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Behold, I Stand at the Door, and Knock: Being fully known and recognized by God
Pastor Elzabeth Wrightman
Jesus stands up in the synagogue. He is the reader. They hand him the scroll of Isaiah, the prophet. Jesus reads chapter 61:1. He reads 1/2 of verse 2 and stops, omitting the second line in verse 2 “–and the day of vengeance of our God”, exactly as we have shown in our reading this morning and as Luke writes. Jesus has just returned from the desert and comes to his home town. He goes on to say “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” What is Jesus doing?! He is in effect, telling the congregation, and us, pointing to the Hebrew script, “This is who I am! This is who Isaiah was talking about!” This is what I will do and this is how it will look. And this is how I will preach, and why. And this is what I will say about God, and to whom I will say it. And it will be Good News.”
And he had already closed the book, and had given it back to the attendant, and sat down. He leaves a model for us to follow too. I know what I am doing. I am clear about what God wants of me, and the unspoken part…God will equip me to speak, Jesus is saying, and to act and conduct myself, according to the will of God.
It is nearly 2,000 years later; Amsterdam, Holland, 1937. An aging watchmaker and his two daughters are having a party in their, to us…very old house, called the Beje. The party, widely attended by all, is being given to honor the beloved white- haired man the children of Haarlem call, Opa, grandfather…on the 100th anniversary of his watch repair shop. When his own children were grown, 11 more children, for one reason or another in need of a home had been raised and educated by Casper ten Boom, in the funny ancient house; (really two houses joined together somehow), with a winding narrow staircase… a house where “None of God’s people would ever be turned away”, as the motto came to take shape, when history grew dark and 1937 became 1939. Frightened Jews would begin to show up seeking asylum, in whatever form, from all over Europe. One daughter, Corrie, (who always downplays her own role and venerates her sister Betsy), will become one of the heads of underground resistance in Haarlem. Portraying herself as a bit bumbling and befuddled, in the famous book about her family’s role, she learns to actually steal hundreds of ration cards and to seek for the emergency things the rescuers will need; contacts in hospitals, with funeral homes, folks who can forge documents, folks who will permit one precious room in a farmhouse to be a safe house…..At first she laments that she will not know the political leanings of people she goes to for her sources. She knows this could endanger the security of many in the underground. The answer she receives to this concern is as mysterious and as trust-filled, as the underground itself. True, her family does not know the hearts of the people whom she needs to approach, but as she says,” God does!” –and she trusts God to lead her.
Holland falls to Germany in 1940. And among many others, two major things occur at the old Beje. One is that the house itself is called to play a major role in the resistance of evil. Second is that in Casper ten Boom we have a glimpse of someone doing much akin to what Jesus does in the synagogue that day with the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. He will proclaim aloud his call from God. It will be in the presence of others. It will clearly risk all of their lives, and indeed he will soon lose his life. One daughter and one great nephew will also die in the death camps. As we will see, that is not his foremost concern in some way. He will tell a local clergyman, (and us here today in Carmel, California); this is what I believe. This is what I will do. This is how it will look. This is exactly how God views it, and I know the risks. He has informed his conscience over a lifetime. And this gives all of us a model, again of how that is done. Every morning at 8:30 am the household meets for scripture reading and prayer. Every day the expectations of the home are that one live one’s life, in the words of St. Paul, “in Christ”.
Like the two grandmothers on Mt. Fuji, he is well up in years. Like them he is virtually powerless against the immense occupying force. As Jesus is as well. Like the two grandmothers on Mt. Fuji, and like Jesus, he is unarmed and vulnerable. In his case he is building a small helpless fortress, at the gates of hell, and seeking for a way to make that work for the mortally endangered refugees.
They are threats to the powers that be. In the face of that they show leadership, they will act with authority---
This is how these two things did look. As for the house, it rapidly became known that a real hiding place within its walls would be needed. A man arrives at the Beje named Mr. Smit. He ask Corrie to take him on a tour of the house. They slowly begin to ascend the narrow corkscrew stairs. Corrie writes that as he climbed gradually up the three stories, his spirits rose. The odd placed landings!...and he pounds on the crooked walls, he laughs as the floor levels of the 2 old houses do not meet. The walls are all grimy from age, where coal, time out of mind’ has heated the houses, the ancient molding was chipped and peeling, and old water stains, from 300 plus years streaked the walls. What Corrie does not know at the time is that “Mr. Smit” is one of the most famous architects in Europe. He tells her, “Miss ten Boom, if all houses were built like this one you would see before you a less worried man.”
The house was only two rooms deep, and only one room wide. Its rear wall had been knocked through to join it with the even thinner, steeper house in back. All the curiosities of the Beje had become the little fortress, where helpless wanderers could find at least temporary security. Hopefully more…
Now at each visit to the house, in years past, troubled folks from the city had often come to tell their problems to Casper ten Boom. He would pray with them for the answers to their troubles, right in the watch shop. Now with each visit, a second pattern evolved as well. Visitors would carry tools hidden in a newspaper, or a few bricks in many a briefcase. And now came many a “Mr. Smit.” A plasterer, a painter. Artistic designers who could see how illusion could be created, much like in an opera set, and imagination employed to deceive the searching eye. Patched together, a precious two and a half ft. from the original bookcase lined wall grew a secret room. Exquisite rules and practices were put in place and rehearsed frequently, in order to use it safely.
But before I go further I want to bring another voice into the room. Because it is important to note that not all of our calls to live out God’s will might seem heroic, or take place on the world stage. Our everyday stories are also about what Jesus was modeling. He modeled praying for one’s enemies, serving the poor, not judging others if possible, about helping to heal, about helping to teach, about witnessing a narrative of hope.
We are not in a synagogue in Nazareth or on Mt. Fuji, or in 1940 Holland. But we are equally to hear our call, as children of God. We are equally called to live lives of character formation, where we too are living as St. Paul said, “in Christ”. By God’s grace.
So, saying that, I return to our day; I was a hospital chaplain in Pittsburgh, PA. The two hospitals where I served were large old inner city hospitals. Many patients were low income. I was paged one morning to visit a woman the nurses said needed the chaplains help. She had a brain tumor and was in for side effects of treatment. I went to the room prepared to give messages I assumed she was seeking. I arrived to a depressing sight. The room was brightly from fluorescent lighting, too hot, as that hospital always was…a curtain half pulled around the bed, for some privacy. A partially eaten breakfast littered a drably colored plastic tray and books, Kleenex, a few flowers, pamphlets, pens, glasses, etc. overflowed on a tiny nightstand, and were scattered over the rumpled bedspread. The patient was bent and seemed to be sitting curved away from the light and debris, nearly facing the wall. She looked frail and overwhelmed and uncomfortable. I sat down near her and introduced myself. She turned toward me and taking my hand in her slim, cold fingers said, “He is so good.” Taken completely off guard, I began to open my mouth to try to respond. When she quietly repeated it to me. “He is so good.”
She was feeling called that morning. She felt called to witness her faith and trust. In the midst of her feeling so low, she wanted to voice it out loud. She wanted to say in effect, “This is what I believe. This is what I know to be true. This is how it looks. This is how it sounds. This is what I feel called to proclaim. This is what is true of who God is.”
A small, gentle story; a call involving the daily life of regular everyday lives, perhaps much more like our own…….her ‘call’ that day was to offer praise, and to share that praise with another believer……
And in closing, to return again to an occupied Amsterdam, a local pastor had come to visit, at Opa ten Boom’s request. The watchmaker confides that he is looking for help from the pastor…. The pastor frowned, dreading and wondering what he was about to hear. “Would you be willing to take a Jewish mother and her baby into your home? They will almost certainly be arrested otherwise.”
Color drained from the man’s face and he took a step back. “I hope you’re not involved with any of his illegal concealment and undercover business. It’s not safe! Think of your family!”
The baby, wrapped in his blanket was brought downstairs and into the room, and Corrie showed the baby’s face to the visiting pastor. Corrie says that she saw compassion and fear struggle in the man’s face. He reaches, in spite of himself for the small hand. Straightening up he says, “No. definitely not. We could lose our lives for that Jewish child!”
“Give the child to me, Corrie”, said Grandfather ten boom. After gazing closely, down at the infant he then looked up at the pastor. He states his call. What it will look like. What he will do. What He knows to be true. What he knows of God. How his character has been formed, to be lived, as St. Paul says, “in Christ”.
“You say we could lose our lives for this child. I would consider that the greatest honor that could come to my family.
Amen
Rev. Elizabeth Wrightman
Jan. 5, 2025