Watchman, Tell Us Of The Night
Sermon
Gospel Subplots
Story Sermons Of God's Grace
To strangers the plains of Eastern Montana seem barren, especially in late autumn. The horizon appears endlessly flat, and only occasionally above the plain a low row of hills pushes up -- sometimes just a large bump of ground. Homesteaders built a small frame church upon one such rise, and it has stood since 1912, spared prairie fires, but not free from time's toll. For safety the steeple was removed and the roof sags six inches in the middle of the span. But every season and every week, worship is held.
With a crisp wind promising early winter, Sunday morning clatters with the sporadic arrival of cars and pickups. Each arriving worshiper first sees the same person every Sunday. Beside the church's front door an older woman stands facing the wall. She is there before anyone comes. When the last has gone she finally leaves. Each worshiper, before entering the door, walks over and touches her. Adults pat her on the shoulder, sometimes whispering, "God bless you, Fern," or, "We love you, Fern." Children, just learning this ritual, touch her hand before they enter the house of worship. The woman hardly moves and never speaks. A gust of wind rocks her. No snow yet, but it's coming. She steadies herself and tugs her collar tighter around her neck.
"Thank you for the touch. Thank you for the hug. I nearly burst to tell you, but I can't. Bless you too, Sarah. Thank you, God, for these people. Thank you that they can go in those doors, and walk to their pews, and sit to pray and stand to sing. Thank you for them; because although I know I am welcome, I cannot enter.
"I see the little communion table, right in the center, 'Do This In Remembrance Of Me.' I feel the tattered green hymnbooks. I'm old enough to remember the smell of smoke from the wood stove. Now they have an oil furnace, but it goes out once a winter. I recall the stained glass windows by heart, and which ones are cracked. I can feel the flooring giving way slightly and creaking under each step. I remember the baptisms, weddings, and --
"We brought Dwayne here to be baptized. Our first, for whom we shed our tears and exercised all our fears. We were too poor to afford corrective surgery for his cleft palate, and I was so young. I didn't know how to raise a child, barely how to diaper one. I spoiled him terribly. He was a terror to the neighbors, and I thought he would be the most insufferable man on the plains.
"Thank you, God, for their song: 'Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus.' What better to sing in the cold autumn?
Dwayne grew to be the most gentle of people, kind, sensitive. He loved conversation. Not talk. He loved conversation. He listened to and was affected by others. He asked questions and wondered about how other people experienced life. He helped with Noanie and Lawrence. And when Wyman abandoned us, Dwayne became more a father to them than a brother.
"The silence means they're praying. Thank you, God, for their prayers. I still sway to the rhythm of their prayers, as you are glorified and beseeched. They honor you and request your help. I know they pray for me also. You know how it was when Wyman left. Noanie, Dwayne's long-legged little sister with her big knees and sunken eyes -- she was always skinny and awkward and quiet. Only Dwayne could get her to talk much. She asked night after night when her daddy would be back; but what he said that frigid autumn night gave me little hope we'd see him again.
"Not many people would pay to have their laundry done, but I sought them out and washed for them. I worked on the ranches and in the ranch houses, cooked and cleaned, birthed, branded, castrated, and injected calves. I worked for the county, repairing roads. I painted houses a few summers -- all the while three kids I couldn't watch or hold or help with their homework and could barely provide for. Dwayne was not only father for the other two, he was his own father.
"Then Dwayne was gone. Almost as though it was two hours from when he was drafted and he was gone. Seemed I was never home in the days he was preparing to leave. I was working one and a half or two jobs, and he was home with Noanie and Lawrence. I was a stranger to my own children, and found that when it was time to say good-bye to Dwayne I didn't know what to say, nor did he. We gave him away at the Greyhound station, and only saw him twice again. He is part of the vegetation in Vietnam, blown to so many pieces they didn't try scooping him into a bag.
"They're singing, 'O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.' I'd love to join the song. I know the words by heart; but I can't speak when I come here. I can't speak and I can't enter. It's not just that Dwayne's memorial service was here. As terrible as it was for me to walk into this building again, I did, because his body hadn't been here. But four years later Noanie left, silently, one day when I was cleaning rooms at the motel. She slipped out, she with her deep eyes and thin legs, she with her silence and her pain. She phoned a couple times a year and came back three times. But she was addicted by then, and when last she came home, as hard as it was to believe, she was half the weight of when she left. I carried her to her own bed to die; and she was tended by church-folk as much as by me.
"It was after her funeral I discovered I couldn't walk into the church. I can lay my hand upon this cold, peeling paint. I know the dimensions of the structure out and in. I can count the ceiling beams in my sleep, and could pick out the color of the faded kitchen linoleum on a color chart. But I have never been able to go into this beloved building again.
"I knew nothing to do but to work more and try to keep Lawrence at home, but Lawrence -- the angry one, Lawrence, the walking prison, the one I knew least, Lawrence who turned pale when anyone asked him what he was going to be when he grew up, Lawrence who seldom made sense with what he said or did -- Lawrence at least told me he was leaving. A week after Noanie died Lawrence up and said he was going to the city to find his dad.
"I said, 'You won't be finding him anywhere. He's long gone.'
"He said, 'Maybe I won't find him, but I'll look for him.'
"And that chilly autumn evening he was out and gone and the house was death-still and vacant as it hadn't been for thirty years. And the Sundays and Mondays keep rolling around regularly and I come here and then I go to work. Nothing else to do, but stand here on Sunday and work on Monday, and wait. Wait for Lawrence to come back.
"They sing of Advent. 'Watchman, Tell Us of the Night.' They sing it for me. It's dark and it's autumn, and the nights come earlier and the snow has already made a couple wild passes at the plains. You don't have to tell me of the night, God. Nothing you must say to me. But I am glad you listen.
"Thank you for your people inside. Their way was mine for half a century, but I can't join them now no matter how many times I imagine myself inside with that tiny, joyful group of neighbors. Bless them, as they worship for me. I'll stand here with you and wait. I'll let them worship on my behalf. And I'll stand here and wait on their behalf. I'll wait in autumn's darkening days, either for Lawrence to come home or Jesus to return, whichever comes first."
* * *
Receive the blessing: May God Almighty, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, giver of the Holy Spirit, bless you where you worship and where you wait, where you suffer and where you serve, now and forever. Amen.
Discussion Questions
Text: Isaiah 21:11-12
1. What immediate responses do you have to the story?
2. If you could have a conversation with one of the characters in this story which would you speak with and what would you ask or say?
3. Do you identify with any character in the story?
4. What is your earliest memories of Advent and what did it mean to you then?
5. What does Advent mean to you now?
6. What do you most eagerly wait for?
7. Without naming anyone, have you endured much "private suffering"?
8. What is your most earnest prayer?
9. In that Christ rewrites our lives, what from this story would you like to have happen in your life?
With a crisp wind promising early winter, Sunday morning clatters with the sporadic arrival of cars and pickups. Each arriving worshiper first sees the same person every Sunday. Beside the church's front door an older woman stands facing the wall. She is there before anyone comes. When the last has gone she finally leaves. Each worshiper, before entering the door, walks over and touches her. Adults pat her on the shoulder, sometimes whispering, "God bless you, Fern," or, "We love you, Fern." Children, just learning this ritual, touch her hand before they enter the house of worship. The woman hardly moves and never speaks. A gust of wind rocks her. No snow yet, but it's coming. She steadies herself and tugs her collar tighter around her neck.
"Thank you for the touch. Thank you for the hug. I nearly burst to tell you, but I can't. Bless you too, Sarah. Thank you, God, for these people. Thank you that they can go in those doors, and walk to their pews, and sit to pray and stand to sing. Thank you for them; because although I know I am welcome, I cannot enter.
"I see the little communion table, right in the center, 'Do This In Remembrance Of Me.' I feel the tattered green hymnbooks. I'm old enough to remember the smell of smoke from the wood stove. Now they have an oil furnace, but it goes out once a winter. I recall the stained glass windows by heart, and which ones are cracked. I can feel the flooring giving way slightly and creaking under each step. I remember the baptisms, weddings, and --
"We brought Dwayne here to be baptized. Our first, for whom we shed our tears and exercised all our fears. We were too poor to afford corrective surgery for his cleft palate, and I was so young. I didn't know how to raise a child, barely how to diaper one. I spoiled him terribly. He was a terror to the neighbors, and I thought he would be the most insufferable man on the plains.
"Thank you, God, for their song: 'Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus.' What better to sing in the cold autumn?
Dwayne grew to be the most gentle of people, kind, sensitive. He loved conversation. Not talk. He loved conversation. He listened to and was affected by others. He asked questions and wondered about how other people experienced life. He helped with Noanie and Lawrence. And when Wyman abandoned us, Dwayne became more a father to them than a brother.
"The silence means they're praying. Thank you, God, for their prayers. I still sway to the rhythm of their prayers, as you are glorified and beseeched. They honor you and request your help. I know they pray for me also. You know how it was when Wyman left. Noanie, Dwayne's long-legged little sister with her big knees and sunken eyes -- she was always skinny and awkward and quiet. Only Dwayne could get her to talk much. She asked night after night when her daddy would be back; but what he said that frigid autumn night gave me little hope we'd see him again.
"Not many people would pay to have their laundry done, but I sought them out and washed for them. I worked on the ranches and in the ranch houses, cooked and cleaned, birthed, branded, castrated, and injected calves. I worked for the county, repairing roads. I painted houses a few summers -- all the while three kids I couldn't watch or hold or help with their homework and could barely provide for. Dwayne was not only father for the other two, he was his own father.
"Then Dwayne was gone. Almost as though it was two hours from when he was drafted and he was gone. Seemed I was never home in the days he was preparing to leave. I was working one and a half or two jobs, and he was home with Noanie and Lawrence. I was a stranger to my own children, and found that when it was time to say good-bye to Dwayne I didn't know what to say, nor did he. We gave him away at the Greyhound station, and only saw him twice again. He is part of the vegetation in Vietnam, blown to so many pieces they didn't try scooping him into a bag.
"They're singing, 'O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.' I'd love to join the song. I know the words by heart; but I can't speak when I come here. I can't speak and I can't enter. It's not just that Dwayne's memorial service was here. As terrible as it was for me to walk into this building again, I did, because his body hadn't been here. But four years later Noanie left, silently, one day when I was cleaning rooms at the motel. She slipped out, she with her deep eyes and thin legs, she with her silence and her pain. She phoned a couple times a year and came back three times. But she was addicted by then, and when last she came home, as hard as it was to believe, she was half the weight of when she left. I carried her to her own bed to die; and she was tended by church-folk as much as by me.
"It was after her funeral I discovered I couldn't walk into the church. I can lay my hand upon this cold, peeling paint. I know the dimensions of the structure out and in. I can count the ceiling beams in my sleep, and could pick out the color of the faded kitchen linoleum on a color chart. But I have never been able to go into this beloved building again.
"I knew nothing to do but to work more and try to keep Lawrence at home, but Lawrence -- the angry one, Lawrence, the walking prison, the one I knew least, Lawrence who turned pale when anyone asked him what he was going to be when he grew up, Lawrence who seldom made sense with what he said or did -- Lawrence at least told me he was leaving. A week after Noanie died Lawrence up and said he was going to the city to find his dad.
"I said, 'You won't be finding him anywhere. He's long gone.'
"He said, 'Maybe I won't find him, but I'll look for him.'
"And that chilly autumn evening he was out and gone and the house was death-still and vacant as it hadn't been for thirty years. And the Sundays and Mondays keep rolling around regularly and I come here and then I go to work. Nothing else to do, but stand here on Sunday and work on Monday, and wait. Wait for Lawrence to come back.
"They sing of Advent. 'Watchman, Tell Us of the Night.' They sing it for me. It's dark and it's autumn, and the nights come earlier and the snow has already made a couple wild passes at the plains. You don't have to tell me of the night, God. Nothing you must say to me. But I am glad you listen.
"Thank you for your people inside. Their way was mine for half a century, but I can't join them now no matter how many times I imagine myself inside with that tiny, joyful group of neighbors. Bless them, as they worship for me. I'll stand here with you and wait. I'll let them worship on my behalf. And I'll stand here and wait on their behalf. I'll wait in autumn's darkening days, either for Lawrence to come home or Jesus to return, whichever comes first."
* * *
Receive the blessing: May God Almighty, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, giver of the Holy Spirit, bless you where you worship and where you wait, where you suffer and where you serve, now and forever. Amen.
Discussion Questions
Text: Isaiah 21:11-12
1. What immediate responses do you have to the story?
2. If you could have a conversation with one of the characters in this story which would you speak with and what would you ask or say?
3. Do you identify with any character in the story?
4. What is your earliest memories of Advent and what did it mean to you then?
5. What does Advent mean to you now?
6. What do you most eagerly wait for?
7. Without naming anyone, have you endured much "private suffering"?
8. What is your most earnest prayer?
9. In that Christ rewrites our lives, what from this story would you like to have happen in your life?
