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Until the End of Days
Marti Pechnyo
October 28, 2007 I love words. Particularly the right word in the right context delivered with the right inflexion. Take the words, “reform” and “reformation.” Reform – To improve by alteration, correction of error, or removal of defect. To abolish abuse or malpractice, to end a wrong To change for the better To improve social or economic conditions without radical or revolutionary change
And finally – to form again I found only two definitions for Reformation – For the next few minutes, we’ll go much farther back in history that the 16th century to talk about reformation… closer to the 4th century BC. In three short Bible pages, Joel presents some pretty serious opportunities for reformation. The verses Leslie just read come smack dab in the middle of Joel’s message and begin with very encouraging words – “Be glad, O sons of Zion, and rejoice in the Lord, your God…” But to really understand the depth of Joel’s message, we need to know what led up to this point. The people to whom Joel is speaking have just endured a tremendous natural disaster – locusts – cutting locusts, swarming locusts, hopping locusts, destroying locusts – locusts that have left nothing behind. The grain is destroyed, the wine fails, and the oil languishes. Joel tells the people to remember the destruction, to gladly receive God’s grace and then to take up the much more onerous task of preparing for the Day of the Lord. Note that Joel calls the people to reform in two different time periods – now, following the devastating visit of the locusts and then, in preparation for the end of days. Reformation now is long and arduous, but it’s nothing compared to the reformation that will occur then as the Day of the Lord approaches. For now, following the locusts’ destruction, Joel says the Lord will ease the reforming with gracious rain and “the threshing floors shall be full of grain, (and) the vats shall overflow with wine and oil.” But the trials that lead up to “the great and terrible day of the Lord” will be even more difficult to endure. Joel proclaims, “The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood… Prepare war… Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears.” Joel may be saying that, to truly effect reform, it’s necessary to remove all defects, to really lay scourge to the land, as it were. And, if that’s so, why do we struggle so mightily against the natural cleansing forces of God’s world around us? Personally, I can’t feel what the people to whom Joel was speaking must have felt. Somehow, when I think of cicadas, I can’t see total destruction. But consider the recent fires in California – hundreds of thousands of people forced out of their homes and many of those will suffer the loss of all they own. Some have died. In many respects, we humans have helped set the scene for this disaster by disrupting the natural order of that ecosystem. For millennia, wildland fire has been a natural and necessary process that is vital for the survival of plants and animals. The ecological benefits of fire include habitat improvement, fuel reduction, species regeneration, increased nutrient cycling, and reduction of the potential for large scale catastrophic wildfires. Periodic fire stimulates growth and plant reproduction and provides critical wildlife habitat. And yet, we continue to interfere. Far better, I think, that we direct our attention to reforming the greater moral and spiritual disasters affecting us all today – the continuing scourge of war, the plague of racism, the scandal of sexual exploitation, to name a few. These disasters serve as clear wake up calls for us to participate fully in reforming today’s world. After all, the Day of the Lord is always near. How do we go about preparing for the Day of the Lord? Joel provides great assurance that we can be ready if we pay attention to those in need around us and trust in the Lord. God says, “I will pour out my spirit on all flesh…” Not some flesh or chosen flesh or fill-in-the-gender-race-color-creed flesh, but all flesh. God continues. “Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions.” Watch for these signs. I am. And in the meantime, let’s do some reforming. Not just the “to form again” kind. Let’s commit to the harder reformation, the one To improve by alteration, correction of error, or removal of defects To abolish abuse or malpractice, to end a wrong To change for the better
God is here with us, always, even until the end of days. Amen.
A Sermon
Kathleen Brennan
October 28, 2007
In preparing for today, and after reading 2 Timothy multiple times, some song lyrics came to me in a dream a few nights ago. The Chorus from Cake’s song “The Distance” played clearly in the dream. . . .
he's going the distance.
he's going for speed.
she's all alone
all alone in her time of need.
because he's racing and pacing and plotting the course,
he's fighting and biting and riding on his horse,
he's going the distance.
In thinking about the races and the distances that have been presented to me, my father, his life experiences, battle with cancer and death are right there. The distance he had to go, the fight he fought, and the faith he kept. The distance for me was not only watching him fight or trying to fight with him, but also accepting his eventual death.
Prior to my father’s death, I had experienced minimal adversity and challenge. If anything, I had to seek out challenges and found those challenges in swim team. Practice after practice, the coach would push me to my physical limits and then some. Hours and hours, laps and laps to prepare for that moment, starting at the racing block, waiting for the short beep signaling competitors to take off and go for it. I swam through senior year of high school and into college. In college, however, swimming became a challenge that mattered little to me. It became an outlet.
It was freshman year; I was in my second week of college, when my father called and told me that the doctors “found something.” The test results that seemed to take forever indicated that my dad was sick. He was given a diagnosis of colon cancer. How quickly my life and my family’s life changed. So quickly, without warning. His battle and our battle began.
While my father was accepting his illness, the possibility of death, I had to accept the same, the added difference being that I had to accept the possibility of losing him. My father was accepting his plan; I was not. My worst fears came true a few years later. My father passed away after a typical, calm summer evening at our home. The night he died, which is actually a powerful story, he said to me, my brother and my mom, “Thank you for being in my corner.” What felt like might be a goodbye was just that. He was saying goodbye.
(4:7) He was saying: I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. And he had kept the faith. In fact, he gained more faith and insight into his spirituality and relationship with God during his battle with cancer. After he said goodbye to each one of us, he died soon after--at home, with his family. God was there with us.
At that time, the time that he died, my perception was that his challenges had ended and mine began; his race had ended and mine began.
The grief came, just as my father had gone. I kept the grief in the depths of me, not willing to let it come to the surface for me or others to see. I fought the grief. I felt ashamed when it did make its way to the surface. How long was this grief supposed to last? I was trying to give the grief a time frame; a time frame that fit into my plans. I had other challenges to meet. Two years, became five years. Then one day, I woke to find that my father had passed away 10 years ago; it will be 11 years this upcoming July.
My race with grief began that night and continues on. . . .Ten years later, I am still grieving his death. There was no short beep to signal the beginning and there will be no line or marker to let me know when my grief will go away.
It was about 2 months ago that I woke up in the middle of the night, opened my eyes and in the dark said, “He’s gone.” I went back to sleep. Acceptance; Acceptance that my dad is gone.
I am still here. I am here to tell you about it. The fact that I can stand here today and share these experiences, my gained insight, is evidence that I could somehow handle it. God knew I could handle it and, when I thought I could not, continued to walk with me through it.
My dad still goes on. His race here ended and He is with God. His spirit lives on. We saw his spirit last week at the Trot For Turkeys. We saw his spirit in your support, your enthusiasm, your passion. We saw his spirit in our church.
As for the next distance, as for the next race, I really don’t want to know. Hopefully, I can remember that God will be with there with me; he will not give me more than I can handle. Acceptance.
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