First United Methodist Church, Birmingham, MI
Scripture: Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, Mark 1:16-20
In case you tried to reach me during the first three days of the week just passed, I wasn't here. I was taking my second child, for her second year, to a university seven hundred miles to the south of here. Julie is the child's name. Duke is the university's name. And while this is far from her final year there, she is very much my final child. And therein lies the tale.
If you have read the cover notes in the "Steeple Notes," you know how last year's trip went. It was powerful. It was painful. It was emotional. Her mother and I were not quite ready to take one so young, so far.... and then just drop her there. But we did. And my description of the journey back to Michigan is one that you can read for yourself, if you haven't already. This year's trip was every bit as long, made every bit as fast. But there were far fewer tears and far greater acceptance. We knew what to expect. What's more, we like what is happening in her life, as a result of her being where she is. And as a strategy of coping with the memory of last year's emotional return to Michigan, Kris decided to shop away the pain in advance. With the van suddenly emptied of Julie's things, we hurriedly filled it with North Carolina antiques. Our goal was to test the ancient theory that while it's always hard to let the last child go, it feels a bit better if you can say that you traded her for furniture.
But all humor aside, you and I know that it's far from an even trade. Letting go is hard, no matter how much stuff you come home with in return. Still, I wasn't going to preach about it this year. Having preached about it last year, I figured I should have made my peace with it by now. Which I had. Sort of. But that was before everything else changed. For when the "girl child" first went off to college, the "boy child" was still home. And home was still the same old place. As was the job. As were the friends. As concerned my life one year ago, all the words applied.... "same".... "old".... "predict-able".... "comfortable".... you finish the list.
Then everything happened at once. The old job went. And since the old house was attached to the old job, the house went too. And while friends will always be friends, the lions' share of them were part and parcel of the old job. So prudence and protocol dictated that friendship's pool be cooled. Meanwhile, my son Bill got a new job, a new apartment, and moved on. Even my sister Gail got very sick in a very short period of time, and passed on. Which is a lot of change for anybody to absorb. And I am far from superhuman. In fact, I would probably be blowing smoke if I told you that I have put it all behind me and am ready to move on. I haven't and I'm not. Progressive and forward-looking though I may seem, there is a part of me that has always wanted to hold onto things. And it is that part of me that is talking to you this morning.
There is a name for the life-situation I am describing, and the name is "separation anxiety." Where parents and children are concerned, it begins at an incredibly tender age. My former office was located immediately across the hall from the rooms that were used by a church-based community nursery. And each time September rolled around, I would pay close attention to the new three-year-olds beingfreshly integrated into the program. The same thing will happen here about two weeks from now. And I am certain that if I but walk down the hall, I will be able to view the same familiar drama being played out. The door will open and the child will be ushered in. The door will close and the parents will be ushered out. There will be no malice intended in any of this. Everyone agrees to the closing of the door. But then I'll see parents squatting, squinting, and trying to peer through the keyhole. They are hopeful of catching a glimpse of an all-right child.... praying that on the other side of the door there exists an all-right child.... yet feeling ever so slightly betrayed when later on, over lunch at McDonald's, the question, "Did you miss mommy and daddy?" is met with the kind of stare that suggests that the question must rank among the dumbest questions in the world, and that any parent daring to ask such a question must rank with the dumbest parents in the world.
Or consider the fathers who, at the back of the church (with the organ swelling), turn to their daughters and say: "You know, you don't have to go through with this if you don't want to." I'm not kidding. A lot of fathers really say that. Or something very much like that. Do they say it in jest? Of course they do. Pretty much. But maybe there is one small part of a father's heart that says: "How in the world did we get here so quickly.... and would it really bother anyone if we just sort of put this on hold and went home for a year or two?"
Parents don't say such things seriously, of course. For every parent knows that the teaching side of love is never complete until you teach people to leave. And good parents start those children early, so that the harder "leavings" will come as second nature later, when the distances are further and the stakes are higher. As Bob Hawkins shared with me between services: "First you teach the child to walk. Then you teach the child to walk away." Love releases.... in a slowly unfolding symphony of goodbyes. Most of which are natural. Some of which are painful. Virtually all of which are necessary. And fortunately few of which are final. Although some are.... final, that is. Which is why giving someone you love (and desperately want to hold on to) your personal permission to die, may be the most powerful (and poignant) releasing of all.
All of which is as biblical as it is essential. Moments ago you heard the words of a wise (albeit occasionally cynical) old Hebrew sage named Koheleth, who (writing under the pen name of Ecclesiastes) suggests that there will be seasons when we shall seek, laugh and embrace, but that there shall also be seasons when we shall lose, cry, and refrain from embracing. I suppose he might also have gone on to say that for every season of holding fast, there will also be a season of letting go.
And then there was that other reading of Mark's story of Jesus calling the sons of Zebedee to be His disciples (surely a strange choice for a sermon like this). But I recently had it pointed out to me that the one thing Mark's story doesn't say is what old Zebedee thought about his two sons walking away from the family business to follow an itinerant Galilean rabbi they had just met. Not only does the story fail to say what old Zebedee thought, the story doesn't care. To which my source added: " I suppose that, in his own way, Jesus broke the hearts of many a first century Jewish family."
So why is It so hard? I'm not completely sure I know. But I would propose, for your consideration, that it has something to do with a pair of fears. The first has to do with the fear we parents hold for the future of our children. We want so much for them. But we can't guarantee anything to them. In a recent reflection on the college graduation of his youngest daughter, Tom Mullen (my Quaker colleague) wrote: "Doesn't Ruth know how tough the world is? She's ready to conquer it, but the world has its ways of counterattacking. And she's ready to set it on fire. But what if her matches are wet?" Then, reflecting on the fact that little Ruthie from Richmond (Indiana) was about to begin her journalism career in New York City, he added:
My little girl, who used to sleep with a night- light, was entering the real world for sure. And her future was certainly no longer in my hands. Which is why it has taken a while for my wife and me to accept the fact that we have run out of little kids whose hands we need to hold. Twenty-five years (and four children) ago, we were convinced we had a lifetime supply.
We never quite lose that "protector mentality," do we? It's funny. Children grow out of childhood, but parents never grow out of parenthood. It's something of a biological miracle. The umbilical cord gets cut, but it stays connected to the parent.
And Tom Mullen is right. Life has its cruel face, which it occasionally shows to even the fairest, the finest, and the blissfully invincible. Last Tuesday, while moving Julie into her new room at Duke, I saw an endless stream of wonderful kids. They were strong. They were vital. They were energized. They were capable. But, along with studying a ton, working a little, maturing a lot, and (every now and again) even darkening the door of the chapel, these kids (over the course of the next several months) will also do some wild and crazy things that will strain their endurance, test their limits, and contribute to the raising of what has been euphemistically called "a little hell." And most of them will survive it, laugh about it, and live to tell stories about it forever.
Kids are invincible. Right? Wrong! Most, maybe.... but not all. Sometimes, perhaps.... but not always. For at the very same time I was moving among Duke's undergraduate finest and fairest, messages were being left for me all over Durham. The subject? A funeral. The deceased? A twenty-six year old young man back here in Michigan. Himself, fine. Himself, fair. Himself, as invincible as he was resourceful. And it was that resourcefulness that led him, last Saturday night, to climb into his Royal Oak house through a window, given that he had gone off to a wedding hours earlier without being certain of the whereabouts of his key. It wasn't the first time he had forgotten his key. And it wasn't the first time he had entered by the window. But it was to be his last. Somehow he shook the window loose from its moorings, just as he was pulling himself head-high to the sill. The window came down on his neck, pinning him with his head in the house and the rest of his body outside. Which is where the neighbors saw him hanging (with his feet eighteen inches above the ground) come Sunday morning.
But I ask you: "Who among you never forgot a key? And who among you never climbed in a window? And who among you (in those days when life was ripe and ready for the picking) never slept too little, partied too late, drove too fast, or chanced too much, without giving a thought to the potential consequences?" Alas, life has ways of bruising its most tender fruit. And, as the trees responsible for bearing much of that fruit, we parents know that better than anybody. Which is why I want to hold my kids close, even though I would never want to be accused of holding them back. For I know the degree to which life can fail them and people can hurt them.
But the other fear which makes it hard to "let go" has more to do with me than with them. For every act of letting go is a reminder that not only is part of my life changing, but part of my life is ending. Holding fast to my children's past is one way of holding fast to my own past.
A few minutes before making last year's trip to Duke, I decided I'd better take one last trip through the house, looking for potentially forgettable items which might later be needed. In the basement I found a portable electric fan. Necessity! In the basement I also found a child's table and chairs, along with several Barbies. No longer necessities! But I remembered buying every last one of them, and felt suddenly old. It also took me a few extra minutes to come up from the basement.
During the last few of my child-raising years, people regularly said to me: "Treasure these days with your kids. They go by incredibly quickly." I always listened and nodded, figuring that what they meant was that kids get old before you know it. It never occurred to me that what they meant was that I would get old before I knew it.
On our first Sunday here in Birmingham, I looked down at Kris (sitting in the front row with Dale Parker), and suddenly saw that her lip was no longer singing, but quivering. Later on she told me the reason. For it was at that moment it occurred to her that, as churches go, this might be the very last time we would ever say "hello" to a new one. Which was a bittersweet reminder (in a month that didn't need more reminders), that "goodbyes" were likely to be our horizon's long suit, and "hellos", our horizon's short one. One can be grateful for the moment, but still recognize (out of the corner of one's eye) how fleeting it all is. After all, it was at his child's wedding (a glorious occasion, if ever there was one), that old Tevye, my favorite Russian milkman, first sang "I don't remember growing older.... when did they?"
So what do you do? I mean, really, what do you do? I trust you will pardon me this morning if I am longer on analysis than I am on cure. I can make very few suggestions. What I have personally tried to do is remember that new occasions teach as many pleasures as they do duties. Some of my pleasures include:
- a pair of kids who are proving to be every bit as interesting as adults, as they were as children (and sometimes more so). In fact, in the wake of my sister's death and my newly-assumed responsibilities for a pair of twenty-two year old nephews, it has been my son's legal acumen and his familial sensitivity that have come to both my rescue and theirs, time and time again.
- and then there's my wife, with whom there is the refreshing thought that the "empty nest" may offer more time for quiet dinners, uninterrupted conversations and private pleasures. Realizing now that (on most days) we're all we've got, it feels good to know that what we've got is more than enough.
- And then there's you (the people of this congregation) for whom the song "Getting to Know You" seems to have been most fittingly written. Over the course of the summer, many of you have found ways to tell us that not only are we welcome here, we are needed here.
And I think the other thing one does (as a means of coping), is to better trust the God one preaches. And one does that by taking seriously the promise that "goodness and mercy really will follow you all the days of your life".... and that if yesterday was so wonderfully full of meaning, why not tomorrow? After all, if all our days come from the same source, why can't the Maker of the "good old days" be trusted to provide a few good new ones?
And as for my kids, it is good (this morning) to feel... with all my heart.... that both of them belong where they are. And that while neither of them belongs with me, there is little doubt that each of them belongs to me. The ties that bind are no less real for being elastic. And although (once upon a time) Kris handled the initial matters of gynecology and delivery, all four of us come proudly equipped with stretch marks.
