Once upon a time there lived a lady who loved to knit . . . it seemed to
me that she was almost obsessed with her hobby and as I got to know her
better, I grew to marvel at her devotion to making sweaters. As a
parishioner of St. Stephens, she was also a faithful participant on Sunday
mornings and a committed member of the surgical dressing group – meeting
regularly to put together bandages used by the hospital for cancer
patients. But as the years passed this knitter’s health problems took a
toll and she could no longer make it even the one block to church.
But she didn’t stop knitting. Finally it was my turn
to be on the receiving end of her talent and energy. I chose the yarn took
it over to her and she began to work on this (show sweater). When I
took communion over she’d show me the progress, have me measure sleeves
and ask me about pockets. It was getting harder and harder for her to
breathe and soon she couldn’t even get off the sofa to walk me to the door
of her apartment.
One week after she finished this sweater she went
into the hospital and never came home. I don’t know how many of her
sweaters are being worn out there but each one spreads a bit of Julia’s
baptismal energy to the wearer, and I imagine that every person who puts
on one of Julia’s sweaters will never forget this woman’s devotion and her
gift for generous knitting which now keeps us so many of us warm and
comfortable.
“Almighty God, you have knit together your elect in
one communion and fellowship in the mystical body of your son Christ our
Lord . . . “
What do you think of that image in today’s collect;
that picture of God, the eternal knitter, continually shaping plain old
yarn, plain old you and me, into a church full of people living with
baptismal energy in lives of devotion and service?
I find it a very healthy one, especially in this
season of remembrance that is All Saints. We have a chance to recognize
our connections, not just to the past, but to recognize our connections to
all human beings here and now and in the time to come. Quite frankly
though (and perhaps you would agree with me) there are a lot of people who
I would rather not connect to, people I wish the knitter had not included
in the elect sweater of the baptized!: people I disagree with, people who
are loud and unattractive, people who don’t like animals, people who don’t
seem to respect my opinions and beliefs.
I could go on . . . Hey, I ask God, why would you
knit me in with them if we elect are to be a loving community reflecting
the spirit of Jesus? I don’t particularly want to be a loving community
with people who aren’t like me.
Couldn’t God, in her infinite wisdom and power,
simply knit me in with people I like?
You know the answer as well as I do . . . The answer
is Jesus hanging on the cross, not even God’s son got to live in a world
of friends and like-minded associates! That body nailed up on the cross is
the body which you and I worship, and which we are – you, me and
Julia.
It is a mystical body – “mystical” because we have to
really stretch to get our minds around the idea. Our pain and our
frustrations, our angers and or fears, our delights and our satisfactions
are all knit up into the body of which we are a part, the Body of Christ,
the church. It is not always particularly beautiful or loving or efficient
or united. But God continues to knit us together trying to hold before us
the truth of our bodiness, the truth of the cross, the truth of community
beyond unity.
We will be reading the names of our spiritual
ancestors tomorrow evening in observance of the Feast of All Souls, and
though it might get tedious for some, it is a discipline that I hope we
always follow. With each of those names we remind ourselves that the
mystical body includes not only those who have gone before us but also
those who surround us now and those who will come after us – all of us
knit into one baptismal sweater, one community and fellowship no matter
what the behavior of our leaders.
It might seem that these days the metaphor of the
sweater is most appropriate because we see the garment (that is the
church) unraveling and some of our faithful ones holding on by a thread. I
pray that we can trust the Divine Knitter to continue working on us,
finding patterns that will interest, textures that will warm, designs that
will draw our attention to Beatitude thinking and Gospel living.
I’ve tried knitting a few times and know that the
trick is to maintain equal pressure with each needle so that the stitches
are formed properly, not too loose and not to tight (very Anglican!). I
suppose if I kept at it I’d have learned how to pick up dropped stitches,
to re-do rows that are unbalanced and to create a work of art, an item of
usefulness and beauty.
God is trying to do that with us and we are a work in
progress. Today we realize that it is not just for ourselves that we try
to live into our call as the communion of saints. It is also a holy
recognition of our spiritual ancestors, a genuine gratitude for bonds of
faith which keep us together, and a responsibility to step back and trust
in that community, beyond the pain of dissent and disagreement, which
holds the Body of Christ before us and brands its mark on our foreheads.
You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism, And
marked as Christ’s own forever”.
Julia was not able to sew her special label on this
sweater, she was getting so sick by that time, so she just gave it to me
to attach. It’s one of those personalized labels: “Made especially for you
by Julia Foran”.
You and I, knit together in one communion and
fellowship, are wearing our label already: it was sewn on us at our
baptism. “Handmade especially for you by God”.
Renew our Baptismal Covenant
