Rev. Molly Phinney Baskette ~ First Church Somerville
Sunday, May 25, 2008 ~ Third Sunday in Pentecost
Numbers 1:1-19 and Matthew 1:1-17
"Numbered"
Whatever you take away from worship today, I want you to remember this: we
are each of us of infinite worth. We have names, we have stories, we have
loves and hopes and disappointments. We are beautiful and unique, and God
loves us limitlessly, even knowing full well all our flaws. We are each of
us of infinite worth.
When Peter and I lived in Mexico, we shared the orphanage compound where we
lived with an American named Herbie. Or, in Spanish, Herrrrrbie. There were,
generally speaking, two kinds of volunteers who peopled the Casa San Jose at
the time. The first class were bright-eyed, idealistic young things who
arrived with visions of social justice dancing in their heads, and who left
after 6 months deeply disappointed that Mexico had resisted their best
efforts to fix it. The second type were oddballs, usually older folks who
had worked for decades, seen a lot of life, and were either running from
someone or looking for something they hadn't found yet.
Herbie was of the latter class of volunteers. He was a hardworking plumber
from Tennessee who put in a lot of time on the Casa's Byzantine pipes. He
was also a cancer survivor, who was divorced with three grown daughters.
What he longed for, above anything, was a son. His daughters had sons but
that didn't matter; his family name would still die out when his cancer
returned, as he felt it inevitably would. He couldn't bear the thought of
his name being gone from the world, just because he was. He took up with a
sweet young Mexican woman, a single mother of a beautiful 3-year-old girl,
and gave her a home and the legitimacy of marriage. Within 6 months, they
were pregnant. With a daughter.
We are each of us of infinite worth. And none of us will be remembered
forever.
The fourth book of the Bible is called, in Greek and English, Numbers. It is
called Numbers because one distinct feature of it is its tendency to make
venerable lists of people and things. The book opens with a 47-verse
recitation of all the Israelite tribes of men over the age of 20. Numbers,
as you might guess, was not a bestseller. It has never been a breakaway hit
amongst the books of the Bible. In fact, the Padre, the patriarch of the
aforementioned orphanage where Peter and I lived, used to assign to
misbehaving orphans the task of hand-copying 5 chapters of the book of
Numbers. Which of course, instilled in them an abiding love of scripture.
But Numbers is important, in the way that all of our memorabilia is
important to us. Each of us has a shelf on a closet in our home, or a whole
closet, or a room or basement or a house, devoted to things we can't get rid
of because these things feel like such a part of us. How do we throw
ourselves away? How do we throw away these pieces of the people we love,
especially those who have died? We know these are just things, but somehow,
some value is attached to them, and it becomes impossible to let them go.
I've heard some of you say that for you, Memorial Day is not only an
opportunity to recall those who died in the course of wars our country has
fought. For you, it is a sort of all saints' day, a time to remember anyone
who has gone before us into that good night.
The 47-verse list of which you heard 19 verses this morning is a list of
people who are already dead. We're hearing the names of ghosts: these were
the men who were fit for battle. Israel would face many enemies during the
40 years they spent wandering in the wilderness, waiting to walk into their
own country where they could be free people. And it is likely that many of
them did die in battle. But they also died of disease, or were struck down
by jealous rivals, or died of plain old age. They weren't all heroes,
dashing and noble. And still, every one of them, precious to God.
Of the tens of thousands of people who walked out of Egypt and crossed the
Red Sea to live in the wilderness, only two made it all the way to the
Promised Land. Joshua, who took over leadership from Moses, and Caleb, which
[like Jen Purves' new cat], means Man of Faith. We are told this is
intentional: the former slaves just couldn't stop thinking like slaves, and
kept casting longing glances over their shoulders toward Egypt, toward the
nation that had oppressed them for so many years. Only the next generation,
the one born into freedom, even freedom in a wilderness, would know what to
do with the Promised Land. But it is not the next generation who is named
here, and remembered. Numbers seems to be saying: even though you did not
make it, even though there is nothing to mark you outwardly as successful,
you are precious in the eyes of God, and worthy of being remembered.
The Hebrew name for the book of Numbers is The Wilderness, and I often think
that church is a kind of wilderness in which we are wandering. Churches are
not models of organizational efficiency. Churches have changed the world,
but generally have not done it in a very tight time frame or with great
economy of resources. An example: the houses that churches build in Florida
for Habitat for Humanity usually withstand category IV hurricanes, but it is
because they use about 3 times the number of nails strictly necessary if one
knows what one is doing in house-building.
But there are things we do that secular non-profits don't do, that private
corporations won't do, that the government can't do, that churches and the
people in them do really well.
Like last February, just shy of Valentine's Day, when Mary Aitken, one of
our elders, passed away. We had sort of been expecting Mary to die for
years, since she first became bedridden and went into the nursing home. But
she hung on. Mary was one of those who had not a shelf in a closet but a
whole house full of memorabilia that held great value for her. Much of it
came with her into the nursing home, and visiting her was like visiting a
Teddy Bear Street Bazaar in some touchy-feely developing country.
Mary had no family left when she died. She was an only child who had lost
her father young, who was more or less dissuaded from marrying so that she
could take care of her aging mother. Hard for my generation to comprehend
this, but so it was. This means that she died alone. The church got the
phone call that if someone didn't come down within two days, all of her
things would go in the dumpster.
Dibbie and Barbara, two of her friends, and Ben and Ian, two of her young
brothers in Christ, mobilized to pick up her things. Reverently, they stowed
some in our church, and just as reverently, threw other things away. Then we
gave her a beautiful funeral, and we put some of her teddy bears on the
altar, and sang her favorite songs, and ate a lot of Hershey's kisses, which
is exactly what she would have had us do. And her friends, thirtysomething
men and eightysomething women, stood on shaky legs and said true and loving
things about this woman, who without us, disorganized and inefficient as we
are, would have no one to remember aloud that Mary Aitken was a being of
infinite worth.
I'll tell you what the church is good at. Recognizing the value of every
human being. It doesn't matter if you never had children, if you don't leave
any money behind, if you're not funny or smart or successful according to
the world's ways. We know that everyone matters.
The orphan.
The widow.
The immigrant.
The homeless guy.
The depressed one.
The prisoner.
The hurricane or earthquake victim.
There is importance in giving people a name, even when their numbers are
immense. How many old women are there who will die without anybody to
eulogize them? How many human beings of Chinese and Tibetan stock died in
the earthquake in Sichuan province this month? How many people died in
Myanmar, in the typhoon last week?
How many Iraqi civilians have we lost since the war began?
I'll tell you.
In Sichuan Province, 71,000. In Iraq, 91,713. In Myanmar, 134,000. If you
are curious, Myanmar lost, per capita, about 400 times the number of people
that we lost in Hurricane Katrina. The numbers are so immense we can't begin
to wrap our heads around the tragedy. But when we can hear some names, it
takes on a human scale, one we can relate to and mourn.
So I went to look for some of their names on the Internet this week. I
couldn't find them. In our global village, we're good at getting they story
out, but in the media we still talk in terms of volume and mass. Even on the
website Iraqbodycount.org, most of the dead, especially women and children,
were not identified by name.
There is someone in your life who needs to be remembered, who needs their
name called out. Perhaps they are gone; perhaps they are still with you. [go
to the table] From the rubble of Mary Aitken's long life, Barbara and
Dibbie rescued a mirror. Here it is. You'll see that the nursing home staff
scrawled her name across the top.
During the prayers, you will have an opportunity to pass by the communion
table, to look in Mary Aitken's mirror, and see yourself. Someday, you, too,
will be forgotten. One question is: while you are remembered, what would
you like to be remembered for?
Another question is: who do you need to remember today? Whose name should
not be forgotten yet? I invite you to light a candle for them and speak
their name into the microphone as you pass by.
We won't be remembered forever, but one small thing the Body of Christ does
in the meantime is: Remember those who otherwise might be forgotten. Tell
their name and their story. The Body of Christ also proclaims that there is
One who will never, ever forget any one of us, in whose eyes every penniless
elderly orphan and every broken body under the rubble and every civilian
killed in a war not of their making is a being of infinite worth.
Hear now some names of those precious to God:
From Myanmar:
Ohn Myint, Aye Aye
Kyaw Thein, Khin Khin
Zaw Moe Aung, Su Su
Wai Yan, Waine Waine
Maung Maung, Pa Pa
Thurain, Thidar
Naing Aung, Nandar
From China:
Chen Wen
Lin Zhi
Huang Yi
Li Ya
Zhang Ming
Wu Hui
Wang Hong
Chen Liu
From First Congregational Church of Somerville, United Church of Christ, who
served in World War II:
[posted on the wall]
US Soldiers killed in the war in Iraq:
Branden Haunert
Victor Cota
Jessica Ellis
Joseph Ford
Mary Jaenichen
Alex Gonzalez
Corey Hicks
Casey Casanova
Miguel Guzman
Glen Martinez
Iraqi civilians killed in the war:
Sawki Raad
Abbas Fadhil
Naheyat Ghamas
Infant Son of Nur Muhammad
Mona Ajaj
Mohammed Shakir Mahmoud
Najim Abdullah
Sons of Munaf al-Azzawi
Al Qadissiyah
Ali Hassan
Damien plays Taps on trumpet.
