Looking Around to See Ahead – A Sermon based on Psalm 16 
preached at First Presbyterian Church, Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania on October 18, 2026

                                     
    Rising above the farm fields of County Tipperary in Ireland is a massive limestone outcropping on top of which stand the ruins of a tower, a chapel and a cathedral built in the twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.  Before those buildings went up the Rock of Cashel had been home to kings. Legend has it that in the fifth century, St. Patrick came there to convert and baptize Aengus, the High King of the region. During the ceremony, St. Patrick accidentally planted his staff on the king’s foot, but the king, thinking that was part of the ritual, said nothing.

           Walking around among the grave markers in the cemetery one has a stunning view of the valley below. I had just taken the picture that is on the bulletin cover this morning when Bill Carter approached.  I pointed to the stone walls and the livestock below and quoted, “Psalm 16, “the boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places.”[i]

            Psalm 16 is one of my favorites.  Here is another reason why. In February of 1985 my father was scheduled to read one of the scripture readings during the Sunday evening service where the Presbytery of Lackawanna was to Install me as the pastor of First Presbyterian Church of West Pittston.  The night before we had a lovely family dinner around my wife’s grandmother’s table in the dining room of the manse that would become our home for thirty-four and a half years.

            After dinner, my Dad took a seat in an old oak rocking chair that he had reupholstered for us, and proceeded to have what another generation would have called “a spell.” His eyes were open, but there was a blank look on his face, and he did not respond to questions. My sister-in-law, a nurse, checked him over and said, “Call an ambulance.”

            The rescue crew from our new hometown came and transported him to what was then called NPW hospital in Plains, where he was admitted. He had regained his senses but had no recollection of the incident. Long story short, he had experienced a TIA, a Transient Ischemic Attack, spent a few days being evaluated before being transferred to Geisinger in Danville. Eventually he was sent home to New Jersey where he underwent surgeries to clear out blockages in his carotid arteries. Needless to say he didn’t read scripture at my Installation.

            During one of my first visits with him he asked if I could bring him something to read. After promising to do so, I pulled from my sport coat the pocket-sized Bible I usually carried and left it with him. 

            Months later, when I opened that Bible to read some Psalms to a parishioner in another hospital or nursing home room, I was surprised to find that my father had used the little menu marking pencil to draw a line around verses five through eleven of Psalm 16 and write the date on which he had read them. In the words of that original sweat-soaked, coffee-stained Revised Standard Version the verses he enclosed began:

“The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup;

thou holdest my lot.

The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;

Yeah, I have a goodly heritage."

            By this point in the psalm, the author is looking back and looking around and reflecting on life. By the end he will speak confidently about trusting God to lead him in the future. The poet began his prayer with what one scholar labels as “a prayer for preservation,” adding “the Psalmist simply prays that God may also protect him in the future as he has done in the past.”[iii] 

In the New Revised Standard Version the Psalm ends with words which speak of living sur-rounded by the presence of God, not just in the distant future, but here and now:

“You show me the path of life.

In your presence there is fullness of joy;

in your right hand are pleasures forevermore."

            Getting from the petition for preservation to that final statement of faith is not for the faint of heart.  It requires an honest look at where one is now and how one got there. It means reviewing all the twists and turns, the false starts and difficult slogs, as well as the sunshine moments and mountaintop revelations.

            Commentator James L. Mays helps us understand the picture at the heart of verses five and six.  He writes: “When the psalmist calls the Lord his ‘portion and cup’ and speaks of lot and lines and heritage in describing the goodness of his destiny, he is using the vocabulary and concepts that are employed in the Book of Joshua to describe Israel’s occupation of the promised land as the outcome of God’s salvation of Israel.”^[v]

            Now I’m sure you remember the story of Israel getting to the promised land was no cake walk! A look back on the journey from Egypt through the wilderness and much, much later, crossing the Jordan and settling the land, are not all remembrances of a dry seabed to cross, manna from heaven and water from rocks. There are also stories of rebellion, doubt, deception, and disbelief in the trustworthiness of leadership and the goodness of God.

            Yet, when the land was divided up, by casting lots, like rolling dice, it would be possible for the tribes of Israel to take the long view and reflect that despite all the ups and downs, things had turned out pretty well. With God’s help, of course.  So too, the Psalmist. Though we are given no specifics of the poet’s journey, when he looks around, all things considered, he’s in a pretty good place.

            The same went for my Dad.  Propped up in a hospital bed, he apparently found the words of Psalm 16 spoke for him. No doubt he recalled the low points, disappointments and challeng-ing moments of his life. The vocational dreams of his youth and his college education had been left behind when he enlisted in the Navy after Pearl Harbor. His service overseas took a toll on his health and led to the first of many surgeries. A Palm Sunday heart attack, and few years later, a dissecting aortic aneurism made for plenty of unpleasant places visited along the way.

            Yet when he reviewed his life as he read Psalm 16 in his hospital bed there were plenty of things for which to be thankful: A marriage of four plus decades, a paid off mortgage, two child-ren in stable marriages, four healthy granddaughters, opportunities as teacher and elder at church, and to mentor boys and men through the Boy Scouts. Adding it up, come what may, the boun-dary lines were pleasant.

            Franciscan Friar Richard Rohr says “The amazing thing about the Hebrews (in their scriptures) is that they did not repress their reality... In a certain way, Israel did not distance itself from its own contradictions or the contradictions of life, from the horrors and abysses of human history.”[vi] Aware that the unpleasant experiences of life help shape our perception, Rohr also wrote that “Pain teaches us a most counterintuitive thing—that we must go down before we even know what up is.”[vii]

            How we process the good and the bad we see when we look back to the past and around in the present makes all the difference.  In her book Beaverland, Leila Philip tells of a conver-sation she had with a trapper from whom she was learning about the wily rodents she loved to watch in the pond near her home.  They were taking a break as she viewed the process of pre-serving a beaver hide. In a mo-ment of vulnerability made possible by months of getting to know one another while traipsing around beaver ponds, Herb told her he had been abused as a child.

            Shocked and not knowing how to respond, she nodded, then the trapper filled the silence. She writes, “then Herb continued, as always matter-of-fact. “I don’t need to talk about it any-more. I did serious therapy.”  Then he added some words of wisdom: “I use the past as a guide-post, not a whipping post.”[viii]

            Years ago I listened to a Ted Talk given by a woman who told of being widowed when her husband succumbed to brain cancer at a young age.  Out of the blue a video of her talk popped up again last week on Facebook. She listed several things never to say to someone grieving such a loss, phrases like “It is time for you to move on with your life.”  Or, when she started dating again someone said: “I’m so glad you have moved on.”  That led her to reflect on the difference between “moving on” and “moving forward.”

            Moving on, she said, implied leaving the love of her life behind. It was as if her friends were encouraging her to forget about him, to lock what they had shared in three years of mar-riage away, to go on with life as if that chapter had never happened.

            She resisted moving on because those years had been among the best of her life, even when he was sick from the chemo endured so he could spend a little more time with her.  She didn’t want to forget him or what they shared. She said he and their life together would always be part of her. Their child would be a constant reminder of the happiest of times. Though she resisted the idea of “moving on,” she refused to stay still, or wallow in the past.

            She met another man. They married. They have children together. “I’ve moved forward,” she said. What she and her new husband and blended family have is different from what she had previously.  She doesn’t characterize one chapter as being better or worse than the other. Moving forward is different from moving on because it allows all her life experience to shape who she is now.

            Moving forward into two new futures, with appreciation for all you have experienced together across 35 years, is what this congregation and your pastor will be about between now and April and beyond. As one who has “been there, done that, and got the T-shirt--” Mine read: Retirement—The World’s Longest Coffee Break--I can assure you that you will get through it.

            On my last Sunday before retirement, I reminded my congregation of a simple lesson of life I had shared during a moment with the children earlier that year. It involved a comparison of the size of the rearview mirror and the windshield of a vehicle.  The rearview mirror in my truck measures 2 by 10 inches. The windshield is 27 by 57 inches. The difference in size suggests how much time one ought to spend looking in or through either. The rearview mirror is important as an aid to help you back up or see who or what is about to pass you by, or to glance at where you have been. However, the rearview mirror is dwarfed by the windshield, which allows you to see where you are going. 

            In the coming months, as pastor and people prepare to part company, the comparison between the rearview mirror and the windshield will provide some guidance as we all move forward.  Bill has already shared some rearview reflections as well as some glimpses of what is awaiting him after retirement. With the help of the Transition Team and the Presbytery liaison, you’ll have opportunity to look back and around in order to view what is ahead.

            Psalm 16 can be helpful too.  It is a psalm with just enough rearview mirror action: “The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; I have a goodly heritage.” It is also a psalm with plenty of looking around and looking ahead: “I bless the Lord who gives me counsel...I keep the Lord always before me...my heart is glad, my soul rejoices; my body also rests secure. You show me the path of life. In your presence there is fullness of joy; in your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

            Here is some of what James L. Mays says about Psalm 16: “it is a prayer of unusual proportions. It begins with a brief petition for the protection of God. The petition is supported by a motive clause, a declaration that the life of the psalmist has made the Lord his refuge. ‘In you I take refuge’ is a formula for trusting one’s life to the care of God. The psalm teaches that trust is not merely a warm feeling or a passing impulse in a time of trouble; it is a structure of acts and experiences that open one’s consciousness to the Lord as the supreme reality in life.”[ix]

            Thinking back on the months between my retirement announcement and our last Sunday together, there were plenty of rearview moments as I purged files in my study, or we sorted through three decades of accumulated stuff from attic to basement and in all the closets in be-tween.

Like the psalmist and my father, there were some not so pleasant memories that surfaced which we willingly left behind, (sort of), like the tantrum thrown by an eighty-year-old treasurer, or the time we came home from directing a week at Camp Lackawanna to discover someone had broken into the manse through a dining room window, or the time vandals emptied fire extinguishers in the Sunday School Auditorium.

            Memories like that were outweighed by the recollection of boxes of potatoes, bags of fresh-picked corn, and mason jars of maple syrup that mysteriously showed up in our first manse in the days when my salary was a whopping four figures.  And then there were the countless ways our congregation had been led by God across the years. Buying a truck for a pastor in Ghana, surviving the through four years of discerning New Beginnings after the 2011 flood, stepping into a new partnership with a neighboring congregation and launching new ministries there.

            On the day before our last Sunday in West Pittston, there was a windshield moment which helped assure me the future was bright.  I watched our tall, white, Clerk of Session kneeling low to tie the sneakers of a tiny little black child who had just enjoyed the Bounce House at the community carnival hosted by the congregation.

            The windshield moments come after one’s gaze backward leads heart, soul and body to place trust in God and embrace the truth of the beloved hymn: “Our God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come!”

            When I was in high school, our pastor took his family to Ireland to trace their roots. When they came back, he told us about the sign they saw as they were about to enter their ancestral village.  Its message is both timely and timeless:

“We don’t know what the future holds

but we know who holds the future.”

To God be the glory. Amen.

[i] Psalm 16. 6, The New Revised Standard Version, 1991
[ii] Psalm 16. 5-6, Revised Standard Version, 1952
[iii] Arthur Weiser, The Psalms – A Commentary, The Old Testament Library, (Philadelphia, The Westminster Press, (c) 1962, p. 173
[iv] Psalm 16. 11, The New Revised Standard Version, 1991
[v] James L. Mays, Psalms – Interpretation- A Biblical Commentary for Teaching and Preaching, (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1994), p. 87
[vi] Richard Rohr, Things Hidden, (New York: Convergent, An Imprint of Random House, (c) 2008, 2022), p. 16
[vii] ibid., p. 22
[viii] Leila Philip, Beaverland, How One Rodent Made America, (New York: Twelve – Hachette Book Group, (c) 1922), p. 79
[ix] ibid., Mays, p. 86

                                            Jean Ackerman Thyren, October 4, 1924 - December 14, 2025

Homily – 
on the occasion of a Memorial Service for my Mother, Jean Ackerman Thyren, held in The First Presbyterian Church at Caldwell, NJ, on May 30, 2026.

Scripture Readings preceding the Homily were Proverbs 3. 1-8; Proverbs 6. 16-19; Romans 12. 9-18, and Romans 8. 31-39

    Over the last two decades my sister and I, along with our spouses, have downsized my mother’s world several times.  Emptying the beloved bungalow on Thrumont Road was, at times, a three-generation affair spread over four or five months.  Decisions, decisions, decisions.  What would fit into her new digs in Apartment 218 at Cranes Mill? Who would like to have a piece of furniture, a picture, or a cherished knick-knack?  Which items could we donate to the Vietnam Vets or another organization?  And what would she allow us to pile at the curb for pickup on garbage day?  We thought we had been quite thorough.

            Then came the move from the apartment to Assisted Living.  Space dictated another round of donations. With the help of cousin, Cindy and her children, the Morristown Mission became the recipient of whatever family members didn’t claim. For most of a week we sorted through the contents of drawers and boxes, discovering treasures we had never before encountered. Among them, a dance-card from her high school days; collections of report cards, newspaper clipping, graduation programs and church bulletins tracing the lives of her children, grandchildren and the births of her great-grandchildren; and a love-letter written to her by my father.

            The letter was dated January 26, 1946, and written in their tiny apartment at 16 Forest Street in Montclair. “My Darling Jean,” it begins. “Since you are so engrossed in that crossword puzzle over there, and since I’m very busy pounding these typewriter keys, for a little practice in my typing, as you can readily see that I need, I just had to drop you a note and tell you how much I LOVE YOU.”

            And you thought “Instant Messaging” came about in the age of the internet!  The note goes on with a critique of the used typewriter, its need of repair to fix a couple of sticky keys and “a defect somewhere in the working of the carriage,” a proposal to take it to a repairman on Bloom-field Avenue,” concluding: “I don’t think the cost would be excessive.”

            The next paragraph includes a compliment on her “pretty blue blouse,” and an invitation to take a walk “up to the avenue to get a replacement for the bottle of cream that you spilled all over your pretty little foot...and see if maybe we can get my honey a nice big bar of chocolate.” Then after four lines where he tells her she is the prettiest, most wonderful, sweetest, bestest girl in the world, the [letter ends: “Happy 65^th week anniversary SWEETHEART.” Throughout their 43 years together, Dad would bring her a gift or take her out for dinner to mark occasions like their 10,000-day anniversary.

            Back in December, on the day after Mom left us to take up residence in the heavenly place her Savior prepared for her, we set about the task of emptying her last earthly home.  Pictures came down from the walls and off the desk.  Her “Junky Five and Ten” pilgrim candles were packed up.  Several years’ worth of Christmas, Birthday & Mother’s Day cards were emp-tied of pictures and set aside to be re-cycled.  Clothing was bagged and prepared for pick-up by the Vietnam Vets. The dumpster down the hall was filled to overflowing twice. Photo albums, furniture, important documents and mementos filled three vehicles bound for Pennsylvania and Massachusetts.

            Among the items brought back to Pennsylvania were two black-leatherbound Bibles.  The older of the two had Mom’s name embossed in Gold Letters on the tattered and torn cover. Inside, on a page decorated by angels with trumpets and cherubim, these words are found: “Presented to Jean Maynard Ackerman by Watchung Avenue Congregational Church School, June 11, 1933, Thomas Travis, Pastor.” 

            Tucked in between last pages was a Tract, which began “PERSONAL WORK Is simply telling others of our experience of Christ’s love so that they may share it. This does not call for an expert knowledge of the Bible, or of theology, nor for skill in discussion or argument; but it does call for an unshakeable knowledge of what Jesus has done for us, and for a deep-rooted purpose to share that knowledge with others.”[i]

            From her beginnings in Watchung Church, through her early married days at Bethel Baptist, and in the life of faith continued when she and my father joined this church, in 1955, my mother’s faith was on display. “Ever faithful, ever sure,” when she made a commitment to do something or be part of a group she could be counted on to see it through.

            For that reason words of Proverbs 3 seemed an appropriate choice for today’s first reading.  I, for one, will not forget her teaching, which most often came by observing how she lived. However, I’ll admit my heart often chafed at, ignored and disregarded her commandments, especially when grounded in what she considered the only way to be or do. We discussed one difference in point of view three days before she died. She heard me out, but I don’t think her opinion changed at all.

            The reading from Proverbs 6 was among the passages underlined in Mom’s other Bible.  Those behaviors and attitudes “the Lord hates” and which are “an abomination to him,” represent for me my mother’s first-born code of right and wrong, what is and is not appropriate, or to be tolerated. As a keeper of rules and one who tried to do what was expected of her, she was easily annoyed by those who didn’t.  Into her 101^st year she would grouse about the other residents of Assisted Living who didn’t come out of their rooms to play BINGO or attend the programs offered.  However, if the guest musician was too loud or playing music she didn’t like, she had no qualms about wheeling herself out of the first row and back to her room.

            That second Bible is not as old, but its binding is cracked and creased from frequent use. This time the presentation page is written in my father’s hand. It reads “Presented to Jean Thyren by Eric, December 25, 1972, with love, I Corinthians 13.”  When I opened it, I found a picture of her with Barbara Eicher and Edna Lawshe, taken on Cape Cod in the Autumn of 2000.

            A bookmark came next with a quote from 1 Corinthians 16. 14: “Let all that you do be done in love.” Once again, my mother was teaching.  Then came a piece of the notepaper that resided beside the telephone in the Thrumont Road kitchen. In her handwriting is a quote from Robert Dedman: “Keep your words nice and soft, just in case you have to eat them.” Folded behind it was another piece of that paper, faded yellow and stained, this time in my father’s hand, counseling: “Act the way you’d like to be and soon you’ll be the way you act.”

            Flipping through the Old Testament, I looked for notes in the margin or other passages under-lined.  Next to “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” from Psalm 22 she wrote, “Jesus’ trial on the cross.” It struck me that in her lifetime there had been many occasions when she might have uttered such a complaint. 

            She was five years old when the Great Depression descended, ending her father’s role in a family business, contributing to the decline of his health, necessitating a move from Jersey City to Montclair, and several moves during her formative years. Pearl Harbor brought the U.S. into World War II, with its rationing and sacrifices as she neared graduation in 1942. Her father’s death at age 51 the next year brought new challenges to the life she shared with her mother and sister and their supportive, extended family of uncles, aunts and cousins.

            As you’ve already heard, marriage to my father, the Navy veteran was bathed in love and appreciation. Nevertheless, from the start she found herself nursing her husband through many illnesses and ailments, a couple of heart attacks, too many surgeries to count, and a final battle with cancer that left her a widow in her early sixties.  Then came her own health issues: a burst ovarian cyst followed by a round of chemotherapy; then an aneurism in the artery behind her eye that led to double vision and experimental surgery at NYU Medical Center in the city. The aneurism resulted in the loss of sight in one eye and led to the reluctant move to Cranes Mill.

Still, I don’t think the Psalm 22 quote was on her lips for long.  Among the words underlined in her Bible were these from Psalm 111: “I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart, in the company of the upright, in the congregation.”  And from Psalm 116: “I love the Lord, because he inclined his ear to me, therefore I will call on him as long as I live.”

            And boy did she live long!  I chuckled to myself when I noticed she had circled verse 4 of Psalm 39: “Lord, let me know my end, and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting my life is.”  One-hundred-and-one years came and went in the blink of her good eye, and the true measure of her days is found in the ways she invested herself in the various roles of daughter, sister, wife, mother, grandmother, church member and friend.

            Thanks to her Singer sewing machine, paid for fifty cents at a time, our home was adorned with curtains she made. I was in fifth grade before I ever slept in store bought pajamas. When we walked to school or went sleigh riding on the street out front, we were wearing matching handknit mittens and hats. Her knitting needles continued to click away until eyes and hands could no longer produce baby booties and hats.

            Another of the underlined passages in her Bible were the familiar words of Proverbs 16. 3, “Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established.”  My father didn’t want her to continue in the workaday world, so the plans established for her involved caring for others and making a difference in the larger world.

            Here I pause to add that my mother was responsible for my drug problem. You see, be-fore we had a second car, this church was deemed to be within walking distance of our home. I was drug along when the Women’s Fellowship ladies were raising funds to pay off the mortgage on the Education wing by assembling RCA repair manuals. Up Thrumont & Farrington, up Wakefield to Park, around the massive Maple tree on the corner, on to Bloomfield Avenue and over to the church. By the time she was Ordained as an Elder and assigned responsibility for preparing Holy Communion, she was piloting a big, green 1953 Chevy, and I was drug along to a laundry in Little Falls to pick up the Communion tablecloth, which came back encased in paper and wrapped around a cardboard cylinder because it could not show folds or creases when the Sacrament was being administered.  And of course, since both my parents taught classes during the 9:30 service and worshipped at 11:00 o’clock, I was drug up here each Lord’s Day and worship-ped at 9:30 so I could be with my friends in class at 11. Being drug around so much as a child contributed to my preparation for ministry.

            Mom also underlined Proverbs 17. 22: “A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a down-cast spirit dries up the bones.”  She enjoyed a good party and her Tuesday night bridge club games. A weekend was a failure if there wasn’t somewhere to go, guests to entertain, or Sunday dinner to include our grandparents. In her interaction with friends, we observed caring in action in meaningful ways: she was the devoted daughter visiting her mother at Green Hill, the rock of a sister and aunt during our Uncle Dave’s cancer battle, the stalwart friend of Bridge Club Cronies facing struggles, the confidant and helper of friends as they faced their final illnesses.

            Tucked in between the last page and the back cover of her Bible was a pink, mimeographed page, probably a handout from a class or retreat Mom attended. Three hymns are printed there. At the center are the words and music to the Swedish hymn, “Children of the Heavenly Father,” which my father loved and was played on the violin by Bob Eicher at Dad’s funeral. It’s first line, “Children of the heavenly Father, safely in his bosom gather,” put me in mind of another valued role for which my mother is fondly remembered, and through which we have learned how to live. Her four granddaughters called her “Grandma.” When the next generation came along, her title was shortened to “Ggma,” (Gee-gee-ma).

            From their earliest days special bonds were forged as the first and third generations made precious memories. For half of her long life, she was able to be part of their lives, providing dress-up clothes and games, welcoming them for sleepovers when they were young, to presiding over a Swedish meatball making lesson when she was ninety, attending high school and college graduations, weddings and savoring lobster and sharing a bunkbed down the shore; enjoying her delight when holding her first four great-grandchildren.

            On the page below “Children of the Heavenly Father,” are words describing how the song “offers a comforting prayer to those who are facing trouble or the loss of a loved one.” The last two verses outline the hope and comfort which allows us to commend Jean to God’s care today.

Neither life nor death shall ever

From the Lord his children sever,

Unto them his grace he showeth

And their sorrows all he knoweth.

Though he giveth and he taketh,

God his children ne’er forsaketh,

His the loving purpose only
To preserve them pure and holy.[ii]

            At the end of his column in a recent edition of The Christian Century, Peter Marty quoted Jonas Salk, the developer of the polio vaccine, who said: “Our greatest responsibility is to be good ances-tors.”[iii]

            Today we give thanks for a good ancestor. Now it is our turn.

            To God be the glory!

 

---

[i] Personal Work, printed by Osterhus Pub. Co., 4500 W. Broadway, Minneapolis 12, Minn., U.S.A.

[ii] Caroline V. Sandell Berg, “Children of the Heavenly Father,” translated by Ernst William Olson,

[iii] Jona Salk, quoted by Peter W. Marty, “First Words,” The Christian Century, April 2026, page 1

 

                                                        Beehive Hut, Dingle Peninsula

Stones in the Hands of God – a Sermon based on 1 Peter 2. 1-10 – preached on May 3, 2026
at First Presbyterian Church, Clarks Summit, PA.

The drizzle stopped by the time we exited the bus. We made our way up a steep climb toward a Neolithic, that is, a Stone Age mound.  Built 5,200 years ago in 3,200 B.C., New-grange.com describes it this way: “Built by Stone Age farmers, the great circular mound measures approximately 279 feet in diameter and 43 feet high, covering an area of about one acre.”[i] Ninety-seven huge kerbstones, decorated by megalithic art carvings comprise the outer ring of a structure of stone laid upon stone. It is capped by green vegetation.

         Newgrange

   As we approached the entrance, our guide divided the group in half and bid twelve of us to follow him.  Some of us, though not all, had to duck below the huge stone covering the opening to a passage leading into the mound.  Soon we were in a narrow corridor surrounded by care-fully placed stones. Some of us, though not all, had to turn sideways at times and suck in a belly to squeeze through. Fifty-some feet into the depth of the mound we emerged into a cross-shaped inner chamber. The three chambers each held a large stone basin which once cradled the ashes of the dearly departed. 

Intricate megalithic art was carved into the stones and floor. Above us, precisely layered stones formed the ceiling twenty feet above us. In contrast to the drippy world we left outside, the chamber and the passage leading to it, were bone dry. As we marveled at the ancient engineering and workmanship involved, our guide flipped off the light switch leaving us in total darkness. After a few moments, a gradual glow began to fill the passageway from the outside, demonstrating what happens at dawn when the Winter Solstice arrives at Newgrange each year.

Rock of Cashel

In day trips from our overnight homes in Dublin, Killarney and Galway, we had amble oppor-tunity to observe ancient stones. Lush green fields dotted by the presence of sheep and goats, were separated by straight walls of piled stone.  Near a relatively modern farmhouse and outbuildings would rise the relic of an old tower or castle. We passed a stone bridge you might recognize from the movie “The Quiet Man.”  St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin and thousand-year-old buildings atop the Rock of Cashel provided up close inspection of stones mortared in place by skilled masons. In Galway’s St. Nicholas Collegiate Church, built in the 1300’s, a few of us viewed carved stone angels that had been defaced by Oliver Cromwell’s soldiers three-hundred years later.

            Yet the most impressive structures we encountered were along the windy, cliffhanging, perilously close to the Ocean below drive around the Dingle Peninsula. One of them is pictured on the cover of today’s bulletin. Called a clochan, it is a beehive hut built by a monastic com-munity in the twelfth century. Constructed without mortar, these humble abodes, like the passage mound at Newgrange, remain completely dry, despite the pelting rains that blow in from the Atlantic.

            With all these images of stones arranged row upon row to make a hut-for-one, a sheep-fold wall, or an awe-inspiring cathedral to guide us, consider the invitation offered to us this morning in Peter’s first letter:

            “Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices to God through Jesus Christ.” I Peter 1. 4-5

            Notice what Peter is doing here. Calling Jesus a living stone, he labels us, living stones, too. It is a subtle way to say we are made in God’s image. Then comes the invitation to put our rocky selves at God’s disposal. Peter does not say: “build yourselves into a spiritual house.” No, he bids us place ourselves in the hands of the one an old hymn called the master workman: “...let yourselves be built into a spiritual house.”

    The agency remains with God, and the purpose of the spiritual house is spelled out: “to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”  At the end of today’s text Peter speaks of being called and qualified for a greater purpose: “you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into the marvelous light.”[ii] In other words, we have a story to tell, in both word and deed. Peter’s invitation is to let God put our lives to work so others may receive grace and mercy as we have.

            One New Testament scholar notes that declaring “the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into the marvelous light” can refer to singing God’s praise in worship. But another dimension of ‘declaring the deeds of God’ becomes evident when the letter addresses the situaion of the readers. Their lives and words will have to be testimony to outsiders so they too might glorify God.”[iii]

            On the sidewalk outside our hotel in Killarney, a conversation with our bus driver led four of us to take a walk to see the statue of a local hero.  Just outside the entrance to a lovely city park stands the life size bronze figure of Monsignor Hugh O’ Flaherty.  At over six feet in height, O’Flaherty is captured midstride with a book in one hand and his hat trailing behind him in the other. Behind a pair of round-rimmed glasses his blue eyes seem to twinkle. Four plaques tell the story of his life and the exploits for which he is remembered and honored. It is a story full of spiritual sacrifices, and a collection of living stones put together by God to declare mighty acts of God carried out by ordinary people during difficult days.

                                       Statue of Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty, Killarney, Ireland

            O’Flaherty’s father became the steward of Killarney Golf Club when the boy was eleven years old. There he developed skills and a life-long love of the sport. Graduated from the Presentation Monas-tery there, he began studies for the priesthood in at a college in Limerick.  One of the plaques on the wall behind his statue traces his early career.

            “Hugh O’Flaherty was ordained to the priesthood in the chapel of his alma mater in December of 1925. In a short few years he secured Degrees and Doctorates in Theology, Philosophy and Canon Law...Although only in his thirties he was conferred with the title of Monsignor. ...He filled various roles within the Vatican Diplomatic Service in Palestine, Haiti & San Dom-ingo, and Czechoslovakia. ...he was recalled to Rome to take up an appointment in the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office.”[iv]

    The plaque goes on to tell how his love of golf found him often playing at a course on the outskirts of Rome with well-known and well-connected members of Italian society,and concludes: “Such influential acquaintances would prove very useful during the Nazi occupation of Rome.  In the autumn of 1942 the Germans and Italians began to crack down on prominent Italian Jews and aristocratic antifascists. The Monsignor hid many of these in monasteries and convents, in his old college and in his own residence.”[v]

            A second plaque on the wall continues the story. “In the spring of 1943 his operation broadened to include escaped Allied prisoners of war and shot down allied airmen. With the help of brave friends like Henrietta Chevalier, he developed a network of safe apartments in Rome in which they could hide. With a British escapee, Lt. Col. Sam Derry, he established an organization that pro-vided them with food and supplies and brought them ultimately to safety. By the end of the war “The Roman Escape Line” had helped over 6,500 Allied POW escapees and Jews avoid capture by the Gestapo and almost certain death.”[vi]

            Captivated by this story, within hours of our arrival back in the US of A, I ordered a book by Brian Fleming, titled The Vatican Pimpernel, which tells a lot more about O’Flaherty’s extraordinary life and work. The title is derived from a label placed on O’Flaherty referring to the 1905 novel The Scarlet Pimpernel which according to Wikopedia, featured “a disguised hero who rescues aristo-crats from the French Revolution.”[vii]

            Despite warnings not to do so, O’Flaherty often left the Vatican to escort escapees to their safehouses or to deliver food or money to those who were providing lodging. Fleming writes: “He did not always use the clothes worn by somebody in the religious life and was known to disguise himself as a street cleaner. At other times, he went through the streets of Rome dressed as a laborer or a postman...and also as a nun.”[viii]

            On one occasion when we went to collect a donation at a patron’s home, he barely escaped a raid led by the Gestapo chief. Hiding in the basement he noticed a delivery of coal was in progress. He grabbed an empty coal sack, stuck his priestly outer garments in it, covered him-self in coal dust, and with the cooperation of one of the delivery men, climbed out into the street and went on his way, walking right past one of the Gestapo soldiers.[ix]

            The organization O’Flaherty and his righthand man, Sam Derry put together puts me in mind of the many stones that go together to make the foundation and the walls of a building. In addition to the coalman, there was a woman who expertly forged documents and identification papers for the escapees, there were farmers who had false bottoms in their wagons, families in Rome and beyond who made room for those O’Flaherty and his team brought to their doors.  A pair of clerks in the police station passed the location of impending raids so escapees could avoid capture. Within and beyond the Vatican there were priests and nuns who aided the work, sometimes sleeping on the floor so a visiting guest could rest easy in a bed after days of weeks on the run.

            There’s one more thing to tell about Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty. After the war, his helping efforts continued in a new way. The plaque on the wall puts it this way: “he turned his attention to the welfare of German and Italian POW’s...to ensure that they were not mistreated by the Allies.”[x] Brian Fleming adds this: “Kappler, Gestapo Chief, had been arrested and found guilty of war crimes...He was sentenced to life imprisonment and placed in a prison half way between Rome and Naples. He had only one visitor during his period there, a monthly caller, the Irish Monsignor. O’Flaherty “baptised Kappler into the Catholic faith some years later.”[xi]

            And then there is this: According to Fleming, “When questioned by friends as to why he was helping people ‘on the other side’, his response is simple and direct: “God has no country.”  That quote is emblazoned on the wall in Killarney, above replicas of the medals bestowed upon him by Great Britain, The United States, Haiti and Italy.  O’Flaherty rarely spoke of exploits, but those he saved along the way left the record of his spiritual sacrifices.

        As our drizzly day in the Boyne Valley neared its end, our driver delivered us to The Hill of Slane. Through freshly mown grass we climbed to the top of the hill. We made our way toward a walled cemetery a statue of St. Patrick, several high Celtic crosses and the ruins of a church. An internet post from Heritage Ireland includes this description: “The Hill of Slane rises to approximately 525 feet and offers panoramic views of the Boyne Valley, including the passage mounds of Newgrange, Knowth, and Dowth, as well as the Hill of Tara to the southwest.”[xii] It was to the occupant of the Hill of Tara that St. Patrick sent a message on Easter in the year 433.

            At the time Ireland was ruled by a series of local, some would say, tribal kings. according Heritage Ireland, “St. Patrick famously lit the first Paschal fire on the summit of the Hill of Slane, defying the pagan High King Laoghaire at nearby Tara, marking the introduction of Christianity to the region.”[xiii] That hilltop has been home to a 6^th century monastery and a high tower later destroyed by raiding Vikings. Today the remains of the 16^th century St. Patrick’s Church rise above the cemetery. Outside the cemetery walls stand the remnants of a building built to house “four priests, four lay-brothers and four choristers.”[xiv]

            At this, and many of the other ruins we visited one could not help but wonder what happened to the stones that are missing from such ancient buildings.  The answer, provided by our guide, Maura, is quite simple. They were carried away and used by subsequent generations to build homes and barns and walls.

        That led me to think again of living stones in the hands of God today, allowing ourselves to be moved about and put to new uses, new “spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God.”[xv] In our ever-changing, fast-paced, blur of a world, as we lament what seems to have fallen to ruin, we are called to return repeat-edly to Christ, the living stone precious in God’s sight, and allow God to place our stones where they are most needed now.

            The work of O’Flaherty’s organization, with individuals playing their parts, large and small along the way, is not beyond our reach if we allow God to put our stones in his spiritual house. We can be the one who points out the hypocrisy of the internet bully who darkens our screen.  Our check registers and appointment calendars can demonstrate the difference between calling Jesus “Lord,” and living by his teachings. Every bag of food that gets carried out of the dining room downstairs or the Mauer Center in Scranton gives meaning to the phrase: “in everything do to others as you would have them do to you.”[xvi]

           Circling around the statue of St. Patrick on The Hill of Slane, Bill Carter led us in the singing of “Be Thou My Vision,” whose tune is named SLANE. Its lyrics reference God as our “souls’ shelter” and “high tower.” The final verse addresses God as “High King of Heaven.”[xvii] When we sing it, the lesser kings of this world are put on notice: we are God’s people. We respond to a higher authority. We are ready and willing to offer spiritual sacrifices, telling and showing “the mighty acts of him who called us out of dark-ness into his marvelous light.                                                                     

[i][i] Newgrange.com, p. 2
[ii] I Peter 2. 9
[iii] Pheme Perkins, Interpretation – A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching, First and Second Peter, James and Jude, (Louisville, John Knox Press, (c) 1995), p, 44
[iv] “From Killarney to Rome,” Plaque behind the O’Flaherty statue, Killarney , Ireland
[v] ibid
[vi] “The Roman Escape Line,” Plaque behind the O’Flaherty statue, Killarney, Ireland.
[vii] Wikopedia, “The Scarlet Pimpernel”
[viii] Brian Fleming, The Vatican Pimpernel, (Skyhorse Publishing, New York, (c) 2008, 2012), p. 48
[ix] ibid., p, 47
[x] ibid., “The Roman Escape Line”
[xi] ibid., Fleming, pp. 183-4
[xii] Heritage Ireland internet description, p. 1
[xiii] ibid.
[xiv] The Office of Public Works, plaque beside the cemetery wall, The Hill of Slane
[xv] 1 Peter 2.5
[xvi] Matthew 7. 12a
[xvii] Hymn 450, Glory to God, The Presbyterian Hymnal, (Westminster John Knox Press, (c) 2013