Over the last few
days, a song by the group The Common Cup Company has been rolling through my
mind.
The song, entitled
“No Farewells” written by Ian Macdonald and Gordon Light (who also penned She Flies
on, and some of the other hymns by this group in Voice United) begins:
No farewells – pain will end forever
Death will die, sorrows pass away.
And we shall rise to find a table
Where love and mercy feast,
With a voice around us sounding No Farewells.
No farewells – love last forever shining
Meaning like God’s heart beat never fades
For we shall rise to find a river
Where peace and justice flow,
Where a voice says, Come and drink to no farewells.
This song became
imbued with meaning for me at their recent Concert at Christ Church in Meaford
when in the middle of the concert my cell phone rang and I answered a call I
knew couldn’t go to voice mail … I stepped outside and had my last real and
substantive conversation with Jason T---.
Jason had been
admitted to the hospital and was facing some serious health issues – issues
that ultimately claimed his life this past week.
Jason and I talked
and we ended the conversation without saying “Good Bye”. Instead, I offered
hopefully the words – “I won’t say good bye, because whatever happens isn’t
good bye …”
When I returned to
the concert The Common Cup were singing the song – No Farewells:
We will slip into a sea of stars, in a galaxy of
years,
Years that were and years to come
-
All hours gathered into one,
Nothing’s lost when all is done
-
No end to what’s begun.
No farewells – no letting go forever,
We rise to God, and so to one another,
For we shall rise to find a welcome
Where all that’s past is healed,
In God’s good hands, love offers no farewells.
In faith, there are
no farewells – no good byes … we place our trust in something more … this
concept is fundamental to who we are and what we are about in our faith
journey, yet too often when confronted with pain, uncertainty, suffering and
those incomprehensible moments when we feel like we’ve been punched in the gut,
we’re left wringing our hands and wondering what to say or do …
That night in
Meaford, I felt lead, held and inspired by the Spirit … the message of the
words from The Common Cup Company – friend and colleagues in ministry – were a
reminder that no moment of our lives is outside of the care and attention of
our God … there are no farewells, for we shall rise to find a welcome in the
hands of God …
This idea has been
percolating in my brain the past week, and as the harsh and very non-sacred
reality of our trouble financial picture as a Pastoral Charge and as
Congregations, hit home, I couldn’t help but wonder what the Spirit is calling
us to be and to do and to offer to the community around us … how do we take
this idea of being Children of God, firmly in the hands of God, loved by God
and live it?
Especially in a world
that really doesn’t care …
Then I found a
quotation from Walter Brueggemann that hit home what our ministry – our life
and work together is about. Brueggemann writes: “None of our theological reasoning has a reliable resolution to the
questions of theodicy and the force of unmerited pain. Such pain is dealt with
only by embrace as body touches body in compassion.”
Our world is at times
a dark and troubled place. There is so much pain and alienation and fear around
us … by faith, we are called to confront and address those shadows by offering
compassion – our care – our love – our ministry. Brueggemann summarizes the
experience of our world nicely when he observes:
Our society has been for much too long, a community:
With ears that
do not hear,
With eyes that
do not see,
With hearts that
do not comprehend
(see Isa 6:9-10;
Mark 8:17-18)
And now,
Perhaps healing,
Perhaps to
arrive at the mountain (with Moses).
Perhaps to
chance the triad of God’s joy.
Perhaps to move
through hope to reconstruction.
This is ALL an enormous “perhaps”. But we live in
Hope.
We are called to be a
hopeful and hopefilled people.
We are called to
address and break the cycle of loss and grief by proclaiming that hope, and
offering the reconstruction and transformation that a faith filled JOY can not
only proclaim, but provide.
Body to body
compassion means real help – real care – real presence in the darkness, and not
just simple cheque book charity, or uninvolved third person care and prayer …
body to body compassion means rolling up our sleeves and doing what needs to be
done.
And I offer this, not
as a critique of what we haven’t done. But as a pause to reflect on what we
HAVE done, and continue to do as faith communities.
In a myriad of quiet
humble gestures and actions, this community has lived its faith and offered
that body to body compassion that embraces the cycle of loss and grief, and
LIVES the message of HOPE and brings into being the transformative JOY we speak
of … in the face of fear, we strive to offer care, presence, and community.
For Brueggemann, this
is the heart of our calling to live faithful lives as disciples. He notes that
God offers what Brueggemann dubs the “Triade of God’s Joy” to confront and address harsh reality of our
world, and the alienation and loneliness many experience.
This triade arises
from the Biblical call to live hesed, mispat, and sedaqah as we journey through
life.
Hesed – steadfast
love that sees us standing in solidarity with those on the margins, those
beaten down by life, those forgotten and alone.
Mispat, the concept
of justice that offers real and tangible concern for the widows and the orphans
in our world – concern for those who are pushed to the sides and forgotten, and
who yearn for acts of care and compassion.
And then there is
sedaqah – the gift of righteousness that sees us taking our love, our justice
and with faith actively involving ourselves in the solutions to problems;
actively intervening in society on behalf of those who may have no other voice;
helping in real and tangible ways.
If we pause to look
around and honestly examine what we are about and what we do in faith, we can
see this triade of hesed, mizpat, and sedaqah active among us … there is ALWAYS
room for improvement – but for the moment, we can pause and KNOW we’re on the
right track.
Our involvement in
the food bank, our commitment to the Mission and Service Fund, our prayer
chain, the annual mitten tree, the prayer shawls from the knitting group, the
men’s coffee, the outreach through the farmers’ market, our cards – phone calls
and messages to friends and neighbours in distress, and the myriad of other
gestures we do together and individually, are signs that we strive to embrace
the pain of our world in a real and tangible way by SHARING our faith, whether
we’re even aware of it or not by living out God’s call to hesed, mizpah and
sedaqah … love, justice and righteousness!!
God has heard the
cries of those bruised and battered and hurting in our world … and God’s answer
rests in our hands … it begins with prayer and continues as we rise from our
knees and go into the world carrying with us the mantle of love, justice and
righteousness which we share with everyone we meet …
We are a people who
embody and live Hope and Joy and who dare to offer “no farewells”
May it be so …thanks
be to God … Let us pray …
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