Guest Column by Lizzy Schoen
Sister Teresa Maya preached her sermon, titled “Jesus Wept,” at the 9:15 a.m. morning worship service Monday in the Amphitheater.
She reflected on those words and how they have helped to guide her own journey through the grief of her father. She welcomed the listener into her own “incomplete and messy” grief and why Jesus weeping in the Gospel of John has influenced that process. She then brought into the conversation the idea of communal grief and how most of us have walked through grief on many occasions in our life and are surrounded by those around us who are grieving.
When Maya reflected on her grief, she clarified she also meant the grief that we as a society feel after the mass losses of the pandemic, the environmental crisis and the crisis of othering in America.
Part of Maya’s mourning during the pandemic was while she was serving as the leader of her religious community; during that time all the most recent photos in her phone were that of the funerals of the loved ones of her sisters. Later, another sister in her order commented that they just needed to move on; Maya questioned whether that need to move on is what is holding people back from moving through and healing from grief.
During the pandemic, hospital chaplains asked Maya to bring them a message of hope. However, Maya was struggling to find hope herself, so she brought to them a message of gratitude and shared her own struggle with hope during that challenging time. She also presented them with a painting that had brought her catharsis when she was struggling with hope.
The painting was titled “Jesus Wept,” by Daniel Bonnell. The painting shows a portrayal of Jesus clutching someone to his chest. The image’s impact brought Maya to tears because she remembered all of the times that she had prayed to God for healing or comfort, but “all this time Jesus had been embracing us, crying with us.”
Maya preached that the story of Lazarus in the Gospel of John sets the stage and teaches us about resurrection. The congregation was challenged to consider that “Four days need to go by. So the message is clear — there can be no resurrection without death. Jesus knew this, but when he embraced his friend’s grief, when he experienced their pain, Jesus wept,” Maya said.
When Maya’s father passed away, she asked for a chaplain. The chaplain picked by the hospital was one who had heard her message about Jesus’ weeping. He shared her own message back to her and embraced her, and the text saved her once again.
The pandemic also taught Maya that grief needs friends.
“Grief needed friendship, presence, time,” she said. “What a gift the Gospel of John is for those of us who mourn. The loss, the friend, the tears. Grief embraced and respected. The mystery at the heart of our Christian faith needs to move us through the reality of loss, the sadness of grief, so we can welcome the hope of the resurrection.”
An example for Maya of God working through community and friends is the companionship of her dog Piper. When her father had late-stage Parkinson’s, Maya encouraged him to get a dog to encourage him to move more, but he passed away before they got the dog. However, shortly after her father’s passing, a friend contacted her and offered her a dog — a fellow sister encouraged her to accept the dog. This dog, Piper, was meant to help her father through his disease; instead, Piper accompanied Maya and her mother through their grief and brought friends and community back into their lives. Slowly, resurrection had come back into their household.
The sermon ended with Maya preaching the following summation of her message: “August is here again. And grief, my uncomfortable guest, has arrived once more. But this time, a little dog named Piper, a bunch of friends and flowers have welcomed her with me. How do we get to hope? Jesus wept for and with his friends. Then came resurrection.”
The Rt. Rev. Eugene Taylor Sutton, senior pastor of Chautauqua Institution, presided. The Rev. Scott Maxwell, pastor at St. John’s Lutheran Church, read the scripture. The prelude was “Elegy” by C. Hubert Parry, played by organ scholar Owen Reyda on the Massey Memorial Organ. The Motet Choir sang “Let Nothing Ever Grieve Me” by Johannes Brahms, conducted by Director of Sacred Music and the Jared Jacobsen Chair for the Organist Joshua Stafford and accompanied by Laura Smith, organ scholar. The postlude, performed by Stafford, was Brahms’ “O Welt, ich muss dich Lassen.” Support for this week’s sermons is provided by the Reverend Leonard J. Ebel Chaplaincy. Mary Lee Talbot will return to her morning worship column during Week Seven.
