Joy and Peace and Believing in the Wilderness
“May the God of hope fill you with such joy and peace in believing, in your faith, that you may abound with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” — Romans 15:13
My late cousin was a fine Irish Catholic woman. Her name was Roseanna Genevieve McCool.
She was, technically, of my grandfather’s generation, despite being closer to my father in age. As a consequence, in terms of my family structure and how it operated, she was much more a matriarch or a grandmother figure than a cousin.
Rose— she was commonly called Rose— was the daughter of Irish immigrants and was born in 1911. She grew up on South Third Street in Brooklyn, just two blocks from the waterfront on the East River. This is the Williamsburg section of the borough but on the northern end, close to Greenpoint, a German neighborhood in that era.
By the time I was a young boy, Rose and the rest of the clan had moved a further inland, to Bushwick— still in Brooklyn— then later again to Queens. The parish to which Rose belonged in those early years, also on South Third Street, was the Church of Saints Peter and Paul. The parish still exists.
I have distinct, I might even label them as fond memories, of Rose telling me about her childhood, telling me how her father owned a couple of horses and a wagon and moved freight for local stores. She told me about a time she was frightened silly by a run-away horse. From that point on, despite her father’s work and much to his embarrassment, she was afraid of horses.
Among those memories that she offered were ones of life at that parish church. Her mother, to make extra money, took in laundry and also did the laundry for the priests at the church. So Rose probably was privy to a lot of scuttlebutt.
Now, of course, by the time I came on the scene and Rose was telling me these recollections of her childhood, things at the church in Williamsburg were not in good shape as far as she was concerned. And, believe me, she had been back to the church and had seen it. She knew all about the changes.
They had changed the inside of the church building around. How dare they? They had taken out some of the stained glass windows. How dare they? And they were using unfamiliar music. How dare they?
Indeed, they were using the whole facility, including the church hall and grammar school, in ways which were different than when she was a child. How dare they?
Besides, both the church and the neighborhood had been overrun by immigrants— twice! The first wave was simply terrible. [Soto voce.]: (They were Italians.) Then— and this refers to that depressing period known as the 1970s— Hispanics moved in. (Slight pause.)
All this change upset her deeply. What was her angst about? In many ways her key and only question was: ‘why could it not be like it was when I was a child?’ (Slight pause.)
And these words are from the work known as Romans: “May the God of hope fill you with such joy and peace in believing, in your faith, that you may abound with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” (Slight pause.)
Perhaps what got me thinking about Rose and her feeling devastated by changes at her childhood church was a statistic I came across last week. Now, please remember, Rose was born of English speaking immigrant parents in 1911. And the late 19th and early 20th Century was an intense period of immigration in this country.
Also, while in that era the prayers of Mass in the Roman Church were recited in Latin, aside from those prayers, whole sections of the service were conducted in the vernacular of those who attended. The statistic I found was this: according to the United States Census Bureau in 1906 there were 4,711 Catholic Parishes in America with 6.3 million people where the parts of the Mass not in Latin were spoken in the vernacular.
The vernacular was— take your choice depending on the parish— Polish or Lithuanian or German or Italian, etc., etc., etc. By 1916 the number had grown to 6,076 parishes. In short, in 57% of churches, or way more than half of all the Catholic parishes in America, a language other than English was the dominant tongue. [1]
These immigrants had left their native land, left their roots. It’s likely they felt as if they were in a desert, in the wilderness. So they sought to find some assurance in familiar things— in this case a church where their native language was spoken. (Slight pause.)
I tend to pay attention to news out of New York City. The Williamsburg section of Brooklyn is now becoming gentrified, upscale. Indeed, if you log on to the web site of the Parish of Saints Peter and Paul, they no longer have masses just in Spanish, as it was back in the 1970s. Serving the mix in a changing neighborhood, they have gone from having masses only in Spanish to having masses in both English and Spanish. (Slight pause.)
There are many reasons to feel disconnected. Certainly one is being disconnected from a heritage. Most often that disconnect is imposed on us by change or by migration or by captivity.
It is easy to see how disconnected the Jews might have felt when the Prophet Isaiah writes, since the Jews are held captive in Babylon. They feel as if they are in a desert, in the wilderness.
It is, perhaps, not as easy for us to understand that there is a disconnect for Paul. But that’s because we tend to view the era in which Paul lived as a time when somehow, magically the entire Mediterranean Basin converted to Christianity.
In fact, most historians believe by the year 100 of the Common Era, some thirty-five years after Paul died, there are still less than 10,000 Christians in the world. Historians also say that in the year 315, when Christianity becomes the official religion of the Roman Empire, less than 10% of the population of the Roman Empire is Christian.
Paul, in fact, faces a reality: this is a small group and it will not get much bigger in the near term. Still, despite a small size and slow growth, the Apostle writes about... hope and joy and peace and believing and the Holy Spirit. You see, neither Second Isaiah nor Paul is self delusional. They both know a thing or two about the wilderness, the desert. (Slight pause.)
So, what about us? What do we, who live in a culture which gives an appearance of being a Christian culture, know about the wilderness, the desert?
Indeed, we are in the Season of Advent, presumably a season of waiting to celebrate the birth of the Messiah. But what does our culture known about waiting? The day after Halloween, I saw a Christmas Tree set up in a retail outlet. (Slight pause.)
I think the Season of Advent, this season of waiting, captures the so called ‘Spirit of Christmas’ better than the celebrations of the dominant culture. How so? (Slight pause.) After all, we know the Messiah has come, don’t we? ‘Joy to the world’ and all that stuff— right?
But what message did the Messiah bring? (Slight pause.) The message the Messiah brings is that the Dominion of God is at hand, the Dominion of God is near.
So, if we are not self delusional, we should readily understand that we are in the wilderness, in the desert, right now. How? Why?
We are in the wilderness not because of changes to church buildings or the taking out of stained glass windows or the use unfamiliar music. These may be things about which we are nostalgic but these are all quite temporary.
You see, the promise of the Dominion says we will live in a world where the hungry are fed always, the homeless find shelter always, the sick have access to healthcare always. And the Dominion of God being near is a real world promise toward which we are invited, by God, to work.
The Dominion of God, you see, is a promise. It is forwarding looking, filled with anticipation. Put differently, the Dominion of God is not about nostalgia.
And nostalgia is a hard nut to crack. After all, I hear the new Yankee Stadium is better than the old one and I know Shea Stadium was a pit. But Babe Ruth will never swing a bat in the new park and The Beatles will never rock Citi Field.
As a congregation, I know we strive to head in the direction of the Dominion, toward the Dominion. After all, we did coordinate the Thanksgiving Turkey Basket Drive which distributed 483 baskets with 205 going out our door.
So, I think we do know about joy and peace and believing in the wilderness— and joy and peace and believing in the wilderness does have to do with this Season of Advent. But it has to do with nothing temporary, nothing about which we might become nostalgic. It has to do with the Dominion of God— the Dominion of God, where joy and peace and hope and love are both eternal and fulfilled. And that’s the place toward which we are working. Amen.
United Church of Christ, First Congregational, Norwich, New York
ENDPIECE: It is the practice of the Pastor to speak after the Closing Hymn, but before the Benediction. This, then, is an précis of what the pastor said before the blessing: “Composer Ned Rorem said, ‘Music is the sole art which evokes nostalgia for the future.’ I agree but I might add that Scripture also evokes nostalgia for the future.”
BLESSING: Let us be present to one another as we go from this place. Let us share our gifts, our hopes, our memories, our pain and our joy. Go in peace for God is with us. Go in joy for God knows every fiber of our being. Go in hope for God reveals to us, daily, that we are a part of God’s new creation. Go in love, for we rest assured, by Christ, Jesus, that God is steadfast. And may the peace of God which surpasses understanding be with us this day and forevermore. Amen.
[1] Page 297, American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us; by Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell; Simon and Schuster; New York 2010.
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