Below is the meditation Pastor John offered at the blessing service for Celina Jamieson’s mother, Elvina Brown, on Friday.
“Sunday’s coming.”
With those words, in these last months, Elvina Brown would remind her daughter Celina of where she wanted to be come 11 a.m. on the first day of the week. What a gift it was for the people of this church, however brief, to have worshipped with and gotten to know such a sweet, sweet spirit. Thanks be to God for Celina’s own arrival here only a few months earlier, and for how Celina shared Ms. Brown with us in the twilight of her earthly life.
“I think that is why she was meant to come here, to Charlotte,” Celina told me this week. “So that she could come here, to Caldwell, to worship God.”
It was a very unlikely last stop for Elvina, after having grown up in Panama and lived much of her adult life in Brooklyn. But our Lord has a funny way about his divine logic, a mystery that so often clouds our earthly sojourn. That mystery is now clear to Elvina, as she dwells with her Lord … and one that will one day be revealed to us all when we join her in the church triumphant.
I will always cherish the visits I had with her, at the hospital and at her home, where we read from her prayer book and shared our faith. I will not soon forget her presence, there in our left transom, that beautiful frosting of white hair against her lovely dark skin.
As Celina shared some of Elvina’s life with me, I could see there were clues of how she might end up at an odd but loving place like this one. Even in Panama, where the Roman Catholic Church cast a broad shadow, Elvina would take her children to different churches. Baptist, Methodist and others. Yes, there were clues to Elvina’s open mind, heart and faith even then.
Later, upon arriving in Brooklyn, however, she found her place at Our Lady of Mercy Catholic Church. There she heard the words from her dear friend, Gloria, the promise that liberates us all: God’s love and mercy are extended to each of us in Christ Jesus, a love we cannot earn, however perfect or righteous we may think ourselves, a love that will not desert us however broken we may be.
Liberated by those words, Elvina lived out her faith more fully than ever at Our Lady of Mercy. She sang in the choir, extended communion as a Eucharistic Minister, shared the love of God to others through the Family Guild. Her faith sustained her through life’s ups and downs, as she adjusted to life in the U.S., through the journey of aging and it saw her through cancer.
Sunday’s coming. She knew Sunday was always coming. Those words kept her going.
We clergy sometimes joke among ourselves that is seems like Sunday is ALWAYS coming. Another worship service to prepare, another sermon to write. But we know, deep down inside, the joy that the promise of another Sunday holds for us and for all of those who look forward to our renewal in worship, just as Elivna did here and in so many places.
There are ups and downs for all of God’s children, for all of God’s congregations, for all of God’s creation. But it is the promise that Sunday is coming that keeps us going, isn’t it? It is that promise that equips us to face those Maundy Thursday-days when the sun is shrouded by darkness at noon day, those days when we feel as if we are consumed forever by the tomb.
But we know that after the Maundy Thursday’s of our lives, there is Good Friday, there is Holy Saturday and there is Easter Sunday, when all things are made new. This is why we call ourselves Easter people. Surely it is all these “little Easters” that get us finally to our own true Easter, when the mystery of this life melts away and we, like Elvina, will see our Lord face to face.
In her final hours, her vascular system, affected by stroke, began to choke her brain of blood. She could not communicate verbally. But, I’m told that when she heard some sacred music, she raised her hands in praise. At other times in those final hours, she clasped her hands peacefully as in prayer.
“That’s just reflex,” a nurse said.
“No,” responded Celina with a deep knowing. “No, it’s not reflex.”
Jesus said, ”Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”
Elvina breathed her last early on a Saturday. She slipped the bonds of this earthly coil, met her Lord face to face and saw the glory of her own, personal Holy Saturday in Christ’s redeeming presence. And together, this day and every day, they remind us as Easter people, that Sunday is coming. Sunday, with its promise of renewal and resurrection, is always coming.
In the book of 1 Peter we find this assurance:
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, whose great mercy gave us new birth into a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead! This inheritance to which we all are born is one that nothing can destroy or spoil or wither.
Amen