The word is S-E-W-E-R. It’s “soo-wer,” or it’s “soh-wer.” They’re both spelled the same, S-E-W-E-R. It means a place for waste and filth—a gutter, a drain. It also means a person who stitches fabric together—a seamstress, a needle-worker. If you’re like me, and you have or have had a mother, you’ll be thinking about her today, and you associate that mother and her love with one of those meanings. And if you’re like me, and you have or have had a life in this world, you’ll be thinking about it the other six days of the week, and you associate that life and its pain with the other one of those meanings. S-E-W-E-R: “soh-wer” or “soo-wer.”
If you’re like the disciples of Jesus, then you’re stuck on “S-E-W-E-R-soo-wer” today. Well, Jesus is trying to transition them—and us—from “soo-wer” to “soh-wer” and show how God’s love is like Mom’s love. Now, our Gospel reading really continues and concludes last week’s Gospel reading; and when last we saw the disciples, you’ll recall they were confused and questioning Jesus. “What does He mean by saying ‘in a little while’ and ‘going to the Father’? What do you mean, Jesus? What does it mean? It doesn’t make sense; we don’t understand.” You can kind of picture them all standing around at one of those modern art museums, and the exhibit is Jesus’ teaching; His words are on display. “What is it? What’s it supposed to be?” “I don’t know; what do you see?” “What do you think?” They’re cocking their heads to one side, craning their necks; they’re squinting their eyes, closing one, now the other. “We don’t get it, Jesus; we just can’t make sense out of these figures of speech.”
What they want to say is what we maybe want to say sometimes. “We don’t follow, Jesus; we’re not following this business about grieving and mourning while the world is rejoicing. We can’t quite follow any of these parables and principles of suffering and humility, or having trouble in this world, or being hated and betrayed. We’re not really following any of this nonsense about being least to be greatest and being crucified to be born again. You’re throwing out a bunch of big religious words, and they’re all running together. Aren’t You the Messiah? Aren’t You the Savior? Aren’t You the Son of God? Don’t You love us? Can’t You save us? What about healing and happiness and hope? What about victory, prosperity, and authority? What about acceptance, fulfillment, power, and peace? What You’ve got here isn’t art, Jesus; this isn’t salvation, this isn’t the good news. This is ruining our whole idea of God, our whole concept of life; You’re ruining it, and it stinks!” S-E-W-E-R-soo-wer!
You remember your mom’s sewing projects. You saw them when you were a kid. From the side that you saw—from the back, from the bottom—sometimes the thing was a mess, especially when embroidery thread was involved: no pattern, no picture, just tangles and knots. Why would she do something that turned out looking like junk, kind of like a “soo-wer” of strings – S-E-W-E-R? You’d have to ask, “What are you making here, Ma? What are you trying to do?” We’ve asked that of God once or twice, haven’t we? “What in the world are You doing here, God? What are You trying to make out of this?” I’m getting kicked out. I can’t find work. My husband’s leaving me. My wife’s abusing me. What are You trying to do, God? There are spots on my scans. I don’t have insurance. I’m pregnant and unmarried. They just won’t listen. What are You making here, God? Another thing broke down. It’s all piling up. I can’t think straight. I can’t sleep right. I gotta take pills. I can’t stop this. They’re gonna find out. They’re laughing at me.
Can’t You see You’re ruining it, God? How hard I’ve worked, how far I’ve come? You’re tearing it down, You’re tearing it apart! No, don’t cut there! That’s my—wait, what are You doing? Why don’t You just busy Yourself with answering my prayers? Lay off the doctrine talk, OK? This stuff about Law and Gospel, this repentance and forgiveness business? Make yourself useful, God, and fetch me some decent fabric. Oh, and get me some better threads while You’re at it, would Ya? This other stuff You brought me is basically junk—S-E-W-E-R. I’m trying to be a sewer here, God, and You’re making it into a sewer. I’ve got the pattern right here, You know; I’m the one who designed this, remember? Ow! Hey, that hurts! Look what You’ve done! Now would You just let me work the needle? I don’t want God anymore; I want my mommy!
That’s not faith, is it? That’s not salvation at all. That’s sin. And before you know it, it turns out to look like the back side of one of Momma’s sewing projects—just a snarl of strings pulling every which way. Yep—S-E-W-E-R sure spells “soo-wer” all right; and we’re no better at making art of ourselves than we’ve said Jesus is. If it doesn’t make sense, if it doesn’t feel right, it isn’t because God has gotten in our way; we’ve never needed His help to make messes. No, it’s because we’re getting in His way. We’re pulling the threads in one way, and He’s pulling them in quite another. And until we admit that God’s threads belong there—maybe even more than our own—then S-E-W-E-R is always just going to spell “soo-wer.”
But why did Mom do it? Why did she make such a mess of the sewing? Why did she bother to sew it at all when it looked like—to us—just a mess? Wasn’t it because of her love? Wasn’t it all just a labor of love? Mom did a whole lot of that sort of thing, didn’t she? Mom did lots of sewing because Mom was a “soh-wer”—S-E-W-E-R. It wasn’t just with a needle and fabric and thread; Mom sewed with her words, with her arms, with her humbly serving, with thankless sacrifices. She sewed a whole family together, Mom did. And it was Mom who sewed our world and our life together for us, so neatly and tightly, time after time after time. It was Mom who sewed us to God, one way or another: she taught us that God is a sewer, that sewing’s His way because it’s His idea. Mama, you saw with faith what the front side would look like, and you tried to assure us; you tried to convince us. That’s why you were always threading a needle or cutting some fabric or poking those stitches in through here and there.
And that’s God. That’s what God’s doing. That’s what He’s making: something strong, something beautiful. Listen again the way Jesus explains it: “I came from the Father and entered the world; now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father. I have to die, and I have to be buried; then I have to be raised, and I have to ascend: first needle down, then needle back up, stitch in and stitch out—that’s My way.” So the disciples say, “Oh! Now we get it! It looks like ‘soo-wer,’ S-E-W-E-R; but really it’s ‘soh-wer’! Well, now it makes sense! You’re sewing! It’s just that the project, the work, isn’t finished! We’re only seeing the back side. We’ve looked at the thing just from down underneath. So of course we’ll feel the needle.
“But You, Jesus, You’re God and You’re human; You are the needle and thread. You’re threading God into this human world, You’re weaving Him right into our human lives. That’s what Your coming, Your serving and suffering and dying, is about. In every moment, in every event—be it suffering or be it celebrating, what You’re doing is sewing us together to our Father, drawing and pulling us closer and closer, the way God and man are in You, the way the Son and Father are in God. When the time comes, You’ll tug on those threads, all those threads needled in by the suffering, and You’ll pull us up with them, up with You. You’ll lift up right up into heaven, all the way up to God. That’s what Your going–Your rising and ascending–is for.
“Well, now we believe! Now that we see our living, our suffering, not as stray threads or loose ends, but as stitches in the same pattern as Your living and dying, now we believe! We have faith in You, we can trust You as our Savior, as our Father, as our Sewer. You have suffered with us so that we may celebrate with You; this much we know, this we believe. Whatever we can’t see, whatever we don’t understand, it is a beautiful thing You are doing, beautiful as the love You gave in dying for our sin, beautiful as the power You brought in rising from the dead. By Your Spirit and Your sewing, we are becoming that beautiful thing, and that’s what this is all about; we have become part of that beautiful thing that we will yet become.”
Every down-stitch has its up-stitch with God. Every needle in leads another thread out because of Jesus Christ. Every crucifixion ends in resurrection, even the crucifixions wrought by our own sins; for Jesus has come down from the Father and He has gone back to the Father. Every time you feel the needle go in, you can know it brings God, the Father, your Savior, with it; and every time the needle pulls out, it draws you, binds you that much closer to Him and to His life and to His home. Jesus changes every S-E-W-E-R from “soo-wer” into “soh-wer.” Every event of our life—every trial, every tragedy, every triumph—and every experience of God’s grace—every Scripture, every sacrament, every service—reflects and recalls this forgiveness, this faith, and this future. We don’t have to become beautiful, because beautiful has come to us; and whether we perceive it or not, it waits to be revealed when all the stitches have been sewn.
Let us learn, then, from Jesus and from God and from Mom and even from Lydia of Thyatira in Acts. Let us learn to be dealers in cloth, in fabric, in needlework, in sewing. Let us grow to believe that in every sorrowful situation, even the ones we must endure, we believe that it is Christ crucified; and let us strive to trust that in every circumstance of celebration, even those enjoyed by those around us, we trust that this is Christ resurrected. Let us develop and exercise a keen eye for the wearing and tearing in the fabric of the lives and hearts we encounter, that we might, with a word of mercy and an act of compassion, thread the needle through and attach a patch of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Let us make every S-E-W-E-R we find, in ourselves or in others, not a place of sewage but a space for sewing, just like Mom—just like Jesus. Amen.