1928-2025

Homily                        Celebration of the life of Doris Ackerman Brett              November 8, 2025

                            Union Congregational Church, Montclair, New Jersey
                                                            Ecclesiastes 3. 1-8

A few hours after Doris died, I drove to West Caldwell to share the news with her older sister, my mother Jean, who at a few weeks shy of her 101^st birthday, frequently asked: “Have you heard any news about Doris.” Surprised by my appearance in her room in the early evening, she demanded to know what I was doing there.  “I have news about Doris,” I replied, and proceeded to pass on what I knew.  She sat in silence a while, characteristically asked for details I couldn’t provide, reflected on being the only one left, and then she said of her sister:

            “She loved to talk!” Mom recalled how, on many Saturday nights, the two aging sisters, long widowed, and no longer able to be out and about, spent time talking on the phone. She said she would miss that. Truth be told she had missed that for some time already. Sadly, the time for that season had already passed. The “time to mourn” of which Ecclesiastes speaks, began for many of us when our family’s storyteller went silent and could no longer hold the floor humorously recounting something that happened to her or the people she loved.

            That said, we can move beyond “the time to weep, to embrace “the time to laugh,” and leave the “time to mourn,” and welcome “a time to dance,” which I’ll come back to later.

            One of my earliest memories is of Aunt Doris, the storyteller, seated across the dining room table on a Sunday afternoon telling of her adventures on a cruise on the Queen of Bermuda, or a ski club trip to Vermont. Across the years the stories grew to include Uncle Dave, and the arrival of Linda and Sue and the joy they brought to her life.  And we looked forward to hearing the latest chapter in the escapades of Tippy and Snoopy, chewing a hole in a sport coat to get at some chocolate in a pocket, or ripping out the headliner of Dave’s big, green Chevy.

            Until a few years ago, I could count on a phone call on an evening in February. She’d start by thanking me for flowers sent for her birthday, tell me not to bother next year, and then launch into a fresh batch of stories that now included Randy and Sarah, Carolyn, Dave and Brett. The dark winter night always became brighter as she told a story on herself of a recent incident that presented a challenge.

            Doris knew well the pendulum swings presented by Ecclesiastes.  Born into a happy family in 1928, the Great Depression descended in 1929, cast a shadow, and brought about changes she was too young to remember. Her father’s place in a family business ended. The family moved from Jersey City to Montclair, residing at times in a double block with Uncle Jim and Aunt Grace and her cousins on the other side. At other times they moved into a house owned by her grandfather, which had been vacant for a while. My mother recalls that the windowsills had to be replaced because squirrels trapped in the house had chewed them in an effort to escape. Their father’s health deteriorated, and he didn’t live to see Doris graduate high school. Nevertheless, she thrived, entered the working world and received training at Katie Gibbs, providing the skills she would put to work again after David’s illness and death in 1979.

            Those days in the last years of the 1970’s, a time when David’s health was breaking down, became a time for Doris to build up and persevere, embracing the “for worse” and “in sickness” of the wedding vows that had replaced the “better” and the “health.”  They too were times when mourning began long before a last breath brought a time of peace.

            Before that life was pleasant and memories were made on Woodlawn Terrace in Cedar Grove and at Lake Hopatcong. I began crewing for Dave in his Comet, and later, a Thistle, as we sailed in Regatta’s from North Jersey’s little lakes to the Shrewsbury River. One summer Doris welcomed two 8^th Grade Boy Scouts to pitch a tent by the lake for a couple of wonderful days and nights. Life for the Bretts moved to Montclair and the rotation of holiday gatherings had a new location to hear Doris tell stories.

            It is worthy of note that Doris’ service to the church addressed the needs of others as they made their way through the seasons of life: teaching in the Learning Centers and organizing receptions for grieving families. A paragraph in Doris’ obituary tells a story of its own, as “a time to sew” offers a clue to how she coped with the various times life presented.  It reads “No one can think of Doris without thinking about her love for sewing and many types of handwork. She sewed her own clothes, clothes for her daughters, and clothes for their dolls. She also did cross stitch, embroidery and knitting. Her homes and the homes of family and friends contain many examples of her beautiful work.”

            Those words reminded me of a story found in the ninth chapter of the Book of Acts. It is the story of Peter being summoned to Joppa after the death of a woman named Tabitha. Often referred to by her Greek name, Dorcas, Acts tells us “She was devoted to good works and charity.” When Peter arrived, her friends showed him “tunics and other clothes” she had made when she was with them.

            It is a resurrection story. Peter restored her to life. We gather here today in the belief that our dear Doris has been raised to new life. Some of you may have examples of her handwork to remember her by. All of us have memories to cherish of one we loved and who loved us. Someone once said:

                        “You never lose the ones you love if you love the ones you lose.”

            Savor the last lines of the poem Sue read:

            “Let memories surround you, a word someone may say

            Will suddenly recapture a time, an hour, a day,

            That brings her back as clearly

                        as though she were still here,

            And fills you with the feeling that she is always near.

            For if you keep those moments, you will never be apart

            And she will live forever

locked safely within your heart.”

            At Sue and Rich’s wedding, the DJ cued up a song. The first notes of a familiar tune reached my ears.  I stood up, walked over to Aunt Doris and said, “We have to dance to this.”  She gave me a puzzled look, but joined me on the dance floor, asking what was so special about the song. I explained that it reminded me of one of the records she played in that apartment on North Fullerton Avenue when I was very young and thanked her for being part of so many special memories. As we danced, Nat “King” Cole and his daughter Natalie sang

“Unforgettable, that’s what you are...

Unforgettable, though near or far...”

            Yes, she is unforgettable and always will be.

            Thanks be to God.

 

A Satchel Full of Memories

            Shortly after my grandfather’s death my father came up from the basement and placed an old black satchel on the living room floor between us as we sat on the couch. It had belonged to

his father, my PopPop.  Its leather was cracked and flaking with age, leading me to wonder if this satchel had made the crossing from Sweden to America in 1911.

            Inside the satchel were the memories of three lifetimes.  My grandfather’s memories were known in part from the stories he told.  The rest we could surmise from the contents of the bag:

a Baptismal record, World War I discharge papers, an obituary in Swedish announcing his mother’s funeral. My father’s memories of the man whose effects we examined were more plentiful, like the time PopPop locked a drunken friend in the basement because he didn’t like the way the man had spoken to his wife and daughter, who were guests at my grandmother’s table. Or the time PopPop replaced the grape juice Nana was planning to put in the punch she was going to serve some ladies from church with elderberry wine, making for a lively afternoon!

            My memories were of shorter duration: The sawdust smelling man who lathered up a four-

year-old face and handed me a bladeless razor so I could shave beside him at the soapstone sink in the basement as he cleaned up after a day at work.  Saturday nights passed playing games of “shineese sheckers,” while listening to the console radio across the room as Jack Wyrtzen evangelized from Scroon Lake, New York. The first memory of a grown man bursting into tears when he mentioned his wife’s name one winter Sunday after she died.

            Sorting through the contents of the satchel my father and I found rings of gold once given

and received in token and pledge of love by two young immigrants.  We handled pictures and postcards from people and places we had heard about in stories told at the Sunday dinner table. We wondered at the contents of letters written in a language we could not read.  We felt the coolness of a glass paper-weight from Narragansett Pier, talked of stories attached to a Carpenter’s Union pin, and marveled at the way the monogram had worn smooth on PopPop’s workday pocket watch.

            Buried at the bottom of the satchel among all these things was a little notebook showing the same well-used qualities as the pocket watch and the old, black bag.  Penciled and penned on its pages were dates and names and monetary amounts for each month spanning several years. My father recognized some of the names as belonging to missionary families whose pictures were often taped by the calendar in PopPop’s kitchen.  Some of the entries listed a place name or a project. A dollar here, a dollar there, and five, ten or twenty next to the others.  The giver and the giving unknown except by those who received the gifts.

            What we had unearthed at the bottom of the satchel was a diary of stewardship. A record of giving.  A testimony of love.  One nine-and-a-half fingered carpenter responding to those serving another carpenter with nail-scarred hands.  The little book became a posthumous challenge to those of us in the generations born on this side of the Atlantic.  A life need not wait to be spent in one impressive sum spelled out in a will.  Better to deposit many installments of quiet gratitude, doing a lot with a little over a lifetime, ever responding to the needs of the least, the last, and the lost loved by the Carpenter from Nazareth.

Again and Again and Again – 

A Sermon based on John 21. 1-19 –preached at First Presbyterian Church, Clarks Summit, PA on May 4, 2025

     The death of a friend provided my very own window through which to watch Peter and the other disciples spend their night fishing. Though Peter and Thomas and the others had been assured God raised Jesus to new life, they still had a long way to go toward figuring out what came next for all of them.  While they waited, and as they continued to grieve over the absence of Jesus, they went home and did something familiar together. There is comfort in the company of friends, even if you are sitting in silence on a night which explains why they call it “fishing” and not “catching.”

          Hearing the news of my boyhood friend’s fatal heart attack, I went home. Home to the twin towns whose streets and fields we roamed as kids. Home to the company of friends as we sat together in silence in the familiar setting of a funeral home where some of us had gathered many times over.  Home to be with others with stories to tell of the smiling kid who became a loving husband, a devoted father, a doting grandfather. Tales of the kind of friend who would pop up on Facebook on Palm Sunday night to write: “Hey Jimmy, this is your big week.  I’ll be thinking of you all the way to Easter.”

          So, when I read a commentator suggest that Peter and others had lost faith, I don’t buy it.  The loss of someone you love is not something you get over just because someone reminds you of the promise of resurrection.  The return to familiar places and routines is, in and of itself, part of the healing. Between the moments when your mind goes blank with grief come memory flashes bringing a smile or a tear or a laugh or all three at once.  

We greeted Chris’s children and waited for the funeral to begin. We gathered in a cluster in the hall to hug and swap stories.  Afterward we shared a meal and raised a glass, savoring the stories, knowing the truth that those we love are never completely lost to us if we continue to remember them.

          Give the disciples some credit. They’ve gotten out from behind closed doors where they cowered in fear during what felt like the longest, slowest week of their lives. They were moving on, though to what they were still not sure. Yes, they had felt Jesus breathe the Holy Spirit on them to empower them to do all he taught them to do, but that lacked specificity.  It would take some time between the silences to remind each other of all he had said and all they had seen him do.  It is the kind of thing that takes as long as it takes…and no one can tell you how long that will be.

          For Peter and the others, going back to Galilee was going home, and home is where their first journey with Jesus began.  Home is where Jesus shows up to pull them along for the second time.  Notice the two words with

which today’s reading ends: “Follow Me!”

          That Jesus shows up where disciples live and work and play, is a message not meant just for those in the story. It is directed at us, too, in whatever place is now the home where our heart beats. Some folks spend their lives waiting for Jesus to drop down out of the clouds. But if you read these stories you find he shows up where you’re spending your time, where you live, where you work.

          Jesus shows up when the old timer at work becomes the mentor to the new kid. Love your neighbor plays out as the technicalities of the job are taught along with the way to treat co-workers and customers, and the way to deal with disappointment, and how to be resilient. Jesus shows up when the young folks move into the house next door and the long-time resident listens over the fence to a boatload of frustrations before offering some sage advice. Jesus might show up when a story is read to the little one who has crawled into a lap.

          Theology Professor Lisa Driver provided the inspiration for the title of today’s sermon.  She looked at the last chapter of the Gospel of John and pointed out how today’s passage follows a familiar pattern. She writes: “Repe-tition brings revelation and fellowship not only to the disciples but also to all those ‘who have not seen and yet have come to believe (20:29) in Jesus as Lord.

          “Again, the resurrected Jesus appears.

          Again darkness is barren, while light brings life.

          Again Jesus commands, and the catch is abundant.

          Again Peter charges headlong toward what the Beloved Disciple is first to understand and believe.”[i]

          God repeats the lessons of faith until we get them!

          The again and again and again of God, trying to get through to us, goes way beyond the repetition of the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus to his disciples.  The again and again and again of our gracious God is traced as the end of the Gospel of John ties up threads that have been woven through it from the very beginning.

          Professor Glass explains: “…John 21 functions as a thematic restatement about the path to knowing God through the risen Jesus. Recalling the pattern of creation, light follows darkness, and understanding follows confusion.”[ii] There is a new creation taking place here as Peter is rehabilitated and renewed in his tasks.

          There are promises fulfilled too.  One of the interesting sidelights in the story is the presence of the disciple named Nathanael.  He doesn’t appear in the lists the other gospels provide…but that may be the beauty of it, reminding us that you don’t have to be part of the inner circle to be found faithful or to have the promises of God fulfilled before your eyes all in a days work.

          Back in the first chapter of John, Andrew heard John the Baptist speak of Jesus as “the lamb of God!” He ran and told his brother Simon, “We have found the Messiah.” Andrew brought Simon to meet Jesus. Jesus “looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John, You are to be called Cephas (which is translated Peter.)” 

          The next day, on his way to Galilee, Jesus finds Philip who went and found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.” Nate scoffs: “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip persists: “Come and see.” And when he does, Jesus gives a spot on assessment of Nathanael’s character: “Here is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.”

          Having been so thoroughly known by this man he has just met, Nathanael proclaims: “Rabbi, you are the Son of God!  You are the King of Israel.”  Before the encounter ends, Jesus promises Nathanael: “You will see greater things than these.”

          Now here he is in the boat when Jesus calls from shore and tells the weary fishermen to cast the net on the right side of the boat. With the net suddenly strained by the load of fish it captured, with the Beloved Disciple calling out “It is the Lord,” with a breakfast of fish and bread already waiting for them on the beach, Nathanael sees greater things brought about by the presence of Jesus!

          The scene on the beach is tied to something else that happened before. Louise Lawson Johnson points us to a map. She notes: “A major theme is suggested by the geo-graphical location of this post-resurrection appearance by the Sea of Tiberias. Surely we are meant to associate this miracle with the one in John 6 where Jesus fed the five thousand by the Sea of Tiberias. The sub-stance of that meal was also bread and fish, and though the boy’s five barley loaves and two fish were not sufficient to feed the crowd, the disciples dis-covered that Jesus can trans-form insufficiency into abundance. Likewise we see that Jesus turns the disciples’ insufficient (make that, non-existent) catch into an abundant one”[iii]

          In the sweep of the Gospel of John, Gail O’Day finds another instance of “there Jesus goes again!” She links this miracle of abundance on the last pages of the Gospel with the first miracle story at its beginning, when Jesus turned

the water into wine at a wedding in Cana of Galilee. On that occasion, while the guests were apparently oblivious to a crisis averted by a miracle, his new-found followers saw what happened. The last line of that story says: “and his disciples believed in him.”  The miracle at the wedding had a purpose larger than keeping the party going. The miracle on the Sea of Tiberias did too. Professor O’Day explains: “first and last revelatory acts in the Gospel narrative are both miracles of abundance in Galilee.”[iv] Their purpose was to inspire belief, to give faith a boost.

          All three of these miracle stories find Jesus providing more than enough. They underscore the belief that God will always provide enough.  You can’t talk about God providing enough without remembering the wilderness wanderings of the Hebrew children released from slavery in Egypt…where the manna came as a daily gift…and enough had to be enough.

          To trust God will send enough is the inspiration that leads us to bring bags of food to be handed out on a Saturday morning in Scranton…to fill boxes of groceries at the CEO warehouse, or stand shoulder to shoulder downstairs slapping sandwiches together for hungry teens. When the disciples hit the beach and found fish and bread already on the fire they were invited to add to it from their catch. It is an invitation for us to do the same and become part-ners in the work of God.

          The story of that breakfast around a charcoal fire has surfaced another “again” to contemplate.  Peter finds himself beside a charcoal fire, again. The last time he was at fireside was on the night Jesus was arrested.  Peter warmed himself by that fire, and when those around it mentioned three times that he looked a lot like the fellows who followed the man who was on trial inside, he vehemently denied it.

          Being around a fire again, the smell of it triggering unpleasant memories, leads to a much, much bigger again for Peter. After breakfast, Jesus and Peter have a conversation. With those nearby finishing their breakfast, we are privileged to overhear it.  Peter’s three-fold denial of Jesus on that dark, dark night are replaced by a thrice repeated interrogation by Jesus in the light of day, and by three challenges to serve.

          Notice how it begins. Jesus doesn’t call the fisherman by his nickname, Peter. Instead he addresses him the same way he did when first they met: “Simon Son of John,” which someone at our Men’s Breakfast the other morning pointed out was his legal name. Beyond that recall a time as a child when someone wanted to get your full attention. I read somewhere recently that “the sole purpose of a child’s middle name is so they will know when they are really in trouble.”

          When Jesus looks at him and calls Simon Son of John, we’re watching as their relationship is healed. They’re starting over.

          “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?”

The question is addressed to a man who in the Upper Room had made the claim that he would stand with Jesus to the death, saying “I will lay down my life for you.”  But he had not.  Now he’s given another chance as he answers:

          “Lord, you know I love you.”

          “Feed my lambs.”

          “Simon son of John, do you love me?”

          “Lord, you know I love you.”

          “Tend my sheep.”

          A third time Jesus asks the question, and the man being questioned is hurt, so he adds:

          “Lord, you know everything; you know I love you.”

          “Feed my sheep.”

          Peter will feed the lambs and tend the flock, which as far back as the Old Testament is the description of what those God calls to leadership are charged to do.  Simon Peter, the names reminiscent of who he had been and who he was becoming, was again on the path to follow Jesus…

and in the end, he would lay down his life for him.

          Simon Peter is forgiven by Jesus.,

          Simon Peter is once again entrusted with the care and feeding of not just the little lambs, but the tough old sheep as well.

          Simon Peter is again invited to follow Jesus.

          Again and again and again darkness is overcome by light; death is over-come by life; sinners are forgiven and called to love and serve.

          Again and again and again, we are asked the musical question we will sing in a moment: “Will you come and follow me?”[v] These are words written by John Bell and his writing partner are set to the tune named for Kelvingrove, one of the places we visited in Scotland.

We have the rest of our lives to answer daily.

 

[i] Lisa D. Maugans Driver, Feasting on the Gospels, John, Volume 2, Chapters 10-21, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2015), p. 332
[ii] ibid.,
[iii] Louise Lawson Johnson, Feasting on the Gospels, John, Volume 2, Chapters 10-21, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2015), p. 334
[iv] Gail R. O’Day, The New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. IX, (Nashville, TN, Abingdon Press, 1995), p. 856
[v] Hymn 726, Glory to God, Presbyterian Hymnal.