Homily

James R. Kruse

Richard R. Caemmerer, Jr. Memorial

Grace Lutheran Church, Wenatchee, WA

Sermon Hymn: Love Divine, All Love Excelling

Ephesians 3:14-19

    It was a crisp late October morning in 1971, my freshman year atValparaiso University. I needed to make the long hike from Weherenberg Hall to Old Campus in 15 minutes or less if I was going to make my 9 am “Intro to Psych” class. I was moving quickly across the parking lot from Dau-Kreinheder to Mound Street, when a man crossed just in front of me moving at the same pace,

but in the opposite direction. The man was wearing a “Joseph’s” coat, a colorful coat with long sleeves. A hat of similar style was resting on top of his long dark hair like a crown. He was tall, with long slender arms and legs that he unfolded and folded at a steady gait that brought to mind an adolescent Great Dane at the end of its leash—fast enough to get everything moving properly, but not fast enough to attain the intentionality of its athletic frame. His head and eyes were

fixed straight ahead, lost in the imagination of his thoughts.

    The man with the crown disappeared to the east, and I was off to class searching for a place to put this curiosity among all the other curiosities that a newly arrived freshman encounters during the first few days on campus.

    An hour and a half later, I was again out of breath, and five minutes late to Daily Chapel. I found a seat in the third and last pew of the small worship space that had been carved out of the middle of the massive hall simply by rearranging the furniture. I placed my books and coat to the side and looked up. The man with the crown was sitting a free-throw’s distance across from me in a chair next to the reading desk. He was listening intently to the voice of a bright young woman who had clearly been recruited on her way in to present the scripture for the day. “The Word of the Lord,” she confidently proclaimed. “Thanks be to God,” we barked back.

    The man with the crown unfolded his arms and his legs and took his position. Before he spoke, he looked in my direction through heavy glasses in such a way that I could not tell if he was looking for me or if he was looking through me. His words carried the exact same weight, except that now it was clear, he was looking both for me and through me at the same time.

    I wanted desperately to see what he was seeing.

    I could not look away.

    There is so much in life that is necessary. Compassionate parents and caretakers are necessary. Peacemakers are necessary. Just government is necessary. Bridges that stay up and sewage that stays down are necessary. Driving a nail with a hammer instead of a crescent wrench is necessary. Putting the gas into the tractor’s gas tank instead of the oil reservoir is necessary. These things are important and need our wisdom and care.

    But when we get caught up in that which is necessary, our reach shortens. We slash through the beauty of the forests for logs and cabins and tracks for our machines. When that which is before us is always that which we have made for ourselves, our imagination atrophies. We clog the rivers and lakes and seas with dams and boats and floating fish factories. When the Garden we were given to play in is replaced by the world that our necessity has built, our vision narrows. We use the light of the sun to identify our vacation destinations and to darken our skin.

    The face of Jesus fades from detection. We are left to a world of our own making.

    And yet, for some reason, the scarred mountains and hills continue their song. The abandoned fields applaud because we have forgotten how. The exploited sun emerges, announcing a resurrection in spite of itself. The stars give witness to a fullness of glory that is beyond our ability to spoil. The broken and lost go on, confident in God’s presence and care.

    The Christ of God is not dead, but has been raised to a fresh new day. And we are baptized into this Wondrous Grace. If there is much in life that is necessary, then there is that much more in life that is unnecessary. If the world can get along without it, and it is there anyway – If your day would have turned out the same whether it had been there or not, and you run into it anyway – then it is of God. If everything there is was brought into being out of nothing at all – then it is there out of the imagination of God. If dust from the floor of what has been made has been scooped up, and animated by the Spirit that surpasses time and space – then it is from the Love of God.

    And if the Love of God is going to do something so foolish as to enter into this vast work to lead the fullness of all things into and through the death of all things, safely to other side – then this is the presence of the Christ of God, and it is essential.

    The brushes are now set aside for good. The pigments are all capped or, if not, rapidly drying. The pens and fine paper will soon be divvied up. The canvases are what they are, and what they will always be, unedited for the rest of time.

    But the forest is still there, as are the flowers of the field. The rivers and lakes and waterfalls and steams and seas are still there, as they have always been. The sun comes up with brand new light every morning. The stars have been recharged for another long night.

    The face of Jesus is still there, waiting to be found, waiting to be found out.

    You have work to do. And so do I.

    You who are poets and preachers, you must look for what is essential, and when you find it, you must see through it. You must know it completely. Not one word until you do!

    You who are potters and weavers and brewers and bakers, you must raid the abundant faithfulness of the poor and distressed, and you must give away your plunder.

    You who are teachers and dancers and image-makers of all kinds, you must explore the breadth and length and height and depth of the unnecessary Love of God, and you must show the rest of us what you find.

    You who are lovers and hikers and singers of songs, you must find your crown. And you must put it on. You are the undeniable, irreplaceable, unrepeatable, and essentially unnecessary handiwork of God. And you must show the rest of us what you are looking at. What do you see?

    When I arrived at the house on Wednesday afternoon, ten days ago, Kathy, you invited me into the studio and together we looked at the painting in progress on the easel. “We don’t know about the circle,” you said. “And there is also a circle in the other painting,” referring to a recently completed painting that was hung in the Front Room at the end of the hallway, opposite the studio.

    Throughout the rest of the day we all sang together several times:

“Changed from glory into glory,

‘till in heaven we take our place,

‘till we cast our crowns before thee,

lost in wonder, love and praise.”

    Two days later, on Friday, the circle and the singing were on my mind as I turned onto Beaver Valley Road heading into Plain. I found a moment when the Front Room of the house was so full of life that I could wander into the studio undetected to peek again. This is what I saw:

    I saw that the man with the crown was being offered a place around the Sea of Glass alongside the 24 Elders of Revelation 4. He was preparing to take his place before the Source of Glory that he had spent a lifetime wandering and wondering through. Lost in the wonder, love and praise, he was seeing for the first time the Greater Glory.

    The man with the crown was laying his crown down. Down amidst the flowers and trees that he loved so much, encircling the water that gave him life, the baptismal water that gave him life again.

    This is what I see. What do you see?

    This world may not have been that much different had Richard R. Caemmerer Jr. not traveled through it. But we would have known the world very differently. We would not have been able to see what is now so clear. We would not have cared about what we now know to be essential.