June 10, 2007 - "Screeches and Symphonies"

Title: “Screeches and Symphonies”
Text: Luke 7:11-17
Day: Proper 5C (2nd Sunday after Pentecost)
Date: June 10, 2007

When I was in fifth grade, my classmates and I were given the opportunity to choose what musical instrument we wanted to learn to play. The instruments were strewn on tables around the perimeter of the cinderblock room, with a teacher at each table ready to help us try out each instrument. Then they released us kids into the room; I felt like a kid in a candy store.

I tried everything: brass, woodwinds, percussion. But I was particularly intrigued by the strings. The beautiful instruments were arrayed on the table. Cherry colored wood glistening under the florescent lights. Shiny silver strings. The teacher gave me a violin and a bow and told me to try it out. “Just drag the bow across the strings,” she said…SCREEEEEEEEECH! It was music to my ears. I fell in love with the violin that day.

Many horrendous hours of practice and several months later, it was time for me to attend my first public concert. It was the end of the year concert in which all of the orchestras in the district played from the 5th grade beginners to the high school Symphony Orchestra. I proudly went up on stage with my 5th grade classmates and we played a…well, a unique version of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” for the audience. It was exhilarating for me, even though I’m sure we sounded more like a flock of dying geese than an orchestra.

After I played I sat in the auditorium with my parents as we listened to the other school orchestras play, culminating with the Athens High School Symphony Orchestra. This orchestra was 150 people strong; so large that some of the players had to sit in the wings of the stage. And WOW did they sound awesome. They played three songs, each one better than the next. Every note was clear and crisp. The dynamics were superb. The harmonies were so beautiful they gave me chills. I was wide-eyed at the end of the concert thinking that this is where I could be in seven years. I was given hope that someday my screeching strings would give way to such beautiful music. But, of course, that meant that I – and everyone around me – had to suffer through my screeching for a long, long time.

But this is the way of life, isn’t it? We do not live in a perfect, harmonious world. We live in a world of only a few good notes and a whole lot of screeches. But we have been given glimpses, foretastes of that harmonious and perfect life that is to come. We have been given just enough of a glimpse of the Kingdom of God to see us through, even in the midst of a world of discord and unchained melodies. And that gives us hope to press on.

I’m sure the widow in our gospel reading this morning felt the crushing weight of hopelessness upon her shoulders. No longer was her world composed of light-hearted, joyful music; her life would best be described as a dirge: a lifeless, hopeless, dark melody that slowly moved to its assured end. This was a woman of an obscure town whose husband had died some time ago, leaving her with her only child. At least that child was a son, so that she had some place, some standing in a society that was so heavily determined by social status. But now her only son has died, leaving her completely and utterly alone: no status, no heir, no hope.

The funeral procession led the grieving widow and the crowd gathered around her beyond the gates of the city into the surrounding countryside. She had to endure through this long walk, seeing her dead son laying atop a bier carried by some members of the crowd. Can you feel that crushing weight of hopelessness? Can you imagine what that grieving widow must have felt? To be honest, I cannot. I cannot imagine what it must be like to lose someone so dear to you, someone upon whom you depend for your very existence. I can only imagine that this is a feeling that cannot possibly be described by words. I can only imagine that it is like an unexpected fermata in a piece of music – a long, held note that lasts for what seems like an endless, monotonous eternity. A single note that puts everything on hold.

When Jesus sees this funeral procession and the grieving widow, he approaches her, has compassion for her, and simply tells her “Do not weep.” Three simple words from the Lord that make us lean forward in expectation. We know that Jesus has the ability to do the miraculous; we’ve seen and heard it before. We can anticipate with these three, short words that there is something that is about to happen here that will change the widow’s tune from the screeching sounds of mourning to the melodious music of hope. And indeed it happens.

Jesus reaches out and touches the bier and speaks directly to the corpse of the dead man, “Young man, I say to you, rise!” And with that, the dead man is revived. He sits up and begins to speak. (Wouldn’t you love to know what he said?) Without hesitation, Jesus gives the revived man over to the widow, and we come to realize that Jesus did not only revive one life in this short story; he revived two, for the widow also had her life given back her.

This event gave the widow – and gives us – some brief glimpse of the glorious life that is to come: the life lived in the Kingdom of God – a life where death does not have the final word. Yet the reality of death in this story makes us acknowledge that the Kingdom of God is not yet here in its fullness. We still live in a world full of pain, full of hurt, and sometimes full of hopelessness. We are not yet fully members of a symphony orchestra that is able to play exquisitely beautiful music for all eternity. We are rather more like those aspiring fifth graders who screech their way through “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” We still live in a world full of screeches.

So, while we might not be able to fully appreciate, understand, or sympathize with this widow’s depths of despair upon the death of her only son, I’m sure that all of us can resonate with her feelings in some way. All of us are familiar with the feelings of loss. Many of us are familiar with the feeling of loss that comes along with news of death. We all know that when we experience some kind of loss in our lives, it feels like life comes to a screeching halt. We, like the widow, are left feeling that crushing weight of hopelessness.

We live our lives in a world full of screeches. We hear them all the time; it makes our hairs stand on edge as we grimace from the pain. This week, lives came to a screeching halt as tornadoes ripped through the country destroying homes and lives. Lives came to a screeching halt for many families around the country as they grieved the death of their son or daughter who died in combat. Lives came to a screeching halt for people here from our own community who wrestled with news of death or illness. These stories and thousands more like them seem to dominate our world, allowing us to characterize our world as one of dissonance rather than one of harmony.

We live our lives in a world full of screeches; but that is not to say that there are not a few good notes that resonate clearly through the cacophony. Even when I was in fifth grade, pulling my bow slowly and painfully across those taut strings, creating painful sounds that made my parents’ faces grimace in a half-pleasured, half-tortured sort of way, every once in a while I would happen upon a pure, beautiful, clean note. And for just a second, my parents’ faces would beam with joy, and the pain from a moment before would be forgotten. Likewise, in our world today we sometimes get a reprieve from the screechi-ness of our world when we hear stories of people who have recovered from a terrible, life-threatening addiction; or when someone we know battles their way through a fearful disease; or upon the joyful news of a birth; or upon a happy and healthy reunion of a couple who used to be in the throws of divorce. Stories like these allow us to experience what happens when Jesus speaks the words “Do not fear” into our screechy world. And these powerful words, these brief encounters with the Divine give us just enough of a glimpse of the Kingdom of God to see us through the many screeches that plague our world.

So, for now, we simply work with what we have been given: a few good notes and a whole lot of screeches. But the story of the raising of the widow’s son helps us to remember that this is not how the story ends. Death and pain and other screechy events do not have the final word anymore. They have been overcome, conquered, drowned out by the victorious shout of God in the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Our story now ends in the beautiful harmony and melody of the Kingdom of God, where Jesus tells each one of us “Do not weep,” where every note from every player melds and mixes with one another, creating a beautiful symphony of music. I cannot wait to hear it!

Amen.