I awakened this rainy Labor Day morning to the sound of a train whistle and the clackity clack as it rolled north. Before I left for breakfast, another one passed by, a locomotive followed by dozens and dozens of what appeared to be empty coal gondolas. Past the tracks runs the Ohio river while a short while later a large barge plied its way upriver. One of my fellow alumni from college, also an Episcopal Priest now serves as a chaplain to the traffic on the Ohio. Yesterday as I was running through the Facebook postings, he was in a video conducting a burial at sea (in the river). The news this morning mentioned a memorial that is to be unveiled this afternoon in memory of the coal miners who died in the battle for Blair Mountain resulting from their attempt to unionize. On the news and Facebook were stories of communities celebrating with fireworks displays, some rather than holding their own now joining with neighboring communities. This Sunday, Jesus will tell the parable of lost sheep and the lost coins. In some ways, this all seems so contradictory. In my sermon yesterday I spoke about Jesus and how I see him using the word we translate as hate. As I said, I do not believe he meant it the way most understand it today, as loathing or extreme enmity of someone, but as that Hebrew pictograph of a thorn and a seed, something around which one must choose to avoid the pain of the thorn, the better choice.
As I sit here searching for words, the image of the grown Simba surveying his domain from the cliff outcrop with the song The Circle of Life playing as the movie closes comes to mind. These things, the empty gondolas, the barge plugging along, Kempton honoring a sailor as his ashes are returned to the waters he loved, to respect for those who fought and died for rights we all now have, the rocket’s red glare celebrating their victory, and Jesus calling those around him to choose if they are to be his followers are not opposed, but part of our lives.
Far too many fall from God because they think life in Christ must be joyful and filled with plenty all the time. Not so. As Jesus says, the rain falls on the just and the unjust. We are not promised to not have trials and tribulations, but to know that in them, we are not alone, that Jesus searches for us if we are willing to be found. The gondolas were empty, but a few hours later, at least 121 returned the other way with coal heaped in them. The sailor has left his family and this world, but they were comforted knowing that he was sent away as he wished and is now in a better place. While the massacre at Blair Mountain was an atrocity, in the end, they won the battle, and we celebrate their and other’s victories. May we be willing to be disciples of Jesus and seek those who are lost and then like the shepherd and the widow celebrate as heaven does when one who is lost, returns to their God, when the circle is complete.
Peace,
Bryant+
