October 6, 2013 | 8:00 a.m.

Across the River

Matt Helms
Minister for Children and Families, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Psalm 137:1–6
Lamentations 1:1–6
2 Timothy 1:8–14

If you want a happy ending, it depends, of course,
on where you stop your story.
Orson Welles

“Ask me”, the poet William Stafford once wrote,

Some time when the river is ice
ask me mistakes I have made.
Ask me whether what I have done is my life.
. . .

You and I can turn and look at the silent river and wait.
We know the current is there, hidden;
and there are comings and goings from miles away
that hold the stillness exactly before us.
What the river says, that is what I say.

“Ask Me” is a beautiful poem—evocative in imagery, but also evocative in the sense of evaluation and long vision this person is bringing to his or her life—a life portrayed as a river stretching many miles ahead and many miles back. It is a poem about self-definition and understanding—the type that comes with age. It is also a poem, one suspects, filled with a quiet regret and longing.

Just over 2,500 years ago, seated on the edge of a river outside of Babylon, a small band of Israelites gathered together in regret and longing as they mourned the loss of their homeland. Their words were captured by our morning psalm, a psalm that accurately conveys the powerful sense of loss the people gathered at the river were feeling. They had been citizens of Jerusalem—a city they refer to as Zion throughout the text—and it had been one of the few remaining bastions of the once-great nation of Israel. The ravages of time and the growth of the major power players of the day—Assyria, Babylon, and Egypt—meant that Jerusalem and the southern kingdom of Judah had been holding on by a thread up to that point. And now, sitting here on the banks of the river, they are looking back, filled with grief at how it fell. This grief is expanded upon in our first reading from Lamentations, one of the darkest books of the Bible and one that examines the dissolution of Israel and the accompanying anguish that has overtaken the survivors. One can almost feel their pain, standing there at the river, uncertain about what this ending means for them.

If there is a clear and consistent theme from all three of our passages from the lectionary today, it is the theme of the struggle that accompanies endings or impending endings. Our second lesson recounting Paul’s pleas to Timothy sounds quite positive on the surface, but underneath the text you can hear the worry in Paul’s voice. This letter reports to be written when Paul was awaiting trial in Rome, shortly before he would be put to death. Later Paul recounts the hurt that he has from those who turned away from him, and he begs Timothy to carry on the good news that they have been preaching together. Paul is in the midst of trauma, a turbulent period in his life’s river, and he is looking for solid ground and reassurance in this time.

I share all this background about our passages this morning not to depress but to give context on the deep level of hurt that was occurring in them. Many of us are used to lectionary passages being inspiring and uplifting, but we know all too well that sometimes life resembles these darker moments and times of ending as well. How do we understand, in the wider context of God’s grace and love, these difficulties and times of trial?

Each of us has been through dark periods of our life—times when we have sat on the edge of the river looking back across at choices we’ve made or the outcomes of certain events and we’re filled with a sense of regret. Each of us has experienced loss and hurt in a significant and real way. Perhaps some of you are experiencing such a time right now. I think these passages are so valuable in the way that they acknowledge the grief that comes with loss or disappointment. Too many times in the church we don’t acknowledge the depth of hurt and pain that each of us may be feeling, and it becomes easy to be stuck or to dwell in that place. The Israelites in our psalm today were caught, looking back to their fallen city with revenge on their mind. The Israelites from our Lamentations passage feel abandoned and alone in a foreign land. But even in the midst of those feelings, however, there’s a promise that rings out: God will be with them. This is not the end of their story or even their defining chapter.

“Some time when the river is ice, ask me mistakes I have made. Ask me if what I have done is my life”: in William Stafford’s poem, when he looks back over his lifetime, he has little problem separating himself and his identity from his mistakes and the trials of his life. His self-understanding and self-worth aren’t reliant on what he has done or what has happened to him; rather, his worth comes from something else, something intrinsic. No matter what he has lost, no matter what he has gained, these things do not change the fundamental nature of his identity. Writers such as Henri Nouwen and Parker Palmer would describe this nature as being God’s beloved—that we are children of God and that in that identity, we need not worry about the end of our story.

Indeed, exile was not the end of the story for Israel. Despite the initial horror and mourning after the destruction of Jerusalem, the time that Israel spent in exile was among the most religiously fruitful times in Jewish history. Many of the great prophets, from Ezekiel and Jeremiah to the soaring words of Second Isaiah, came from this period. Rather than being tied to the temple as a source of God’s presence, there began to be a growing awareness that God was with them even in faraway lands rather than being tied to place. Fearful of losing oral tradition and other rituals, many of the books of the Bible as we know them began to be recorded in this period. Rather than seeing the loss of Jerusalem as an end, the people improbably became more hopeful. If our lives are fluid, continually being defined and redefined like water flowing through a river, then this was a period of redefinition and growth.

Many of you may know what was to come, but the abridged version is that Israel returned from exile a short sixty years later after Babylon fell. The catastrophic event of the exile was burned into their consciousness, never to be forgotten, but it soon became no more than a chapter in the wider story that God was writing for them as a people. For those in the midst of the destruction and first waves of exile—those closest to the situation and the event—it appeared to be an absolute end. But that was not the end of the story that God was authoring.

Around 600 years later, the Apostle Paul found himself with yet another challenge in his tumultuous ministry. Being imprisoned was not a rarity with Paul, but his impending trial in Rome clearly forced him to take stock of his ministry. “Some time when the river is ice, ask me mistakes I have made. Ask me if what I have done is my life.” Paul had preached in cities across the Mediterranean and Greek worlds, but he likely didn’t know the extent of the legacy that he would leave behind him. But Paul expresses a trust in God’s grace and love similar to that expressed by Parker Palmer and Henri Nouwen and similar to the Stafford poem: “God saved us and called us to a higher calling, not according to our works—the things that we do—but according to his own purpose and grace.”

Paul trusted that no matter what the outcome of his trial was, this wider story that God was writing extended far before him and far after him. His end—meaning Paul’s end—was not a sad ending or even an ending to the story that God was authoring. This sentiment was expressed beautifully in a prayer by the former Archbishop Oscar Romero, who said, “It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view. The kingdom not only lies beyond our efforts; it lies beyond our vision. We experience only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.”

In the context of painful circumstances or loss, like that of the Israelites upon losing Jerusalem, this is small comfort. It is, however, a reminder at the wideness of this river of life. In the words of Stafford, “We know the current is there, hidden; and there are comings and goings from miles away that hold the stillness exactly before us.” Standing on the shores of Babylon, looking across the river to the fallen Jerusalem, it is hard to think about anything that has been or anything that is yet to come—but God’s grace and love is indeed at the end of all things, and every ending can be an opportunity for a new beginning.

Standing in exile, the prophet Isaiah proclaimed in hope and in trust, “Comfort, comfort my people. . . . In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord. . . . The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together.” Isaiah, or at least followers of the prophet who wrote the later portions of the book of Isaiah, would have little reason to proclaim and hope this. Even at the peak of Israel under David and Solomon, the country itself was nothing more than a minor player in this wider Near East drama. And yet this vision of a world united persisted. Isaiah speaks of how they will be a light to the nations, a force for justice sustained by God’s care.

The global aspirations later continued with Paul, the man called to preach to the Gentiles, following on Christ’s command to go and make disciples of all nations. In the midst of trouble and persecution, Christianity managed to flourish throughout the Roman empire—slowly spreading to the known corners of the globe. From those dark times—from Paul awaiting trial for his life—this wider story that God was authoring would continue.

Later on in this service, we will be celebrating World Communion Sunday, a Sunday set aside to remember our oneness with our brothers and sisters around the world and to participate together in building the world that God has called us to build. While this aspect of Communion is present when we share it each and every Sunday, it has particular relevance and meaning to know how many churches around the world will be participating in it, knowing that we indeed break bread and share the cup with hundreds of millions of others on this day.

From a distance, the lectionary’s selection of Lamentations and Paul writing from a Roman prison seem inappropriate for World Communion Sunday, but I think that they are a tremendous reminder of God’s continual presence in our lives and all of the lives of those who preceded us. The Israelites looking across the river and Paul looking out the bars of his prison could only hope and trust that God would one day be able to bring nations together in a meaningful way. Today we have an opportunity to live that hope. Our shrinking global world certainly brings a whole host of problems, but it is also an incredible reminder of the vast enterprise that is God’s work.

So as we break bread together, may we each remember the lives of those who went before us, those who travel with us, and those who will be after us. Let us rejoice that no matter what happens in our lives, no matter how dark things may seem, God’s story is still unfolding steadily; a river that continually brings renewal and life, even when the water in front of us appears still. The bread and cup are a promise—a vision—of the community we are called into. May it be so today—and may it be so forevermore. Amen.