When I first met John I was struck by two things: His beautiful blue eyes and his angelic face. I was dazzled.

I was not really surprised then, when I found out that John was in the business of beauty.

It was his profession, after all. After high school he studied cosmetology, became a hairdresser, and established a career in making women beautiful.

In fact, John did a lot to make the whole world beautiful. A classically trained vocalist, he sang for choirs in both Virginia and Chicago. He was an excellent cook, a remarkable interior decorator, and managed to train up the sweetest dogs I have ever met.

Beauty, you see, wasn’t just John’s profession, it was his vocation.

And it wasn’t an easy one.

In a world ruled by the values of functionality, profitability, and efficiency, beauty can seem frivolous. Fussy. Unnecessary.

But without beauty, the world becomes a harsh place devoid of warmth and joy:

After all, beige cubicles may efficiently divvy up office space, but the employees who inhabit them are usually eager to depart for crowded neighborhood bars decorated with the work of local artists.

Grey linoleum may not show much dirt, and it may clean easy, but a colorful rug brightens a room, and is so much kinder to our feet.

And slicing off refrigerated cookie dough may be faster and makes for fewer dirty dishes, but the resulting cookies can’t compare to those that are made from scratch.

Now, John, so sensitive to beauty, took the small cruelties of everyday ugliness hard, and this could be irksome to those around him. But while coworkers may have chafed at his use of a gram scale to measure out hair color, the two Miss Americas that he styled were undoubtedly grateful for his precision

John may have been overly critical of perfectly good restaurants, but nobody could eat his stuffed cabbage rolls without appreciation of his culinary skill.

He could be harsh with his comments while watching HGTV and playing “queer eye for the straight homeowner”, and he could exasperate his partner with demands for a $6000 sofa; But he could also make the humblest spaces not only livable, but a delight.

When I read the scriptures for today’s service, I saw that they both conveyed important truths about beauty. In our Old Testament lesson we learned that our purposes, pains, pleasures each have their place, each have their time, each have their season.

And while goals of functionality, profitability and efficiency are to save time, the spirit of right season uses time to bring forth that which is lovely and desirable:

Just as ripe tomatoes in season are so much more delicious than their hothouse counterparts, so is right timing, right measurement, important to the creation of beauty.

And in our gospel passage, Jesus offers a curious companion to this right timing of beauty: He implores his disciples to be both salt and light to the world. Salt makes food delicious and a shining lamp draws attention and lights the way for others. Both saltiness and illumination are aesthetic qualities, just as right measurement and timing are: In skilled hands, in a trained voice, or even in the colorist’s mixing dish, they all come together to create beauty that delights the soul, and enriches the world.

John entered our human community for many reasons, but chief among them was his constant reminder to all of us that there is more to life than utility: He taught us that good hair and good food, majestic singing, cheerful pets, and well-coordinated décor matter, especially in a world quick to dismiss such things as “luxuries”.

Now today, we who were touched by John’s life and who received from him the beauty which he so freely shared, are gathered here to remember John in death. Now John’s timing at the end. . .it wasn’t good.  But the beauty that he brought us, and taught us, still remains with each of us who sit here today.

And that’s the thing about beauty: Once it is created there isn’t much we can do to control or stop it. We’ve all had our heads turned by a particularly beautiful garment in a store window and we’ve gasped with awe at a spectacular sunset. We carry our experience of beauty into the next minute, the next hour, the next day, the next year.

We are changed by this beauty.

Just as encountering John changed all of us.

Now the season of John’s life has been cut short, long before it came to its proper fruition, yet its salt and its light are not so easily halted. As we have lifted our voices in song and in prayer together, we have testified to the tragedy of his death but have also celebrated the wonders of his life.  That John’s friends and loved ones are united in worship today demonstrates the power of the gifts that he shared with us.

In closing, I would ask that all of us here, during the coming weeks and months, do John and his life honor by acknowledging the marvelous gifts he gave us during his life:

Take extra care with your holiday decorating.

Stop to taste and correct the seasoning for your stew.

Pause to listen to the beautiful opera being played on NPR.

Show the world that you learned from John.

And teach others what he taught you.

Show the world that John was needed.

And know that you are needed too.

The season of John’s life is over.

The season of your life continues.

Walk in the light.

Amen.

(This is a homily that I preached on June 20th, 2009, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The scriptures of the day were Genesis 3:14-21, Psalm 86, and John 20:24-31.)

______________

Throughout the course of our lives, there will be times when everything goes wrong.

Our plans are scuttled,
our relationships falter,
and sometimes even our very foundations are rocked.

Now we humans are resilient. Sometimes we can bounce back stronger than ever. But other times “bouncing back” isn’t so easy.

Sometimes “bouncing back” isn’t possible.

Sometimes it all falls apart.

The Bible begins with a story about things falling apart, and boy is it a doozy.

God had created the heavens and the earth and all of their inhabitants.
And God said that all of his creation was good.

In fact, it was very good.

But then it began to fall apart.

Eve had a talk with the serpent who put ideas into her head.

She talked to Adam and put ideas in his head.

Next thing we know, they are being disobedient, eating forbidden fruit, and sewing up fig leaf loincloths for themselves.  God is displeased, and the relationships between God and human, human and animal, and human and human will never be the same.

The serpent, part of God’s good creation, is now cursed among animals, and will be in violent confrontation with humanity from here on out.

As for the man and the woman? They have gone from being unified in their shared vocation as both stewards of creation and as co-creators of humanity, into their own separate, painful struggles:

The woman will continue to bear children, but the process will be frought with pain and danger. And even worse, her relationship with her husband has been distorted into one of hierarchy and dominion, rather than unity and love.

For his part, the man will continue to care for creation and eat of its fruit, but he will have to struggle for it. He will suffer his own pain as his flesh aches from strain and is cut by the thorns and thistles that compete with him for the land he works.

And after this inauspicious beginning,  the scriptures will continue to testify to this brokenness in creation.

The Psalmist sings from his own brokenness:

“Hear, O LORD, and answer me, for I am poor and needy.”

He also sings of his own broken relationships:

“The arrogant are attacking me, O God; a band of ruthless men seeks my life— men without regard for you.

He sings to  God, pleading for mercy and strength:

Turn to me and have mercy on me;
grant your strength to your servant
and save the son of your maidservant.

And God listened to the Psalmist and all those who throughout the ages prayed for his lovingkindness.

And in the fullness of time, God incarnated as a human being and walked among us. Yet even for him, things fell apart: And for his disciples, those who had been with him throughout his earthly ministry, this “falling apart” was still fresh in their minds.

For Thomas, it sounds like his memories were a little too fresh: He hadn’t been present when Jesus had appeared to them before, and his grief was so profound,  he could not allow himself to believe that Jesus had really risen from the dead.

Even after all the miracles he had seen Christ perform, even after being assured by the other disciples that Christ had risen, Doubting Thomas demanded proof, and he demanded proof in the form of  physical contact with Christ’s body.

And I can’t blame him. Thomas probably figured he couldn’t withstand the pain of losing his friend again.

We who are gathered here today have, in our own ways, experienced everything falling apart: Some of us have lost marriages, others, friendships. Many of us here have lost a bishop or two,  we’ve lost jobs, reputations, and our possessions.

Our foundations have been rocked, and for some of us, recovering, setting things right, may seem to be difficult, maybe even impossible.

But as I looked over our scriptures today, it struck me: Each in its own way, tells the story of someone for whom everything fell apart.

Yet nobody ever lost their vocation:

The serpent may have been cursed, but he wasn’t eliminated. He was still a beast, still a part of God’s creation, and what a very interesting part he is!

The woman still gives birth, still cares for her children, and still works with man to fill and subdue the earth.

The man continues to work, to till his fields and to grow his food and male and female together continue to rear families who become generations who become nations.

The Psalmist, even in his pain, intersperses his laments with magnificent words of praise, fulfilling his vocation, and our vocation, to praise and honor The Living God.

And Thomas, maligned through history as “Doubting Thomas”, never left the fold, continued to be a disciple even when his terror at further pain kept him from believing without seeing. He takes his rightful place among the Apostles, and one of the oldest Christian churches, founded by him, still thrives in India.

And not us forget our Lord Jesus, whose resurrected body bore the scars of his vocation as the Lamb of God given for the sins of the world: Even in his resurrected body, these scars remained, a physical reminder of his vocation.

And it is there, in that scarred body, resurrected, and soon to ascend, that we find reconciliation: His physical body reconciled fallen humanity, and divine logos; Tortured and murdered flesh was resurrected from the dead. And now we who have believed, even without seeing, have been provided with the Word of God, which tells us of his signs, so that we may become part of his Body, his church, even as we are nourished by it in the form of bread and wine.

And we, sitting here, will share that meal today.

Even though, in various ways and to various degrees, things have fallen apart for us,  none of us has lost our vocation. Not a one.

Have our vocations been transformed by sin? Of course they have. Do they look the same as when we first received them? Of course they don’t.

But we never lost them. We could have lost them, just as God could have wiped out creation and started over again. But he didn’t. Humanity, nature, and beast continue in vocation, and God continues to be faithful.

This weekend, we celebrate a new, imperfect, representation of Christ’s body in the form of our church. We who are here, clergy and laity, come from different traditions, with different stories. We each bear own wounds, reminders of the fallen-ness of creation. We also each bear gifts for ministry, reminders of God’s faithfulness in upholding and preserving our vocations.

As we begin our work in earnest this day, in our meetings and in our time of prayer and fellowship, I would ask that we remember:

The Genesis story, in which even a rebellious creation is preserved by the most High God.

As we live out our vocations, may we stand firm in the foundation set by He who set the foundations of the universe.

I would ask that we remember:

The Psalmist, who in his agony and persecution, remembers to that he can ask God for his care and provision.

and

As we live out our vocations, may we remember that we can cry out to our Everlasting Father for strength and care.

I would also ask that we remember:

Thomas, the grief stricken disciple, who could not believe even the words of his friends, yet who remained with them, as faithful as he could be, until he could get the proof that he needed of his Lord’s resurrection.

and

As we live out our vocations, may we remain faithful with that portion of faith that we have been given, be it large or small.

I would finally ask that we remember:

The body of our Lord, gloriously resurrected, yet still bearing the scars of his tribulations.

and

As we live out our vocations, may we never forget that the scars that we bear, those inflicted by others or those of our own making, do not compromise, change, or nullify the vocations with which we have been charged. And let us remember our Lord, who was not ashamed to show his  scars to others, that they may be reconciled to him and others.

That was his vocation.

And now it is ours.  Amen.