Wednesday, July 16, 2008

How Long, O Lord, How Long?


[The following homily was preached at the funeral of the Rev'd Kathy Hoodikoff, VST '07. Kathy was a presbyter of the Diocese of British Columbia serving at Christ Church Cathedral, Victoria BC, who died after a sudden and devastating recurrence of cancer on 19 June 2008.]

Propers: Isaiah 25.1-6; Psalm 139; 2 Timothy 2.8-13; Luke 4.14-21

+ My sisters and brothers, may only God’s truth be spoken and only God’s truth heard.

Doug, Stacey and Marissa, on behalf of the Principal, the Faculty, the Students and the Staff of Vancouver School of Theology, I convey to you our sorrow at Kathy’s death and the assurance that you are very present to us in our prayers and thoughts.

To the other members of Kathy’s family I want you to know how much Kathy was loved and respected by her colleagues and the faculty. We had all hoped to watch her ministry as a priest develop in the years to come, but we shall now only be able to give thanks for the deep, rich and mature ministry she had already begun to exercise.

To all Kathy’s colleagues and friends here in the Diocese, especially Bishop Cowan, and the Cathedral, especially Dean McMenamie, I say thank you for the gift of ordained priestly ministry to which you called Kathy as her expression of our shared baptismal priesthood.

When I first heard the news of Kathy’s death, I offered the prayer that I have prayed too many times in recent years, the Kaddish, the prayer of the Jewish mourner. Today I ask you to join me in this prayer by responding ‘Blessed be God for ever.’ after each ‘Amen.’ Let us say ‘Amen!’ ‘Blessed be God for ever.’

Magnified and sanctified be the great name of God in the world which God created according to the divine will. May God establish the reign of justice and peace in your life and in your days, and in the lifetime of all God’s people: quickly and speedily may it come; and let us say Amen! Blessed be God for ever.

Blessed, praised and glorified, exalted, extolled and honoured, magnified and lauded be the name of the Holy One; blessed be God! Though God be high above all the blessings and hymns, praises and consolations, which are uttered in the world; and let us say Amen! Blessed be God for ever.

May there be abundant peace from heaven and life for us and for all people; let us say Amen! Blessed be God for ever.

More than two thousand and five hundred years ago the residents of Jerusalem realized that their hopes had become ashes. Although they had been permitted to return to and rebuild the city of Jerusalem and to re-establish some semblance of autonomy, their initial joy had been replaced by bitterness and disappointment. A significant portion of the Jewish people remained in Babylon, while others lived in Egypt. The ruined city of Jerusalem could not regain the glory of the days of Solomon. The Temple, God’s dwelling place on earth, had been destroyed by the Babylonians and only partially and poorly re-built.

To this discouraged people a prophet brought words of hope and promise. This unknown prophet, not the Isaiah whose vision in the Temple still shapes our own worship with the song of the seraphim, ‘Holy, holy, holy’, but another prophet, spoke words that both captured the reality of the present moment and proclaimed a vision of what is God’s ultimate purpose regardless of how the present seemed:

‘For you have been a refuge to the poor, a refuge to the needy in their distress, a shelter from the rainstorm and a shade from the heat. When the blast of the ruthless was like a winter rainstorm, the noise of aliens like heat in a dry place, you subdued the heat with the shade of clouds; the song of the ruthless was stilled. On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.’ (Isaiah 25.5-6)

And the people faced their present with resolution and journeyed towards God’s future with hope.

Two thousand years ago that same people found themselves under the rule of another empire whose leaders claimed obedience, tribute and worship. The poor were becoming poorer, the rich richer and the Jewish religious authorities walked a tight-rope between collaboration with the imperial authorities and the assertion of Jewish identity. Charismatic religious and political leaders emerged on the left and on the right. As each one took his place on the stage of Jewish life, people wondered, ‘Is this one? Is the Messiah here? Will Roman rule finally be replaced by the rule of God?’

Into this maelstrom sailed Jesus of Nazareth, ‘filled with the power of the Holy Spirit’, preaching and teaching, healing and comforting, exciting the religious imaginations of the poor and arousing the fears of the powerful. On one fateful Sabbath, he was asked to comment on the lectionary reading for the day, a text taken from that portion of the book of Isaiah that was composed during the exile some five hundred years prior when the possibility of a return to Jerusalem was on the horizon. This text contained the volatile words, ‘to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour’, words which many understood to mean the time of the Messiah. And Jesus puts a match to the tinder of messianic hopes with his words, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’

We know the roller-coaster that followed this simple yet dangerous proclamation. Crowds begin to gather and religious authorities begin to fear. Healings and teachings become felonies rather than manifestations of the grace of God. Plots are hatched; the rabbi arrested, tried, condemned and executed. News of his resurrection spread and hopes for his return rise and fall. His followers are persecuted, imprisoned and martyred. One Christian writer encourages the beleaguered community by reminding them, ‘If we have died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him’. (2 Timothy 2.11a-12a)

And the people faced their present with resolution and journeyed towards God’s future with hope.

And here we are today, a day that for me brings back memories of a day in seminary, some thirty years ago now, when we officiated at the burial of a two-year-old boy drowned in a preventable accident. When the time came to put the dirt on his coffin, we all filed up behind the family. We had said all the right words. We had said wonderful things. We had sung wonderful hymns and we had even read passages from scripture which are exceedingly hopeful. But it had been a cold winter and the dirt was frozen. And when his mother, who had been told that she would never have another child, came to put her piece o dirt on his grave, she picked up a clod of dirt and threw it at the coffin. A true, a more true expression of how most of us had been feeling than some of the words that were spoken. To this day, some thirty years later, I still hear the sound of that clod of dirt clanging against the small coffin. And I still remember the dent that I saw as I passed by to put in my handful of dirt.

Today you and I are in Jerusalem after the return from exile, when the hopes for the future are confronted by the harsh realities of the present. Today you and I are in a synagogue in Nazareth hearing words that promise liberation even as we know ourselves to be burdened by the bonds of grief. Dare we hope that the words spoken by the prophets are true? Dare we risk believing that God’s last word is life not death? Dare we celebrate the life and ministry of Kathy, daughter, sister, wife, and mother, diocesan lay leader and priest?

Let us dare these things, yes. For Kathy’s sake and for the world’s, let us dare these things. But let us also dare to cry out, to lift our voices to the One who created us, who redeemed us, who empowers us by the Spirit, saying, ‘How long, O Lord?’ as we acknowledge our sense of loss and of promise denied. Let us lament the death of one who had already demonstrated how alive she was in Christ even as we proclaim our hope that the vision of the world which she believed and lived will come soon. Let us lament the too-short ordained priesthood of one who sought to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour even as we commit ourselves, whether lay or ordained, to that same priesthood of presence that Kathy embodied. Let us lament that our present only shows us glimpses of the world that God intends for all God’s creatures even as we give thanks for the glimpse of that world made known to us in and through Kathy.

And God’s people will face their present with resolution and journey towards God’s future with hope.

Kathy, into paradise may the angels lead you. At your coming may the martyrs receive you, and bring you into the holy city Jerusalem.

May the choirs of angels welcome you, and with Lazarus who once was poor may you have peace everlasting. Amen.

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