I wanted to post the sermon gave from the service on Saturday. Not only the memories of Emily, but the message he gave about hope and faith in God was absolutely wonderful.
In the next few days I'd also like to post both what Diana and I also said at the service.
Emily Ruth Norman
(2 Corinthians 4:14-5:1 Matthew 11:25-30)
Peggi, Wayne, Melissa... I cannot begin to know the depth of your pain, the countless questions or the extent of the confusion you have been feeling these past few days and are, surely, experiencing this morning. I am sure that what is in your hearts is love- yet, it has to be a love muddled with many other emotions, sentiments, and feelings.
And there are many others of you here- grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, Emily's friends from college, friends of the Norman family, friends here from this church- and if I could, I'd lift the pain that each of you feels within you, the grief and confusion that flows from deep within your hearts. It would be great to answer all the unanswered questions. But that's not our purpose today.
Might I be so bold as to suggest that our purpose here today is to go deep within ourselves to that place where we can come to believe that there is something greater than life as we live it and life as we know it each day. And if we can get to that place within us, then I want to believe that we can leave this church today, at the conclusion of this service, with a claim of hope.
And so, on this day when it would be so easy for us to become disoriented, having to pinch ourselves to believe this is really happening, on this day when we could all spin blindly into a space that would serve us no purpose, I would like to move in three directions.
1.) I would like to proclaim God!
2.) I would like to wonder togethere what God might be saying to us?
3.) I would like to conclude with a story of hope for the future.
What can I possibly say about God on a day like this?
The god who turns red lights green or who magically creates a parking space in front of the doughnut shop when we drive up, is not the God we worship today. The god who causes hurricanes or tsunamis in order to punish non-Christians or poor people, or the god who gives brownie points for good behavior, and (yes, to say to all the college students here!)or the god who gets us an "A" on a test even when we did not study, is not the god we speak of this morning. The god who makes bad things happen to good people is not the God we speak of here today! Let me be clear: these are all false gods, and these false gods have no place in this church this morning.
The God we proclaim this morning in song, in Scripture and in word is a creator God, a God who wants to go on creating life in each one of our lives. The God we profess today is the God who raised Jesus from the grave, the God who can raise each one of us from our tombs of pain and sadness and want and fear. The God we celebrate today is the Good Shepherd who, I believe, did not abandon Emily in those last moments of confusion, neglect, or misunderstanding, the same God who does not leave any one of us orphaned- regardless of how angry, how sad, how afraid, isolated, confused we may have felt these past few days and might be feeling at this very moment. The God we celebrate today can birth life even when everything around us appears numb and lifeless.
The God we worship today is a God larger than we are, a God more understanding, a God more loving than we can ever imagine!
What might God be saying to us?
In the Corinthian text, we are given a glimpse of St. Paul's intense love for God, a love which totally overwhelms any fear or fright associated with dying. It is Paul's challenge to live by faith because the glory we await is beyong anything we might imagine. The Gospel text emphasizes Jesus' relationship with His Father, but as a model of the gift of being in relationship with a God who calls us to faithfulness, especially being faithful to love and compassion. It is this God of love and compassion who will never send us away, and in fact, invites us to enter more deeply into God, most especially when we are weary and burdened with the cares of our lives. The invitation is to bring to God whatever it is that we are carrying with us today, and in the days to come.
I will also add that God speaks to us through each other, through who we are and how we live our lives. And I think of Emily. As I look at so many people here today, I realize that you all knew Emily in different ways, for different lengths of time and to varying degrees. But I suspect we all might agree that Emily walked to the beat of a different drummer. She walked her own path. Maybe she could be (and I say this most lovingly) a pain in the butt, but with a heart of gold. I loved it when Melissa told me the other day, "Emily would often break one of my toys, but then she would always bring me one of her own toys to give to me."
From how I knew Emily and to what I've heard others say about her, I would say with certainty that Emily liked to push the limits; she always pushed the boundaries; she liked to color outside the box.
And I might suggest that may be the very way God is speaking to us here today. For anyone who knows anything about the life of Jesus, you know that Jesus always colored outside the box. That's what got Jesus into trouble all the time, especially with those in authority. He walked to His own drummer. Might I suggest that just as Emily loved to push the limits, today we need to push the limits of God's love and concern for us? In fact, God's love has no limits! That's God's word to us today and everyday!
Finally, I like to conclude with a story.
It is a real story, one that has been recorded in many places, some of you may remember this when it happened. This took place during the Bosnian War in 1992. It's the story of Vedran Smailovic, a Bosnian man born in Sarajevo. He came from a highly musical family. He was the principal cellist of the prestigious Sarajevo Opera Theater. But during that time period, Smailovic described Sarajevo as the "capital of hell." The city lay in ruins. The economy had been shattered. Any hope of reuniting the country dwindled each day. Then, on May 27, 1992, a long line of starving, helpess people was shelled as they waited in line in front of the only bakery, waiting to get flour to bake bread. Twenty-two people died in the attack, and Vedran Smailovic saw all that had happened from his apartment window less than 100 yards away. The very next day, another line was formed by hungry people. When he realized the swell of hope in those people who returned that next day, risking death once more, Vedran, dressed in the black suit and tie he wore when playing until the Opera House was destroyed, came out on the sidewalk, carrying his cello and a chair.
He sat down right in the rubble of the square and, surrounded by debris and the remnants of death and despair of the living, began to play his cello. And he returned for twenty-one days to do the same. Over and over, these were the sounds reminding those present that there are some things in a human being that simply cannot be supressed.
Today in the place where he sat is a monument of a man in a chair playing a cello. But the monument is not to Smailovic's music. The monument serves as a reminder to his refusal to surrender hope- the hope that life can be reborn, even when we are surrounded by the debris and remnants of death, even when our lives might feel like a living hell.
Please excuse the language: the most hellish parts of these past few days has been to see you- Peggi, Wayne, Melissa- go through this. But what would be so much worse, what will be so much worse, would be for any of you, or any one of us here, to give up hope, to surrender the belief that life and beauty can be reborn.
The story out of Bosnia is a story of Resurrection. It is a story of Easter. It is the story of faith. Because of Jesus Christ, our story, your story is one of Resurrection and Life, the story of our forever faithful and loving God- refusing to surrender hope so that life can be born, and reborn. May the power of such hope in our loving God be the healing of our hearts and our lives in the days to come. Amen.
Pastor Michael E. Allwein
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