an evil clone.
Mary and I have a term for that age. You know how women go through menopause, well kids go through what we call: Teen-o-pause.
It can begin as early as 12 but usually waits to hit during the 13th year. Women can experience hot flashes during menopause, well teenagers will have moments of adult flashes. These can last upwards to fifteen minutes. In these flashes of adulthood, there will be lucid conversation, cooperation, politeness and periods of acceptance of responsibility. However, we've discovered, that contact with any water whatsoever, the ringing of the telephone or contact with the internet can cause a complete reversal to the sullen far country known as the "teen years."
Why? Because teenagers are in the most awkward time of life there is. They are living in the BOTH/AND NOT EITHER/OR of childhood and adulthood. WE SING WITH TEARS IN OUR EYES because that period causes us both joy and grief as parents watch their babies become adults. And as those babies begin to see us with adult eyes and not a child's eye.
Besides the notion of being Sweet Sixteen, sixteen reminds me of the time for a Drivers License. Two weeks ago, the last of our three children received his learning permit. We are doing the Parent Instruction Drivers Education, just like we did with his older brother. Our daughter, the oldest, took Drivers Education from a local Driving School. What a milestone.
After hours and hours of sitting on the middle and high school parking lot, I was rejoicing at the thought of our daughter driving herself to before and after school Drill team practice. I was excited that she could take her brother to school and bring him home most of the time. I could use an extra set of hands to stop by the store and pick up milk that I had forgotten, etc.
But, the day she became a legal driver and asked to drive to her friend's house to study was excruciatingly painful. That happy dance that had been going on inside of my head suddenly sobered up, and realized that she was leaving the house, ALONE, in a several thousand pound machine that could cause great harm if mishandled.
I was a basket case most nights until I heard the car pull into the driveway, and the dog barking to welcome her home. My heart almost stopped the first time she called home on a rainy Saturday afternoon, crying, to say she had been in an accident. And, now for the third time, I find myself excited for our third child AND dreading that moment when he wants to take the car out by himself. BOTH SINGING AND TEARS.... with sixteen there comes a milestone ALSO, with 16, come the both/and situations of life...
If you haven't killed your teenager, then you know the mixed joy and bitterness of that momentous day when your child walks across the stage and receives their High School diploma or their GED. Our chests swell with pride. And tears roll down our cheeks. WE SING WITH TEARS IN OUR EYES because, whether we like it or not, this is the official day that marks the end of their childhood.
As they walk across that stage, they enter children and leave as adults. Oh, they can still act childish, but we all know people of all ages who still do that. But High School Graduation is like no other milestone.
No longer can we truly think of our children and babies. They have entered the world of adulthood. The Diploma makes it official. Crossing the stage it the right of passage. It is truly one of those moments of mixed emotion. A moment when WE SING WITH TEARS IN OUR EYES. And if truth be known, the youth feel the same way. They too are SINGING WITH TEARS IN THEIR EYES
All my oldest son talked about for a year and a half, was leaving home right after High School to go into the Air Force. His father and I spent months trying to get ourselves prepared for saying, Good-byes.
We never really got to a place where it was less painful. I had begun to think of how his room will be clean for days on end, how we could paint it and fix it up for a guest room when he was not at home. Then, three weeks before Graduation from High School, he decided to continue for his goal of FBI/Police Work, but without going by way of the Air Force. So he would be staying home and attending college. We all had both TEARS and SINGING.
Our son was confident that college was going to be a piece of cake, because he never really had to study in High School and yet made decent grades. It came easy for him. This week he had to drop a class from his load because he took on more than he could handle in all area of his life Work, School and church.) He has spent many an hour rejoicing at being out of High School and in college, and beating his head against the computer over homework that was different from how it was in High School. He loves college, and hates college all at once.
John and I still have one end of the house that is eternally messy, and can be known to smell like a boys locker room. We still have a son who stays up half the night, and at 6'1", eats us out of house and home. We know one day in the next two years, he will go away to finish his last two years of college. We are all living in the BOTH/AND of having him home, but preparing for him to leave....
Speaking of leaving, one of the most difficult things to do is watch your child get married. It brings back all the struggles of your own marriage, some good some bad. It's a time of both SINGING AND TEARS. You sing for joy because your child has found someone to love and someone who loves them deeply. Deep enough to commit their lives together.
But it also means the end of a certain relationship. They've fully entered the adult world and are on their own. And that causes us grief partly because we'll never know them as little boys or little girls again.
Most of you know, that I'm a cry baby. I tear up at movies, when the kids sing or when they cut the wedding cake. My oldest son, Paul, knows that about me. I had the privilege of performing the ceremony for he and Tina. I can't tell you how proud I was that day. Paul looked so handsome. And Tina looked so beautiful.
Just before Paul, the best man and I walked out to stand in our places, Paul leaned over and said: "Now, you're not going to cry today are you, Dad?" So, I choked all that emotion down during the service. And you know what. I was the only one who didn't cry that day. Paul, Tina, Mary everybody else cried that day. It we SANG joyous songs with TEARS IN OUR EYES because life would be wonderful, but it would never be the same again, for any of us.
When we were newly married, we were extremely poor. John was going to school and working, and I had put my education on hold and worked full time, until he was finished with school. We barely saw each other. He worked full-time and went to school full-time and I worked full-time. We were both joyful and singing praises when he finished college! He landed an excellent first job at a large hospital, and we were suddenly financially sound. A few years later he was promoted again, and paid an obscene salary package. We were singing with JOY!
About 2 months into the new job, a few things became startlingly apparent. With that salary came expectations. He was expected to travel - A LOT - and to be on call 24/7. We got calls all hours of the day or night about trucks that were moving equipment that had broken down, or computers that had crashed and parts must be ordered immediately.
ALONG WITH the new title and salary came a certain amount of career satisfaction. It also came with headache and heartache. We saw very little of each other and to make that seem okay, we bought THINGS to smooth it over. We thought if we "kept up with the Jones," we would be happy. If we didn't have a lot of time together, we could have THINGS that would make life much easier. But our relationship was suffering. There were tears because of so little time spent together, and even bigger tears over the mounting debt we were taking on. Something had to give.
What seemed like a JOYOUS career move, brought both JOY and TEARS. We have had to learn how to live in the both/and responsibly, and make choices that would bring both the heartache and the laughter.
We gave up the job, and spend years paying off the debt. Other promotions and opportunities have come about. We both still work a lot, but certain limitations and boundaries are set on time, finances, and careers, and family. There are still BOTH/AND TIMES OF TEARS AND SONG.
My first child was born long distance. I was in the Coast Guard in Japan when Paul was born. I got to spend 20 days with him and his mother when he was six months old. And then got to be a real father from about one year on.
I had six months to get used to the idea of being a father without ever having the responsibility of fatherhood. It was pretty cool. Mary sent me pictures nearly every week. I watch him grow and saw the pictures of the day he painted himself and everything he could touch with strained carrots. I saw the pictures of him carrying things around in his mouth like a puppy.
But it wasn't until I got sent home over Christmas that I actually got to BE a father. As I held him in my arms for the very first time, it was one of the BOTH/AND situations. I can't tell you the amount of pride I felt. This little boy, this little bundle of personhood was mine. And I was scared to death. For the same reasons. IT WAS A TIME OF SINGING WITH TEARS IN MY EYES. Singing for joy, and tears of fear. What would the future hold for the future I was holding in my arms?
We lived in a two room apartment for $175 a month, and we ha made a deal with the manager, who was a friend of the family, to clean the pool and watered the lawns of the apartments to knock $50 off the rent each month. It wasn't much, but it was our first home! When the manager sold, and the rent doubled, we had to look for another place to live.
I remember being excited about getting a bigger place, perhaps a rent house with a yard of our own to have a garden, and a dog. We found the perfect place within days. We began packing and preparing to move. I remember the last time I was in the apartment, and it was with tears that I said good-bye to our first home. John carried me over the threshold of this place.
We had lots of funny memories here, like the time I tried the Dolly Parton diet and cooked this cabbage concoction in the crock pot, and when we woke up the next morning and opened the bedroom door, John ran with the crock-pot while I held the front door open to put it outside, because the smell was vile. We remember using a broom handle to knock on the ceiling when the neighbors were yelling. And the night we turned on the bathroom light to find hundreds of roaches scurrying down the drain in the tub. The pool, which was right outside our door, had allowed us to have our first family get-togethers here as a couple. The first grandchildren in the family learned to dog paddle in that pool.
It was with TEARS AND SINGING that we were saying good-bye to a chapter in our lives. We knew that BOTH new memories and joys were ahead of us, still yet unknown, AND it was with a certain amount of sadness that we would leave our cozy FIRST home we ha built together.... THE BOTH/AND HAS BEEN PRESENT WITH US EVERY TIME WE HAVE MADE A MOVE TO ANOTHER HOME...
Why all this back and forth, BOTH/AND NOT EITHER/OR and SINGING WITH TEARS IN OUR EYES? Well, Leslie and I got to talking about moving from the Old Campus to the New. We're all very excited. We can't wait to get in. It will make Sunday morning and evening easier. Sunday School will be closer. We'll eventually be able to start something at 9:30 again. We've experienced our first Lord's Acre in the new building. We've entered the Promised Land, so to speak. There will be great rejoicing.
But there will also be some deep grief. 120 years of ministry took place on or near the other property. Countless lives were touched and changed. Families were started there. Our children and our children's children have grown up there. It is as significant place that will always live in our hearts.
And to see it no longer used as a Church effects us deeply. We truly are SINGING WITH TEARS IN OUR EYES?
I recently told a committee in this church, that is supervising me for a year and evaluating my ministry, that I had some grief about leaving the old campus. This church is the first place where I have been allowed to fully embrace and carry out ministry as a pastor. The old campus was where I served my first communion as a pastor, and welcomed new families, including my own, into membership. It is the first church that I held a funeral within; others had been at funeral home chapels. There are many fond memories about the building we are preparing to leave that make it both a JOYOUS move filled with SONG, and one filled with TEARS. What are some of your fondest memories? I'd like for us to share aloud a couple.
1) OLDER AGE 2) MIDDLE AGE 3) YOUNGER AGE
Not easy to Sing With Tears In Your Eyes but as you see, we do it all the time. Think about the funerals we have shared for friends and loved ones. They are both a time of grief and a joyous celebration of life and faith. It's a celebration of their realizing the ultimate promise of God, life eternal.
Think about Jo Cater's funeral. On the evening before her death, it's was as if everyone came to see her. And while they were there, the singing began. That night the angels came. A couple of friends gathered around Jo's bed. One of them started humming. Then all three of them were humming. Pretty soon they were singing softly. And then all of a sudden the bed was surrounded and we were all singing.
I don't know how long we sang or how many songs we sang. Al I really remember is the smile on Jo's face. God called us together to sing hymns of comfort and joy for Jo. The angels came. And the next day she went to be with our Lord. And we sang with tears in our eyes.
When we name the grief, then we can celebrate the joy in the midst of the grief. We celebrate the new fellowship complex that we'll move into in the near future. But we also grieve over the move because of all the memories the building holds.
Those memories go with us. Just like the faith and memories traveled with the Israelites when they were exiled into Babylon. God didn't desert them. God went with them. And because they were faithful God sustained them.
This church knows that. Some of you have experienced it before when you moved from the wood frame building into the brick Church. Maybe you can help the rest of us who are doing this for the first time.
And know this, God is going with us. It's God who's leading this parade. Not me or Leslie or the Building Committee.
After the move is complete, after we've painted all the Sunday School rooms and moved all the furniture and supplies and everything else. We plan on having a special service in the old building to celebrate the ministry of that place which touched and changed so many lives. It will be a time to celebrate and remember all the lives that were touched and changed.
Together we Will Sing With Tears In Our Eyes as we remember and are fed by the faithful ministry of those who have gone before us; Knowing that we too are simply called to be faithful.
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