Gloria Dei Lutheran Church

Matthew 5:14-16

Marta, Evan, Marcos, Maria, Nicolas, Marlene, brothers, spouses, nieces and nephews, great nieces and nephews, y la familia de Marta de Costa Rica, amigos, this beloved assembly that has been graced by the life of Timothy James Odegard: peace, comfort, and the joy that comes at first light, hold you close in these days.

With all that has been written so beautifully by Marta about Tim’s faith journey, his obituary, with gospel news proclaimed in a liturgy crafted as yet one more great partnership between Tim and Marta, with all the stories you already know about Tim, his gentle determination to stretch fully into the goodness of human life clear in all of those stories, with his beautiful witness to baptismal light, what is left for the preacher to say?

Maybe only this, one word: Behold.

Behold the presence of the living Christ in this beautiful life, even in its suffering.

Behold the God that loves with such tenacity that nothing can separate us from it.

Behold the new creation that is making its appearance even today.

Behold!

By one account, it’s used 1500 times in the Bible. It’s one of those good Bible words that I wish we could use without feeling like we had to dress up in an angel costume. But it IS the kind of word that calls for some drama. It arrives with an attached exclamation point. Usually, it comes as an interruption, an interjection, a voice from outside, or maybe from deep within: Stop. Listen. Pay attention. Wake up. Open your eyes and see with all your senses—the senses that come with your body and the senses that come with your heart—see both the surface and the depth, God’s reign come near. Behold!

If we really used the word in real life, would Tim have said, “Come, behold these baby button quail?” Maybe you know about this or read the mysterious reference to quail in the obituary. When Tim was young, he wanted to hatch baby quail. Mom said no. Not getting into that mess. There was no mention of an argument, or fight. He just began to bide his time, an early sign of his fierce determination not to let dreams die. For 50 years, his desire waited for its time, ironically being nudged into fruition by cancer cells. And maybe it was the realization of those cell’s strengthening presence that kept Marta from saying, “I’m on your mother’s side. No way.”

Tim ordered the eggs and an incubator, a wild expense at this particular moment in life. And, lo and behold, three tiny quail hatched from those eggs.  As it turned out, he wasn’t able to do a lot of the care, so Marta did, even tenderly nursing one of the sick ones, holding his childhood desire in her own hands. Nothing could separate their love, those words from St. Paul read on their wedding day.

Tim would go sit in front of the cage and just look at them. Several of you have noted that gaze, it’s wide-hearted attention, its ability to apprehend an opening, a fullness that’s so easily missed. He noticed the extraordinary beauty of their tiny feathers. He was in awe, wonder, listening with the ear of his heart, “Behold, precious one, what extraordinary beauty is being revealed to you.”

It’s simple really. If you experience wonder in a quail’s feather, or in the splash of the water, in your daily work, in the dreams of your children or really in anyone that you know, in careful attention to your friends, in other languages and people, in Sunday worship, in the pattern of the mass, in your wife’s intellect, strength, and creativity, in a Norwegian heritage, in suffering and death, you have already beheld God.

Behold, nothing separates us from God. Or said conversely, Behold, all things bear God.

In that moment before Jesus began to speak his first sermon on the mount, did he look at the crowd, the creator’s voice sounding deep within, “Behold my precious ones.” I imagine that Jesus looked out and truly saw them, all of them, with every sense that he had. And from that place of centered wonder, another moment of creation itself, seeing in the same way that God sees, enraptured by affection. If that is what surged up in Jesus, it is no wonder that he began everything by saying, “Blessed are you.”

Jesus saw within them creation’s first light, that bright, sacred image that comes along with being born, still named out loud at the font. Maybe it came as an interruption, even one of those laugh-out-loud realizations, pure delight, astonishment. “YOU are the light of the world.”

You need to know that. YOU have light that must be carried and given away. The world needs exactly what you’re bringing right now, whether you believe it or not, or whether you think it can matter or not, no matter what anyone else says about you, whatever you do, do not hide it under a bushel. Set it out for the whole world to see. Don’t’ keep it in the closet. Put it on the front porch. Live into it. Be it. Channel it.

Nicolas, Maria, Marcos, Evan, I suspect that this is exactly what your father was thinking as he encouraged, supported, and even pushed you. He was convinced you had light. He knew you were an incarnation of Christ’s presence. What he wanted most was for you to succeed, not in some grand professional way, although he would delight in that, not even in some extraordinary, supercharged, talented kind of way, but to succeed in trusting that within you is light as beautiful and as wondrous as sunlight sparkling on the water. To be at home in your own life. You are joined to Christ. “Come, live in that light,” he was urging.

Tim knew this about all of us. It’s what gave him such ability to live as fully and as joyfully as he did, even in real suffering and as death drew near. Good Friday was real, no denying that, but so was Easter morning.

We probably all need that solid place from which to behold the Spirit at work in the real lives we lead, in the world we forge and build without the physical presence of Tim Odegard, in this historical moment, with its deep political divisions, its fear at what’s coming, its hateful violence, this struggling planet, not to mention our own struggles just to be genuine humans making our way.

What ARE we to say to this? In all things, we are more than conquerors in Christ Jesus our Lord. Conquerors, by the way, who win by being gentle and kind, humble, generous, and lost in wonder. A city built on this hill cannot be hid. The collected light just in this room, burning in the world! In this moment, the presence or this fire, there really is only one word: Behold.

Behold this glory.

Oh, one last thing.

The three quail, grown now, have laid eggs. So we wait for a next generation.

Behold! Easter eggs.

Alleluia. Christ is risen. Christ is risen, indeed. Alleluia!