Meditation on Ezekiel 37:1–14

First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown

Pastor Karen Crawford

May 19, 2024

Pentecost

The title of my message today is, “The Secret of Happiness.” I would love to know, right now, before I start preaching, does anyone already know the secret of happiness? Have you found it?

Do you want to share it with the rest of us?

Spoiler alert. This message is not going to provide all the answers to the question, “What is the Secret to Happiness?” But…maybe, with the Spirit’s help, it will lead us closer to the One who DOES have all the answers, who knows us better than we know ourselves, and has the power to heal and transform our hearts and minds.

At the beginning of the week, I was doing my exercises with our denomination’s program “Call to Health.” It’s an app for my phone—and it offers articles, videos and suggested activities to improve the well-being of pastors. It’s been around a while—though having it as an app might be something relatively new. And, up to this year, I have largely ignored it, until I decided that I wanted to earn enough points to be eligible for a 50% decrease in my health insurance deductible next year. Yes, I was motivated to save money!

So, with my less than enthusiastic attitude, I watched one of the healthy videos on Monday—and was surprised to find that it was more interesting and helpful than I thought it would be. Although I can’t seem to locate the video, anymore, I believe it was called, “The Secret of Happiness: Gratitude.”

Now we’ve been hearing about the power of gratitude for years—not just in the church for our faith, but popular psychology has been telling us that grateful people are happy people. Oprah Winfrey is one of the proponents of gratitude journals—this started back in the 1990s. Anyone ever keep a gratitude journal? They are still wildly popular today.

But it didn’t always work for Oprah. She says at her website, “For years I’ve been advocating the power and pleasure of being grateful. I kept a gratitude journal for a full decade without fail—and urged you all to do the same. Then life got busy. My schedule overwhelmed me. I still opened my journal some nights, but my ritual of writing down five things I was grateful for every day started slipping away.” [1]

A few years ago, when she came across a journal entry from 1996, she wondered why she no longer felt the joy of simple moments. Since that time, she had “accumulated more wealth, more responsibility, more possessions. Everything, it seemed, had grown exponentially—except my happiness,” she writes. “How had I, with all my options and opportunities, become one of those people who never have time to feel delight? I was stretched in so many directions, I wasn’t feeling much of anything. Too busy doing.”  The truth was, she was busy in 1996, too. But she had made gratitude a daily priority. She went through the day “looking for things to be grateful for, and something always showed up.”  

That’s what got me thinking that the problem with ascribing all the power for happiness, for Christians, into mustering up our own gratefulness, pulling us up by our gratefulness bootstraps, so to speak, no matter the changing circumstances of our lives, is that it leaves out the component of faith and fails to recognize the power of the Spirit to transform our hearts and minds. We can’t make ourselves be happy or grateful—not without the Lord’s help. The good news is that we can ask God for these spiritual gifts—for that is what they are. Love, joy, faith, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, thankfulness, self-control —all of these are gifts from God, poured into our hearts.

Yes—we should be looking for things for which to be grateful, as we ask in faith for the Lord to reveal them. And then we will experience the wonder and joy of God’s presence and recognize the hand of God in our lives, in a new way!

In the video that I watched on Monday, the interviewer met with about four people on camera separately—young and older, male and female. He asked them to think of the person who had made the greatest impact on their lives—the one who inspired them to be who they are today. They each named the person—a mother, sister, friend, and possibly a teacher, I can’t recall the detail. They were then urged to write that person a letter, expressing their gratitude. Some of them wrote long letters—though they might not have been the long letter-writing kind. Next the interviewer surprised them by saying, “Let’s call that person right now and read them your letter.”

 You can imagine how this stirred an emotional response in the writer and the one who listened on the other end of the phone—on speakerphone, so we could hear all the conversation. Something happened when those letters were read, when those beautiful, loving, grateful words were shared and received. Something happened—not only to the two people directly involved, but to the interviewer, whose mood was obviously lifted, and yes, to me, who just watched and listened to all this play out.

So, here we are on Pentecost, and I chose the Ezekiel reading to encourage us of the power of God’s Spirit—the very breath of God—present thousands of years ago when Israel was homesick and grieving in exile, losing all hope, and present right now, in this place, within us and in our midst today.

I chose Ezekiel rather than Acts because I have been visiting people going through life’s difficult transitions, longing for home. Some are grieving the loss of their own good health or mobility, despite modern medicine and prayer. Some have had to move out of the home where they lived for many years and accept that the old way of life is gone. For some, the move comes within years of losing a spouse, and this adds to the grief and loss. In this situation, how could anyone feel grateful or happy, if they are being honest? What are they going to write in their gratitude journals?

So, what is this promise from God through the prophet Ezekiel that was meant for the ancient Israelites and is relevant for us today? Here is what I want you to remember. The Spirit’s transformation doesn’t just happen—not in the Pentecost story in Acts and not in the dry bones story in Ezekiel. The Spirit comes after the church in Acts gathers for prayer and worship for days after the risen Jesus has ascended. Yes, it’s all about God and God’s power—the coming of the Spirit and the work of the Spirit, but we have to believe in it and we have to seek it, with all our heart and soul, mind and might.

In this familiar Ezekiel passage, the Spirit comes when the situation is bleak—when a miracle is truly needed. Hope is all but lost for the exiles. The prophet seeks God, and the Lord brings him not to a high, beautiful place. This is no mountaintop experience! God takes Ezekiel to a valley of dry bones. Death and decay are all around!  Theologian Amy Erickson says, “The tragedy here is not merely that these formerly living, breathing humans will never again have life, but that their bones are lying in a heap in some unnamed Babylonian valley, uncared for and haphazardly dispersed outside of a family tomb… Further, their bones are languishing outside the land of Israel.” [2]

In response to God’s question of can these bones live, the prophet says, “O Lord God, you know.”  This is something like our expression, “God only knows!” The Lord tells his prophet to preach to the bones! That’s just what every preacher wants to hear. Go and a share a message with the dead. But the Lord promises that there will be life when Ezekiel prophecies. Ezekiel does what God commands, “and breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.”

The whole house of Israel is like the dry bones in the valley, God explains to Ezekiel. But I will breathe new life into them. And I will take them home.

It was a Monday morning when I watched the video on gratitude—The Secret to Happiness—and I had chores to do, and I can’t explain why I felt such joy in hearing the conversation between the grateful one and the one who had made a big impact on their life. It occurred to me that they probably had no idea the difference they and their relationship had made in the loved one’s life.

Just like you and I have no idea whose lives we have touched and will touch in the future through our loving relationship with them and each other.

On Monday and throughout this week, I have thought of those who have made a big impact on my life—so many people!—and with these thoughts, I have felt joy and gratitude, the same gifts that God wants to give everyone to strengthen and support us in our lives of faith!

We don’t always have a mountaintop experience with the Lord. Sometimes, God brings us to the valley of dry bones where we look at a dark reality. We aren’t going to escape difficulties in this world, my friends. We didn’t become Christ’s followers to have an easy life. But we remember what the psalmist sings in 121,  “I lift up my eyes to the hills– where does my help come from? My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth.”

Shhhh. Listen. This is the Secret to Happiness. Here it is. The One who has put God’s spirit inside human beings at Creation, and came like a mighty, rushing wind in Jerusalem on Pentecost, and brought dry bones back to life in a Babylonian valley, is breathing with a fresh breath on us now to give us the power to live more abundantly.

The Spirit’s transformation doesn’t just happen while we go about our daily routine, checking off items on our to-do list. Don’t be too busy doing that you stop feeling and seeking the One who longs for a more intimate relationship with you. Take time to reflect. Take time to pray, wherever you are. Keep on looking for that which brings you gratitude and you will become more grateful and joyful, with God’s help.

Who are the ones who have made a big impact on your life? Can you think of one person who particularly inspired you? I encourage you to write them a letter—and share it with them by phone or in person, if they are still with us, because you need to hear their reaction—and they need to hear your words of praise and thanks. Because sometimes, you have no idea how much you are making a difference in someone’s life. You have no idea how dry their bones are feeling—and how life-bringing your Spirit-led, powerful words may be.

And it’s in your thanks and praise that you will find new life for your own dry bones, too.

Let us pray.

Holy Spirit, breathe on us now new life into our dry, weary bones. Lift us from desert valleys of discouragement onto high places of joy and peace. Help those who may be going through difficult life transitions and health challenges. Be with all of us, Lord, as we seek your presence and to be obedient, like Ezekiel, even if it seems like a crazy thing you want us to do. Empower us by your Spirit to draw others nearer to you and in so doing, grow in relationship with you who is our spiritual home. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit we pray. Amen.

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      [1] Oprah Winfrey at https://www.oprah.com/spirit/oprahs-gratitude-journal-oprah-on-gratitude

       [2] Amy Erickson, “Day of Pentecost (Ezekiel)” in Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Teaching, Year B., Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2020), 329.

Meditation on Genesis 2:4b-10, 15

First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown, NY

Pastor Karen Crawford

April 21, 2024

Creation Care Sunday

We hosted a funeral at the church yesterday. The service was not for a member but for someone with Smithtown family connections. Everything went smoothly. Special thanks to our volunteers who helped behind the scenes!

After the funeral, I felt so happy that God had used me, relieved that the family, whom I had never met before yesterday except on the phone and on Zoom, was pleased, blessed, and grateful. But also, I was tired, after pouring myself into this very important aspect of our ministry together.

Today, I want to share with you how God always ministers to me after I minister to grieving families with funerals that we Presbyterians call “services to witness to the resurrection.”

The Lord draws me outside to breathe the air. I always take a walk, though it might be a short one, as it was yesterday, just around our yard. I admire all that is growing around me, and in my mind, I begin planning for the new thing that I will add to the garden. This has been my tradition since the pandemic—to plant a new flower, shrub, or tree after every funeral, to truly witness to the resurrection and bring new life into the world.

Yesterday, when the sun came out after the rain, I dreamed of the flowers and vegetables that I started from seed in the house and hope to plant this summer. I ordered some more coneflower seeds, as well—mixed colors—and a deep blue perennial salvia to plant with my scarlet red variety.

I can’t put into words the joy, comfort, and spiritual and emotional lifting up that I experience whenever my hands are in the soil with green growing things. I feel a closeness to the Lord God, our Creator, who formed the first human being— adam in Hebrew—in God’s own image, from the dust of the earth or adamah—and breathed God’s own Spirit—ruach—into his nostrils.

In today’s passage in Genesis chapter 2, we learn that the first job given to human beings in the Creation story is to be tillers and “keepers” of the Garden, with a capital G. The root of the Hebrew word for “keeper” is shamar. Shamar means keep, guard, preserve, protect, watch over, observe, treasure, retain, and wait for.

This word, shamar, is the same word Cain uses in Genesis 4 when God confronts him after he attacks and kills his brother in the field. “Where is your brother Abel?” God asks. “I don’t know,” Cain replies. “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

God doesn’t answer that question—and of course, we all know the answer. Yes, we are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers—shamar. To guard, preserve, protect, watch over, observe, treasure, retain, and wait for.

So, alongside today’s passage in Genesis 2, we read that we are keepers of all our human neighbors and keepers of all that God created and entrusted to us, for as long as we live on the earth.

On this day that we celebrate the gift of God’s Creation and remember our calling to care for our home that we share with every generation, I invite you to think about and pray for our beautiful yet fragile earth. What we might do as a church to be better stewards of that which the Lord has entrusted to us?

Prayer is powerful! Prayer will help bring about change! Prayer will open our hearts and minds to hear from the Holy Spirit and will lead to our transformation and our transforming work, right here in our community.

What has really convicted me of late is the problem of plastic pollution and how my buying products in plastic containers or wrapped in hard or soft plastic is adding to the problem. It seems so out of our control—so many products come in plastic!

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, in its “Guide to Plastic in the Ocean,” [1] says it’s a problem that we can do something about it. The top 10 items of trash picked up in the ocean in 2017 were “food wrappers, beverage bottles, grocery bags, straws, and take out containers, all made of plastic.” [2] Scientists think that about 8 million metric tons of plastic entered the oceans in 2010. That’s the weight of nearly 90 aircraft carriers, and that was 14 years ago! The problem continues to grow. [3]

Unlike some other kinds of waste, plastic doesn’t decompose. It doesn’t break down or go away. (It) can stick around indefinitely, wreaking havoc on marine ecosystems. We have all seen pictures of wildlife entangled and trapped in plastic that makes its way to our oceans.

And, “as the plastic is tossed around, much of it breaks into tiny pieces, called microplastics… These fibers, beads, and microplastic fragments can all absorb harmful pollutants like pesticides, dyes, and flame retardants, only to later release them in the ocean.” [4]

We are urged to reduce our use of plastics, to reuse and recycle as much as possible, and to participate in a marine litter clean up in or near our community.

When I started the Doctor of Ministry program with Austin Seminary two years ago, I didn’t realize how passionate was my concern for God’s world, and that it truly is my faith that stirs my heart to compassion and love for all God’s creatures. I say that because not everyone who observes Earth Day, for example, is a Christian. This makes sense because the one thing we share with the diversity of people around the world is this planet we call home.

But I was surprised to learn through my reading that not all Christians are concerned for the earth and all that lives in it. Some have been taught that certain scriptures support the view that it doesn’t matter what happens to our world, it doesn’t matter how we treat the earth and its inhabitants, because our world is passing away! Some say that human destruction of the world might even hasten Christ’s return! He will come again and take us away from all our problems, many that we created. Loss of habitats for wildlife; extinction of native animals and plants; pollution of the air, water, and soil—they claim that none of these will matter, when we all get to heaven.

Christianity, itself, as it is lived out in the West, may be a root cause of our ecological crisis. This is according to Lynn White, a medieval historian, who wrote in 1967 that Christianity is the most anthropocentric or human centered religion the world has ever seen. Church Fathers, as early as the Second Century, have taught that human beings share, “in great measure, God’s transcendence of nature. Christianity, in contrast to (many other ancient religions) not only established a dualism of man and nature but also insisted that it is God’s will that man exploit nature for his proper ends.”

White believed that what we do about ecology depends on what we believe is the relationship between human beings and nature. He held up for our example someone whom he called the “greatest spiritual revolutionary in Western history”—Saint Francis of Assisi. [5] He praised his belief in the virtue of humility” [6]not just for individuals but for all people. Francis attempted to present an alternative Christian view of nature and humanity’s relation to it; he tried to substitute the idea of the equality of all creatures, including human beings, for the idea of humanity’s “limitless rule of creation.” [7] He tried, and he failed, at least he did in the 13^th century, and was branded a heretic.

I believe that the way we live our lives—the way we treat ourselves, one another, all our neighbors and our world—reflects our belief in our connection to one another and all living creatures through Jesus Christ. Our liturgist read today in Colossians chapter 1, “for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him.He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”  That phrase, “all things,” comes up again in 1:20 when we read how Christ’s suffering work wasn’t just to bring peace with God and human beings. “Through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.”

Stirred by the convictions of my faith, I asked our Session if the Confirmation class and I could host a speaker from Sweetbriar Nature Center after worship today. Sweetbriar serves our community by helping sick and injured wildlife and seeking to release them, when possible, back into the wild. Those who cannot be released because they would not be able to survive are cared for indefinitely by mostly volunteers at the center.

I am looking forward to the live animal program called, “Caring for Wildlife.”  I hope that it will give us answers to the question, “What can we do to help wildlife in need?”

Thank you to all who bought our little succulents planted in church anniversary mugs. Thank you to Betty Deerfield and Peg Holthusen for helping us! We have a few more plants available. So far, we have raised more than $500 to help Sweetbriar and our church family in our labor of love…

Love for all creatures, that is. Human and nonhuman. All creatures, great and small.

Will you pray with me?

Let us pray.

God, our Creator of the world and all that is in it, thank you for your love for all creatures, including human beings. We praise you for our calling as Christ’s followers to care for one another and show your love and grace to all our neighbors. Reveal to us what we might be able to do as a church to be better stewards of the world you have entrusted to us. Forgive us when we haven’t paid enough attention to our daily habits, when we have thought and acted more like consumers than good stewards of your wonderful Creation. Transform our hearts and minds and the hearts and minds of all human beings so that we may understand our connection to the world around us in Jesus Christ. Help us to live as if we are equal to and not superior to plants and animals, all things in heaven and on earth, all that you have created in, with, through, and for your Son. Remind us often that your world was not given to us simply to satisfy human desires and exploit for our own purposes. Teach us how to be tillers and  keepers, dear Lord. Keepers of the Garden with a capital G. Lead us to guard, preserve, protect, watch over, observe, treasure, retain, and wait for all creatures, great and small. Amen.

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[1] https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/hazards/marinedebris/plastics-in-the-ocean.html

[2] https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/hazards/marinedebris/plastics-in-the-ocean.html

[3] https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/hazards/marinedebris/plastics-in-the-ocean.html

[4] https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/hazards/marinedebris/plastics-in-the-ocean.html

     [5] Lynn White, “The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis”in Science (V. 155, No. 3767, March 10, 1967), 1203-1207.

      [6] White, 1203-1207.

      [7] White, 1203-1207.

In Memory of Gillette Dauphinot Piper

First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown, NY

Pastor Karen Crawford

April 20, 2024

Gillette did not have an ordinary childhood. But how could she? She was born in 1941, a time that lives on in the American memory, the year Japanese forces attacked Pearl Harbor, and our world would be forever changed.

Gillette didn’t have ordinary parents.

 Her mother was Nancy White, daughter of the general manager of Hearst Magazines. Miss White, as she preferred to be called even after her 3 marriages, would rise to become editor-in-chief of Harper’s Bazaar from 1958 to 1971. This was a time when there were only two major women’s fashion magazines in America (Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue). [1]

Gillette’s father was Clarence J. Dauphinot, Jr., the son of a Wall Street investment banker. The 1935 Princeton graduate worked as a runner at Kidder, Peabody & Company on Wall Street during the Depression. In 1946, he moved to Brazil to start, with two associates, Deltec International. The asset manager would become known for helping to develop Latin America’s financial markets after World War II.[2]

By the time Gill was born, Nancy was a single mother and was busy with her own life and career. Gill was sent to boarding school and even a convent, briefly. The woman who raised her was her grandmother, Virginia Gillette White, who lived in Smithtown, with husband, Thomas Justin White, who died in 1948, when Gill was 7. “Gammy” and Gill’s cousins provided the family that she needed. Their home, an old mill that Gammy was renovating, was the place where memories were made, laughter was heard, and Gill’s self-concept was nurtured and shaped. Sadly, in 1958, Gammy died. Gillette, still a teenager, had lost the one who mothered her.

Revealing an inner strength, Gillette went on to Barnard College, spending a year studying at the Sorbonne in Paris. She graduated in 1963 summa cum laude, with a degree in French Literature. She landed a job in New York City as a department store buyer. She was elegant and graceful, high society, a sought-after young lady of New York.

She met her future husband while working in Bermuda; he was on a transatlantic sailboat race. William Scott Piper III, a doctor, would serve in the Army in Japan during the Vietnam War. They had three children: Scott (William Scott Piper IV), born in Japan; Derek (Dauphinot Derek Piper), born in Denver; and Michel (now Michel Bauer), born while they were living in Arizona. When Gill’s husband finished his orthopedic residencies, they moved to Miami, where he worked as an orthopedic surgeon.

A deep struggle with alcoholism would bring Gill to seek professional help. She entered a program and took it seriously; there, she found her path to healing. She left with a desire to help others find healing, too.

She went back to school and completed a Master’s in Social Work from Barry University in 1985. She became a family therapist. The woman who looked forever young and never lost her sense of style discovered that she had gifts for helping young women and teen-aged girls with substance abuse issues.

But more suffering was ahead. Gill would have to deal with a great loss. Derek, her middle son, had graduated from medical school and pursued medical relief work in Central America and Southeast Asia when he was diagnosed with advanced brain cancer. He died in 2006. He was just 36.

Gill’s grief nearly broke her; she never fully recovered from the loss.

Her faith journey that began with Catholicism in her childhood would bring her to study Buddhism and practice meditation. The one who went on numerous ocean sailing trips and safaris in Africa was stirred to travel to Burma (now Myanmar) on pilgrimage.

Although she continued to grieve Derek, she told people that the only thing that got her through losing him was her faith. She had had a vision on a retreat and had spoken with her grandmother. She believed in an afterlife.

The Apostle Paul, in his letter to the Romans, assures us that we cannot avoid suffering in our lives, but that suffering is only to be endured for a time. Nothing may be compared to the glory that will be revealed to us—not just in heaven—but as we seek to live as Christ in this world. Our world is groaning in the pains of a kind of rebirth, being transformed, like us, into a new creation. The Spirit empowers us to pray when we have no idea how or what words to say. The Spirit intercedes for us with God so that what God intends may come to fruition. The Spirit also empowers us to live abundant lives with our Risen Savior by faith.

This is how all things work together for good—not that all things ARE good in this world. But that those who love the Lord and seek to live for him and show Christ’s love, through acts of kindness and service, will shine His light into dark places and give hope where hope is so desperately needed.

And what can be better news than the assurance that we are not condemned for what we do or fail to do? We can live with confidence, in freedom, without fear. We have a God who loves the world, wants the best for us and knows what’s best for us—a God who knows us better than we know ourselves!

A God who has a plan for everyone’s life, so that no one’s existence is ever ordinary!

Our loving Lord was willing to become one of us, humbled himself and took on fragile human form, so that he may experience all the sufferings and losses that we will ever experience. Christ modeled a new way to live, reaching out to strangers and foreigners, outcasts and marginalized people, sharing meals with the rich and poor, educated and illiterate, blessing small children, and welcoming all to come to him and cast our heavy burdens upon him.

We are never alone in our struggles.

Gill didn’t let her struggles and pain defeat her. She overcame many hardships. To those who knew her well and admired her tenacity and grit, she said, “What’s my choice? I have to go through it.”

The loss of Derek was followed, four years later, by another loss—the end of her marriage. For Gill, divorce led to a new beginning. She left Miami and moved to a retirement community in Sarasota, where she could be closer to Michel. Her beloved companions were Mozart, her Labrador, and Haydn, the Labradoodle.

She didn’t let chronic neck and back pain and injuries from falls keep her from doing the things that she wanted to do. She stayed active—playing tennis and doing yoga and Pilates at 82. She talked about current events and history. She loved going to the opera, parties, and dancing.

A memory the family will always cherish is Gill dancing with her grandkids at a wedding, though she had had recent hip surgery. The tiny woman who had cardigans and purses in every color, who loved tropical flowers and animals, could be surprising, silly, and funny. Once, she named a stray cat, “Treetop.”

Even in “retirement,” she continued to find her life and sense of self-worth through serving others. She was a philanthropist for women’s rights. She supported an international organization called Women for Women, which invests in women survivors of war and conflict, providing them with social and economic skills to transform their own lives. And she worked to improve her community, volunteering many hours to organize the local lending library.

When I asked her family what they will miss about her, Michel said she would miss her support, elegance, and generosity. “I always knew that she would be there for me and my family,” she said.

Even as we miss our loved ones, dear friends, and long to see them in the world to come, there’s One we can count on to be with us now and strengthen us all of our days.

Let us remember and be inspired by the one thing that helped Gillette carry on after the tragic loss of her son, Derek— her faith!

What can be more wonderful, friends, than the knowledge that nothing we do, nothing we say or fail to say, no choice that we make, no mistake, no things present nor things to come, no suffering, no trial, no struggle, no loss of any kind can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord?

Amen.

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Meditation on Luke 24:36b-48

First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown, NY

Pastor Karen Crawford

April 14, 2024

I have a scar on my left wrist that is almost as old as I am.

There’s a story behind every scar, isn’t there?

I was thinking the other day how there’s only one person left in the world who really knows the whole story with the 3-inch scar on my wrist. That’s my mom, who will be turning 85 in June. I was maybe 2 or 3.

In all actuality, I don’t remember being injured. I don’t remember any pain. I only remember the story my mother has told me.

But there’s a picture of my dad holding me, not long after the injury. I have an ugly red scab on my wrist. And an ugly red scab on my neck, which has since faded to the point where I almost forgot about it—until a year ago, when I had my thyroid removed.

The surgeon made a cut right through the old scar. It’s barely noticeable now.

My mother told me that I reached for a pot of boiling soup on the stove. I didn’t want to wait for her to pour it into a bowl. I was at the age where I probably wanted to do everything myself and thought I could do everything myself. The pot of boiling soup poured down the front of me.

It was winter, and I was wearing a long-sleeved turtleneck, with cuffs at the wrists and collar. My mom, who was a nurse, worked quickly to remove the turtleneck, while I was screaming in fear and pain. She pulled my right arm out first and then the shirt over my head. The hot soup had soaked through the cuff on my left arm, at my wrist. I was seriously burned.

Mom took me to the hospital. There was nothing they could do for me. It was a burn in the 1960s. We could only wait for my body to heal itself.

Mom said she was told to soak my wrist. One day, the ugly scab came off—and there was new, pink skin underneath.

I was self-conscious about the scar on my wrist when I was in grade school. The wrinkly skin didn’t look like the rest of my arm. It had strange red and brown spots. The hair didn’t grow back normally. When I wore short sleeved shirts, sometimes my classmates asked me about it, thinking it was a fresh wound.

How ugly my wrist was, I thought back then. How I wish that I had never done what I had done—and then, I wouldn’t have an ugly scar.

This seemingly insignificant scar on my wrist comes to mind while I read this passage of one of the resurrection appearances in the gospel of Luke. This appearance happens right after the two disciples have been walking with the risen Christ on the road to Emmaus without knowing they are with Jesus. They are going home after a long, confusing, upsetting day that began with the discovery by the women of Christ’s empty tomb. What did that mean—the empty tomb? Did someone steal the body?

Meanwhile, they tell Jesus what happened that morning, and he opens the Scriptures to them, and their hearts are burning. They invite him inside their home. He blesses and breaks the bread, and their eyes are opened, and they recognize him. He vanishes, and they run back to Jerusalem that night to tell the other disciples what happened.

While the two disciples are sharing their story, Jesus surprises and terrifies the group by making another appearance, in today’s reading. He says, “Shalom! Peace be with you.” And even though the women shared the news of the risen Christ, and the two disciples shared the news of the risen Christ, the group can’t wrap their heads around what is happening.

People don’t just come back from the dead, do they? Especially those whom they have watched die in a cruel and terrible manner. And if people DO come back from the dead, well, doesn’t that mean they are ghosts? Just like some people nowadays believe in ghosts and relish stories of the paranormal on TV, they believed in ghosts in ancient times, too.

Jesus is saying to them, “Come on, I am not a ghost. Look at my hands and feet. Go ahead, do not be shy, touch me. You ever seen a ghost who looks like this? Didn’t think so. Anybody here got something to eat? I’ll have the broiled fish.” [1]  

“The Jesus who repeatedly ate with his disciples, with sinners (and tax collectors), and with Pharisees now eats his last meal before leaving his disciples in the ascension. He does this… to prove that he is not just a vision or a ghost, that he has really conquered death.” [2]

The disciples look at his scars, touch his flesh, hear his voice, and are filled with joy, but, at the same time, they are disbelieving and wondering what is going on.

Jesus is doing two things that he does best—eating and teaching them, opening their minds, once again, to the Scriptures in a way only Jesus can.

The scars capture my attention, as this is the second week we have discussed the appearances of the risen Christ and his showing them his scars. Seeing the scars, they aren’t stirred to anger or want revenge for the injustice of Christ being crucified. The scars don’t bring hatred or fear.

The scars tell the truth, and they are stirred to joy because of what God has done!

I am seeing the 3-inch scar on my wrist in a new way, after studying this passage. The Lord doesn’t want me to remember a childhood error, grabbing a pot of hot soup off the stove. God doesn’t want me to remember the pain. And I don’t!

The scar is a reminder to me of the love of my mother, who acted quickly to remove the soup-soaked turtleneck and get me to a doctor, right away. She may have saved my life that day, and she would do it again in an instant. Just as we would do the same for all our loved ones.

What if we saw all our scars not as ugly, not as stories of injuries or surgeries, but instead as marks of beauty, further proof of the faithfulness of our God, who has a wonderful plan for each of us? Rather than sadness, shame, or grief as we recall injuries, surgeries, and pain, what if we are moved, instead, to wonder, joy, and gratitude for all that God has done?

I am seeing that black and white photograph in a different light, that one my mom or another relative took of me, with the ugly red scab on my wrist and at my neck, sitting in my father’s lap.

The expressions on our faces tell the whole story.

Dad is smiling, and my head is tipped back as if I am giggling from being tickled or from something funny that he said—or both.

The ordeal is over. The danger has passed. I have a feeling that we might have just finished sharing a meal.

Dear friends, “the one whose life the church shares in Word and Sacrament is not a ghost or a disembodied spirit. He is the risen Lord.” [3]

“The passage ends as a kind of ordination service,” says Thomas Long, professor emeritus at Candler School of Theology. “Jesus has done his work, and it is now time for the disciples—then and now—to do theirs. Jesus sends them into the world, not as soldiers, diplomats, program planners, or celebrities, but as ‘witnesses.’

“It is the thinnest of all portfolios. The church has no weapons, no credentials, no powerful allies, no fancy remedies, or quick fixes; it is to offer only what it has seen and heard in Jesus. …That, of course, is what the world most needs: honest and courageous disciples who will get on the witness stand and tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” [4]

Christ sends us out, with our scars and stories of redemption, miracles of healing, and the grace and love of our living, forgiving God.

The peace of Christ is with you!

He is risen! Hope is everywhere.

And WE are witnesses of these things.

Let us pray.

Loving God, thank you for healing us, over and over again, and the promise of eternal life by faith in your Son, Jesus Christ. We anxiously await the return of our Messiah, when we will finally live in resurrected flesh and blood bodies in a new heaven, a new earth. But until that time, help us to be your faithful witnesses—to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, courageously, without embarrassment, fear, or apology. Christ is risen! Hallelujah! In Him, our stories and our very lives have been redeemed. Amen!

---

     [1] Thomas Long, “Third Sunday of Easter” in Connections, A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship, Year B, vol. 2, Lent through Pentecost (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2020), 232-233.

     [2] Justo L. Gonzalez, Luke from the series Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2010), 279-280.

[3] Justo Gonzalez, 279.

[4] Thomas Long, 233.

Meditation on John 20:19–31

First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown, NY

Pastor Karen Crawford

Second Sunday of Easter

April 7, 2024

Where were you on Friday when Long Island experienced an earthquake? Did you know it was an earthquake, right away?

The earthquake we felt this past Friday, April 5, was a magnitude 4.8 at its epicenter in New Jersey. Nassau and Suffolk County emergency response received more than 200 9-1-1 calls from those who were curious about it.

Catherine Jennings, a 9^th grade earth science teacher at Half Hollow Hills High School in Dix Hills, just happened to be doing a lesson on earthquakes when the floor and desks started shaking. Her students looked at her, thinking that she must be staging it. “How could we be so lucky to have this happen at the exact moment that I am teaching about it?” she said. [1]

While the earthquake caught us all by surprise, tomorrow, on April 8, we are expecting another natural wonder here on Long Island. Is everybody ready with your special solar eclipse glasses?

All 50 states, except Alaska, will experience at least a partial solar eclipse. Those within a roughly 115-mile path from Texas through Maine through parts of Eastern Canada will experience a total solar eclipse. The total or near total eclipse is expected to visit and exit New York tomorrow afternoon, between 2 and 3:30 p.m. [2] An estimated 31.6 million people live in the path of totality this year, compared to 12 million who saw the eclipse in 2017.[3]

One of the interesting effects of the total eclipse, Nasa says, is that some of the nocturnal animals may wake up, thinking it’s nighttime, while other non-nocturnal animals may think it’s time to go to sleep. [4]

This natural event has stirred excitement and the planning of eclipse watch parties. If we miss seeing the eclipse tomorrow, North Americans will have to wait till 2044 to see another solar eclipse, but only if we are living in or willing to travel to Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, or parts of Canada and Greenland. The next total solar eclipse to cross the continental U.S., from coast to coast, will occur in 2045. [5] However, if we don’t mind traveling to a remote part of northwestern Alaska, we would be able to see one as early as March 30, 2033.

I have mixed feelings about all this. I want to see it and hear about it. I am eager to marvel at the amazing photos. But also, I can’t help but wonder …. is seeing the eclipse going to make any lasting difference in my life?

 Basically, we are getting excited about not being able to see the light of the sun for as long as 4 minutes in the middle of the afternoon. We WILL get to see something that isn’t usually visible—and that’s the “sun’s corona, or outer atmosphere, which is usually obscured by the bright face of the sun.” [6]

But all the hype being generated is big business for tourism. Airlines are offering specialized experiences for eclipse travel. Hotels in the path of the total eclipse are raising their rates as about 12 million Americans plan on traveling to get a better view of the eclipse. [7]

It just shows the hunger that is inside of us to see something awe-inspiring and the lengths that people are willing to go—not to mention the money some are willing to pay—to see and experience a natural wonder for ourselves, and with it, be, somehow, forever changed.

We step into the room with Christ’s disciples today in the 20^th chapter of John, hiding behind locked doors for fear of the religious authorities. The group, at this point, includes many more than the original 11 men (12 minus Judas Iscariot.) All the women who have followed and served Jesus and provided for him during his ministry are there, including Mary Magdalene, who was the first to meet the risen Savior that morning in the garden of the empty tomb. She runs to the other disciples saying, “I have seen the Lord!”

The fact that they are still hiding in fear reveals that they have dismissed her astounding news. All of them have failed to believe what they didn’t see with their own eyes and hear with their own ears, let alone touch with their hands.

This is an illustration of what the church looks like without the risen Christ. “It is locked off from the world, crouching in fear.” [8] And yet, there is no place our Lord would rather be than with his followers, gathered in his name, as he promises all of us. Into this room filled with terror, sadness, and disbelief, the risen Christ, who knows us better than we know ourselves, appears to bring hope and strength for his followers to carry on.

How do they recognize him? He is known by his scars, scars that could have been fully healed by God the Father in his raising but were left so that his followers could identify him. He still bears the marks on his hands from the nails and a wound in his side where a spear pierced him. They rejoice when they see him.

“John reminds us that the risen Christ is not stopped by the church’s locked doors…The risen Christ invades the church, pushing through the locked doors and bringing peace, his own presence, forgiveness, the Spirit, and life abundant.” [9]

The first person with whom they share the message of the risen Christ is Thomas, or Didymus, Greek for “Twin.” I find myself wondering where Didymus has been, when the rest of the disciples were locked in the room. Maybe he is the most courageous of the group. Maybe he left to find food for the others and to find out what is happening in the world. Maybe he just chose to be alone with his grief. But then, he comes back to the others, and they say, “We have seen the Lord.” Why would he believe them? After all, they didn’t believe Mary.

This is what Thomas needs to believe: he needs to see and touch the scars.

Jesus hears his request, and, a week later, he appears to Thomas and says, “Touch and see. Do not doubt but believe.”

This word translated “doubt” is not the best word for apistos (without faith or no faith). Doubt has more modern connotations of questions that arise amidst a faith journey. This is the beginning of Thomas’s faith or trust, which is the same word, and his calling as an apostle—one who is sent out to carry the message. He will go from having no faith to having all the faith that he needs for his calling– apistos alla pistos.

Thomas is rewarded by his honesty with the revelation that Christ is, indeed, fully divine. He is the only one to fall down and worship him, saying, “My Lord and my God!”

This isn’t the end of the lesson for Thomas or for us and Christ’s followers who will come after us—because there will be many more whose lives we will touch with our resilient faith.

 Jesus offers a greater blessing for those who didn’t see him when he was risen or know him as a human being—and yet we still believe, we still trust in him. This chapter closes with John saying that Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, but “these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, AND that through believing you may have life in his name.”

So I ask you now. Thomas needed to touch and see the Savior’s scars in order to believe and through believing, have life in his name. What do you need to believe and through believing, have life in his name? What do YOU need to go from apistos alla pistos—from no faith to faith?

Today, we had the joy of baptizing baby Elizabeth. Today is the beginning of her faith journey. The Spirit has claimed her and has given her gifts to use for God’s glory. Today, is the first day of our work to help her come to understand her gifts and grow to spiritual maturity, as well as support her family as they seek to raise Lizzie in the nurture of the Lord.

Dear friends, how will you do it? How will you encourage Lizzie and her parents to be faithful to their calling? How will you be a witness to the transforming work of the Holy Spirit, joyfully dwelling within you and flowing out to bless all humankind?

May we never be like the first church without the Risen Christ, cowering in fear and despair behind locked doors. May we, like Thomas, come to realize that meeting the Risen Savior is more than just an awe-inspiring sight, but rather an invitation to enter in to a deep and abiding relationship with him.

May we, like Thomas and the other disciples, be forever changed.

Christ is sending us out, this very moment, with the message of hope that never grows old, spoken on the eve of the empty tomb, “We have seen the Lord!”

Let us pray.

Holy One, thank you for sending your own Son, your Only Son, to suffer and give his life to save us from our sins. Thank you for your love and for knowing us better than we know ourselves—even knowing just what it is that we need in order to believe and through believing, have life in his name. Thank you for the invitation, right now, to all of us from our Risen Savior to enter into a deep and abiding relationship with him. Help us, Lord, to be faithful, to witness to the joy-filled, abundant life for all who seek to draw nearer to Christ and become more like him. Stir us to share the message of hope that never grows old, spoken on the eve of the empty tomb, “We have seen the Lord!” Amen.

---

[1] https://pix11.com/news/local-news/long-island/long-island-teacher-was-teaching-lesson-on-earthquakes-when-4-8-magnitude-quake-struck/

[2] https://ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/weather/2024/03/28/ny1-weather-blog

[3] https://dailyjournal.net/2024/04/05/faq-total-solar-eclipse-reminders-tips/#:~:text=An%20estimated%2031.6%20million%20people,than%20it%20did%20in%202017.

[4] https://science.nasa.gov/eclipses/future-eclipses/eclipse-2024/

[5] https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/solar-eclipse-2024-everything-know-glasses-time-totality-explained-rcna146382

[6] https://dailyjournal.net/2024/04/05/faq-total-solar-eclipse-reminders-tips/#:~:text=An%20estimated%2031.6%20million%20people,than%20it%20did%20in%202017.

[7] https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/eclipse-tourism-expected-bring-big-bucks-areas-path-totality

[8] Thomas Long, “Second Sunday of Easter” in Connections, Year B, Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2020), 216.

[9] Thomas Long, 217.

Meditation on Mark 16:1-8

First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown

Easter Sunday, March 31, 2024

Pastor Karen Crawford

    In January, 1997, the French Coast Guard transmitted its final message in Morse Code:

    “Calling all, this is our last cry before eternal silence.” [1]

    “Ships in distress had radioed out dits and dahs from the era of the (ship) Titanic to the era of the movie Titanic. In near instant time, the beeps could be deciphered by Morse-code stations thousands of miles away. First used to send messages over land in 1844, Morse code outlived the telegraph age by becoming (the language) of the sea. But by the late 20^th century, satellite radio was turning it into a dying language. In February 1999, it officially ceased being the standard for maritime communications.” [2]

   April’s Atlantic Magazine tells the story of the last operational Morse-code radio station in North America, nestled within the Point Reyes National Seashore, north of San Francisco. The station—which is actually two buildings some 25 miles apart—”once watched over the waters of the Pacific and Indian Oceans.” [3] Both sites shut down in 1997, but a few years later, “a couple of radio enthusiasts brought them back to life. The crew has gotten slightly larger over the years. Its members call themselves ‘radio squirrels.’”  [4]  They get together every Saturday and “beep out maritime news and weather reports and receive any stray messages. Most of the time, they are communicating with a WWII-era ship permanently parked at the San Francisco pier.”  [5] Some of the machines they use date back to WWII.

     “To send a message, they (tap) each Morse-code letter into a gadget called a ‘bug,’ generating a loud, staticky noise that reverberates throughout the whole building. ‘It’s almost like jazz,’ one of the radio squirrels said, ‘a music of rhythm and timing that can sound different depending on who is doing the tapping.” [6] Volunteers start each Saturday morning “with ‘services’ for ‘The Church of Continuous Wave.’” [7] They share a meal on vintage plates, branded with the Radio Corporation of America’s old logo.

    Does it feel strange to read an Easter Scripture, without bumping into the Risen Christ? Mark’s gospel may feel abrupt and maybe like something is missing to those who are used to the Easter account in the gospel of John—when Mary Magdalene stumbles upon Jesus himself after she has seen the empty tomb and the angels. Jesus asks her, like the angels did, “Who are you looking for?” She doesn’t recognize him, in her state of distress. She supposes that he is the gardener, and she, again, asks for Christ’s body so that she might tend to it.

    Then, Jesus says her name, “Mary,” and finally, Mary recognizes him! And he sends her out to carry the message of his resurrection to the others.

    John’s resurrection account is definitely my favorite and my choice for most years when sharing my Easter message.  But Mark’s story speaks to me this year. It did in 2021, too, during the pandemic, when churches had been closed, and we were fragmented and discouraged.

     The detail about the three women’s greatest fear on the way to the tomb strikes me as very real this year. They keep asking one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us?” Of all the things they could or should be afraid of, such as being women at a cemetery at sunrise, visiting the tomb of someone who was crucified for crimes against the state, they are worried they won’t be strong enough to move the stone. Aren’t they worried that Roman soldiers might be there? Aren’t they worried there might be grave robbers?

     This is what we do. We worry about things that we anticipate will be problems or obstacles, and then, they never actually become problems or obstacles. We end up with other problems or challenges we never anticipated.

      They reach the tomb, and the large, heavy stone has been rolled away, and surprise, surprise, no Jesus. Instead, the three women—Mary Magdalene; Mary, mother of James who may also have been the mother of Jesus, and Salome, who might have been Mrs. Zebedee— discover a young man in a white robe, who knows why they have come. He immediately tries to comfort them. Because whenever people are in the presence of an angel of the Lord, it’s, frankly, terrifying.

     The young man says, Don’t be alarmed. I know the one you are looking for—Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. “He has been raised; he’s not here! Look, there is the place they laid him.”

    The angel charges the three women to carry the message of the Risen Christ to the men, who are probably still sleeping and given up hope. “Go, tell his disciples and Peter,” he says, “that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.”

Then the women—who followed Jesus while he was alive, had provided for him while he was in Galilee, and watched the crucifixion from a distance—run away. “Terror and amazement had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”

They fail, just as the three male disciples—Peter, James, and John—had failed Jesus on the night he was betrayed, when he was agitated and brought them with him to the Garden of Gethsemane in Mark 14 to pray. And they kept falling asleep. Three times, he woke them up and scolded them.

     The men had failed. The women had failed. Mark’s gospel is over. Scholars agree that anything that comes after verse 8 isn’t part of Mark’s original account. Everything else was added by others later. The story ends in fear, with no one sharing the message with anyone.

    Why does Mark do that?

    Some think that Mark was interrupted or even died before he finished. Others think that the end of the story was lost. But many believe that Mark meant to end it with the women being too amazed and afraid to share. Theologian William Placher writes, “All through Mark, women have been faithful when men failed to be, and these women have come to the tomb to minister to Jesus’ body when the male disciples are long gone, but in the end, no human beings are completed faithful. Fear captures us all.” [8]

     It’s perhaps these features of Mark that speak to us today, “in our own age of uncertainty, when a Gospel that ends with Christ triumphantly present is harder to reconcile with the horrors of the world around us and the doubts within us. Mark throws the ball to us, as he did to his first readers. The three women run away silent, but we have heard the story; it is up to us, in our lives and our testimony, to tell it and keep it alive.” [9]

     The Lord will continue to find a way for us to communicate God’s unchanging message of hope in the Living Christ for generations to come, even if our methods of communication might change a little, just as Morse Code fell out of fashion.

    Ships didn’t stop communicating. Satellite radio was simply found to be a better way.

    But what explains the Radio Squirrels getting together every Saturday morning, for “services” for “The Church of Continuous Wave,” and to share a meal on vintage RCA plates? It seems to me that just when our society declares something, “old-fashioned” or “outdated,” it doesn’t take long for someone to be willing to bring it back to life.

    Morse Code isn’t quite extinct. The U.S. Navy still teaches it to some sailors, and in 2017, a British man who had broken his leg on a beach used it to signal for help in the dark with a flashlight. And while most of the Radio Squirrels are retired or nearing retirement, the last time The Atlantic’s photographer went to visit them, she spotted a 17-year-old “hovering around the squirrels in action. Born after the effective end of Morse code, he was nonetheless eager to help keep the jazz going.” [10]

I would like to close my Easter message today with a poem. This is Jan Richardson’s “Seen: for Easter Day.” [11]

You had not imagined

that something so empty

could fill you to overflowing.

and now you carry

the knowledge

like an awful treasure

or like a child

that curls itself

within your heart;

how the emptiness

will bear forth

a new world

you cannot fathom

but on whose edge

you stand.

So why do you linger?

You have seen,

and so you are

already blessed.

You have been seen,

And so you are

the blessing.

There is no other word

you need.

There is simply

to go

and tell.

There is simply

to begin.

Amen.

---

     [1] Saahil Desai, “The Radio Squirrels of Point Reyes” in The Atlantic, April, 2024, 17-19.

     [2] Desai, The Atlantic, 17-19.

     [3] Desai, The Atlantic, 17-19.

     [4] Desai, The Atlantic, 17-19.

     [5] Desai, The Atlantic, 17-19.

     [6] Desai, The Atlantic, 17-19.

     [7] Desai, The Atlantic, 17-19.

      [8] William C. Placher, Mark from the series Belief, A Theological Commentary of the Bible (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 247.

      [9] Placher, 248.

     [10] Desai, The Atlantic, 17-19.

     [11] Jan Richardson, Circle of Grace (Orlando, FL: Wanton Gospeller Press, 2015), 154-155.

Meditation on Mark 11:1–11

Pastor Karen Crawford

First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown, NY

Palm Sunday

March 24, 2024

 I am so glad the rain has passed! Especially for our Egg Hunt and the children’s sake!

On Friday afternoon, the weather was clear and cool. Not a cloud in the sky. Needing a break from the computer, and longing for fresh air, I took out my new bike and went for a ride!

I took the same path through our neighborhood that I usually walk, only I went three times around—a Trinitarian journey.

Surprisingly, things looked different on this familiar path. And it was MUCH harder work, because, with the exception of a few times in the last couple of weeks, I hadn’t ridden a bike in years.

My legs burned when I peddled up the hills. I fumbled with the gears. I got out of breath. My whole body ached, yet I was exhilarated by the cool wind in my face as I soared downhill and around the curves.

I laughed when a squirrel ran toward me, stopped at the curb and stared at me, front paws lifted up, as if he were asking, “What are you doing?” or “Can I come and play?”

When I pulled up in my driveway, I was done! My legs weighed a ton. So stiff was I, after my Trinitarian ride.

But that’s how it should be if I am to be serious about exercise, I tell myself.

This is how the journey should be when I am serious about my faith, too. It shouldn’t be so easy or comfortable. I can’t just keep doing what I have always done. If I want to grow in faith, hope, love and witness, I may need to change, not the journey, necessarily, but the ride.

Jesus changes his ride on this journey to Jerusalem. He’s been there more than 33 times, for sure. Every year, he and his parents would take a pilgrimage there to celebrate the Passover. The city would be overflowing with thousands of pilgrims, some having traveled many miles and days on foot to remember the Exodus of their ancestors and give God thanks for releasing them from captivity, saving them from their enemies, and the Lord’s miraculous provision in the wilderness years.

On this journey to Jerusalem, Jesus will ride on a young donkey, never ridden. The “animal that has never been ridden before was traditionally reserved for the king.” [1] But it’s all a little ridiculous, says John Calvin, a French theologian, lawyer, and reformer from the 16^th century. “Jesus is riding not on a royal steed but on a little donkey. It’s not even his own but had to be borrowed. He has no saddle, so that the people have to throw their cloaks on the donkey’s back. Those following him must have been a rag-tag miscellaneous group of the poor. Hard to imagine anything less like a triumphant royal procession.” [2]

Martin Luther, a German theologian and reformer writing near the same time as Calvin, said pretty much the same thing, without calling it “ridiculous.” “He sits not upon a proud steed, an animal of war,” says Luther, “nor does he come in great pomp and power, but sitting upon an ass, an animal of peace fit only for burden and labor and a help to man. He indicates by this that he comes not to frighten man, nor to drive or crush him, but to help him and to carry his burden for man.” [3]

There’s no question of Mark’s intent. This IS the fulfillment of the prophecy of Zechariah 9:9: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

The spreading of the cloaks and leafy branches that honors Jesus as a king is an echo of an earlier story from Israel’s history. Jehoram became Israel’s king in 850 BCE, “but the Lord recognized his evil potential.” [4] God sent the prophet Elisha in 2 Kings 9:13 with “a secret message to Jehu, the commander of the royal army, anointing him as king, instead. Jehu’s officers ‘all took their cloaks and spread them for him on the bare steps; and they blew the trumpet, and proclaimed, ‘Jehu is king.’” [5]

The crowd going ahead of Jesus on his humble ride shouts, “Hosanna” – or “Save us, now!” “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David! Hosanna in the highest heaven!” (Mark 11:9-10)

And then, there’s something funny about Mark’s version of what has come to be known as Christ’s “Triumphal Entry”—even though it is anything but triumphal. He enters the temple, looks around at everything, and then, as it was already late, he goes back to Bethany with his 12 disciples!

One contemporary theologian and author, William Placher, formerly of Wabash College, calls Mark’s ending to Christ’s trip on the borrowed donkey an “odd anticlimax.” There’s no uproar or conflict with the chief priests and scribes, like there is in Matthew’s version, and none of the emotion of Jesus weeping over Jerusalem in Luke’s account. In Mark, on the next day, he will curse a fig tree that isn’t bearing fruit and, reaching the temple, turn over the tables of the moneychangers and drive out those buying and selling, but, well, it’s the next day.

“Calvin is so bothered by (the anticlimactic ending) that he argues Mark must have made an editing mistake.” [6]

But what if Mark is intentional in this twist of the narrative? Theologian Cindy Rigby of Austin Seminary writes, “What might we make of it and its implications for our lives? In twenty-first century American culture, we tend to value doing over thinking. Looking around or calling it a night are far less likely to be considered world-changing behaviors than condemning rampant corruption or calling out hypocrisy on no sleep…The Messiah in this story is not like the Jack Bauer of the television series,” she goes on. “He is not confined to twenty-four hours to save the world with no time to think or rest. It might even be the case that Jesus is looking around to determine what his plan is for the next day; that reflection and strategizing are the work of the untriumphant Messiah he is. Perhaps he wants to sleep on his radical plan, just to be sure it is what God is calling him to do and not an extension of his own bravado.” [7]

So, now is a good time for confession. I don’t usually read Mark’s account on Palm Sunday. I usually choose one of the other gospels because they are more dramatic.  This year I felt led to stick with Mark’s more reflective account of our humble king on a borrowed donkey, who quietly returns to Bethany—where his friends Mary, Martha, and Lazarus lived. He probably had a nice supper while he and the disciples talked about the wonderful parade that day, when the crowd seemed to be on his side, shouting to the one they hoped was their Messiah, “Hosanna! Save us, now! Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

Did Jesus know that the crowd would turn on him, in the end? And that his disciples, too, would deny and desert him?

Along with sharing the Palm Sunday reading that is more reflective, rather than dramatic, I am determined to keep riding my bike, though it makes me work harder than the pleasant, easy walk. I am determined also to be more reflective, as well. I have been rushing around a good bit throughout Lent, though I was hoping it wouldn’t be that way. I hope to encourage you to be more reflective, too, throughout Holy Week and the Season of Easter. Take time for rest and quiet, for listening and praying, for walking and bike riding, if you are someone who likes to do that, and enjoying the cool wind on your face as you soar downhill.

After my bike ride, I was delighted to read a devotion about Ole Kassow of Copenhagen, a man who loved bicycling. I felt the Spirit reassuring me that the things we are passionate about, dear friends, will be exactly the things that God will use to bless others and help us witness to Christ’s self-giving love.

 “One morning, when Ole saw an elderly man sitting alone with his walker in a park, he felt inspired by a simple idea: why not offer elderly people the joy and freedom of a bike ride. So, one sunny day, he stopped at a nursing home with a rented trishaw (a three-wheeled bike) and offered a ride to anyone there. He was delighted when a staff member and an elderly resident became the first riders of Cycling Without Age.” His nonprofit, now with chapters in 39 countries, [8] has blessed about 575,000 elderly people with 2. 5 million rides over the last twenty years. The oldest pilot was 90; the oldest passenger was 110. They have taken rides to “see a friend, enjoy an ice cream cone, and ‘feel the wind in their hair.’ Participants say they sleep better, eat better, and feel less lonely.” [9]  

Ole’s gift brings to life the words of Isaiah in 58:10-11, “Help those in trouble, then your light will shine out from the darkness, and the darkness around you will be as bright as noon. The Lord will guide you continually, giving you water when you are dry and restoring your strength. You will be like a well-watered garden, like an ever-flowing spring.” [10]

Christ’s followers know that the one who saves us calls us to a ministry with Him that is a lifelong marathon of service and sacrifice, patience and prayer. It’s never an easy sprint to the finish line. We are the tortoise in Aesop’s Fables in a society that roots for and rewards the hare. [11] Let us ask ourselves, as our Lenten walk draws us nearer to the cross, are we just being witnesses who cheer comfortably from the sidelines? Or are we ready to bear witness to our faith in the Son of God by going all the way to the cross with him and being changed by what we see and hear and feel?  

May we once again, be stirred to live and die, and live a new life of helping others, to the glory of the One to whom we cry, “Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

Let us pray.

Hosanna, dear Lord! Save us, now, we cry! Lead us onward in our journeys of faith. Guide us step by step. Take us to the cross with you. Touch our hearts. Stir us to trust you more, die to ourselves, and live new, abundant lives with you, to your glory. Teach us how to bear witness to the wonderful things that you have done through our serving, giving, and caring for others and engaging in the things that bring us passion and joy. Stir us to be more reflective throughout Holy Week and the Season of Easter, slowing down and listening for your voice, giving you our thanks and praise. Hosanna in the highest heaven! Amen.

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     [1] William C. Placher, Mark, Belief Commentary Series(Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010) 156-159. He quotes Calvin from Harmony of the Evangelists, volume 2, page 447.

     [2] William C. Placher, 156. He quotes Luther in First Sunday in Advent, Sermons of Martin Luther, vol. 1, in Sermons on Gospel Texts for Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany, ed. John Nicholas Lenker (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1983), 19.

     [3] Placher, 156.

     [4] Placher, 158.

     [5] Placher, 158.

     [6] Cynthia L. Rigby, Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship, year B, vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2020), 112-113.

     [7] Cynthia Rigby, 113.

      [8] Cycling Without Age at https://cyclingwithoutage.org/

      [9] Patricia Raybon in Our Daily Bread, March 21, 2024.

     [10] Raybon, March 21, 2024.

     [11] The Hare and the Tortoise at https://read.gov/aesop/025.html

Message on Mark 10:46-52

First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown, NY

Pastor Karen Crawford

Fifth Sunday in Lent

March 17, 2024

Yesterday, when we gathered for our Spring Beautification Day, I watched a man pulling weeds. Another man climbed a tall ladder to restore a spotlight on our cross. Young men and older cleared out old furniture and pulled down ceiling tiles and blinds to make ready for a new, nursing mothers’ and baby changing room. A woman sorted through bags of donated shoes and clothing. Others labored in the kitchen, polishing offering plates, clearing shelves, and scrubbing cabinets, counters, and refrigerators. Others tidied the church office and vacuumed the choir loft.

Boy Scouts from Troop 214 came, with several adults, to help carry heavy items outside to a truck for donation or place in the trash. It was a mild, sunny Saturday morning, when people could have found something else to do, maybe more fun and relaxing.

They came, and they served.

One of the things I like about our beautification days is the way members take ownership of the spaces they are cleaning or organizing. You can tell by their movements and expressions that they know this is their church! These workdays provide an opportunity for people to use gifts and talents they might not ordinarily use on Sunday mornings.

I LOVE the comradery. Friends helping friends, laughing, and talking. By the end of the day, we are all better friends than we were before. We are always united when we engage in shared ministry, particularly hands-on ministry. Often, the experience leads to our eyes being opened to what we weren’t really seeing before. We start to notice things about the church building when we go through the nooks and crannies and closets. We come to see ourselves and our ministry with a fresh perspective.

Today, we continue our series of Healing Stories with the blind beggar in the tenth chapter of Mark. He is “Bartimaeus, Son of Timaeus,” and at first glance we are excited that, finally, the person whom Jesus heals has a name! Not so with Simon’s mother-in-law, healed of her fever. Not so with Jairus’s daughter, raised from the dead. Not so with the unnamed woman, healed of bleeding after she touched the fringe of Christ’s garment. Not so with the paralyzed man, lowered down on a mat through a hole dug in Jesus’s roof.

But then, we realize that we don’t actually know this man’s name, either. Bartimaeus is Aramaic for “Son of Timaeus.” So Mark is really saying, “Son of Timaeus” in Aramaic, then “Son of Timaeus” in Greek. All we know is this is Timaeus’ son.

Up to now, most of the healing stories have fallen into a pattern. Most were healed, not when they asked Jesus for healing, but when someone else asked for them. They were not marginalized or despised. They were very much connected to their community.

But today, the one who is healed is yelling by the side of the road. He is a beggar and has no one advocating for him. He hears Jesus, who is walking through Jericho on the way to Jerusalem for the Passover. His yelling annoys the people around him who tell him, very sternly, to shut up.

He shouts even louder! “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” “Son of David” is a messianic title. Bartimaeus is only the second person in Mark to call Jesus by this title. The blind man is the one who sees Jesus as he really is. [1]

Blindness was common in this part of the world, possibly caused by the glare of the sun and infection, when eyes became encrusted with matter. People didn’t know the importance of hygiene and cleanliness, and, if they were poor like Bartimaeus, they may not have had access to soap and clean water. Adding to the problem were the flies that persistently settled in the matter-encrusted eyes and spread the infection from one person to another. [2] 

Some things to notice about this healing story. It isn’t just a healing story. And this is often the case with healing stories, as we have discovered in this series. This is a call story. Even the word for “call” is repeated. But Jesus isn’t the first to call to him, like he does the fishermen in Mark chapter 1, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” Bartimaeus calls to Jesus and keeps calling, until Jesus stops in his tracks and says, “Call him here.”  The crowd calls to the blind man, “Take heart! Get up! He is calling you.”

Earlier in this chapter, at 10:17, a man approaches Jesus, asking, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” After talking with him about his obedience to the Commandments, Jesus tells him that he lacks one thing. “Go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor. And you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” When he hears this, the man is shocked and goes away grieving, for he has many possessions.  

Bartimaeus responds to Christ’s call by throwing off his cloak, likely his only possession! This is a bold action. “A blind man who tosses something aside in a crowd may never find it again. He is doing completely what the rich man could not bring himself to do—casting aside everything he possesses to come to Jesus.” [3]

The one who cannot see, but knows Christ’s identity, quickly finds his way through the crowd to the Holy One.

The next part is maybe my favorite part of this passage, when Jesus asks him a question. He wants to know about the blind man’s faith. He reveals the love and compassion of God in his kindness toward this man, who is obviously rejected by his community.

“What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asks, echoing the question he asked of his disciples, James and John, vying for the most important positions in a misunderstanding of Christ’s kingdom just before they reach Jericho and hear the shouts of Bartimaeus. Jesus asks the two disciples, “What is it that you want me to do for you?” They say that they want to sit at his right hand and his left, in his glory. Jesus answers, “Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Bartimaeus answers Jesus’s question. “My teacher, let me see again.” Jesus says, “Go; your faith has made you well.” There is no need for Jesus to physically touch Bartimaeus for this healing, not like when he took the hand of Jairus’s daughter and Simon’s mother-in-law and lifted them up. Not like in Mark chapter 8, when he heals a blind man in Bethsaida, who begs him to touch him. Jesus takes the man by the hand and leads him out of the village, puts his saliva on the man’s eyes, and lays his hands on him. Amy-Jill Levine calls this “a two-stage miracle”—only found in Mark. Jesus asks, “Can you see anything?” The man looks up and says, “I see people, but they look like trees, walking.” Jesus lays his hands on his eyes once again, and he sees everything clearly. [4]

This Greek word translated “made well” in chapter 10, in the healing of the Son of Timaeus, is sozein. You know what I am going to say because we have talked about this in our healing stories. This means made well physically or spiritually or both. [5] Jesus is essentially declaring, like he did to the woman who touched the fringe of his garment, “Your faith has healed you and saved you.”

We aren’t left wondering, when we reach the end of this passage, what will happen with Bartimaeus. Mark tells us that he follows Jesus on his way. Unlike the rich man, he has answered the call. Bartimaeus is the perfect disciple. He gets everything right, in contrast to the other disciples, who constantly doubt and misunderstand the mission of the one who came to suffer and give his life as a ransom for many. Despite their close proximity to Jesus, walking with him and joining in his ministry daily, they lack vision and insight.

I find hope in this passage for all who wish to be Christ’s followers, even those who are not perfect and don’t always get it right. That pretty much sums up the entire Body of Christ in the world. The Lord is SO patient with us. God’s love and mercy is everlasting. Have you ever stumbled and fallen? God still loves you. God still has a plan! Today is a new day!

I invite you to stay after worship today, when we gather for another important labor of our ministry—our annual meeting. Our focus is on celebrating the ministry and giving thanks to the Holy Spirit for guiding and helping us all the way. We give thanks for our faithful members, whose generous giving of themselves, their time, talents, and treasure, has made ministry possible and fruitful here in Smithtown—for many, many years. With God’s blessing, and our faithfulness, we will serve the Lord and our community for many, many more years to come.

Yesterday, at our church’s Spring Beautification Day, I saw the greatest servants working hard behind the scenes. Relationships were strengthened by a shared, hands-on mission in Christ’s name.

Friends, let’s keep on doing the good and kind things that we have been doing, and trust with the simple, childlike faith of Bartimaeus.

May the Lord bless us with vitality and abundance as we let go our tight hold on our possessions and embrace the Lord’s plan, God’s vision for this community that God so loves.

There is One who desires to heal and save us. One who invites us all to draw near, and asks us this day, “What do you want me to do for you?”

We cry out, with the Son of Timaeus, “Let us see again.”

Let us pray.

Heavenly Parent, thank you for your love and mercy, hearing us as we cry out to you for healing and salvation. Thank you for the strength and guidance of your Holy Spirit as we seek to follow in your loving ways. Help us when we stumble and fall, when we don’t get it right, like Christ’s earliest disciples. Bless us as we seek to be obedient to your Word. Give us your vision as your church, like you did for Bartimaeus, when your Son was walking the road to Jerusalem, drawing near to the cross where he would give his life as a ransom for many. In the name of our Precious Lord we pray. Amen.

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      [1] William C. Placher, Mark (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010) 154.

      [2] William Barclay, The Gospel of Mark (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1975) 189.

      [3] William Placher, 155.

     [4] Amy-Jill Levine, Signs and Wonders: A Beginner’s Guide to the Miracles of Jesus (Nashville:Abingdon Press, 2022) 92.

     [5] Willian Placher, 155.