[Magdalen] Sermon with a poem by Ann Capers Limehouse

[H Angus]

What a wonderful sermon, and poem, and tribute. Thank you for posting it.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Georgia DuBose" <gdubose at gmail.com>
To: magdalen at herberthouse.org
Sent: Friday, May 22, 2015 2:09:17 AM
Subject: [Magdalen] Sermon with a poem by Ann Capers Limehouse

As those of you who have known me for awhile are aware, I am not much
inclined to posting sermons on the various social media I use.
However, I would like to post this one, which I preached at both
National Cathedral, and St. John's Episcopal Church, Harpers Ferry,
West Virginia.

The reason is that it includes a poem by Capers, and has considerable
reference to her calls both as deacon and as poet.

It's rather long. I'm sorry.

Georgia+

Proper 10, Year C, July 11, 2010

"Wisdom, Mercy, and the Call to the Way of the Cross"

 Times are hard. Many people struggle. We have lost jobs, savings,
sometimes even our homes, our vehicles, . We ask ourselves, “Do I pay
the medical bill or the mortgage this month?” Yet in the midst of this
swamp of questions, we are called beyond ourselves into life in Jesus
Christ. We may feel that we have nothing to give to Jesus at this
point, but we do—we still have our love, our brokenness and our
witness. If you have been longing to hear that following Jesus Christ
is the way to prosperity, abundance and jolly times, it may be useful
to know that you will not hear such doctrine preached while I serve
this church.

 The New Interpreter’s Study Bible commentator, Warren Carter, writes,
“This way of life (that is, life in Jesus Christ) is the life of the
cross. This image should not be trivialized to refer to some little
burden or inconvenience. Rather, it denotes the shame, pain, social
rejection, violence, humiliation and marginalization of crucifixion.
Rome crucified those who threatened its control over society, such as
traitors, violent criminals and foreigners. The cross divided citizen
from non-citizen, the accepted from the rejected. To take up the cross
is to identify with those who threaten the empire. It is to refuse to
be intimidated into compliance. It is to be at cross-purposes with
imperial commitments. And it is to recognize the limits of Rome’s
power that could not keep the crucified Jesus dead!” It is joy that
Jesus calls us to in his glorious resurrection. We are not called to
have all our expectations fulfilled, nor to an easy life.

 In the familiar story from today’s Gospel, it is not the “expected
person” who is called to help the Jew left for dead on the dangerous
and desperate road to Jericho. It is the marginalized heretic, the
Samaritan, who does the right thing. The teacher, called to educate
and to be a role model for others, passes by. The Levite, called to
care for the holy things in the Holy of Holies in the temple, passes
by. The one despised by the greater community because he believes
differently than the orthodox Jews, is the one who reflects the
qualities of God, and shows mercy to the Jew attacked by robbers.

 It is important to understand that, until the 1930s and later, and
certainly in the time of Jesus, the road to Jericho was known as a
dangerous road to travel. St. Jerome, in his fourth century current
era commentaries, called it the Red, or Bloody, Way. Usually people
who had reason to be on the road traveled in groups, so that robbers
would not overcome them. Similarly, the Way of Jesus is not an easy
way, but it is made more worthwhile and more fun by traveling in
groups. The way that every Christian travels differs somewhat;
Epaphras, in Colossae, was called to be a faithful minister of Christ,
and what he is remembered for today is that he loved his fellow
Colossians, served them in the name of Jesus, and let Paul know that
they lived loving and spirit-filled lives.

 Despite the struggles and difficulties of daily life, every Christian
is called to something beyond him or herself. And yes, some people are
called to dangerous roads. My friend Ann Capers Limehouse, a deacon in
Charleston, South Carolina, writes this poem that arises out of her
work as a hospital chaplain: it is called:


"Chaplain's Note: Describe This"

 For 17 months Anna Akhmatova,
 the famous poet, stood with the other women
 standing outside the prison in Leningrad
 waiting to hear news of a son, a father, a husband,
 a lover - who was alive? who dead?
 who only tortured past recognition?

Silenced, she had not written a poem in years,
 but a woman recognized her, said, 'Can you
 describe this?' and she did, 10 poems.


I've never stood where they stand.
 My sons, my daughter are as safe as can be
 in this world. I am not a woman in the crowd
 outside a prison, in the debris of a bomb site,
 in a cathedral square, any of all those places
 where they wait, or fathers or daughters,
 to hear the unbearable and bear witness.
 But, today I listened to a man my own age
 stand trembling, a boy, gun in his hands,
 in a jungle his body left 40 years ago,
 where he still sees, hears, smells the unbearable
 and the news never stops, never changes.

I cannot describe this. I listen. I witness
 that he wept, like a tired child,
 the whole time he spoke, and when I prayed.

 ~Deacon Ann Capers Limehouse~


Just as Capers is not called to the extremity of witness that was
asked of the great Anna Akhmatova, (who indeed was called to identify
with those who threatened an empire simply by existing) so we may not
be called to:

a cathedral square, turbulent and war-torn and very unlike the one in
front of this great cathedral;

the smoking ruins of a burned mosque;

or the courtyard outside a prison where people are tortured.


Capers does her witnessing in hospital corridors. You may do yours

in your living room,

at a senior center,

riding the bus,

or sitting on a park bench.


One thing we can be sure of: call to witness to the power of the cross
will ask something of us that we may think we are unprepared to do.
Prophets in the Bible were notably hesitant to take up the mantle of
speaking on behalf of the living God.

Moses told God that he was no good at public speaking.

Jonah needed to have the experience of being swallowed by a whale, and
even after that he was not what you would call a willing voice.

Amos said he was just a pruner of sycamores.

Samuel had to be called three times, and told by Eli who was calling
him, before he said, “Speak, Lord, for your servant hears.”

Indeed, most of us say, “Lord, I am not worthy,” when we sense the
call from God. (There is ample reason to believe that those who are
deeply convinced of their worthiness to speak for God will later end
up on the front pages of scandal sheets.) We venture forth, as St.
Teresa of Avila indicated, to be the hands and feet and voice of Jesus
in the world, and we go through some transformative event, or series
of events. We are strengthened by the promises of God, who says, “The
word is very near to you. It is in your mouth and your heart for you
to observe.” We know that, just as God hears our prayers with
mercy—that is, with holy connection to his beloved creations—so we are
called to the mercy that the Samaritan showed the Jew. The knowledge
and understanding mentioned in today’s collect are not enough. We need
grace and power to accomplish the things God calls us to do. In God’s
divine economy, knowledge and understanding lead to accomplishment.
All Christians are called to something.

 We had best undertake the demands of our call in great humility: “he
guides the humble in doing right and teaches his way to the lowly.”
Humility is to remember that we come from humus, the earth. Such
remembrance is the foundation of right action, as well as of wisdom.
Yet, at some point in our travels, the prayer to God turns from, “O
God, send anyone but me, because I am a sinner” as so many of the
prophets said when first called, to “Speak Lord, for your servant
hears,” as Samuel said, and eventually to “Here am I; send me!” as
Isaiah said to God.

 Once we acknowledge that we belong to Jesus, the unexpected always
happens. God tells the prophet Ezekiel, “Know that all lives are mine;
the life of the parent as well as the life of the child is mine.” As
we seek to learn what our call is, in a rich and surprising process
known as discernment, we may be called from familiar places of witness
to places we have not expected, and may feel, with the prophet Jonah,
that the travel in the belly of the whale is not the way we would
choose to spend our time. Yet, as Thomas Merton said in The Sign of
Jonah , “We all travel towards our destiny in the belly of a paradox.”
A literary prophetic voice puts it this way:

 “If it were not for the honor of it,” said Mark Twain of being
tarred, feathered and ridden out of town of a rail after writing a
newspaper editorial that called certain people to account, “I would
just as soon have passed it up.”

 At some point our own preferences and expectations lose their power;
we go where we are called. This is how we find ourselves standing at
the bed of a nursing home patient who needs to have her colostomy bag
changed; looking into the sole remaining eye of an Iraq veteran;
serving lunch to homeless people in a park; or flying into Haiti with
a container box of rice, powdered milk, diapers, tents and clean
water.

Some people put tremendous resistance into living life fully in Jesus
Christ, and wonder why they feel bad all the time. There is a kind of
spiritual influenza that results from ignoring your call and
struggling with the will of God. The cure for it is to walk the way of
the Cross.

Be aware: once you begin to walk the Way of the Cross, your life is no
longer your own. At the same time, you will discover that, in the Body
of Jesus Christ, you have never been more truly yourself. For which
God be praised. Alleluia. AMEN.

May the memory of Ann Capers Limehouse be blessed. AMEN.