“Through the Ordeal”

A sermon by the Rev. Dr. Hilary J. Barrett

Preached at Pleasantville United Church of Christ, November 6, 2011

Hebrews 12:1-13 & Revelation 7:9-17

“Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, ‘Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?’ I said to him, ‘Sir, you are the one that knows.’ Then he said to me, ‘These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.’”
(Revelation 7:13-14)

I bought a book about saints to take with me to the Philadelphia Art Museum.  Art museums are full of paintings of saints.  Marcia Cooper taught me that saints are always pictured with the method of their demise.  So, for instance, if you see a guy all shot through with arrows – that’s St. Sebastian. Sebastian was martyred under the Emperor Diocletian around the year 300.  According to legend, Sebastian was a Christian who assisted persecuted Christians – though he himself was a soldier and a member of the Roman Imperial Guard.  In his turn he, too, was persecuted and ultimately martyred for his faith.  He was ordered to be shot to death with arrows – hence, Sebastian is the patron saint of soldiers…and archers.

St. Stephen is considered the first Christian martyr.  His story is told in Acts 6-7.  He was a deacon and a leader of the group of Christianized Jews who lived in Jerusalem after the crucifixion.  In the year 35, he was arrested for blasphemy, tried by the Jewish Sanhedrin and, despite an eloquent self-defense, dragged to the outskirts of the city and stoned to death.  Stephen is usually represented as a young beardless man holding stones.

St. Barbara was imprisoned by her own father – and is pictured as a beautiful young woman, holding a tower.  St. Apollonia had all her teeth pulled out – she is the patron saint of dentists.  And St. Denis walked from his own execution to his own grave with his own decapitated head in his hands.  Perhaps, understandably, Denis is invoked by those suffering headaches.

The stories of the saints aren’t easy to read. Those who died during the Emperor Diocletian’s reign – and there were a lot of them – remind us that being a Christian was a dangerous business in the Roman Empire.  For the first two centuries, Christianity was an illegal religion in the eyes of the Roman state and those who practiced the faith were destined to know the real meaning of persecution.  It wasn’t until the year 325 that Christianity became a legalized religion.

It’s an interesting witness of faith to depict the saints with emblems of their suffering.  I’m not sure that it ‘sells’ in today’s market.  If you told people nowadays that they were going to suffer for their faith – it’s hard to say whether they would choose it.  Of course you will… suffer for your faith, I mean. But as a rule, we tend to downplay that part a bit.  Not the saints, though.  They’re right up front with that message – arrows and rocks and swords and millstones – it’s all right out there -- signs of the persecution; evidence of the cost of faith.

It’s the cost of faith that both of our texts speak to this morning.  Both the letter to the Hebrews and the book of Revelation don’t pretend to be anything other than they are.  They are written to encourage the faithful in the face of persecution.  They are meant to strengthen followers of Christ to withstand the consequences of discipleship.  They’re not pretending it will be easy; they know it won’t be. They are pointing to those who have done it before us, and they are teaching us how to witness to others who follow after us.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely,^* and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, ²looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of^* the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:1-2)

The church’s calendar sweeps around from sacred season to sacred season, day after day, week after week, year after year.  And if we are attentive to these sacred seasons they will teach us how to live – and how to die – full of the knowledge of the grace of God.  And so on this All Saints’ Sunday we are talking about saints and what it means to be a saint, and our texts speak an honest word about the truth that those who bear the mark of God are preserved through (but not from) both suffering and persecution.

Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?”  I said to him, “Sir, you are the one that knows.” Then he said to me, “These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. (Revelation 7:13-14)

I received an e-mail this week from Pete Emery.  Pete is the brother of Nate Emery – one of our Elders.  Pete and his wife, Jen, are missionaries working with an organization called Extreme Response International.  Extreme Response is a global NGO dedicated to providing relief and support to people living in extreme and often life-threatening conditions. The organization currently works in eight developing countries, providing food, shelter, education and skills training in addition to emergency relief.  Pete and I were in conversation about ministry when he shared this:

It is good to see you open to God's will even if it means He pushes beyond what we think we can do and takes [us] out of our comfort zone.  That is when we see God do His best work.  If you like to read there is a book called "Radical" by David Platt.  It really challenged Jen and I and encompasses much on how we want to live our lives and awaken others.

And then Pete quoted this from the book:

“[God] puts us in positions where we are desperate for His power.
Then He shows His provision in ways that display His greatness.”

We need people who will be honest with us about what it means to be desperate for the power of God.  We need people who will be honest with us about what it means to come through, what the book of Revelation calls, ‘the great ordeal.’  We need people who will show us how to get through times of great suffering and times of great loss.  We need those who know what it means to endure the silence of God, and those who know what it means to pay a high price for faith.   We need those who will show us how to survive the very worst that we could ever imagine. 

William Sloane Coffin – one of the great preachers of Riverside Community Church in New York City – lost his son, Alex, in a car accident when Alex was a young man in the prime of his life.  Ten days after Alex’s death, Bill Coffin preached one of the greatest sermons of the 20th century.  In Alex’s Eulogy he said that God gives us “minimum protection [but] maximum support.”  He said:

That's why immediately after such a tragedy people must come to your rescue, people who only want to hold your hand, not to quote anybody or even say anything, people who simply bring food and flowers — the basics of beauty and life — people who sign letters simply, "Your brokenhearted sister."

[He said]…that's what hundreds of you understood so beautifully.  You gave me what God gives all of us — minimum protection, maximum support.  I swear to you, I wouldn't be standing here were I not upheld.[1]

We need people who will be honest with us about what it means to ‘come through the great ordeal;’ people who show us by their very being what it means to have staying power as a person of faith.  For if we cannot be honest with one another about that – if we cannot teach one another that – then ‘we are, of all, most to be pitied.’[2]

Julia Kasdorf is a poet born in Lewiston, Pennsylvania.  She grew up Mennonite and told stories about her people in a collection of poems entitled, “Sleeping Preacher.”  One of those poems is entitled: “What I Learned from My Mother” and it goes like this:

What I Learned From My Mother

by Julia Kasdorf

What I Learned From My Mother

I learned from my mother how to love

the living, to have plenty of vases on hand

in case you have to rush to the hospital

with peonies cut from the lawn, black ants

still stuck to the buds. I learned to save jars

large enough to hold fruit salad for a whole

grieving household, to cube home-canned pears

and peaches, to slice through maroon grape skins

and flick out the sexual seeds with a knife point.

I learned to attend the viewing even if I didn’t know

the deceased, to press the moist hands

of the living, to look in their eyes and offer

sympathy, as though I understood loss even then.

I learned that whatever we say means nothing,

what anyone will remember is that we came.

I learned to believe I had the power to ease

awful pains materially like an angel.

Like a doctor, I learned to create

from another’s suffering my own usefulness, and once

you know how to do this, you can never refuse.

To every house you enter, you must offer

healing: a chocolate cake you baked yourself,

the blessing of your voice, your chaste touch.

I learned from my mother how to love

the living, to have plenty of vases on hand

in case you have to rush to the hospital

with peonies cut from the lawn, black ants

still stuck to the buds. I learned to save jars

large enough to hold fruit salad for a whole

grieving household, to cube home-canned pears

and peaches, to slice through maroon grape skins

and flick out the sexual seeds with a knife point.

I learned to attend viewing even if I didn’t know

the deceased, to press the moist hands

of the living, to look in their eyes and offer

sympathy, as though I understood loss even then.

I learned that whatever we say means nothing,

what anyone will remember is that we came.

I learned to believe I had the power to ease

awful pains materially like an angel.

Like a doctor, I learned to create

from another’s suffering my own usefulness, and once

you know how to do this, you can never refuse.

To every house you enter, you must offer

healing: a chocolate cake you baked yourself,

the blessing of your voice, your chaste touch.

Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?”  I said to him, “Sir, you are the one that knows.” Then he said to me, “These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

How do we learn to be saints? 

More often than not I think we learn by watching.  We learn by doing.  We learn by seeing it done over and over again.   More often than not we learn to be saints by going to church and seeing others show up too.  We learn by watching our mothers keep “plenty of vases on hand/in case you have to rush to the hospital.”[3]  We learn by reminding one another that sometimes God puts us in positions where we are ‘desperate for His power’ – then He shows up in ways that display His greatness.

How do we learn to be saints? 

More often than not I think we learn by knowing, that sometimes what it means to be a saint, what it means to get through ‘the great ordeal’ is simply to keep showing up.

Amen.