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Grief:
As Natural As A Storm
John
12:20-26
February
6, 2005
Jesus
Weeps
28When
she had said this, she went back
and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, “The
Teacher is here and is
calling for you.” 29And
when she heard it, she got up quickly and
went to him. 30Now
Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was
still at the place where Martha had met him. 31The
Jews who were
with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go
out. They
followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to
weep there.
32When
Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet
and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother
would not have died.” 33When
Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he
was
greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. 34He
said, “Where
have you laid him?”
They said to him, “Lord,
come and see.” 35Jesus
began to weep. 36So
the Jews said,
“See how he loved him!” 37But
some of them said, “Could not he who
opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from
dying?”
Jesus
Raises
Lazarus to Life
38Then
Jesus, again greatly disturbed,
came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. 39Jesus
said, “Take
away the stone.”
Martha, the sister
of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a
stench because he has
been dead four days.” 40Jesus
said to her, “Did
I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of
God?” 41So
they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you
for having heard me. 42I
knew that you always hear me,
but I have said this for the
sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent
me.”
43When
he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus,
come
out!” 44The
dead man came
out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face
wrapped in a
cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind
him, and let
him
go.”
Friday
and yesterday, many
of you were gathered here with me and across town at Douglas and
Johnson
Funeral Home and the Pine Grove Cemetary, and also perhaps up the
street here
at Harris’ Pelham Inn for the activities related to the wake,
the funeral and
the mercy meal of a dear member of this church, Carolyn
Garabedian.
Today,
our topic for preaching, on the Eve of
Lent, which begins next Sunday, Grief.
You might assume there must
be a connection between the two, as we
haven’t had a death among our membership in almost a year.
It
can’t be a coincidence.
Believe
it or not, it is
just that.
Carolyn’s passing
was sudden
and I didn’t become aware of it until Wednesday morning, and
I’ve been planning
this since well before then.
It
is apropos, however
isn’t
it, timing that can neither be explained, nor even understood
perhaps.
Regardless,
the topic of grief can never be
out of vogue or come at a bad time, as we all constantly lose and enter
into
times of grieving in our lives.
Maybe
not as profound and
deep grief as the death of a loved one, a family member or a friend,
but grief
is always with us.
We
grieve as we develop
aches and pains that we never had before, and realize that we are not
able to
do quite what we were once upon a time.
We
grieve when we see our
children no longer fit in the cute little clothes or want to play with
the toys
we bought for them what seems like yesterday.
That they are growing, and
they will never again be our darling little
babes.
We
grieve when we pass from
one job to another, and perhaps lose the friends, the patterns, the
routines
and the lifestyle we had then to the unknowns of tomorrow.
We
certainly grieve when we
lose loved ones, folks who move away, or family who grow elderly and
pass on.
My
dictionary says, that
grief is “sorrow or mental distress caused by affliction or
loss,”
and we know that losses are always with us.
They are unavoidable.
So
much so that often we
don’t even realize the depth of what losses do to us.
I
was speaking to someone
just a week or so ago, who worried for a loved one who never left their
home or
their neighborhood because of concern for their spouse.
“I
thought her husband died,” said one person
participating in the conversation. “Yes,
he did,” she replied, “but she acts like
he’s going to come back any old
time!
And she doesn’t
want to leave for
very long!”
In
Dayton,
Ohio
the home of Paul Laurence
Dunbar, noted poet, is open to the public.
Born
in 1872 in Dayton,
Ohio,
he was the African American son of ex-slaves and a classmate of Orville
Wright
of aviation fame.
Although
he lived to be only 33 years old, Dunbar was prolific, writing short
stories,
novels, plays, songs and essays as well as the poetry for which he
became well
known.
When
Dunbar
died, his mother left his room exactly as it was
on the day of his death. At the desk of this brilliant man was his
final poem,
handwritten on a pad. It wasn’t until after his mother died
however that her
friends discovered that Paul Laurence Dunbar's last poem had been lost
forever.
Because
his mother had
made his room into a shrine
and not moved anything, the sun had bleached the ink in which the poem
was
written until it was invisible. The poem was gone.
One
loss, not
recognized, not grieved can lead to
more losses and greater sadness.
These
are profound
examples,
and somewhat extreme examples, yet for each of us, simple, daily losses
prompt
us to do now less profound, but certainly more subtle things.
How
many times have you
heard of the hockey father who jumps down the throat of the referee who
calls a
penalty on his son, or the soccer mom who accosts her
daughter’s coach for not
playing the girl enough.
How many of
these situations seem strange because of the parent’s
extraordinary energy and
vehemence and anger.
How many of these
situations happen because a parent wants for a child what they never
had for
themselves, or that they miss from their own childhood? A
loss not recognized, not grieved can lead to
more grief down the road.
And
losses are inevitable,
they cannot be avoided, and may even be a source of growth and depth.
In
northern Chile,
between the Andes
Mountains
and the Pacific
Ocean, lies a narrow
strip of land where the sun shines every day!
Clouds gather so seldom over the valley that one can say, “It
almost never
rains here!”
Morning
after morning
the sun rises brilliantly over the tall mountains to the east. Each
noon it
shines brightly overhead, and every evening it brings a picturesque
sunset. Although
storms are often seen rising high in the mountains, and heavy fog banks
hand
their gray curtains far over the sea, Old Sol continues to shed his
warming
rays upon this “favored” and protected strip of
territory. One might imagine
this area to be an earthly paradise, but is far from that! It is a
sterile and
desolate wilderness! There are no streams of water, and nothing grows
there. We
often long for total sunshine and continuous joy in life, and we desire
to
avoid the heartaches that bring tears to our eyes. Like that sunny,
unfertile
part of Chile,
however, life without clouds and even an occasional downpour would not
be
productive or challenging. Like
rain, grief is and loss and sorrow are
unpleasant, yet unavoidable.
Without the
loss of one reality, passing of into another, change would be
impossible.
Change is often frightening,
always producing
sadness and yet so often welcome, hoped for and necessary.
I
once knew of a group of
women in a church called the Women’s Guild.
They had been formed many
years before as a separate organization in the
church from the Ladies Aide Society, because they felt that the Ladies
Aide
Society was comprised of women that were too old for them. It
was their mothers’ and grandmothers’
group.
But these women wanted their
own
group and so they started it and at first, it was called the Young
Womens’
Guild.
Over the years, as the group
of
young moms that had formed the Young Womens’ Guild,
weren’t so young anymore,
they dropped the word young from their name.
Eventually,
their daughters
became old enough to have children of their own and the women of the
Womens’
Guild thought, it would be great to be able to attract these new young
moms
into their group.
So they recruited,
they invited one of the young moms to be the Treasurer, and another to
be the
Vice-President and another to be the Outreach chairperson.
And
a funny thing happened.
That new generation of young
women and moms
came in with their own ideas!
They
wanted to do outreach to non-Armenian groups and maybe to invite their
husbands
to some events or to help the Youth Group with some of their
fundraising.
Well,
the previous
generation, the founders of the Young Women’s Guild, the
one’s that had dropped
the name Young as they matured, didn’t like too many of these
new ideas.
They liked the idea of
change, of younger
women in their midst and the romantic idea fresh blood and
newness.
But
they couldn’t face the change once it
came.
They couldn’t bear
the loss and
the grief and the fear of the unknown that came when things actually
began to
change.
Often
you know
you’ve lost
something, you realize that things are changing but that change
doesn’t hit
home, or maybe it strikes a bit too close to home and the foundations
begin to
shake.
But,
frankly this is
normal.
You see there are stages and
small shifts in how folks come to terms with change, and loss and
grief.
Many
years ago, a woman by
the name of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, studied this issue. She
sat with people who were themselves dying
and interviewed them and in 1969, she published a famous book called,
“On Death
and Dying.”
She
said in this book that
there are five major stages to the process of grief: Denial, Anger,
Bargaining,
Depression and Acceptance.
In
the denial stage we
refuse to believe what has happened. We try in our mind to tell
ourselves that
life is as it was before our loss. We can even make believe to an
extent by re
enacting rituals that we used to go through with our loved one. Saving
a place
at the table for our loved one who is no longer there.
Flashing
back to times and conversations in
the past as though they are here with us now. Introducing someone
accidentally
by your loved ones name to someone else. They can all be part of this
stage.
In
the second stage we
get angry and the anger can manifest itself in
many ways. We can blame others for our loss. We can become easily
agitated
having emotional outbursts. We can even become angry with ourselves.
Care must
be taken here not to turn this anger inwards. Release of this anger is
a far
better way to cope with grief.
The
third stage is the
bargaining stage.
Bargaining can be with
ourselves or if you are religious with your god.
We may try to make a deal, to have our loved one back as they were
before the
tragic event occurred.
Depression
is the fourth
stage and it is a very likely outcome for all
people that grieve for a loss.
There can
be a feeling listlessness and tiredness. One may be bursting helplessly
into
tears. Feeling like there is no purpose to life any more. Feeling
guilty, like
everything is your own fault. You may find you feel like you are being
punished. Pleasure and joy can be difficult to achieve even from things
and
activities which you have always gained delight. Depression has a broad
spectrum of manifestations that range from merely feeling tired and low
energy
and insomniac to the extreme of thoughts of suicide.
The
final stage of grief
is when you realize that life has to go on. You
may still have thoughts of your loved one, but less intense and less
frequent.
You can here accept your loss. You should now be able to regain your
energy and
goals for the future.
Over
the years, Elizabeth
Kubler-Rosses theories have come under fire because folks believe that
the
stages as she described them are too rigid, that not all people go
through all
the stages just as she described and that the stages just
don’t apply.
This
may be true.
But
that story of the
Women’s Guild who couldn’t accept change?
That’s an example
of denial.
That
story of the hockey
father who attacks when his son is disrespected, shows the anger of the
second
stage.
Has deep reservoirs of anger
at
the fact that he can’t do what he wishes to anymore, And that
anger just
overflows and erupts like a volcano when he least expects it.
Those
folks who will not
leave their homes because of the losses they’ve experienced,
are depressed and
are somewhat lost in the sadness of their grief.
And
the folks who turn
their
homes into museums and just halt all further change in their lives are
trying
to broker a deal, hoping that if they stop the process somehow, the
pain won’t
be so bad.
That’s bargaining.
I
have one more story of
grief for you this morning and that’s a story of
acceptance.
A
story I tripped across in Reader’s Digest
earlier this week.
An article written by
an established author, perhaps a little surprised by how grief can
happen and
how it can move through stages and change itself.
She
writes:
“I
had been
widowed for many
years when Albert came along...I went one evening to the home of friend
for
dinner.
Table set for six, and the
sixth
was the proverbial, tall, handsome stranger – lanky, cute
gray Vandyke beard,
somewhat austere.
It
was not a fix-up. He
was a recent widower, “a basket case,” my
hosts told me[under their breath]. They
hoped to draw him out a bit.
At
the table, someone asked
how long ago his wife had died.
Eight
months, he said.
And suddenly, with no
warning whatsoever, I found myself catapulted back through time to when
I had
been just eight months widowed, to precisely how that felt, and I lost
it.
I began to cry, not
decorously but loudly,
pungently, the for-heaven’s-sake-go-blow-your-nose kind of
crying, and I
mumbled my apologies and ran to another room.
He
followed me. It
stunned men then, and stuns me still –
that this man who bore such grief of his own should come to comfort
me.
He
was no longer austere.
He sat down beside me, gave
me his handkerchief,
peered into my face and said, “I know, I know.”
You
see these were both
people who were beginning to come to terms with their grief, with the
changes
and movements, the losses and developments in their lives.
They
were beginning to accept their situation
You
know Jesus in the Garden
of Gethsemane.
The scene where he cried so
much his tears turned to tears of blood?
He is grieving the knowledge
that he will have to suffer and die, that
he will be leaving his disciples. In
the
time he passes with his friends on the way to Jerusalem
and the Garden
of Gethsemane,
on the way to
the Cross, a case could probably be made that he is already starting to
grieve,
telling them and warning them, so that they might be ready for the loss
they
will endure.
And yet they are all in
denial.
He
teaches them, “24Very
truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and
dies, it
remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much
fruit.”
He
knows that his death
will
be a moment of growth, an avenue for the renewal of his friends and for
all
creation.
He knows that upon his dying,
new life will be possible for so many.
That
couple that had begun
to experience acceptance of their loss?
That soggy moment with the
tissues in their mutual friend’s bedroom was
not the end of their story.
Their
story continues from
the pages of Reader’s Digest:
“…Lately
we’ve been bringing
joy to total strangers.
How?
Easy.
We got married.
One
icy day last winter, we
headed to the bureau of licenses downtown.
There was a security guard at
the door, a big, beefy fellow and Albert
asked him where to go for a license.
“What
kind of a
license?”
the guard said.
“Marriage,”
Albert said.
Marriage!
The guard stared
at our faces, which clearly belonged (still do) to a pair of
seventy-somethings.
And then he went
totally gaga:
“You
folks are
getting
married?
Fan-tastic!” Pulled
of his cap and waved it in the frigid
air.
Took off a glove, grabbed
Albert’s
hand in his massive paw.
“You’ve
made my day!
Hey, Mike, come over here! Get
this!
These folks are getting
married.
Mike also went gaga. We
went to
buy a wedding band.
The Saleswoman looked
at Albert, looked at me and looked uncertain.
“For…your
daughter?” she
asked cautiously.
“For
us,” Albert said.
“For
you? Oooh!
I love it. Helen!
Stacy! Listen!” Helen,
who was
maybe and Stacy, who looked like a teenager, loved it too.
It
kept happening. The
florist, the wine merchant, the
cake-maker… strangers all.
At
first we
couldn’t figure
it out…[But then] we got it…It had nothing to do
with us, (oh, sure, it was
because we weren’t the typical young newlyweds, but beyond
that, nothing). It
was about themselves.
Somehow, this marriage made
them feel good
about their own hopes that might not have been fulfilled, and [seeing
us opened
up new possibilities about themselves.
We] became a wordless message
that there can be new beginnings, second
chances and renewal even after profound grief and loss.”
No
matter how grave or
subtle our loss, no matter how deep or simple our grieving.
The
message of the gospel is all about this
renewal.
“Very
truly, I
tell you,
unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just
a single
grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit,” said Jesus.
Believe
it or not, accept
it
or not, our suffering, our pain, our loss and any change can be a
source of new
life, of great renewal, of joy and of salvation.