The Rev. Laura Everett delivers her sermon “A God Who Repairs” during the morning worship service Sunday in the Amphitheater.
“Today’s sermon is about being worn out, so if you are happily on vacation, you have permission to go and have brunch. But if you are a bit more frayed, worn and threadbare, I invite you to stay,” said the Rev. Laura Everett.
Everett preached at the 9:15 a.m. Tuesday morning worship service in the Amphitheater. Her sermon title was “Worn Out,” and the scripture reading was Isaiah 51:1-11. She used slides to illustrate her sermon.
The first slide was of a textile known as boro — a Japanese practice of textile preservation by continuous layering of fabrics, using a running hand stitch. It was born out of poverty and necessity during the Edo period, when the Japanese monarchy limited the textiles and colors that ordinary people could wear. The poor used homespun hemp and could only use indigo blue for dye.
The prophet Isaiah, speaking from exile, calls upon the captives to remember “the good old days,” to remember Abraham and Sarah. The second slide showed Isaiah 51: 1-2a.
“Remember, before COVID?” Everett asked the congregation. “Remember when we first scrambled for cloth masks, how anyone who knew how to sew was the wisest person in your pod?” The third slide showed a variety of cloth masks.
She continued, “Remember how we moved on to KN95s, that paper pulp and extruded petrochemical fiber masks that would keep us safe? And those disposable masks became little markers along the sidewalks of our changed lives? Worn out flags of just how worn out we were, too?”
She told the congregation that it was alright to feel worn out, that much had been lost.
The scripture is from second Isaiah, who lived during the exile. Everett said, “The prophet was trying to wrap their hearts and minds about what was eternal. It was hard because they were so far from home in time and geography. He turned their thoughts to what they might remember.”
She showed the fourth slide of an old family quilt. Textiles, she told the congregation “help us remember where we have been and who we have been.” Quilts that were on beds in the old house, the tablecloth with a hole where grandpa dropped a cigarette ember and grandma embroidered a daisy over it, Halloween ladybug costumes made of red felt.
“God works through Isaiah who uses what the people know,” she said. “They know Abraham and Sarah, the abundance of Eden and the scarcity of their present lives. They know a dry throat and a song in a weary land.”
They also know that moths eat wool and that garments wear out. Even though we are thousands of years removed from Isaiah, she told the congregation, we still share the experience of moths eating wool.
Slide five showed a textile Everett had made with a verse from Matthew in which Jesus said, “No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak, for the patch pulls away from the cloak, and a worse tear is made.”
Everett said, “Jesus knows that new patches are going to tear old fabric, and if you store up treasures on earth, thieves and rust and moths will break in.”
In slide six, she showed verses from Isaiah 51: 7-8. “Again the prophet uses what is familiar, textiles, to those who reproach God’s people, saying ‘the moth will eat them up like a garment and the worm will earth them like wool.’ ”
She continued, “We know what a nuisance cloth moths are. The people who reject God’s righteousness are just as annoying, but in God’s judgment, they will be eaten up.”
Slide seven was a picture of the common clothes moth, Tineola bisselliella. Everett gave a shout out to entomologists and exterminators and asked if there were any in the congregation. “This is your moment to really shine. Raise your hands or stand up, because we want to honor your ministry, you blessed bug hunters. Thank you.”
There was one person who stood up whom she invited to meet her after worship. “I bet you had no idea this was your day,” she said. “Really, please come talk to me afterwards because I have questions about cloth moths.”
These moths have endured from cave dwelling to apartment living, and are hard to get rid of. She said they eat hair, protein fiber and keratin — skin, horns and hooves. They have almost no need for water because they metabolize their own and they can digest toxic metals. “They are perfectly evolved to be a giant pain.”
In slide eight, she showed some moth holes in a wool scarf. Slide nine showed Everett with the scarf and then she held it up at the pulpit. “I have been mending (this scarf) for no less than 10 years. Every time I hold it up to the light, there is another hole, another place the moths have eaten. They win every time; the best I can do is try to repair and make some beauty.”
There was another textile in Isaiah 51: 6, and Everett showed it in slide 10. Isaiah promised the people that the current circumstances would fade, that even the earth will wear out like a garment.
For slide 11, Everett had pictures of her wife’s winter cycling sweater. It is a Guernsey fisherman’s sweater, which is incredibly thick and tightly knit. The former owner was probably left-handed because the left elbow was worn out, and Everett repaired it with a heart-shaped piece of wool.
The last slide was of a sweater repaired by artist Celia Pym for a work titled “Eternally Yours.” All of the repairs on the sweater were clearly visible, and added to the texture.
“We get the idea that we are the ones who endure forever — our skills, minds, resources and capacity,” Everett said. “Like the Japanese boro, we hold onto layer upon layer of common history. We are mending, mending, mending as best we can.”
She continued, “We think we can repair our way into salvation, but Isaiah is clear, God alone will save. We are worn out, the fabric is worn out, but God is not worn out. God’s salvation will be forever.”
Fr. Jim Daprile, president of the Chautauqua Catholic Community, presided. Welling Hall, a lifelong Chautauquan whose great-great grandfather Homer Hall graduated from the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle in 1885, read the scripture. The prelude was “Moderato for Flute and Piano,” by Joseph Musser, played by Barbara Hois on flute and Musser on piano. For the anthem, The Motet Choir sang “The Peace of Christ,” music by James and Marilyn Biery and text after Colossians 3: 12-17. The choir was directed by Joshua Stafford, director of sacred music and the Jared Jacobsen Chair for the Organist, and accompanied by Hois on the flute and Owen Reyda, 2024 organ scholar, on the Massey Memorial Organ. For the postlude, Reyda played “Toccata in E Minor,” by Johann Pachelbel, on the Massey Organ. Support for this week’s services and chaplaincy are provided by the Randall-Hall Memorial Chaplaincy and the J. Everett Hall Memorial Chaplaincy.
