Sermon 999
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation. Amen.
1878, after city officials fail to blockade imports from New Orleans, yellow fever reaches Memphis, Tennessee. Over 24, 000 people flee the city, more than half of all residents. Those who stay attempt to obey quarantines and avoid the sick. Among those who stay are also those who stay in order to care for the sick. Today we remember 6 of them, Constance, Thecla, Ruth, Frances, Charles and Louis, four Episcopal nuns and 2 Episcopal priests, the martyrs of Memphis. I like that the day is named Constance and her companions, Constance being the superior of the Sisters of St. Mary and the first to be taken by the fever, because it leaves open the question of who were Constance’s companions. Were her primary companions not her patients after all? And what about the 30 Roman Catholic priests and nuns who remained and were also taken by the fever? And Annie Cook, the mistress of a local brothel who shooed out all her girls to make space for a make-shift hospital before she and two fellow prostitutes submitted to the plague as well? And for that matter what about all those who survived her? Were they not also her companions?
I look at the good work we do here at the Church Center, the work we do as the Episcopal Church more broadly, and I wonder, who are our companions? Some people say that if Bill Gates had not made a breakthrough, or Newton, Jonas Salk, Larry Page, someone else would have. Aren’t we all, in all our individuality, only frontrunners of many and various currents within our society? When we remember Constance, or any of the saints, don’t we simply remember the presence of God within a people, within a society, that made their extraordinary actions possible? If not Constance, then Annie, if not Annie then Charles. I like that today’s feast reminds us to be humble.
Today is nine nine nine, September 9, 2009. I enjoy those sort of number coincidences. I like to linger with them, 3 times 3 thrice over, an infinite loop.
I used to attend the Jazz service at Trinity Church in Houston. Matt Oprendek, now a seminarian at General led an incredibly talented group of musicians as director, liturgist and pianist. One of our soloists, April, would catch herself on a line of a familiar spiritual, Wade in the Water, and Matt would hear something, and he’d swing the band around and we’d all come through for another listen, this time something else changed, popped and came alive, so he’d swing around even harder and we’d cruise by again, not hoping to see the same thing, but hoping just hoping, as we craned our necks, held our breaths for the slightest glimpse, that what we heard was green, alive, growing, potential. That we could pass by again and again and again each time different, each time new. April’s voice crescendoing, the bassist rising to build support upon support, the sax accenting her ascent, the altos carrying her train, moving upward toward… as she reached toward…
What made Constance stay? Or any of her companions? What made her linger? What makes us stay? Here? in a church that is no longer mainline, no longer the church of power? A church with major monetary struggles and serious theological questions? A church that is gripped intermittently by fear, insecurity and sometimes bitterness? What makes us stay?
I don’t think Constance stayed because she had anything to prove. I don’t think she stayed because she felt she was bringing good to the broken, a beacon of light. She had no secret cure for yellow fever tucked away inside her habit. I’d like to think her intentions were grittier than that, perhaps more selfish than that. I’d like to think she stayed because she had found God in Memphis, and she would stay by his side. She had glimpsed her master there, and there she would be also. Constance and her companions.
I circle the table, craning my neck, straining my eyes for a glimpse of God, and God revealed here causes me to circle again. To linger.
There is a certain beauty to “where I am, there will my servant be also” in that it highlights the radical relinquishing of power by the follower. The servant does not come, or arrive or choose to follow, but simply finds herself “being” where God is. Not sure how we got here, fascinated by the mystery of God’s presence here, we linger. What is the nature of the current we ride that brings us to this place?
What needs
is our presence here
evidence of
in the companions around us?
‘Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say—“Father, save me from this hour”? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.’
God has glorified it, glorified it through Jesus, glorified it through Constance and all her companions, and heck if God won’t glorify it again.
Amen.
1878, after city officials fail to blockade imports from New Orleans, yellow fever reaches Memphis, Tennessee. Over 24, 000 people flee the city, more than half of all residents. Those who stay attempt to obey quarantines and avoid the sick. Among those who stay are also those who stay in order to care for the sick. Today we remember 6 of them, Constance, Thecla, Ruth, Frances, Charles and Louis, four Episcopal nuns and 2 Episcopal priests, the martyrs of Memphis. I like that the day is named Constance and her companions, Constance being the superior of the Sisters of St. Mary and the first to be taken by the fever, because it leaves open the question of who were Constance’s companions. Were her primary companions not her patients after all? And what about the 30 Roman Catholic priests and nuns who remained and were also taken by the fever? And Annie Cook, the mistress of a local brothel who shooed out all her girls to make space for a make-shift hospital before she and two fellow prostitutes submitted to the plague as well? And for that matter what about all those who survived her? Were they not also her companions?
I look at the good work we do here at the Church Center, the work we do as the Episcopal Church more broadly, and I wonder, who are our companions? Some people say that if Bill Gates had not made a breakthrough, or Newton, Jonas Salk, Larry Page, someone else would have. Aren’t we all, in all our individuality, only frontrunners of many and various currents within our society? When we remember Constance, or any of the saints, don’t we simply remember the presence of God within a people, within a society, that made their extraordinary actions possible? If not Constance, then Annie, if not Annie then Charles. I like that today’s feast reminds us to be humble.
Today is nine nine nine, September 9, 2009. I enjoy those sort of number coincidences. I like to linger with them, 3 times 3 thrice over, an infinite loop.
I used to attend the Jazz service at Trinity Church in Houston. Matt Oprendek, now a seminarian at General led an incredibly talented group of musicians as director, liturgist and pianist. One of our soloists, April, would catch herself on a line of a familiar spiritual, Wade in the Water, and Matt would hear something, and he’d swing the band around and we’d all come through for another listen, this time something else changed, popped and came alive, so he’d swing around even harder and we’d cruise by again, not hoping to see the same thing, but hoping just hoping, as we craned our necks, held our breaths for the slightest glimpse, that what we heard was green, alive, growing, potential. That we could pass by again and again and again each time different, each time new. April’s voice crescendoing, the bassist rising to build support upon support, the sax accenting her ascent, the altos carrying her train, moving upward toward… as she reached toward…
What made Constance stay? Or any of her companions? What made her linger? What makes us stay? Here? in a church that is no longer mainline, no longer the church of power? A church with major monetary struggles and serious theological questions? A church that is gripped intermittently by fear, insecurity and sometimes bitterness? What makes us stay?
I don’t think Constance stayed because she had anything to prove. I don’t think she stayed because she felt she was bringing good to the broken, a beacon of light. She had no secret cure for yellow fever tucked away inside her habit. I’d like to think her intentions were grittier than that, perhaps more selfish than that. I’d like to think she stayed because she had found God in Memphis, and she would stay by his side. She had glimpsed her master there, and there she would be also. Constance and her companions.
I circle the table, craning my neck, straining my eyes for a glimpse of God, and God revealed here causes me to circle again. To linger.
There is a certain beauty to “where I am, there will my servant be also” in that it highlights the radical relinquishing of power by the follower. The servant does not come, or arrive or choose to follow, but simply finds herself “being” where God is. Not sure how we got here, fascinated by the mystery of God’s presence here, we linger. What is the nature of the current we ride that brings us to this place?
What needs
is our presence here
evidence of
in the companions around us?
‘Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say—“Father, save me from this hour”? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.’
God has glorified it, glorified it through Jesus, glorified it through Constance and all her companions, and heck if God won’t glorify it again.
Amen.
posted by Jason Sierra at 10:00 AM
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