THE STRAIGHTFORWARD PULPIT

Text:  Luke 22:31-32

Theme:  "Finishing Well"

The Memorial Service for Gwen Lam

June 29, 2012

First Presbyterian Church

Denton, Texas

Rev. Paul R. Dunklau

+In the Name of Jesus+

“Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”

To you, dear friends of Gwen from near and far; to you, members of the Good Samaritan community just up the road; to the participants in the Bible Study Fellowship that Gwen so greatly enjoyed; to you, the members of First Presbyterian Church, blessed by Gwen's life and she blessed in turn by your lives; to you, the dear family, and especially to you, our beloved Norma:  Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from the risen Lord Jesus Christ!

Today is Friday, and that is not insignificant.  Every Friday is an anniversary of when Jesus Christ gave Himself willingly, on a cross, for the sins of all people.  Over thirty years ago in the largest university chapel in the world (The Chapel of the Resurrection at Valparaiso University in Indiana), the speaker stood up on Good Friday and addressed the assembled worshippers as follows:  "It's Friday, but Sunday's coming."  It's Friday; the powers of evil and death and hell can do their worst, but Sunday's coming. 

Sunday did come!  The One who was put to death for our sins was raised again for our justification.  That means that the power of evil and death and hell to ultimately undo us was -- to borrow a phrase -- "rendered unconstitutional."  There is life to be lived in the risen Christ; it is to be lived with all the zest, zip, tang, vim and vigor that God gives you.

If anyone understood this, if anyone got it into gear and embraced this life to the hilt, it was -- and is! -- Gwen Lam.  That life started in West Texas over 90 years ago -- Tahoka, Texas, to be exact.  It headed over to Lubbock and Texas Tech.  That life was spotted in surgical suites in Denver, Colorado.  That life wore our country's uniform, and it helped get Gwen into journalism and the art of educating  people.  It took her to Iowa and Chicago and then to the big apple, New York City, the locus of her professional career.

But her professional career, while vast and varied, was not the first order of business.  The first order of business was -- and now all the more gloriously is! -- Jesus Christ and His love for her.  And all of it produced, in this dynamo of a human being, faith in God put into practice with love.  Faith was her engine and love was where the rubber hit the road!

I first met this wonderful child of God we celebrate today nearly two years ago.  She had a bit of a scratchy voice that day and it was difficult for her to speak, so one of our members here at First Presbyterian started to list off some of her accomplishments in life. Gwen looked at me and she was quietly chuckling.  She smiled, sort of shrugged her shoulders, and she rolled her eyes as if to say, "I did all that?"  Of course, she did all that.  But she carried all that accomplishment with gracious modesty.  In a world of tireless self-promotion, this is a huge lesson we all can continue to learn from this woman.  We are the salt of the earth, not the chili pepper.  We are the light of the world, not the neon sign.

Earlier this week, I spoke with Gwen's sister Norma and nephew Dave about the content and shape of this service.  Almost immediately, they said:  "Talk about finishing well."  In 1965, the musical lyricists Jimmy Van Heusen and J. Cahn penned these words:

One day you turn around and it's summer
Next day you turn around and it's fall
And the springs and the winters of a lifetime
Whatever happened to them all?

There is a certain wistfulness to these words.  There is a whiff of nostalgia and a tinge of regret.  As people get older, as they we move to the October, the November, and the December of their lives, as the finish line of life is a growing speck on the horizon, people can daydream about the past and wonder where the time went.  "And the springs and the winters of a lifetime...whatever happened to them all?"

Not long ago, Gwen spent a few days in the rehabilitation section of Good Sam up the road here.   The charge nurse gave me her room number.  She wasn't in her room.  Not to be deterred, I tracked her down and found her in a larger therapy room.  She didn't see me at first.  She sat alone in a chair waiting for her therapist; she was alone with her own thoughts.  What I saw gave me pause.  She may have been wistful and nostalgic; she may have wondered what happened to the springs and summers of her lifetime, where the time all went, and so forth. 

But I don't think that was it.  There was a radiance to her that day that emerged from her aging and frail body.  Yes, in her own words, it was the look of a teenager stuck in an old person's body.  I'm convinced she was at prayer.

With the exception of the passage from Romans chapter twelve that you heard ( which was suggested by our friend and brother Robert Jones), all of the Scriptures you heard today were chosen by Gwen.  She chose them not for this day which is a Friday.  Rather, she chose them for Monday.  She selected them for her book of devotions which was published in 1996 by Broadman and Holman Publishers.  The title is Meditations for Monday. 

Our first Scripture today was from the prophet Isaiah.  A verse stands out:  "He awakens me morning by morning, He awakens my ear to hear as the learned."

Picking up on this verse:  Gwen wrote:

            Many retired people say they appreciate the opportunity to "sleep in" after           years of getting up early to take care of family and job requirements.  Others say their internal alarm clocks are set, and they continue to arise          early even though nothing compels them to do so.  I belong to the latter             group.

                        "You get up at six o'clock!" exclaimed a friend.  "What do you do      with all that time?"

                        "Three things," I said.  "I read the Bible, I pray, and I write in my       journal."

Finishing well means putting first things first at the first part of every new day:  you meditate on God's Word, you pray based on that word, and you reflect on it.

Finishing wells also entails believing, come what may, that God is in charge.  Earlier, we heard Psalm 46.  Gwen, in one of her meditations, called it "The Noisy Psalm" for good reason; for it is filled, as she wrote, with upheavals, roaring waters, shaking mountains, raging nations, and burning chariots.  "Immersing yourself in this powerful psalm," said Gwen, will calm fears and ease weariness, loneliness, helplessness, and sorrow.  Called the 'song of confidence,' it captures the essence of faith without ever using the word."  Want to finish well?  Get cozy and comfy with Psalm 46!

Just a couple of days ago, Robert Jones described Gwen as a "Romans 12" kind of woman.  Moments ago, we heard the entire chapter.  It's all about using the gifts God gives you -- about being a living sacrifice. 

Finishing well means that, no matter what our condition may be, we have work to do.  Someone might say, "Well, it's pretty hard to be a living sacrifice and to serve God" if you're consigned to a room all alone in an assisted living facility.  The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak; we just can't do it anymore."  Gwen would have us reframe our thinking about that. She wasn't given to counsels of despair.  There were apricots to be made into preserves, chocolate to be converted in delicious brownies (did someone find the recipe?), bread to be baked.  Our life remains a living sacrifice.  It remains a gift to others.  Even in the December of life, even when you can no longer bake the bread or brownies,  life is a gift in the form of an opportunity -- the opportunity for others to visit, to laugh, to pray, to sing,  to quell the loneliness, to share life, and to learn from the lives of those, like Gwen,  who see the finish line coming, who are on the home stretch of their earthly sojourn.

Finally, we arrive at the Holy Gospel reading for today:  Luke 22:31-32.  On the night before Jesus died and shortly before He was arrested, one of his followers, Simon Peter, spoke to our Lord with sincerity and confidence:  "Lord, I shall follow you to prison and to death."  Sincerity and confidence in the self, so sought after in our world, never much impressed Jesus.  In fact, He essentially told Simon what it was worth (not very much).  He said:  "Before the cock crows, you will deny me three times." 

Later that night, as the cock crowed, Simon Peter cried.  Perhaps he remembered what Jesus first said:  "Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat.  But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail.  And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers." 

On this Scriptural reference, Gwen told a little story. It wasn't about her, it was about her brother, Dr.Conrad Lam, and a Polish man, a heart patient, by the name of George. 

As it goes, George was deathly ill.  Dr. Lam was about to perform risky surgery to try and save his life.  Before the operation,  George's mother whispered into George's ear in the polish native tongue.  George, the patient, said to Gwen's brother, Dr. Lam:  "My mother wants you to know she will go to the church at 6:00 am and pray until noon." 

The operation the next day started off smoothly.  Dr.Lam was encouraged.  But then things took a turn for the worse.  There was too much damage to the heart.  With further effort, George would die.  So he ordered the surgical team to suture the wounds and close the chest.  But then, as Gwen relates, he glanced at the clock.  It was 10:30.  "A vision of the Polish mother praying at the church filled his mind.  She had now been praying four and a half hours.  'Well,I'll just have to tell her that because of the calcium on George's valve, her prayers were futile,' he said to himself.  Then suddenly he asked a nurse for fresh gown and gloves.  He quickly scrubbed up and resumed his place among the astonished surgical team.  'We're going to try again,' he said.  Astonishingly, it worked.

Sometime later, in the post-op, unit the George's mother held her son's hand.  Again, she gave him a message to translate:  "She wants to thank you for saving my life."

Finishing well is knowing that Christ, the Son of the living God, like that old Polish mother, is praying for you, and that your restoration is on the way.  "It's Friday, but Sunday's comin'"

Even in her passing, Gwen has taught us a lifetime of lessons -- many of which are about finishing well, as she did.  That crown of righteousness, which shall never tarnish or fade, is now hers.  "Well done, thou good and faithful servant," exclaims her Lord.  Amid the tears of our sorrow that say to Gwen "See you no more" are also, intermingled, those tears of joy that say to Gwen "See you!"

Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift in Jesus Christ.  And Gwen Lam, may choirs of angels greet you on the far side of Jordan with the same magnificent grace and beauty that you extended to us all.

May the peace of God passing all human understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus to life everlasting.  Amen.