First Presbyterian Church of Watertown

Malachi 3 and Luke 3

“Hurry up and be Happy Already”

The Rev. Dr. Fred G. Garry

December 10, 2006

A cast iron skillet is a lovely thing. It cooks too hot in places, is demanding in terms of cleaning and care, and it weighs a ton making it hard to handle. A cast iron skillet is hot to touch- I’ve burned myself numerous times by grabbing the handle forgetting it is as hot as the cooking surface. In spite of these things I wouldn’t be without one.

My devotion is two fold. First, a cast iron skillet requires attention. I have other skillets that conduct heat much more evenly and thus can be managed with a timer. But with cast iron, your eye is the best. The recipe might call for two minutes or four minutes of cooking time, but in a cast iron skillet those are more along the way of suggestions than guidelines. Some parts of the skillet will cook much faster, others slower, so you have to always be watching and moving things around.

The other reason why I love cast iron is my grandmother. My grandmother cooked everything on a cast iron skillet. I can still see her standing in front of her small stove cooking food until it was tough and dry. Well done implied many things it would seem to her. But the sights and smells of her with that cast iron skillet are a part of me.

When she gave me her skillet it was partly to concede she no longer wanted to cook except with a microwave; but there was also a sense of sharing joy with me. And I enjoyed that skillet. I used it until it began to fall apart. Cast iron will not last forever if it is used a lot. The iron is porous and it will start to crumble or as my second one did, break into pieces.

The porous quality of the iron is its weakness, but also its strength. What is cooked in the skillet remains even after cleaning; something gets inside the pan itself. I found a great deal of comfort thinking that what I was cooking was part of what my grandmother cooked. My second skillet was given to me by a dear friend. Her name is Billie, and after my grandmother’s skillet started to crumble she gave me hers and I used that one until it broke.

For the last two years I have been seasoning my new skillet. It is the best excuse I have to cook bacon. As I cook with it, though, I have an eye to give it away. I know the joy of my home being connected to Billie and my grandmother and I love that sense of it being more than me. It would be lovely to see that skillet in my children’s home. Maybe.

A cast iron skillet, though, is all about seeing. I have to look at the food, keep an eye on it; I also see beyond myself, I see my family and loved ones- even ones I can’t see anymore.

There is a wonderful Frank Capra movie called "You Can’t Take it with You." The story is about a grandfather who is being pressured to sell his home to make way for progress. The man who wants to buy his whole neighborhood, though, has a son and that son just happened to fall in love with his granddaughter. In predictable Capra fashion everything gets resolved, but there is one key moment near the end I will never forget. The grandfather is sitting with his granddaughter. She is weeping and blaming herself for all their problems. Finally, the grandfather explained his reluctance to sell his house.

It had nothing to do with you he comforts her. It was about your grandmother. You as long as I am here, I am still with her. I know she is gone, but she is also here. I can still hear her voice or think she will come around the corner at any moment. I just wasn’t ready to lose that too.

Bricks and mortar is all the building truly was. It was not hallowed or historical or architecturally significant. Yet, the house was a sense of presence; a house was the fabric of memory and the spirit in which he dwelled. It was something more- the creaking floors and stubborn windows of the old house were a balm soothing the grief of losing his wife.

I moved through these images the last few weeks after receiving word from our friend in Malawi, Grace. Grace is the woman who runs the malaria clinic in Ekwendeni and the leader of the choir we are trying to bring to the U.S. this July. Her email started with the usual Malawian pleasantries, but then she shared her dilemma. She was cleaned out by her in-laws. As is the custom, her in-laws felt entitled to everything she owned after her husband died. So one morning they simply pulled up with a truck and emptied her house of furnishings and belongings. She wrote, “We are on a mat, Fred.”

When I heard of this my mind careened down a path of conflicting emotions and thoughts. One was that it’s just stuff; it’s stuff that can be replaced; and yet it is stuff that is probably seasoned with memories and moments of her family and her daughter and so on. It was a painful thought knowing I sat on the couch her in-laws took with them.

Another emotion that was quick to surface was the desire to fix it. We can help her replace all the things. We can and I believe will do this, yet the things were not her greatest loss. There is a loss of spirit when people are treated with such greed. Replacing her furniture may give Grace and her daughter a place to sleep, but peace may not be easily replaced. A part of me knows as faithful as Grace is her belief in the goodness of the community and people were brought pretty low. To be so powerless in the face of such greed, to watch people empty your house and know there are neighbors and friends who could stand up for you and they let this pass is devastating.

How we see people, see people beyond ourselves to the whole, is not a common concern. Our culture is so ready to define all things, and see all things from the vantage of the individual its hard to remember how we live as a community makes a difference. As I wrote these words I wondered if anyone would believe them or if they would simply be recast for the individual. Something like, “How I am seen in the community does make a difference.” I am trying to see and convey the opposite: how people look at the whole makes a difference.

Such an obtuse vision was part of the wisdom a Malawian missionary shared with me last week. First she told me that Grace’s plight is common for widows in Malawi. It is shameful and terrible, but accepted. And then she said, be careful Fred, if you just replace Grace’s things she will no longer fit in her community. She will become a target and people will pressure her to ask you to do something for them. Grace will be hounded with requests from others demanding she ask you for money on their behalf.

The missionary’s name is Nancy Dimmock, and Nancy said, “What if we set up a widow’s fund to which Grace can apply and receive help. In that way she can receive some help yet she is still part of her community. Let the church be the one who brings help and not rich Americans.”

As Nancy spoke I knew I was receiving a great lesson in what it means to see the bigger picture; and in this instance it was a great lesson in what it means to be salvation. Salvation for Grace is not a new couch. Salvation, for things to be made right, is to see her community as caring, to see the world as kind, to believe that greed is not the defining factor. And this vision of salvation is what it means to be the church. This is what John the Baptist was crying in the desert and Malachi offered with fuller’s soap and refiner’s fire. Salvation was to be seen, they said, and it came first in the Christ and then in the church. John the Baptist and Malachi were not trying to suggest the Jewish community would have better stuff or even a better life. The coming of redemption, the coming of salvation was about how people look at life itself, at other, and the world.

We don’t remember this. And most importantly, we don’t see this as who we are. The church is the body of Christ, the visible form of the resurrected Lord, the word in the flesh as Christ lives in us. Each one of us, individually, is not this. The church is something more we become as we gather, as we pray and sing, as we worship and fellowship. We are this appearance today.

At some point, though, many people have convinced themselves that this vision is no longer important or necessary. And so churches have started to dwindle and fade. They are dying because we no longer understand the power of people seeing salvation in their midst. You need to know that every time you leave your house and worship someone sees, someone wonders. In the same way, every time we are in the community, every dollar dinner, every story of Mexico, every recounting of Mississippi, every time the bells ring or the organ plays someone is seeing salvation. Their vision of the world and people and goodness is changing.

You are the sight of salvation. When people see you walk into worship or go to lunch on a Sunday in a suit or a nice dress, they think for just a moment “People worship, people pray.” Is this the end of our witness? No. Like the Baptist and Malachi, it is only a beginning.

The next step of salvation is the gift, the friendship, the care of the church. This is what Grace and other widows will hopefully receive. And if we set up a widow’s crisis fund for Grace and others to receive some help with their new beds and chairs will come a question: people care for me . . . is this what life means? Is this what my community truly is? Can we be the body of Christ, salvation for one another?

I believe that is why I love the stewardship campaign. I give the credit to Bob and session for taking the risk, but I give the praise to Christ. For there is praise to offer here. The praise is in the question: we know we can give money and time and effort, but can we give the church away? I love this question as it changes the whole playing field. As Bob said in his letter we know you are faithful in giving your money, but can we be faithful as a church giving this hope to others?

We are the church- something beyond ourselves, something bringing salvation to the world. Are we worthy of being such; are we faithful to this call? No. But we are getting there. Every time we make a way for others, each time we say to someone come to church with me, we are getting closer. We get closer each time someone comes and finds hope, finds peace.

I will be asking the session to use our Joy offering on Christmas Eve to set up a widow’s fund in Mzuzu, Malawi. I have all confidence that it will change the circumstances Grace is facing. This is good. What is better, though, is if in our gift we create a moment of hope, a moment where someone goes from despair to joy. For this is what salvation means- to let go of fear or a sense of being less and finding power to stand again in the body of Christ, to look around you and believe your community and life is redeemed; it is made good again. Amen.