NELSON UNITED CHURCH
"We dare to live the Way of Jesus,
Embodying the Love of God"
New Beginnngs, July 21st, 2024
I need to say right off the bat that this is not a funeral service. It is a saying goodbye service, an acknowledgement that our relationship is changing.
Those of you who know Latin or the Anglican/Catholic rite of burial will have recognized the Lux Aeternam that our Guest Ensemble sang at the beginning. (Thank you for singing one of my favourite pieces by Edward Elgar arranged by John Cameron!!) The words are traditionally said at a graveside service and the English translation is, “May light eternal shine upon them, O God, with your saints forever, for you are gracious. Eternal rest give to them and let perpetual light shine upon them.”
I first heard the sung version using Edward Elgar’s melody a few years ago. I was utterly speechless as I listened to the beautiful 8-voice choir. I now have several recordings of it sung by different ensembles, but my favourite is Voces8, an English ensemble.
The music is from the Enigma Variations, written by Edward Elgar between 1898 and 1899; it’s an orchestral work that has 14 variations. The start of it apparently was that after a tiring day teaching, Elgar sat at the piano and played a melody; his wife remarked on it and so he started playing with the melody, creating different variations. The idea then came to him that he should write a variation of the original melody to reflect the character of each of his close family and friends. So he wrote 14.
The variation sung this morning is called “Nimrod.” We know the word “nimrod” in a different context, but Nimrod was a biblical character known as a mighty hunter. He was the son of Cush and the great-grandson of Noah. Elgar chose to call this variation “Nimrod” because of his close friend and musical editor, Augustus Jaeger, “Jaeger” being German for “hunter.”
It’s quite a lovely story how this Nimrod variation was written. Elgar experienced bouts of severe depression and after a particularly bad bout, he had all but decided to give up music. Jaeger visited him and encouraged him to keep going, referring to Beethoven and how he persisted through his challenges and continued to produce beautiful music. To encourage Elgar, Jaeger sang the theme of the 2nd movement of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata #8, Pathétique. The opening bars of Nimrod hint at Beethoven’s piece.
To be clear, Elgar’s variation was an orchestral piece. The words from the Anglican/Catholic burial service were put to Elgar’s music by John Cameron in 2004; he is a contemporary British composer, arranger, and conductor with many TV, film and stage compositions. I’m so glad he did, because the piece is so beautiful!!
(I came to this point in my sermon as I was writing it and I realized that I’m avoiding all of the emotional content of this sermon. And these are not my parting words, the last sermon I wanted to preach with all that I believe; these are words that I hope capture this moment, my own feelings of gratitude, loss, hope, and love… always love!)
When I thought of how Jaeger boosted his friend’s spirits when they were at a low ebb, I think back to the many moments when I’ve been at a low ebb and I am so appreciative of the support you’ve given me; I think particularly of 2010 when I took Restorative Care leave for depression. Many of you don’t know, but I considered giving up ministry during those months away. It took the love and care of friends, colleagues, leaders in the church—you folks—as well as our EAP at the time, plus family and music to keep me going. Lux Aertnam was one of the pieces of music I listened to over and over.
As I think back on 35 years of ministry, and especially that time of restorative care in 2010, I come back again and again to Jesus’ teaching of the beloved community and the hope, courage and resilience we find. When I took time off for depression, I thought long and hard about the Christian community that is the Church. The support and love I received helped me to realize that the gift of the
Church is to be the beloved community and to be that in the world and for the world.
Last week I heard the song The Riddle by Five for Fighting; I’ve always appreciated that song. What keeps repeating in this song is the line, “Here’s a riddle for you, find the answer. There’s a reason for the world… You and I.”
“You and I.” As I preached at Morgan and Joe’s wedding anniversary celebrating love in community a couple of weeks ago, and as I’ve mentioned many times in the past, this idea of “you and I” is the concept of ubuntu. Desmond Tutu made ubuntu famous in the West and he defined it as “I am because you are, and you are because I am.” “You and I.” “Ubuntu” … Jesus’ gift of the Kindom of God. Synonyms for the same idea—Beloved Community.
The upshot of ubuntu is that we are nothing without one another. We don’t have existence. That notion is also connected to the name that God gave to Moses… “I am who I am” or “I will be who I will be.” God is the great “I Am,” or as Paul Tillich once said, “God is the Ground of our Being.” We are rooted in beingness; we are rooted in God. But it is a beingness that is the beloved community, the Kindom of God, an intermingling of our lives.
We are kin to one another; we are kin to all that has being in the earth. Over the past 29 years, we’ve striven together to be the beloved community where we learn to love and be loved. We have learned to companion one another through challenges and joys, through griefs and celebrations. We’ve lived this Kindom ubuntu by choosing to be affirming and welcoming to all pilgrims seeking a life of love and hope. We’ve striven together to love one another into versions of our truest selves, and to embody love and witness to the embodied love of every human being and every living being.
We’re going to celebrate the sacrament of communion in a moment, but I think that where I’ve come over the years is to recognize that life is a sacrament, a visible sign of God’s presence in our world. Your life… my life… all life. And that has been undergirded by my reading of Celtic Christian theology. Life is a sacrament and that invites in us a response of awe, of grace, of kindness, of generosity, of peace, of justice.
And so, my hope for us all as we come to the end of my covenanted relationship with Nelson United Church within the United Church of Canada, Pacific Mountain Region, here in Nelson, BC, is that we continue to celebrate the ubuntu beloved community of God’s Kindom. And that we continue the tradition of listening to the earth, listening to one another, deepening our connections to one another and to the wider world, continuing to express gratitude and awe at the gift of life, continuing to live out and embody the reality that I am because you are and you are because I am. This is my blessing for you and for me in our new futures… and most definitely for the future of our world as we live through troubling times. We need more than ever to celebrate and proclaim God’s beloved community that Jesus defined and embodied so well.
As so, I leave you with a poem I wrote this past week:
On the brink of something new
I stop and listen;
I open my eyes.
I see what is around me,
and I listen with my heart.
A flock of geese flying…
always together,
the vee formation providing lift,
the calls to one another encourage.
Beloved Community.
I listen to the crows…
unruly and raucous,
engaged in a memorial for one of their own.
Beloved Community
Standing in the wood, I hear the trees,
the leaves rustling in the wind,
And if I really listen,
I hear—deep in the earth—
the roots intertwined and intermingled…
a forest,
Beloved Community.
Standing in line at Oso,
I close my eyes;
I hear the chatter:
a word of hope here,
a grief declared there…
laughter… tears… hugs…
Beloved Community.
Walking down Baker Street
I am greeted by a person
who wanted nothing more
than to bid me have a good day.
Beloved Community.
Churches, Temples, places of worship,
standing in this pulpit,
celebrating songs and prayers and stories.
There is hope
wherever there is beloved community.
And while I stand and take life in—
now on the brink of something new,
I am thankful.
Thankful for the beloved community that is.
Thankful for what has been;
and hopeful for what will be.
Amen.
The world needs a million plus hugs every hour of every day. This world that is broken and troubled and struggling is a world that needs us to speak and do what we can as we can, including those seemingly small gestures. Those hugs! If we think about all the loving words and all the loving acts blended together is it not going to be bigger than what we can know? Perhaps the size and the effect are known only to God.
We are the ones called to live the Way, the Truth, the Life. As scripture tells us we are saints. We are among those called to live love. As scripture points out we are sinners. We are among those who are forgiven and sent out to forgive and to love. For the living of these days we are disciples. We are the disciples of the One who goes ahead and comes back to get us to take us exactly where we need to be.