The End Is Where We Start From

       Transfiguration of the Lord Sunday, February 14, 2021

My Farewell Sermon for Shadyside Presbyterian Church

   The End Is Where We Start From

The Reverend Dr. John A. Dalles

2 Kings 2:21; Psalm 50:1-6; and Mark 9:2-9

Transfiguration Sunday is a day when we reflect upon the interconnection between the here and now, and the hereafter — the meeting of the present moment with eternity. Up there on that mountain, Jesus showed His disciples that the two do intertwine and connect — not how, but that they do.
For there they were: the people of the present moment, and yet there were also those other people, Moses and Elijah, who were people of the past, yet, somehow, in the present moment, as well.
Time, it seems, is fluid and flexible with God. This reality breaks into our awareness only if and when God chooses for that to happen. And it has a larger purpose than simply making us gaze in wonderment.

Time is fluid and flexible with God. We live in the present moment, yet God is able to link today with tomorrow and with yesterday. Each one of them can inform the other. Each one is enriched by the other. Each is so intimately connected to the other that they are only complete when we see the whole picture.

If you are of a certain generation, you will remember a television series about historic events. A line from that series sums it up: “You Are There,” hosted by Walter Cronkite. Cronkite summarized what happened when each segment concluded. He reminded viewers, “What sort of day was it? A day like all days, filled with those events that alter and illuminate our times ... all things are as they were then, and you were there.”

Historic moments of great importance. Instead of being outside onlookers, we are invited to experience these momentous doings, as if they were happening to us.

So instead of looking back to remember that point in 2 Kings when Elijah was carried into heaven, we become as Elisha, witnesses to this miracle.

We say with Elisha: “My father! My father! The chariots and horsemen of Israel!” We see Elijah no more. We take hold of our garments, and rip them in two. We live it.

“How is that possible?” we may ask. “With God all things are possible,” is the faithful answer. With God, we can be at the end of things, and the beginning of things, at one and the same time — which is what T. S. Eliot says: “What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.”

The end is where we start from.

You know that to be true. If you have held a newborn infant in your arms, even in that moment, as you see that new person fresh from God, you also wonder:

• “Who will they become?”
• “What will they do?”
• “What will they see?”

Those distant realities are not in the present moment. Or are they? With God, they are always there. The end is where we start from.

It is somewhat like being an interim minister. Even from the first Sunday, both that minister and that congregation are aware that there will be a last Sunday.

So even in the joy of welcome, we wonder:

• “What will happen between now and then?”
• “How will we be different by then?”
• “What will we share together?”
• “How will it inform our faith?”
• “How will it help us live into what God has planned for us in the future?”

Those far-off realities are not in the present moment. Or are they? With God, they are always there. Over time, they become known to us, so that, now, we can look back on the past two years and fill in the questions with answers.

And so it is, when we are with someone who has had a wealth of years from that day when — as a newborn — they were held lovingly in a parent’s arms. The questions the parent wondered about then have been answered over the decades — perhaps, long after that parent was no longer there to witness them. Those far-off realities are not in the present moment. Or are they? With God, they are always there.

The end is where we start from.

This reality breaks into our awareness only if and when God chooses for that to happen. And it has a larger purpose than simply making us gaze in wonderment.

It was a robe-rending moment for Elisha when Elijah — his friend, mentor, and leader — left him. It was a life-transfiguring event when Elijah and Moses disappeared, and the disciples were left standing there with Jesus — awestruck.

The most natural thing for Elisha, for the disciples, and for us, is to say, “Saying goodbye is very hard.”
It is. We want to hold on to what has been. We are not ready to let go.

We want to build a little shelter of some kind, there on the mountain, so we can stay there from then on, and always have some last lingering pieces of what once was. That is what the disciples proposed. As Matthew records this same moment, Peter says: “Master, it is good for us to be here. Let us make three booths: One for You, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”

I have looked, and I do not see Jesus saying, “Great, fellows, build those little booths. Stay in this moment forever.”

The wisdom of the Lord prevails in this and in all things.

Jesus knows that, as comforting as it may be, it will not be good for us in the long run to try to enshrine a moment, or a year, or a lifetime. The fact is, time marches on. We grow; we change — often for the better. But even when we are sadder but wiser, that, too, is part of God’s plan.
So God’s Word to Elisha, and to Peter and James and John, and to you and me, echoes these humble words spoken by a little stuffed bear named Winnie-the-Pooh: “How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.” (A. A. Milne)

A Christian might modify it slightly and say: “How richly blessed I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.”

Or, as Richard Bach says: “Don’t be dismayed at goodbyes. A farewell is necessary before you can meet again. And meeting again, after moments or lifetimes, is certain for those who are friends.”
To which we would add: “... and is certain for all who believe in our Lord Jesus Christ.” As God declares in this morning’s Psalm: “Gather to Me this consecrated people.”

“This consecrated people” means you, and me, and all who have entrusted their lives to the Living Lord, from every time and place, world without end.
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So, on this Transfiguration Sunday, which also this year happens to be Valentine’s Day — a day devoted to the people we love — and is also the last Sunday that I will be here as your Interim Senior Minister, please think like this:

The end is where we start from.

• How lucky I am.
• Smile because it happened.
• This is not a goodbye, this is a thank you.
• Meeting again is certain.

“There are no goodbyes for us. Wherever you are, you will always be in my heart.” (Mahatma Gandhi)
“Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.” (Dr. Seuss)

“What sort of day was it? A day like all days, filled with those events that alter and illuminate our times ... all things are as they were then, and you were there.”

Amen.

Copyright © 2021, John A. Dalles. All rights reserved. Prior permission from the copyright holder is required for use.

Healed to Serve

  Sunday, February 7, 2021

   Healed to Serve

The Reverend Dr. John A. Dalles

Isaiah 40:21-31; Mark 1:29-39

One of my favorite Pittsburgh people of the past is a short man with a big name. His name is John George Alexander Leishman. You may have heard of him, but I doubt it.

He lived not far from here, where Murray Hill Avenue meets Woodland Road, in a house not unlike the Spencer House next door to our church. Long gone now, he bought it from his friend, Benjamin Thaw.
John began his life as an orphan. His father died the year he was born, drowned in the Allegheny River.
John was a personable and enterprising young man. His first job was running messages for one of Pittsburgh’s leading physicians, Dr. Rankin. Then he obtained work as a “mud clerk,” which is just about as glamorous as it sounds. He lived 24/7 in a makeshift lean-to on the Mon Wharf, and was on hand to buy and sell raw materials, as they were unloaded from the riverboats. He became a steel broker, in a partnership called Leishman and Snyder (with a man named William Penn Snyder, whose descendant and namesake is an influential Pittsburgher today).

John caught the eye of someone in the steel business. Well, not just any someone — the someone: Andrew Carnegie. And one fine day, Mr. Carnegie met up with John and said, “How’s about coming to work for me?” John accepted, and that led to his eventually becoming vice president, and then president, of Carnegie Steel.

It sounds like a Horatio Alger rags-to-riches story, and it is.

As vice president, John was present with the then-president of the company, Henry Clay Frick, the day that Alexander Berkman entered his office and attempted to assassinate Frick — and would have succeeded, had John not wrestled Berkman to the ground, thus saving Frick’s life.

(Yes, I know you are wondering why you have not heard of Mr. John George Alexander Leishman before. His story would make a great movie.)

And that is not all. After serving as the president of Carnegie Steel, John’s friend Philander Knox suggested to his lifelong friend, President William McKinley, that John would be an ideal person to serve as a U.S. ambassador — which he did, in succession, to Switzerland, the Ottoman Empire, Italy, and Germany.

Why am I telling you this? Because something happened when he was serving in Constantinople that is a kind of window to what it means to serve. You may not think so immediately, but bear with me on this.

At that time, the U.S. did not own any property abroad — no embassy buildings, no ambassador’s residences, no legations, no consulates. Wherever U.S. ambassadors served, they rented their own digs — until John Leishman.

He felt that the U.S. would be better served if they had their own property, to do with as they wished, and he tried to convince his friends in Congress that was a good idea. They did not see the need. They dug in their heels. They did not want to spend the dollars it would take.

Now, among John’s many talents, he was a keen card player. And he had a kind of standing game with some of the Western Pennsylvania fellows who served in Washington, D.C. So he proposed — and they agreed — that if he beat them at cards, they would pass the legislation for the U.S.A. to buy the Palazzo Corpi in Constantinople. That is what happened, and it became the first of many, many properties overseas that are official U.S. territory.
Question: What does this have to do with being a Christian, and receiving from Christ and giving in response? Perhaps everything. Here is how.

At the outset of our Scripture lesson, we have Simon Peter’s mother-in-law. She was desperately ill. That is how Jesus and His disciples found her. But that is not how they left her. Jesus responded to her need in a new way, with His ability and power — we still call it miraculous, because we do not really know how He was able to heal people. We only know that He did. He saw that “Mother Mrs. Simon Peter” would be much better situated in life if she were made whole and well. And so there was a transformational moment when she was changed from ill to whole.

It was like winning at cards something as valuable as a palace on the Bosporus, for a greater purpose than her own. To her, it was even more than that.

When she was healed, what did she do? Did she stay in her bed moaning and wailing and resting up? Did she faintly ask people to bring her something to drink or something to eat? Did she get on the phone and tell her friends about how ill she had been and what a close call it was? All of those would have been the expected things.

But she did not do the expected thing. She did the unexpected thing. She found ways to use her newfound strength and vigor for others. She had gained a foothold in a new land — the land of the Kingdom of God — from which she could do what she was able to do, to serve others. She did not have such a territory before. You could say that where she had been before was not her own. However, as one who had been transformed by Christ, her life was like an embassy through which others could find their way to the land of promise and peace.

She was sick. She was healed. Then she responded — by serving. We can do likewise.

That is really all we have to know; but the Scripture passage goes on. In addition to that one sick person, we have the multitudes of the sick. Jesus healed them. Mark gives us no further information about them. We could assume that they responded like Peter’s mother-in-law. They found ways of serving — at least some of them. But the fact that Mark is silent on the matter means that he does not know or care to tell us the rest of their stories.

We get it. We think: Some may have moved forward in life, thankful for that moment when they were made whole, but others may be forgetful of their newfound ability to serve others. So often it happens that way. It would be like losing, rather than winning, what was right there to be received. Because, although their life was made whole, it was not put to good use. It languished. We can picture that they lived the rest of their lives, whether long or short, missing moment after moment to make people and places better than they were. That seems likely to be the case. Surely none of us would want to live that way — to get to the end of a day, or the end of our life, and the only thing people could say about us was that we did not make one iota of difference for having lived it.

Three: Then, we have what Mark says happened next. We have Jesus, who was probably tired after all that He had done, but sought to speak heart to heart with God at a very early hour — so early, that He was well into His prayers when Peter and the others finally found Him.

And what did they say? “Jesus, we are so glad we found You”? No. They said: “Everyone is looking for You!” How do you hear that sentence? Do you hear it like this?

“Everyone is looking for You! What a sensation You have made! Everyone is bowled over. People are noticing what You are doing. They are spreading the word. Kudos, Lord. They all are looking for You.”
Or do you hear it something like this?

“Everyone is looking for You!” As in, “Where have you been? We have been looking high and low. So has everyone else. We know You like Your quiet time, Jesus, but, really, there are people in need, who are wondering where You went. There is stuff to do. So, get up. Get a move on, Lord.”

Jesus could have taken a moment to teach them. After all, it was a teachable moment. He could have said something like, “Once we have cared for and healed people, we need to spend time with God to say, ‘Thank You,’ for what God has made possible; or to renew our strength; or to get our priorities straight.” All of which is true.

But Jesus does not choose to do that. He does not even mention that they interrupted His quiet time.
No, He responds to them by saying, “Let us go somewhere else — to the nearby villages — so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.”

When we seek the Lord, we try to draw as near as we can, because we know that wholeness and healing are to be found in Christ. So it is when we draw unto His table. Our act of sharing in this sacrament is a participation in the real and spiritual presence of our Lord. Jesus is not far off or hard to find. He is with us. He brings His elements of wholeness to us. He seeks to share and to serve us.

We draw near to His table, each with our own needs, where Jesus will respond to them, in love and grace. No matter what is happening in our lives at this moment, Jesus knows. Jesus understands. ”That is why I have come,” He says. Jesus has come to provide what you need.

Can you open your life to the love and joy that is coming your way? As you do, remember you are also opening your life to those around you. For, to let love and joy in, you must also be open to them. Even as Christ cares for you, so, too, Communion is a sacrament in which you are empowered to serve.

Think about what you can do, when this holy meal is ended. Because the meal is just the beginning; from here on in, you have a place from which you can make a lasting difference in the world — a kind of embassy of faithfulness.

You have been healed to serve; saved to share; forgiven to forgive; reborn to rejoice. The service starts where Jesus meets us, and the service goes on and on in Jesus’ name. In Christ it is so. Amen.

Copyright © 2021, John A. Dalles. All rights reserved. Prior permission from the copyright holder is required for use.

Authority Figure - January 31, 2021

Authority Figure

The Reverend Dr. John A. Dalles

Psalm 111; Mark 1:21-28

“... He taught them as one having authority... .”

Yellowstone National Park was visited during the winter of 1807–1808, by early explorer John Colter, who was a veteran of the Lewis and Clark expedition. After his time in the wilderness, Colter brought back his reports of Yellowstone, especially the geothermal areas. But few believed his fantastic stories. Colter’s descriptions of “boiling mud,” “spouting water,” “steam coming from the ground,” and “beautiful colored pools” were beyond imagination to the uninformed. So, his descriptions were labeled as “fictional entertainment” and the “ravings of a deranged man.” It was not until the 1870s that reports of subsequent explorers, including paintings and photographs, convinced a skeptical public that what Colter had said more than a half century before was true. The challenge for Colter was, he knew whereof he spoke. He had been there. He had seen it with his own eyes. He could describe it in full detail. He knew the magnitude of it. And his desire was to convey all of these things to people who had not experienced it yet. This is a sign of a true leader. A true leader is able to speak with such boldness because he knows whereof he speaks.

That is the key to Christ’s teaching. Jesus did not rely upon the expert advice of others, although He sometimes quoted the Old Testament, if it suited His message. He spoke of what He knew, to people who longed to hear it and to people who could scarcely believe it.

This passage reminds me of the first meeting I had with the Reverend Dr. Harold E. Scott, who was then the executive presbyter of Pittsburgh Presbytery. I suppose my meeting with him was like that of every new minister to the presbytery, because, at one point, he drew my attention to a painting on the wall of his office, there at 801 Union Avenue. The painting showed two people: one dressed in sumptuous robes, seated on a throne-like chair; the other dressed in the modest garb of an ordinary person. The man in the chair is listening. The man who is standing before him is speaking. The painting is about a church worker back from the mission field, reporting what he has seen and done. It is fair to say that both of those characters are authority figures — the one, because of his elevated position in the church; the other, because he has been there, serving in the real world on a daily basis, and knows whereof he speaks.

The church needs both kinds of authority figures. People who are leaders. People who are doers. It is best if the two attributes combine, because what one does on a daily basis has a tendency to inform one’s understanding of worthy and important matters.

I wish I had a copy of Harold Scott’s painting. I do not know the name of it; I do not know who painted it. But I am glad that he kept the thought of the importance of what is going on in the daily life of the Church and its members before him, and before his clergy, as he sought to lead the presbytery.

If we had been with Jesus in Capernaum that day, we would have seen something like that painting come to life before our eyes — first, hearing Him speak of what He knows; then, seeing Him heal the man with the unclean spirit. Both of these things pointed to Jesus having authority.

It is not happenstance that the healing happened on the heels of His teaching. It served to demonstrate what His listeners already sensed: that Christ has news to share from God that is authentic; that His message is true; that His insights are profound. Just as they were getting a sense of these things, up spoke the man with the unclean spirit:
“What have You to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have You come to destroy us? I know who You are, the Holy One of God.”

How do you think the one possessed knew that Jesus had such authority? Did he sense the threat to his condition by the very presence of Jesus? Did he know that Jesus has the power — the authority — to heal him and transform him? Does evil know — when goodness appears — that evil is doomed? In His teaching and in His healing, Jesus conveys truth — like John Colter back from Yellowstone, telling the truth about geysers that boiled and steamed; like the humble mission worker, back from the mission field, telling the church leader the realities of working and serving alongside God’s children.

Jesus arrived. And people were hearing the truth. Hearing the truth can be completely unsettling. Hearing the truth can be mystifying. Hearing the truth can upend that which we thought we knew to be true. Hearing the truth can be frightening. Hearing the truth can make us all angry at some point. Hearing the truth can change everything.
Alyce M. McKenzie (in Edgy Exegesis, Patheos, 2012) writes this: “When that which is sinful and unclean in our lives recognizes that Jesus is coming too close for comfort, we resist

“What have You to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have You come to destroy us?”

Jesus does not answer that question in words. He answers that question in deeds — in that act of casting out the unclean spirit, the first instance of Jesus’ healing power that Mark records in his Gospel. Jesus did not come to destroy — Jesus came to transform and make whole; to provide hope to someone who had lost all hope; to give new strength to someone who had given up; to set the way straight; to make the sinful clean.

How do we know that Jesus has the authority to do this? The proof is in what He did then. And the hope in which we live is that, what Jesus did then, He will do again, and again — for all who are dealing with whatever unclean spirit has gotten hold of them.

Now we could easily scoff at such an idea in our twenty-first century, ultra-sophisticated world. “There are no new discoveries to be made, no unexplored Yellowstones yet to be revealed, no wonders or challenges of the natural or divine world. We have seen it all and done it all.” So we think.

I do not know about you, but I have noticed in this past year that we really have not seen or done it all. A year ago, we did not know that a pandemic was on our doorsteps. If I had been told that, I probably would have said in response, “Oh, that sort of thing happened one hundred years ago, and in various times before that, but we are beyond that ... .”
How wrong I would have been — as wrong as the people who told John Colter his stories of Yellowstone were an idle tale. If the year we have just lived through has taught us anything at all, it has taught us that we still need Jesus to come alongside us, to speak truth, and to cast out whatever is unclean in us. We need Christ more than ever.
We all can attest to the presence and persistence of evil in our world in various guises. The good news from this passage is that our Lord revealed His authority in order to overcome the forces of evil, wherever we encounter them.
The authority of Christ brings freedom, at a number of levels. Jesus teaches and acts to bring people to the place where they can become what God made them to be.

We began with Christ in Capernaum. And that is where we will conclude, with a hymn text by Carolyn Winfrey Gillette, titled “Christ, in Capernaum.”

Christ, in Capernaum, people were awed by Your preaching.

You had authority many could hear in Your teaching.

In You they saw love that informed all their law,
Truth that was kind and far-reaching.

Into that place came a man who was troubled in spirit.

He cried aloud so the worshiping people could hear it.

Awe mixed with fear! God’s loving reign had come near!

Evil could simply not bear it.

Lord, You rebuked all that kept him from knowing God’s healing; You countered evil with power that sent spirits reeling.
God has control! God wants our lives to be whole!
This was what You were revealing.

Still there is evil that tries to destroy and enslave us, Still, by Your grace, we encounter Your power to save us. You heal our pain, showing the joy of God’s reign.
This is the teaching You give us!

To God alone be the glory. Amen.

Hymn Text: Copyright © 2015, by Carolyn Winfrey Gillette. All rights reserved. S

 

Sermon: Copyright © 2021, John A. Dalles. All rights reserved. Prior permission from the copyright holder is required for use.