All Manner of Thing Shall Be Well
The Rev. Canon Frank Logue preached this sermon for the Spring Clergy Conference at the Honey Creek Retreat Center on May 8, 2018, the Feast of Julian of Norwich.
All Manner of Thing Shall Be Well
Psalm 27:5–11
“All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”
I met the parents for the first time at the funeral home, the day after their son committed suicide. They lived near King of Peace, but they didn’t have a church. The mother had once walked the labyrinth in the floor of the nave of our church and she found it peaceful. She wanted his funeral there at King of Peace, as she longed for that peace for those who would gather.
I worked with the family and friends to craft a sermon that walked that line we walk of holding out grace and the love of God while prayerfully, desperately, asking the Holy Spirit to give me the right words most of all to keep this suicide and massive funeral from leading to another teen suicide. I recall reading the sermon in the empty church to Chris’ brother to make sure the words rang true. Then, despite my sermon, our Triune God showed up in the midst of that funeral as we gave room for the pain and pointed to the only source of forgiveness, and redemption, and love that could begin the healing.
“All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”
On the night of May 8, 1373, a woman of about 30 experienced 15 visions or as she put it in Middle English, “shewings”, in which God’s love for humanity was made clear to her, through the person of Jesus. The woman we call Julian of Norwich, named after the patron of the church where she was an anchoress, was dying. She had received last rites. And then in what had seemed the hour of her death, she was given these revelations, with one more the following day.
“All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”
To say that Dame Julian lived in a time of uncertainty is quite the understatement. The Hundred Years’ War pitted England against France for her whole life. In her childhood, the Black Death stalked Europe and robbed Norwich of nearly half its souls in just three years. Fifteen years later, the plague returned, though its appetite was less ravenous this second time, the anchoress would have once more been touched by the grief in its wake. And between the time of the revelations on her deathbed and her publishing the fruit of her 20 years of reflections on them, the church was split in the Great Schism with two popes vying for control of the Western Church. In this uncertainty beyond anything I have experienced, Julian offered the fruit of her meditations on her mystical experience in the first English work written by a woman. Her Showings offer a depth of insight born both of divine revelation and deep contemplation nourished by a life of prayer. She writes,
“And in this he showed me a little thing, the quantity of a hazel nut, lying in the palm of my hand, as it seemed. And it was as round as any ball. I looked upon it with the eye of my understanding, and thought, ‘What may this be?’ And it was answered generally thus, ‘It is all that is made.’ I marveled how it might last, for I thought it might suddenly have fallen to nothing for littleness. And I was answered in my understanding: It lasts and ever shall, for God loves it. And so have all things their beginning by the love of God.”
She went on to write, “For this is the reason why our hearts and souls are not in perfect ease, because here we seek rest in this thing which is so little, in which there is no rest, and we do not know our God who is almighty, all wise and all good, for he is true rest.”
God is true rest. Julian was nurtured by an ongoing life of prayer and devotion. An anchoress was, as we know, permanently affixed between the church and the world, with a window into each from a life lived in a small monastic cell. In the words of our Psalm, “You speak in my heart and say, ‘Seek my face.’ Your face, Lord, will I seek.”
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“All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”
Eighteen months after their son committed suicide, I got a call from a family friend of the parents. His brother had been in an accident and they wanted me in the ER. I rushed to the Emergency Room, having to get police to let me by the wreck in the process as Jesse had been driving his motorcycle safely when he was struck by an inexperienced teen driver. The accident happened in front of the hospital. As I went around the collision, I recognized the car that hit him. This is life in a small town. The driver had been in Girl Scouts with my daughter. They helicoptered Jesse to Jacksonville for the Trauma experts at Memorial to try to save him. I joined a caravan of concerned friends as we drove south. He died that night.
Whatever God meant by “All Shall Be Well” and certainly whatever Julian understood from this revelation had nothing to do with physical health, or everything working out like you or I might hope. This famed quote followed Julian wondering why there is sin in the world as she wanted to understand the suffering she saw and wondered why God had allowed sin.
The answer that burns through her shewings is love. Not an emotional romantic love, but the real, passionate love of God as found in Jesus Christ that is more concerned for the other. This is the love out of which everything that is was created and for which we exist. Love demands free will as it must be chosen. Love can’t be commanded or coerced. And so there is free will. Through our disordered wills come pain, suffering, and evil. The possibility of love opens the way of suffering even as it opens the way to every bit of goodness we have ever seen, offered, or experienced.
“All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”
As deacons, priests, and bishop, we get invited in to people’s lives on the best and worst days of their lives. If we are not careful, we can come to offer answers and in so doing seek to be their savior. The church has suffered enough from narcissists with a messianic complex. You and I may be wounded, but we are not the healer. Yes, the ways we have suffered and sinned and yet found healing and redemption give us some insight, but the real work of ministry is grace, not our work, but the work of the Holy Spirit.
Those of us who want to do this work over the long haul without getting close to that narcissistic terrain really need people with whom we can share our real struggles. A therapist, a spiritual director, a colleague group—these are essentials rather than options—as are spiritual disciplines that nourish our faith from the deep springs of God’s faithfulness. And we have been reminded powerfully during the conference, we need Sabbath time. As Dr. Sleeth put it, “God’s rest is more powerful than your work.”
I am not worthy of this calling and neither are you. But the Church needs faithful clergy who know the savior and don’t try to be the savior and so God can, will, and does you and I in this world of love and suffering and death to speak a word of resurrection and offer hope. And in this, I am an amateur at best, but I have seen glimpses of the Kingdom of God on earth.
“All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”
The morning after the second son was hit and killed on his motorcycle, I met with the parents in their den to discuss another funeral and was humbled by the depth of concern they had for the teenage girl who had hit their son the night before. They wanted to know if I knew how to reach her. They wanted her to know that accidents happen. They didn’t blame her and they were praying for her. They were in pain. Their loss was deep and their hurt was so real and through that pain they felt a deep need to offer love—a love more concerned about the girl who hit and killed their son.
Julian’s revelation showed her that though there is suffering and death, trust and to stay close to him. Everything that is, is but a hazelnut held in God’s hands and yet God loves it and so we pin our hope not on what is seen, which is suffering and loss, but on God’s faithfulness which is eternal, for
“All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”
