REMAIN

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, “Remain!”

R     E     M    A    I    N.

It’s a neat everyday word. Remain.

Did you notice, did you hear it used, 6 times in today’s gospel from John 15: 1 - 8?

As you know the New Testament comes down to us from the Greek - and the Greek word for “remain” is right there in the English word: “meno”. 

M    E   N   O.

Over and over and over again - in today’s gospel Jesus is saying,

·       Remain in me ….

·       as I remain in you ….

·       unless you remain in me ….

·       Whoever remains in me ….

·       Anyone who does not remain in me ….

·       If you remain in me.

Every speaker, every preacher, hopes the listeners remain with him or her.

Every speaker is hurt when the other looks at their watch or elsewhere. They know the listener has disappeared and no longer remains with them.

THE PSYCHIATRIST IN THE NURSING HOME

Somewhere along the line I heard the following story.

It has remained with me all through the years. It’s a great reminder.

A psychiatrist used to visit an old lady in a nursing home. She would be sitting there in a nice easy chair facing big picture windows - looking out onto a big lawn - spring, summer, autumn, winter - the seasons.

She was catatonic - out of it. She hadn’t said a word in 5 years. Still most days they would bring her from her room to this spot - looking out into the garden - looking out into the world.

The psychiatrist would come in - hold her hand for a few moments - and sit in a chair right next to - and he too would look out the big picture windows into the world. Sometimes he would make comments about the day, the skies, the rain, the flowers, the birds.

One day he’s just sitting there - holding her hand - and he’s thinking about a dinner he’s going to go that evening and the old lady turns her head towards him and says, “Don’t leave me. Please remain.”

He hadn’t gotten out of his chair. He was just sitting there being with her - but really being somewhere else.

That story has remained with me all through the years.  I stand there staring, looking at people, but my mind - my inner conversations are elsewhere, often.

From that story and other stories I have often wondered, “Do we know - do we unconsciously know - when another is not listening - is not there?”

From that story I made up the saying, “Be where you is, because if you be where you ain’t, then you ain’t where you is.”

REMAINS

When we’re somewhere else - I know I do this all the time - we’re thinking and talking to ourselves  - about all sorts of things triggered by all sorts of things.

It’s amazing what’s in our memory - in our brains.

Inside our skulls we have more remainders than the Smithsonian in Washington D.C. or all the garage sales in the world on any given Saturday morning.

A triggers B triggers C triggers D and we say, “Oh that - that was a long time ago.”

I’ve been at lots of weddings, funerals, and baptisms.

I’m very aware that every death, every wedding triggers, all sorts of things.

I’m aware as priest, that God, Jesus, faith stuff, is nudged at weddings, wakes and funerals - and new born babies.  Some who have dropped out of church - call some of this spirituality.

I’m also aware that sometimes Christ’s life dries up - the sap is out of us - and we can become dead branches. That’s what Jesus is getting at today.

Some scary stuff…

It must have killed Jesus to see those people who cheered for him on Palm Sunday - jeer at him on Good or Bad Friday.  It must have killed him to see Peter deny him - and along with the other disciples no longer remain with him - and Judas  cut himself off from Jesus by betrayal - and then he hung himself on a tree.

There is a poem by someone that Peter heard every morning when the rooster crowed three times,  “Deny, deny, deny.”

We know that in poetry and prose that our betrayals and our runnings away from God and our hiding out from each other - remain.

We have confessionals - those wooden garbage pails or garbage dumps - where we can dump our sins - but some of stuff of sins remain - like potato peels on the inside of a garbage pail. I have heard myself and enough people tell me what remains of the mistakes of our life. For some reason I still remember cheating - looking over a shoulder - in a Geometry test in my second year of high school - and I was decent in Geometry - horrible in Algebra.

I remember someone holding up a big piece of white cardboard with a black spot the size of a quarter on it - made with a magic marker - as a sermon prop. And he asked folks what they saw. And all said they saw the dot!

We see the red spaghetti spot on our white shirt or blouse - and miss all the white of the shirt or blouse or white cardboard.

To be human - is to see the mistakes, the sins, the cheating, of our life - even when we confess them - say we're sorry for them  - and are forgiven.

Sin remains.

People addicted to porn or gambling or booze or what have you - know it’s dumb to put stuff into our Random Access Memory - because everything remains.  Addictions have cling to them

Sin has aftertaste remains.

THE BEST REMAINS AS WELL

To be positive - to hopefully have grace and gracefulness - remaining in us more than our sins and falls from grace, today’s second reading begins “Children, let  us love not in word or speech but in deed and truth.”

Then that reading ends this way: “Those who keep his commandments remain in him, and he in them, and the way  we know that he remains in us is from the Spirit he gave us.”

CONCLUSION

When we die what’s left is called, our “remains” - or if we are cremated, our “cremains.”

We get a stone or plaque - with our name and numbers on it.

But down deep we want more.

We want more than a carving into a sidewalk or paint on a wall somewhere saying, “Kilroy was here” We would never want,  “Killjoy was here.”

We want more.

I have a nice story to end this homily  that happened to me. 

I write and I hope some of my writings last.

Someone asked for a copy of one of my books and I had given them all away - so I said, “Try E-bay or Amazon.”  And I added, “I don’t get anything from them anymore.”

Surprise that person got a copy and surprise it was inscribed and surprise it was from me to my sister Peggy and surprise the person who bought it gave it to me with the inscription, “To Peggy - Couldn’t have been blessed with a more wonderful sister, Love and Prayers, Andy.

This wonderful sister dumped by book. I didn’t call her up and complain - I wouldn’t want that to remain. Yet I would have hoped it would have remained on her book shelf for the rest of her life. She died so I can’t complain about this lack of a remain from her brother.

Remains.  Don’t we hope our best remains with those we love for the rest of our lives.

I tell this story because it will remain with you - I just planted it and this story in your memory this morning - that is, unless you left me and didn’t remain with me after my first sentence.