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Frankly, it was a bit surreal. I knew I
had preached on this text before, but it had been some time.
Amazingly, I discovered I have only preached on it about
four times—this memorable moment in Jewish history with this
even more memorable “one of a kind” tag line: “Who
knows if you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as
this?”
My memory has faded over the years, so
when I went back to my musty files, the memories came
flooding back. And there it was. Typed with an old Smith
Corona typewriter on erasable paper, dated March 16, 1972,
scribbled all over with notes from Dr. Lewis, my senior
sermon in my seminary preaching class, on this text and this
title: “For Such a Time as This.”
As I say, it is scribbled with notes, but
mercifully ungraded:
Rather realistic
Good balance between historic/biblical
and immediate present
Delivery: started with gusto…a little
too fast
A bit remarkable for its
contemporaneousness
Maybe that was because it included
playing a tape of Janis Joplin singing “O Lord, Won’t
You Buy Me a Mercedes Benz”—pretty radical for Asbury
Seminary in 1972.
All these years later, the music and the
times have changed, but the tagline remains and stirs the
soul as surely as it did Esther’s eons ago: “Who knows if
you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”
It is a call for courage in the face of
fear, confidence in the face of uncertainty, hope in the
face of dismay, commitment in times of uncertainty. It is a
call for the real saints to stand up, in times such as
these. Real saints read the times and know that “this time”
is the only time we have.
1. Real saints know the “times.”
They know that this is their time.
For my money, one of the greatest
preachers of the American pulpit was Harry Emerson Fosdick,
who held forth for so many years at New York’s grand and
glorious Riverside Church. He was pastor there during the
Second World War, and in July of 1944 he published a volume
of sermons, all of which he says “have been preached since
the day of the attack on Pearl Harbor and have this present
war as their background.” The title of the book and the
title of the first sermon, A Great Time to Be Alive,
seem almost ironic in the light of the context. And
the first line of the sermon is similarly jarring:
This is certainly a ghastly time to be
alive. Behind the stirring headlines that narrate the clash
of armies and the march of victory, an unheralded mass of
human misery exists, the likes of which our world has seldom
seen.
A ghastly time to be alive…also a great
time to be alive…because, he says, it is a time which calls
for the church “…not to see how little we can believe, but
what great things we can see in the Christian message and
make it real in a world that desperately needs them. This
is,” he says, “a great time for great convictions.” (A
Great Time to be Alive, pages 1 and 9)
That was his time. This is our time. Real
saints know that this time is their only time. Real
saints know this is the time for which we have been called
to be the “People of God” for the sake of the world. Real
saints know what time it is.
We all know, of course, that you can’t
choose the times; they choose you. We can’t choose when we
are born. We can’t go back to some golden era or transport
ourselves forward to some days of bliss. The times choose
us, and those who seek to serve Christ will hear the call to
serve him in the times which are given to us.
Esther found herself in a particular
place at a particular time, and in that moment she had to
make a decision about how she would live and how she would
act, and the universe stood poised to hear her response.
Uncle Mordecai says, “Yes, Esther, perhaps if you don’t do
it someone else will. Yes, God will still fulfill God’s
purpose one way or another. God is greater than all the
turmoil of our world, and one day his kingdom will come on
earth as it is in heaven, with or without your
participation. But who knows if this isn’t the moment, your
moment, the very times for which you have been born. This is
the moment of your calling, to do the work of God in this
great and ghastly time.”
Let me say it as clearly as I can in the
light of our current “Every Member Commitment” campaign. I
firmly believe this is our moment, our time.
Others have gone before us.
Others have planted this church, watered and nurtured it
by their lives of faith. They kept their
promises to support the church with their “prayers,
presence, gifts and service” in their times, and passed the
legacy on to us. On this All Saints Day, we
honor those who have gone before and we remember their lives
of faith.
And God willing, others will come
after us. Generations yet to come, babies whom we
baptize, children who are being nurtured in our Sunday
School, youth who are being formed in the faith—ready for
the day when they will be called to serve God in the times
given to them, when the promises of God are passed on to
them.
But this day is our day; these times are our times…the only
time we have.
This is our one opportunity to live the
faith, to serve the Lord with our prayers, presence, gifts
and service. You and I have been called for such a time
as this. “Yes,” Uncle Mordecai would say, “God’s help
may come in some other way. God’s vision will still be
fulfilled. But you will have missed your opportunity, your
calling, your time.”
Now we all know that our city, our state
and our church are facing challenges due to downsizing,
right-sizing and outsourcing like we have never seen before.
We’ve lost faithful members to death, and some key members
to corporate moves. But this is not a time for the church to
hunker down, retrench or withdraw. The church of Jesus
Christ is built not upon the promises of society, but upon
the promises of God made known in broken bread and shared
cup. In a time such as this, the church needs to model a
confidence in the present and a hope for the future, to be
faithful in our ministry in a great and ghastly time, to be
willing to risk, willing to try, willing to dare to do the
work of Christ.
And Esther would have understood.
A more recent Esther came in the presence
of a simple Methodist preacher in Eastern Europe during the
Soviet times. I heard the story from Bishop Franz Shaffer,
an aged Methodist Bishop in Austria who himself had lived
through the brutality of Nazism and the darkness of
Communism. He told the story of a solitary Methodist
preacher in a small village. The people had been scattered
through the constant conflict of the times. No one was left
in his church. The Communist officials came and told him to
close the church. He refused and was sent to a Siberian work
camp. Years later he was released, came back to his village,
and reopened the church. Again, they came and told him to
close the church. Again, he refused.
“But,” they said, “there are no people.
So where is your church?” He lifted the chalice and said,
“As long as I am alive, I am the church. And with this
chalice I will rebuild the church.” Again they padlocked the
building, and so he went from house to house with nothing
but his chalice… gathering the church.
Real saints know what time it is…they know this is the only
time they have.
2. And real saints know they don’t do it alone; that all
the saints are standing with us.
The Hebrew writer says, “Seeing that we
are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses…” He sees
them in the balcony, cheering from the back row. He sees
them in the transepts, pushing us on. The great army of God,
marching along beside us. All the saints of God of all
times, present with us in our times.
Now I have to tell you, I grew up in a
rock solid Protestant tradition. We didn’t go in much for
anything that smacked of Catholicism, like All Saints Day,
or praying to the saints, or saints praying for us…just so
much hokum. But I am older now. The longer I live and the
more friends and loved ones I have on the other side, the
more firmly I believe in the communion of the saints, and
the more grateful I am for the promise that this great cloud
of witnesses is present with us, praying for us, cheering us
on from the sidelines.
I promised myself I wasn’t going to
mention Harry Potter again, but this week I finished the
book. In the last chapters, Harry is headed into the final
confrontation with Voldemort, which will likely mean his own
death. As he walks into the darkness of the Forbidden
Forest, he opens the small golden shell he has been carrying
all along, and inside he finds the Resurrection Stone:
He closed his eyes and turned the stone
over in his hand. He knew it had happened, because he heard
slight movements around him. He opened his eyes and looked
around. They moved toward him, and on each face there was a
loving smile.
James, his father, was exactly the same
height as Harry, wearing the clothes in which he had died,
his hair untidy and his glasses a little lopsided. Sirius
was tall and handsome and younger than Harry had seen him in
life. Lupin was younger too and much less shabby.
And his mother Lily’s smile was the
widest of all. She pushed her long hair back and said, “You
have been so brave. You are very close…we are so proud of
you.”
“You’ll stay with me?” Harry asked.
“Until the very end.” said James. “We are
a part of you.”
(Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,
page 700)
Real saints know they are called to these
times, but they don’t face them alone. They take their stand
in the communion of the saints, present with us. And who
knows if you and I haven’t been called to the kingdom for
just such a time as this? |
