The Rev. Fred G. Garry - October 21, 2001
Texts: Jeremiah 31 and Luke 18 Babe Ramsey was a slight, demure woman
in her nineties. When I met Babe, her real name was Lavina, she
was deep in a persistent grief, having lost her beloved husband,
Hartmont, seven years before. Throughout Babe's adult life there
had always been plenty. Although born into poor beginnings, she
had married an enterprising businessman who ran the town's grocery
story for fifty years. Babe and Hartmont had one son, Dean. Dean
was very successful as well. Making his career in landscape architecture,
he had seen the world and done quite well. He and his wife lived
three miles away from Babe and always had.
The only chink in the armor of this American
dream is that Babe and Dean could never seem to speak a civil
word to the other. Psychologists could have spent a host of hours
conjecturing upon their relationship. My conclusion was that
they just didn't get along. Dean had no patience for Babe, and
Babe had no patience for Dean. Their arguments were public, vociferous,
and memorable. For most of their lives, this relationship was
kept to low simmer by different circles, different churches,
and different schedules. Yet as Babe's health declined and her
age accumulated, it fell to Dean to be her caregiver.
Much to Dean's exasperation his mother
was fit as a fiddle. Her house was neat as a pin and she still
had a driver's license. Beneath these appearances though were
some real problems. Babe was fit but she experienced small strokes
all day long and thus she had no short-term memory. Her house
was neat, but there was nothing to eat and Babe truly couldn't
remember is she had eaten or not. Most problematic was Babe's
driving. Babe drove her car everyday and parents warned their
children to be on the lookout. She would simply pull out into
to busy streets when she was ready to go. Each Sunday after church
the sound of screeching brakes was followed, Babe's on her way
home. She was close to Mr. McGoo.
I was called in one afternoon by Dean
to referee. He told me, "its time to take the car away from
mother." I assumed there would be fireworks and I wasn't
disappointed. Entering the house Dean and Babe were going full
tilt and the latter was clutching the car keys. This was the
normal form of communication and neither one was giving an inch.
Mostly dean would try to offer "rational" arguments
and Babe would say, "you can't talk to me that way."
This went on for quite some time. As I sat and listened I was
overwhelmed by their persistence and orneriness. I was also struck
by the sad choices each one had made. Neither one was giving
in, nor had they ever. Each one was right and that was all that
mattered.
Finally I interrupted and asked Babe
if it was all right if I spoke to Dean alone in the garage for
a moment. With her consent the two of us adjourned to the source
of the current conflict. Looking to the car Dean said, "the
crazy thing is, it doesn't even run. Hasn't run for a month.
It needs to be repaired." "Dean," I began, "I
want you to do a number of things for me." Dean nodded.
"First I want you to be quiet when we go back in."
He winced but nodded again. Second I want you to take the battery
out of your mother's car. Third, I do not want you to ever discuss
her car with her again. And last, proceed with the schedule of
care you have worked out. Babe will have everything she needs
and will get everywhere she needs to go that way. Agreed,"
I said. "Agreed," he replied.
Returning to the kitchen table I asked
Babe, "tell me what you did today." "Today,"
she said, "well I went to the post office and then to the
store. After putting away my groceries I went to the bank and
then Dean came." "Mother," Dean exploded!"
I quickly gave him a look and waved my hand in the air as if
to say, "be quiet." Next I asked Babe how she had gotten
to all of these places. "I drove of course. That's silly,
how would I get to all those places? You know you can be very
silly," she said. To this I agreed. "Well," I
said, "I need to go. Babe it was good seeing you. Dean will
walk me out." On the porch I made Dean repeat his promise.
This promise worked until Babe's health required full-time care.
Everyday Babe was happy in the knowledge she had won, her car
was right there. And Dean was content knowing the battery was
in his garage.
I can't say I have ever met a more exasperating
couple than Dean and Babe. If one said up the other would not
only say, but shout, down. They were both nice people, good people
with many friends. But together they were worse than any bad
marriage. It was a great irony that the saving grace in this
instance was the persistence of strokes. It was though. For Babe
would have driven that car fill the wheels fell off had she thought
it would have goaded her son. Had it been anyone else, she may
have stopped driving years before.
Persistence is an interesting thing.
Most everyone I meet is persistent in some fashion. I know people
who are persistent in anger. Anger has a way of deluding the
angry into years of self-fulfilling ruin. I have known people
who don't feel they're doing the right thing unless they fell
and persist in anger. Persistence is also present in denial.
Often we call this, burying your head in the sand, or not looking
at reality. I am sure you know of someone who persists in a kind
of fantasy or delusion. Teenagers can persist in delusion better
than anyone can. Yet most of them come by such habits honestly,
the fruit is not far from the tree.
There is persistence in doubt. You all
know someone like this. Some call it pessimism or gloominess.
Everything is a threat, a problem, and a calamity. Nothing is
ever quite right. If an evening is lovely, these are the ones
who remember the misstep, the faux pas. Persistence in sadness
is close at hand to this. Some call this depression. We have
all had someone say, "I am sad and I just can't shake it.
I just can't seem to move on."
This is not to suggest that these states
of persistence lack good reasons or motives. There can be truly
important reasons for people to persist. Like guilt. Guilt is
something people can persist in for years. Something happened,
didn't happen, happened in the wrong way, or the wrong time,
and the result is a fingering feeling of guilt. Since we have
the powerful truth of repentance and forgiveness in the church,
we are immune to such feelings. There is no one here who has
ever persisted in guilt. We have just heard people have.
Today we read the parable of the persistent
widow. Traditionally, as the first verse indicates, this parable
has been associated with prayer. Persist in prayer! I have heard
sermons on that before. Yet, what strikes me most about this
passage is not the notion of prayer, but the simple truth of
persistence coupled with the hope of change. The widow wanted
something and she persisted to implore until she was granted
justice. Her life changed for the better. What strikes me most
here is how close this is to a basic truth of our everyday: we
persist, and hope for what is better. In fact, I believe that
prayer in this instance can take our eyes away from the real
issue of the parable found in its concluding question. The real
issue is how we persist?
Many people have gone to great lengths
to extol the persistent character of the human soul. We can suffer,
endure, and keep going. We are persistent people. In our world
we could look to the widow and say she had gumption, she was
a stick to it person, a person with resolve. All these are true.
To some degree we have all walked a similar path as the widow
in the parable. The question though is, how have we walked it?
Here is where the parable takes on some
teeth. You see, it is far easier to be like Dean and Babe, to
persist in anger orneriness, than to persist in patience and
kindness. It is easier to persist in doubt or denial than it
is to persist in hope. Dean and Babe weren't comical and tragic
because they were unique. They were these things because they
were close to life.
I read a story recently about a woman
named Jeannie. Jeannie was a widow in her late seventies who
had recently lost her husband, Arnie, of fifty-two years. Their
life had been a charmed one of mutual dependence and love. They
were as sometimes happens two part of one person. At his passing
Jeannie was lost and lost in grief. Each day was painful. She
said, "when I wake up in the morning I remember I lost Arnie
and all starts again." Jeannie was persisting in grief.
And she had reasons for doing so, as her loss was great.
Close to a year after his death, though,
she received a knock at her front door. It was the two-year-old
boy who lived next door, Troy. The boy asked Jeannie if he could
come in. Jeannie let him in and called his mother who was glad
for the call, but distressed her two-year-old had wandered outside
without her knowing in a Nebraska winter. Jeannie asked if he
could stay, and Troy did for two hours.
From that day forward a ritual began.
Each day Troy would come over, usually in boots and a cowboy
hat and stay for a few hours. Cookies were shared as well as
stories until it was time for the young boy to go home. As Jeannie
followed Troy around, she began to "forget her pain."
Later she would say, "Troy pulled me back into the world.
He helped me see that the best thing is that life goes on."
Life goes on, and I would add, it can
get better. What Jeannie experienced was like the widow, a reprieve
from her suffering. The reprieve though came with persistence.
Each day the boy came and thus persistently helped her overcome
her pain. You see, we are all persistent, but the question is
how?
Is there something in your life you want
to be better, different, fixed, made right? How are you persisting?
Anger, guilt, bitterness, apathy, or pessimism? These can bring
changes to your life (and the life of others) by your persistence
But not changes for the better. This is the key to the parable.
We are all persistent people who want things to get better. Yet
how we persist determines, more times than not, what change will
occur. Babe and Dean live a lifetime of persistent anger and
in the end it brought them nothing but heartache and silly measures.
In the end the good was not something could find or make together,
only apart. How do you persist? Is there something you want to
make better, to be made right? Remember the parable of the persistent
widow. It was not the matters of the case that changed the judge's
mind; it was her persistence. Persistence brings change. Yet
what kind of change is a different matter. If you are going to
persist and follow Christ, know his path. Faith, hope, and love
are the marker of his life, the ways he persisted. These are
the markers also of a persistent joy. You will persist. So then,
persist in hope, in faith, in love, and see the change. Amen.
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