Readings for the Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 19 – Year B – Track 2)
This sermon was preached at Christ Episcopal Church in Eureka CA on September 12, 2021.
As a freshman at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, I sat in a classroom that usually pulsated with nervous excitement and energy due to weekly quizzes on the massive amounts of reading that were assigned in our Survey of British Literature. However, on this one particular day, the class sat hushed under a dark cloud of somber uncertainty. The profound fear and terror within each student made quizzes and grades and even college seem trivial. We all sat silent, wondering if anyone (especially our professor) would even attempt to articulate our existential insecurity. Our professor, Dr. John Sider, would typically spend the class time lecturing eloquently in his humble yet commanding voice and I would be jotting down pages and pages of notes, many of which I still have today. he Lord God had given Dr. Sider the tongue of a teacher, but on this one day, Professor Sider began the class by inviting us to speak and to share our thoughts. He had been teaching British Literature for decades and he knew the power of language. He also knew its limitations and that it would only capture the foam on the surface of our fear and bewilderment. As a man who also studied sacred Scripture, he understood the immense responsibility laid upon him as a teacher “for those who teach will be judged with greater strictness,” as James says in his epistle. He knew that whatever words he shared with us in that context on that day would be impressed upon us for good or for ill for the rest of our lives. He knew the tongue was a fire that could set a forest ablaze. So, he decided to be silent and let us speak.
We, of course, were silent for the most part, until one young woman finally broke the hush, saying that she found comfort in our class’s reading assignment because the reading that was due on September 11th, 2001 included excerpts from the first text written in English by a female who conveyed a sophisticated and innovative and yet simple theology. The student read the following portion of her text to the class: “Sin is behovely (cannot be evaded), but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.” And a blanket of hope fell warmly upon the class. These words of Julian of Norwich still offer hope in the midst of uncertainty today, ten years later.
Dr. Sider then read the portion of her text with gravity and hope and also (I think) a sense of relief since he didn’t have to offer his own words to a class of frightened students because he was likely frightened himself. We were all speechless. He read the portion of Julian’s text which I have shared with you before in which Julian is shown something small (about the size of a hazelnut) lying in the palm of her hand. She asks, “What can this be?” And then she says, “I was given this general answer: it is everything which is made. I was amazed that it could last, for I thought that it was so little that it could fall into nothing. And I was answered in my understanding: it lasts and always will, because God loves it; and thus everything has being through the love of God. In this little thing I saw three properties. The first is that God made it, the second is that he loves it, the third is that God preserves it.”
I realize now how enormously influential and consequential these words were for me. Like the small, hazelnut-sized ball that represented something so much bigger, these words of Julian read on September 11th twenty years ago planted a seed in me that grew and expanded into my love for the English medieval mystics (the author of the Cloud of Unknowing is a contemporary of Julian’s) as well as my attraction to the Episcopal Church. Those words of Julian of Norwich helped form me into the person I am today; and I’m grateful to Dr. John Sider for inviting his students to share rather than trying to fill the silence with hollow cliches and empty platitudes. We needed wisdom from a mystical sage who lived through her own age of terror in 14th century England, wisdom that still feeds me today.
The dean of the Episcopal School for Deacons, Dr. Rod Dugliss, told a colleague of mine that one of the most valuable things he learned from his years of teaching was to honor the wisdom in the room. The Scripture readings today are all about teaching and in the Gospel, Jesus begins his teaching by asking his disciples a couple questions: “Who do people say that I am? Who do you say that I am?” Although there are many layers of meaning to Jesus’s questions and the disciples answers, I want to acknowledge the fact that in today’s set of readings about teaching Jesus begins by inviting his students to speak. He then proceeds to offer them further guidance and direction by urging them to practice intentional silence and self-sacrifice and to set their minds on the divine.
On this weekend when we observe the 20th anniversary of September 11th and when our Jewish siblings observe the Days of Awe between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, I feel compelled to emulate Dr. John Sider and Jesus of Nazareth by inviting you to share your story of 9/11. Where were you when you first learned of the attacks? How did you process the tragedy? How are you still processing the tragedy? And what wisdom has helped you process the tragedy while also helping you to practice intentional silence and self-sacrifice, like those heroic first responders?
I invite you to share your stories with your friends and your loved ones. I invite those watching at home to write your 9/11 story in the chat or in the comment section of this video if you’re watching asynchronously. And if you would prefer to share more privately, please send me an email. I invite you to reflect on the seeds of hope that were planted in you during those difficult hours and days after 9/11 twenty years ago and how they have grown in you since then. My hope is that by sharing our stories we will be moved to not only practice prayerful silence and self-sacrifice but also pray more fervently for our country, and to know in our bones that although sin is behovely, all shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well. Amen.
DANIEL DeFOREST LONDON 