Marie Bolerjack was born on June 12, 1927 in Quay Oklahoma. She departed this live on Friday January 22, 2010 at the age of 82. She is survived by her husband Austin, sons Stewart, David, Byrum, and Nathan along with a slew of children and grandchildren.
She was an active member of the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville and this homily was said at her funeral on Wednesday January 27, 2010 at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville.
Matthew 7:1-5
Luke 10:25-28
Marie once told me this story:
She, Austin and the kids were going from Mississippi to Oklahoma to visit family. It was the mid 1960’s and the boys were still pretty young. Could you just imagine the four boys, Stewart, David, Byrum, and Nathan, together in the back of the car with no air conditioning and the windows rolled down on a steamy summer day rolling into the Arkansas River valley? I can just hear somebody scream “Stop touching me!” even now.
Well, it was noonish when they hit Little Rock and the kids were hungry. Austin and Marie didn’t want to pull off the highway in downtown Little Rock, and who did in the mid ‘60’s. So Marie promised the boys that they would get some lunch as soon as they got past the city. Four hot, hungry, cranky boys in cut-offs that aren’t cut-off to the same length with matching buzz cuts; that alone should qualify Marie and Austin for “Parent of the Year.”
Well, being the mid 60’s there wasn’t one or six fast food places at every exit, so they ended up traveling quite a way before finding a little diner. They pulled up, parked the car, and got out of the car; and I bet the boys were cheering as they went to the door. By now, it’s a little after one in the afternoon, they go into the diner and Marie asks if they are still serving lunch. The black woman behind the counter says “Sure, c’mon in, take a seat.”
As the afternoon goes on, one at a time, several men, all black, come into the diner. They walk up to the woman at the counter and whisper a question. The woman answers and they leave. After this happens two or three times, it occurs to Marie that they are in a “Blacks Only” café—with Mississippi tags on the vehicle. Oh. “But you know,” Marie says, “nobody made us feel uncomfortable. We had a nice lunch and got back on the road.”
Now I ask you; isn’t that exactly what you would expect of the matriarch, the grand dame of Clan Bolerjack? In the middle of the ‘60’s, in the midst of civil unrest and race riots, not ten years after the Little Rock Police Department and the US Army 327th Airborne were called in to integrate Little Rock Central High School, Marie integrates a diner. This may sound absurd, but in 1960’s Central Arkansas, it takes a lady to do that kind of work, and Marie Bolerjack is just that lady.
She and Austin not only raised these four wonderful men, they raised a small herd of young men and women. She shared a mother’s love with the world, a love that was unconditional, without bounds or limits. Nobody had to earn her love, she gave it freely.
Marie never knew a stranger. There was never a stray in her house. When I said this the other day, one of the boys laughed saying “We were all strays.” Maybe we are, but as far as Marie was concerned, there were only loved ones. We were all her children as we are all children of God.
One of Marie’s favorite bible passages was, “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get.” She knew that this meant that it was up to God to judge, not us. So while she was not a fan of bad behavior, she knew that she and we were and are reliant on God’s grace and peace. And she knew by God’s grace and peace that it was up to her to share the love of God with everyone.
She knew this was God’s hesed, God’s agape—words that came from a bible study she participated in not so long ago. These words are the ancient Hebrew and Greek words used to describe God’s love for creation. She knew that it was up to her to share God’s love with the world. She knew this was God’s call on her life because she knew that it was as important to share as it was to receive God’s grace, peace, and love.
In Luke 10:25, a lawyer, a Scribe asks, “Teacher what must I do to inherit eternal life?” The lawyers, the scribes were experts in the law, they knew what scripture said. I once heard that no lawyer worth their salt ever asks a question they don’t know the answer to, and Jesus was counting on this. So Jesus asks him back, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” The Scribe answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”
The reason we are all here today is because we know that Marie lived her life by just these words. She followed the law not just in word, but also in deed. She knew the words of scripture; she knew that she was saved by grace though faith. She knew for sure that a vibrant faith in the living God is about receiving and sharing God’s steadfast love, God’s good grace with those around her.
Jesus responded to the lawyer’s answer saying, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.” By the grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ, in God’s love Marie lived the answer to this question and continues eternal life still today.
She loved God and her neighbor. And we who are here today bear witness; her life has borne glorious fruit. By those she has loved and by those who love her, the fruit of her life continues to thrive and will continue to thrive far, far into the future.
The 121st Psalm is a psalm of trust and confidence in God; assuring pilgrims on the way to and from Zion of God’s constant protection. The question raised in the first verse “I lift up my eyes to the hills; from where is my help to come?” is answered beginning with “My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.”
She knew and lived the words of the Psalmist through her life and her acts. She knew the Lord kept her and keeps us all. The Lord keeps our lives from this time and forevermore. And she responded to the gracious love and protection of the Lord our God in acts of boldness, love, and mercy. She knew that it was up to her to share God’s love with the world. She knew this was God’s call in her life. She knew it was as important to share as it was to receive God’s grace, peace, and love.
By grace through faith in our risen Lord Jesus Christ, she rests with Him today in glory.
Showing posts with label Matthew 7. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Matthew 7. Show all posts
Friday, January 29, 2010
Sunday, June 01, 2008
Hear and Act--Yada, Yada, Yada
This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday June 1, 2008, the Ninth Sunday of Ordinary Time.
Genesis 6:9-22, 7:24, 8:14-19
Psalm 46
Romans 1:16-17, 3:22b-28 (29-31)
Matthew 7:21-29
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen
The television show “Seinfeld” brought America a taste of what it is like to be Jewish in New York. One of the things the show gave us is the phrase, “yada, yada, yada.” The way it was used, it meant “et cetera” or “you know.” In truth, this word, this Hebrew phrase means, “he knows, he knows, he knows.” But as with many other words and phrases, the context often means more than the words alone.
In the biblical context, yada means much more. In the Old Testament, “knowing God” especially involves obedience.[1] So when we say that we know God, or when we say we know what God wants, we must also show that we know God through obedience to the word. As we come to know God’s word, we become more familiar with the laws and demands God commands. To know God means that we know God’s laws and are obedient to them. So when we say, “I know,” we must be careful not only to know intellectually, or emotionally, but actively too.
This is what Jesus is getting at when he talks of those who hear his words and act on them. We’re not just hearing them with our ears, and processing them with our minds, and keeping them in our hearts, but putting calluses on our hands doing what he has said too.
Jesus impresses this point upon those listening to the end of the Sermon of the Mount. In this, certainly one of the most important sermons in the history of exhortation, Jesus ends his comments to his disciples saying, only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven will enter the kingdom of heaven. Belief is one thing, but action is key. Jesus reminds the people that he will send the evildoers from his presence.
Now the New Living Translation doesn’t say “you evildoers.” It says “you who break God’s laws” instead. For our understanding of the culture, this translation is closer to the intent of the text. Remember, Matthew’s gospel was written for Jewish believers in Jesus, ones to whom the law is an important part of life. Where the Gentiles would know about the law, the Jews would know it as an integral part of daily life. So when on that day, judgment day, the Lord tells the believer, “Get away from me, you who break God’s laws,” this would be heard with heart wrenching sorrow.
And oh yes, this passage is directed toward believers, not the unknowing masses.
We may do great deeds of power in the name of the Lord, but even so, it is still possible to break God’s laws. And let me ask you, who is more accountable; the one who has never heard God’s laws, or those who know them and break them? Ignorance may be no defense, but disobedience is worse.
Paul helps us discern what it is to be obedient. Our reading from Romans tells us “For in [the gospel] the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith.” He continues reminding us that we are justified not by the law or by works, but by faith.
So Jesus says those who do the will of his Father will enter the kingdom of heaven on judgment day, and Paul tells us that we are justified by grace through faith and not by works. These seem to go in two different directions. Jesus tells us not to break the law and Paul tells us we are saved by not by the law but by grace. How do we handle these two pieces of scripture that seem to contradict one another?
Let’s go back a couple of weeks when I talked about faith and repentance.[2] As I mentioned in that sermon,[3] according to biblical scholars, Paul speaks of faith as union with Christ; the death of the old nature, the putting on of the new humanity, resurrection to newness of life, and new creation.[4] So the faith Paul speaks so strongly of is more than a spiritual or emotional thing, there is a physical putting on of new life in Christ which demands a response, an active response.
The scribes and the Pharisees talk of 613 laws, the Taryag Mitzvot. In these laws are 248 positive laws, things to do, and 365 negative laws, things not to do.[5] Jesus distills this into two simple commands saying, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law.”[6] The experts in the law tell us there are many laws; Jesus tells us that all of our laws come from just these two.
The Hebrew word often used to show the love of God is hesed. Hesed is bold and unpredictable. It is unorthodox and unbound by convention and culture. It is a love which only God is capable; it is a love we are called to imitate and follow. We are called to be immersed in the hesed of the Lord. Only by first being immersed in this love can we share it with others.
Biblical scholar Carolyn Custis James writes hesed is “driven, not by duty or legal obligation, but by a bone-deep commitment—a loyal, selfless love that motivates a person to do voluntarily what no one has a right to expect or ask of them.”[7]
Hesed is only present when we have the option to walk away. Hesed is only present with perfect freedom; the freedom to do as we wish, yet choose to do what is beyond the pale of valor. Hesed is only present when we put all that we have and more into our love for God and one another. And it is in times like these when we are able to give more than we could ever know or imagine. Jesus teaches us how to love one another with this perfect daring love.
We all know of Leah, the young girl Lucille gives us updates about who is battling cancer. What you don’t know is that her cousin Rachel died of the same cancer years earlier at the age of six. What we don’t see are Rachel’s parents who know the loss of a child, giving her all of their love, more than they could have ever hoped to give.
Rachel’s dream was her wedding. Even at the age of five, she was anticipating her special day. Because hesed knows no bounds, because hesed knows which of our rules can and should be broken; with her family and friends she celebrated her wedding. Her special day was a joyful day for the entire family. But I cannot imagine how the joy of this celebration was not diminished by the terror of cancer.
Yet, through God’s perfect love, through his hesed, life was celebrated, love was shared, and joy was known. Hesed won the day, even in the light of the grief that would follow some months later as a six year old girl dies.
It is this sacrificial love we are called to share. This is the law we are to carry out. This is how we are to respond to one another in faith, this is how we keep the laws of God and not become evildoers. We do this not for our salvation, but in response to our salvation. This is the joy we are to share with our Lord, one another, and our neighbor. This is the love we are especially to share with the sojourner and the stranger, those who come and go in our lives.
This is what we are to hear, this is what we are to obey, only then can we know. We pack school supplies for children we don’t even know, yet our lives intersect theirs every day that homework is finished. And we are called to do more; we are called to be outrageous in committing hesed on an unsuspecting world. There is a call for school supplies for Iraqi and Pakistani school children. Is it time to take the school supply project global? And before anyone asks if this is the kind of project we can handle; as we have received the grace and peace of God’s extravagant love; I ask as believers in Christ how can we answer with any less?
We are saved by grace through faith which is not spiritual, but active. What we do is not works to garner salvation, but acts performed in response to God’s perfect love. And once we dare ourselves to stretch beyond what we could ever hope or imagine, just dream of where God’s grace will take us.
The crowd was astounded, amazed at Jesus’ teaching for he spoke with authority, not as their teachers of the Law. You see, the scribes did have an authority. They followed the authority of the written word and those who had interpreted it a thousand years before them. But Jesus does not rely upon the authority of mere mortals. He is God, he is the living Torah, he is the law incarnate. As Emmanuel, God with us, he teaches with his own authority—the authority of the Lord our God. We are to hear his words and act on them through his boundless love. Then we will be like the wise man who builds his home upon the rock, our rock and our redeemer. Amen
[1] “Yada”, “The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon.” Oxford: Clarendon Press 1907
[2] From the Sixth Sunday of Easter, Acts 17:22-31 and John 14:15-21.
[3] “Election Day,” http://timelovesahero.blogspot.com/2008/04/election-day.html, accessed May 31, 2008.
[4] Repentance, “The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible.” Buttirck, Editor. 21st Printing, Electronic Edition, Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1962
[5] 613 Mitzvot, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/613_Mitzvot, accessed July 2, 2007.
[6] Matthew 22:37-39
[7] Custin James, Carolyn, “The Gospel of Ruth, Loving God Enough to Break the Rules.” Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008, page 115.
Genesis 6:9-22, 7:24, 8:14-19
Psalm 46
Romans 1:16-17, 3:22b-28 (29-31)
Matthew 7:21-29
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen
The television show “Seinfeld” brought America a taste of what it is like to be Jewish in New York. One of the things the show gave us is the phrase, “yada, yada, yada.” The way it was used, it meant “et cetera” or “you know.” In truth, this word, this Hebrew phrase means, “he knows, he knows, he knows.” But as with many other words and phrases, the context often means more than the words alone.
In the biblical context, yada means much more. In the Old Testament, “knowing God” especially involves obedience.[1] So when we say that we know God, or when we say we know what God wants, we must also show that we know God through obedience to the word. As we come to know God’s word, we become more familiar with the laws and demands God commands. To know God means that we know God’s laws and are obedient to them. So when we say, “I know,” we must be careful not only to know intellectually, or emotionally, but actively too.
This is what Jesus is getting at when he talks of those who hear his words and act on them. We’re not just hearing them with our ears, and processing them with our minds, and keeping them in our hearts, but putting calluses on our hands doing what he has said too.
Jesus impresses this point upon those listening to the end of the Sermon of the Mount. In this, certainly one of the most important sermons in the history of exhortation, Jesus ends his comments to his disciples saying, only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven will enter the kingdom of heaven. Belief is one thing, but action is key. Jesus reminds the people that he will send the evildoers from his presence.
Now the New Living Translation doesn’t say “you evildoers.” It says “you who break God’s laws” instead. For our understanding of the culture, this translation is closer to the intent of the text. Remember, Matthew’s gospel was written for Jewish believers in Jesus, ones to whom the law is an important part of life. Where the Gentiles would know about the law, the Jews would know it as an integral part of daily life. So when on that day, judgment day, the Lord tells the believer, “Get away from me, you who break God’s laws,” this would be heard with heart wrenching sorrow.
And oh yes, this passage is directed toward believers, not the unknowing masses.
We may do great deeds of power in the name of the Lord, but even so, it is still possible to break God’s laws. And let me ask you, who is more accountable; the one who has never heard God’s laws, or those who know them and break them? Ignorance may be no defense, but disobedience is worse.
Paul helps us discern what it is to be obedient. Our reading from Romans tells us “For in [the gospel] the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith.” He continues reminding us that we are justified not by the law or by works, but by faith.
So Jesus says those who do the will of his Father will enter the kingdom of heaven on judgment day, and Paul tells us that we are justified by grace through faith and not by works. These seem to go in two different directions. Jesus tells us not to break the law and Paul tells us we are saved by not by the law but by grace. How do we handle these two pieces of scripture that seem to contradict one another?
Let’s go back a couple of weeks when I talked about faith and repentance.[2] As I mentioned in that sermon,[3] according to biblical scholars, Paul speaks of faith as union with Christ; the death of the old nature, the putting on of the new humanity, resurrection to newness of life, and new creation.[4] So the faith Paul speaks so strongly of is more than a spiritual or emotional thing, there is a physical putting on of new life in Christ which demands a response, an active response.
The scribes and the Pharisees talk of 613 laws, the Taryag Mitzvot. In these laws are 248 positive laws, things to do, and 365 negative laws, things not to do.[5] Jesus distills this into two simple commands saying, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law.”[6] The experts in the law tell us there are many laws; Jesus tells us that all of our laws come from just these two.
The Hebrew word often used to show the love of God is hesed. Hesed is bold and unpredictable. It is unorthodox and unbound by convention and culture. It is a love which only God is capable; it is a love we are called to imitate and follow. We are called to be immersed in the hesed of the Lord. Only by first being immersed in this love can we share it with others.
Biblical scholar Carolyn Custis James writes hesed is “driven, not by duty or legal obligation, but by a bone-deep commitment—a loyal, selfless love that motivates a person to do voluntarily what no one has a right to expect or ask of them.”[7]
Hesed is only present when we have the option to walk away. Hesed is only present with perfect freedom; the freedom to do as we wish, yet choose to do what is beyond the pale of valor. Hesed is only present when we put all that we have and more into our love for God and one another. And it is in times like these when we are able to give more than we could ever know or imagine. Jesus teaches us how to love one another with this perfect daring love.
We all know of Leah, the young girl Lucille gives us updates about who is battling cancer. What you don’t know is that her cousin Rachel died of the same cancer years earlier at the age of six. What we don’t see are Rachel’s parents who know the loss of a child, giving her all of their love, more than they could have ever hoped to give.
Rachel’s dream was her wedding. Even at the age of five, she was anticipating her special day. Because hesed knows no bounds, because hesed knows which of our rules can and should be broken; with her family and friends she celebrated her wedding. Her special day was a joyful day for the entire family. But I cannot imagine how the joy of this celebration was not diminished by the terror of cancer.
Yet, through God’s perfect love, through his hesed, life was celebrated, love was shared, and joy was known. Hesed won the day, even in the light of the grief that would follow some months later as a six year old girl dies.
It is this sacrificial love we are called to share. This is the law we are to carry out. This is how we are to respond to one another in faith, this is how we keep the laws of God and not become evildoers. We do this not for our salvation, but in response to our salvation. This is the joy we are to share with our Lord, one another, and our neighbor. This is the love we are especially to share with the sojourner and the stranger, those who come and go in our lives.
This is what we are to hear, this is what we are to obey, only then can we know. We pack school supplies for children we don’t even know, yet our lives intersect theirs every day that homework is finished. And we are called to do more; we are called to be outrageous in committing hesed on an unsuspecting world. There is a call for school supplies for Iraqi and Pakistani school children. Is it time to take the school supply project global? And before anyone asks if this is the kind of project we can handle; as we have received the grace and peace of God’s extravagant love; I ask as believers in Christ how can we answer with any less?
We are saved by grace through faith which is not spiritual, but active. What we do is not works to garner salvation, but acts performed in response to God’s perfect love. And once we dare ourselves to stretch beyond what we could ever hope or imagine, just dream of where God’s grace will take us.
The crowd was astounded, amazed at Jesus’ teaching for he spoke with authority, not as their teachers of the Law. You see, the scribes did have an authority. They followed the authority of the written word and those who had interpreted it a thousand years before them. But Jesus does not rely upon the authority of mere mortals. He is God, he is the living Torah, he is the law incarnate. As Emmanuel, God with us, he teaches with his own authority—the authority of the Lord our God. We are to hear his words and act on them through his boundless love. Then we will be like the wise man who builds his home upon the rock, our rock and our redeemer. Amen
[1] “Yada”, “The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon.” Oxford: Clarendon Press 1907
[2] From the Sixth Sunday of Easter, Acts 17:22-31 and John 14:15-21.
[3] “Election Day,” http://timelovesahero.blogspot.com/2008/04/election-day.html, accessed May 31, 2008.
[4] Repentance, “The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible.” Buttirck, Editor. 21st Printing, Electronic Edition, Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1962
[5] 613 Mitzvot, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/613_Mitzvot, accessed July 2, 2007.
[6] Matthew 22:37-39
[7] Custin James, Carolyn, “The Gospel of Ruth, Loving God Enough to Break the Rules.” Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008, page 115.
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