Between Memory and Hope
John 17:1-11

The Gospel readings on the fifth, sixth, and seventh Sundays after Easter -- the last three Sundays of the Easter season -- are always from what Biblical scholars call Jesus' "Farewell Discourses." Mother's Day almost always falls on one of those Sundays. Maybe I relate to this text in a special way because I'm a mother myself. I hear the motherly side of Jesus come out in those readings. Jesus pleads to God for the well-being of his disciples during his impending absence -- much as a mother might plead for the care and protection of her children. Can't you just hear this prayer coming from the mouth of a devoted, faithful mother on behalf of her children? "I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours...I have been glorified in them...protect them in your name..."

This could very well BE the prayer of many of us mothers in our church family at Holy Cross. And I just want to share a little bit about the stories of three mothers among us and their children for whom they -- and we -- pray. We meet as a staff every Thursday at 9:30. We take turns offering devotions, sharing our highs and lows of the week, going over the calendar of activities, and discussing and planning anything else that needs to be done. Consistently for Susan Bodrie, our office administrator, her lows continue to be her daughter Jenny's health. Jenny is a student at Carthage College. She sang here with the choir a month ago. And Jenny continues to suffer from lupus. Susan says she feels so helpless to do anything for her daughter. And that just flies in the face of her maternal instincts.

Many of you know Bob and Bev Kunz and their daughter, Carolyn King. Carolyn and Chris's three year old son Matthew has been diagnosed with a tumor-like cyst on his brain that is the size of a baseball. They are in the midst of exploring options. Yet, as Carolyn said in a recent email, they feel our prayers. They feel peaceful and strong.

And many of you know that Renee Foster, Mary and Larry's daughter Renee who is a high school student here in Livonia, has suffered from terrible migraine headaches for years. Last Wednesday we gathered right here in our chancel with our high school youth and Renee's family for a service of prayer, healing, and Holy Communion. This in anticipation of two separate brain bypass surgeries Renee will have at Stanford University in California May 18 and 25. They leave this coming Wednesday for a week of pre-surgery testing.

For these three families, this is a time when things are suspended -- suspended between memory and hope -- suspended between the memory of healthy, whole children, and the hope of their eventual recovery or remission.

Being suspended between memory and hope is just where we find ourselves in our church year today as well. This past Thursday was Ascension Day, when we celebrate the risen Jesus ascending into heaven. He leaves the disciples gaping into the stratosphere, wondering where he's gone and wondering how they're going to get along without him. If you had come by the church this past Thursday morning around 10, you would have seen the staff outside in the back doing just that -- gaping into the stratosphere. Julie led our devotions and we released white helium balloons into the sky in honor of Ascension Day. Next Sunday is Pentecost, when we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit. But in the meantime, here we are, in our liturgical year, left without the risen Jesus and still waiting and praying for the promised Holy Spirit -- the comforter who assures us of God's presence. This period the theologian Karl Barth once designated a "significant pause." It is a pause between the actions of God -- a pause in which all the community can do is to wait and pray.ⁱ

And that's true for others among us right now too. There are many of us living in a place like that today -- a place where we are suspended between memory and hope. Suspended -- between the memory of a marriage we thought was going to work, and the hope of a new life without that partner at our side. Between the memory of gainful employment and the hope of a new and fulfilling job. Between the memory of high school or college, and the hope of a new life after commencement. Between the memory of good health and the hope of a hopeful prognosis. Between the memory of a loved one by our side and the hope that life can someday make sense again. Between the memory of plans to have children and the hope that someday the struggle with infertility will come to an end. Between the memory of when Holy Cross was a bustling, growing parish, bursting at the seams with energy and laughter and fellowship, and the hope that such a spark can be re-ignited again. There are mothers among us whose children have somehow turned into teenagers, and we find ourselves suspended between the memory of our nice, cute, loveable little boy or girl and the hope that these adolescents who won't claim us right now will somehow turn out OK.

There is much about this Sunday between Ascension and Pentecost that mirrors much about our life -- those times that are like a significant pause between the actions of God. Those times when it seems all we can do is to wait and pray.

A few years ago, our son Andrew was taking piano lessons. When Andy practiced, it seemed like one of the harder things for him to do was to observe the rests in the music. The times when the music indicates he is to take his hands off the keys and count the beats out until he should play again. He'd rather skip the rests, or make them shorter than they're supposed to be. Sometimes we even have that problem in the choir. Just ask Barb [our music director]. It occurs to me that these "significant pauses" in our lives are not unlike those rests in music. We often confuse those significant pauses with God's absence. But in music, those pauses are called rests.

The 19th century English writer and critic John Ruskin wrote a little piece expressing this idea. He called it "Inspirational Music Lessons." There is no music in a rest, he wrote, but there is the making of music in it. In our whole life-melody the music is broken off here and there by rests, and we foolishly think we have come to the end of the theme. God uses a time of forced leisure, sickness, disappointed plans, frustrated efforts, that makes a sudden pause in the choral hymn of our lives; and we lament that our voices must be silent, and our part missing in the music which ever goes up to the ear of the Creator. How do musicians read the rest? See them beat the time with unvarying count and catch up the next note true and steady, as if no breaking place had come between.

Not without design does God conduct the music of our lives. Be it ours to learn the tune, and not to be dismayed at the rests. They are not to be slurred over, not to be omitted, not to destroy the melody, not to change the keynote. If we look up, God will actually beat the time for us. With the eye on the conductor, we shall strike the next note full and clear. If we sadly say to ourselves, "There is no music in a rest, "let us not forget there is the making of music in it. The making of music is often a slow and painful process in this life. How patiently God works to teach. How long God is willing to wait for us to learn.ⁱⁱ

There is something else that is quite significant about imaging God in this way, especially for busy mothers. When we picture God as the conductor who beats the time, even during the rests, we're more likely to give ourselves permission to take the Sabbath rest we so sorely need in order be good mothers. We mothers tend to think we ourselves are the conductors, and so we don't let ourselves stop. I've heard busy mothers say more than once, "I can't sit down without feeling like I need to do something." When God is conducting, we can rest while the beat goes on.

We're given this day in the church year, this day of "significant pause," between Ascension and Pentecost, as a gift to remind us that God is beating the time -- even through those difficult rests when we live suspended between memory and hope. Even when it feels like all we can do is wait and pray. And so today, we wait and we pray. And as we keep our eyes on the conductor, we trust that between memory and hope is the making of music.

Pastor Dana Runestad
Seventh Sunday of Easter
8 May, 2005 (Mother's Day)
Holy Cross Lutheran Church
Livonia Michigan

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