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"Numbers"
The Rev. George D. Smith
St. Mark’s
Episcopal Church
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Pentecost
Acts 2: 1-21
1 Corinthians 12: 3b-13
John 20: 19-23
6 billion; 100,000; 161,000; 75 trillion; 250; numbers, numbers,
numbers. There are so many numbers in our lives – temperatures,
prices, indexes, model numbers, social security numbers, cell
phone numbers, even super-delegate numbers… Have you noticed
that every announcer, whether on the radio or TV, seems compelled
to Carl Saganize the “b” in billion, especially
when it has to do with money. You’ll hear for example
that the U.S. government spends $2 “B”illion on
toilet seats every year. Illinois has a five “B”illion
dollar deficit. Is this subtle editorializing or simply infantile
reaction to a very large number?
I have been noticing numbers a lot this week. In Myanmar,
formerly known as Burma, it is estimated that 100,000 people
have died from Cyclone Nargis, which a week ago ravaged the
country, submerging entire fields, roads and villages. In addition
to those who have perished, the U.N. estimates that 1.5 million
to 2 million people have been hurt, are without shelter or are
affected in some significant way. Health experts are warning
that there is a great risk of diarrhea and cholera spreading
because of the lack of clean drinking water and sanitation.
Meanwhile, the ultra-paranoid government has been blocking and
compounding food aid and shipments of medical supplies. 100,000
deaths: that is the equivalent of the combined populations of
Glen Ellyn, Wheaton and Lombard. 2 million people facing disaster
– not quite the population of the City of Chicago. It
is overwhelming and numbing if not paralyzing. Numbers. But
numbers are not the real truth. There are individuals –
like Thein Myint from the town of Bogalay. He is a 68-year-old
fisherman who weeps uncontrollably as he tells the past few
days. He is the only survivor out of his 28 family members who
were swept away by the cyclone. Thein Myint. A name. A person.
Not a number.
Another number: 6 billion, 809 million, 81 thousand, 288.
That’s the estimated population of the world, as of yesterday,
noon, May 10th. Today is Mother’s Day, and there are almost
7 billion people who would not be counted without their mothers.
It is interesting that there is no recognition of Mother’s
Day in Prayer Book, not even one prayer for mothers. The reason
might be that The Prayer Book predates Mother’s Day. But
it can’t be said that the Prayer Book predates mothers.
Of course whether Prayer Book recognizes mothers or not doesn’t
stop one of the biggest commercial celebrations of the year.
Americans will spend $2.6 billion on flowers, $1.5 billion on
pampering gifts like spa treatments and pedicures, $68 million
on greeting cards and $3.5 on brunch and dinner today. Some
of you may know that Mother's Day in the U.S. was first promoted
by social activist and Unitarian Julia Ward Howe after the American
Civil War. She intended it to be a day to unite women against
war. In 1870, she wrote the Mother's Day Proclamation as a call
for peace and disarmament. I’d like to read an excerpt
of it to you:
Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts,
Whether our baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
"We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant
agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for
caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy
and patience.
We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those
of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."
Howe failed in her attempt to establish a Mother’s Day
for Peace. It wasn’t until 1914 that President Woodrow
Wilson declared the first national Mother's Day, as a day for
American citizens to show the flag in honor of those mothers
whose sons had died in war. We don’t link today’s
Mother’s Day with a call to peace or honoring our fallen
soldier (sons and daughters), but that is its origin. Today’s
Mothers’ Day is about your mother – not a statistic,
not a number, but the person who gave birth to you, and it may
also be that same person and or another mother who nurtured
or nurtures you now. On this day as well as most days, I think
about my mother, Rosemarie. The image I have of her remains
unchanging. She has brown helmet hair, ala 1970s, matched with
a confident, loving smile belonging to any era. She died when
I was a freshman in high school. I want to tell you that she
was an amazing woman – so many people have told me that,
although fewer now that I have moved away from her circle of
friends and many of my family members who knew her have passed
away. Rosemarie is somewhat of an unusual name, often confused
with Rosemary. I always know if someone really got to know her
if they were clear about her name – Rosemarie, a coupling
of the first names of her grandmothers. She was not a number
– but the mother of four children, sister to Paul, daughter
of Edna, wife of George. I remember her smile, her hug, her
love and pride in me, even when I was a pimply, awkward adolescent.
215,000 and 161,000 – another set of numbers that I
have seen too many times over the past several weeks. According
to the National Cancer Institute, 215,000 is the number of people
who are diagnosed with lung cancer every year, and 161,000 the
number who die from the disease annually. I know about these
numbers because my sister, Eleanor, was diagnosed with metastatic
lung cancer just three weeks ago. She lives with her husband
and four children in California, in a town called Ojai, which
is about an hour and half drive north of downtown Los Angeles.
After biopsies, scans and numerous consultations, she has started
radiation treatment for the cancer, and will begin chemo next
week. I flew out to see her last Sunday and spent Monday and
Tuesday with her, jumping into the family routine, which is
surprisingly normal, affected by and incorporating a few new
things - an extra nap in the afternoon and a radiation appointment,
which in spite of the ominous white hulk of machine, seemed
to me almost like a relatively small errand. I went to California
simply to go, to be there. I returned with a lesson about statistics.
My sister is not a statistic, not a 2 or a 0 or a 5 or one in
200,000 – but one person, one life, one unique story,
and her treatment and experience with cancer will be her own.
Her age, her health, her family, her spirit, her friends are
part of her unique life. The monolith of a number has crumbled
under the dynamite of being present with her. I am looking forward
to her story including the words from her doctor – “you
are cancer free.”
Today is Pentecost – the day that the church celebrates
the gift of the Holy Spirit, which was poured onto the disciples
and into the world, and the only words that the writers of our
Scriptures could find to describe it were water, fire and wind,
which tell us of a force so powerful that it reached and took
hold of every nook, cranny and corner of this round world. Although
we celebrate a “day” of Pentecost, the fact is that
we are always in Pentecost time. We are Pentecost people, a
Pentecost church, a Pentecost world. It is the Spirit that abides
with, inspires and empowers us – those of us gathered
here to be the church, as well as those who are the church throughout
the world, and those beyond the church as well – to every
man, woman and child. Every day, every hour. Listen again to
the reading from Acts: “In the last days it will be, God
declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh….even
upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour
out my Spirit.” Those days are these days. Today’s
reading from John describes the Pentecost event as breath –
Jesus breathes on the disciples, giving them the Spirit of God,
new life, that overcomes the fear and closure of a locked room,
giving them a new life that sends them out into the world in
the name of Jesus and the Living God.
The meaning of Pentecost is that the Spirit of God that continues
the presence and work of the risen Christ has been unleashed
into the world. It is completely uncontrollable, going where
it will to whom it wishes. It is upon our friends and enemies,
upon those we trust and those we don’t, those we love
and those we cannot seem to find love for. It is the Spirit
that makes the church possible. Why in heaven’s name would
people come to sit in uncomfortable pews, airline style, facing
a marble block, without so much as even peanuts or drink service?
Maybe it’s the attraction of a wafer and sip of wine.
Unlikely. Some might say it is guilt that sustains the church
– and if that’s the case, it won’t continue
much longer.
It is the Spirit that moves among us today, that we will claim
is upon the water of Baptism, that is in the holy oil, that
gives new life, protection and power to Gretchen and Amy who
will be baptized today, that teaches them and assures them and
each of us that we are not a number in some cosmic actuarial
table. The Spirit is upon each of us, giving us power and ability
to use our gifts, to make present the image of God to the world,
that sees Thein Myint as a person with a story in a place that
is his home, with sorrow unimaginable, but a person and not
a statistic in a far away country that we know little about.
The Spirit, indeed, has gone to the corners of the world, and
I have found it in Ojai, California, where my sister is held
in God’s presence and where the Spirit knows her in every
facet of her being, working within her, creating a story that
is only and uniquely hers. The Spirit is poured into us that
on this Mother’s Day, we may celebrate the mother who
has given us life and love, sometimes in obvious and unobvious
ways, and for that we are thankful. The day of Pentecost reminds
each of us that we are not a number or a statistic, but a miracle
of life, intimately known, and with every breath taken into
our bodies, empowered, held and by God, as a mother watches
and worries and cares for her children.
May you know this truth and be guided by the Spirit, who strengthens
you in all ways, so that you know that your touch, your care,
your concern, your question, your prayer, your doubt, your love
is of the greatest significance for the world, even if you are
just 1 of 6,809,081,288 and counting….
Amen.
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