Why did you doubt?

 

 Why did you doubt?

A Sermon preached on Facebook Live Broadcast

Sirach 26:10 The Headstrong Daughter

Pentecost X - Proper 14 A

August 9, 2020

In 1881, a boy was born to Louise Helluin Mieusset who designed fashionable hats for Boston’s elites. Mme. Mieusset named her son Louis Ernest, who was reportedly a happy, active child, who thrived on the love of his mother. 

Not much is known about his parents or the child. What is known is that just three months before his fifth birthday, the child died. Now, some researches insist that Louie died of scarlet fever, but romanticism has always triumphed over historical data, so the facts have been disputed for years.

The story of the death of Louie Ernest Mieusset that has lasted is this: One day in 1886, Louie went sailing out on Jamaica Pond, which is part of a lovely suburb community just outside of the city of Boston, MA. He was not yet five years old. Some adult must have been in the boat with him. Perhaps he was with both his parents?  Or, was he out for a little ride with his Papa? Did a storm suddenly appear? Or, was he moving around, as children will, upsetting the balance of the boat?

We do not know. The tragedy of his death is so great and so filled with grief it seems unable to carry any further burden of detail. The story is only told that the boat tipped over and the child drowned.

Louie’s father is never mentioned in the story. Perhaps he drowned as well in the boating accident? Or, perhaps he met a face worse than death and had to bear the burden of blame and guilt for his son’s death? Conjecture and speculation do not lead to the truth that would hold the answers to our questions.

What we do know is this: His mother, Louise, paid a man named Max Greim, a stone artisan who had immigrated from Bavaria, to sculpt a memorial to her son which she placed over his grave at Forest Hills Cemetery in Roxbury, MA. 

The white marble sculpture, named "Boy in a Boat," is that of a hauntingly lifelike Little Louie, dressed resplendently in the proper Victorian clothing of the day, his right hand holding a tennis racket, his left hand resting on what looks like a large shell. The boat is filled with his favorite toys. His left foot is outside the boat, as if he were about to step out of the boat and run to the tennis court. 

The amazing thing is that the entire sculpture is encased in glass. When one visits the gravesite – as I did as part of my chaplaincy training – one will find the “Boy in a Boat” monument in pristine condition, sheltered as it has been all these many years later from the harsh New England winters and infamous Nor’easters.

Also erected with this statue is a marble bench with a removable drawer (since removed) where the grieving mother could come to clean the glass, polish its brass fitting, place flowers, and do other duties as she saw fit.  The story is that she paid for his statue with the money she had saved for Louis’ education.

Due to financial reverses, Mme. Mieusset’s private income ceased, and she went to work as a domestic on Beacon Hill.  She lived on Kirkland St. in the South End, becoming increasingly frail but attending to her son’s grave weekly by scrimping and saving, always leaving a fresh flower.

To this day, hundreds of years after Mme. Mieusset’s death, someone – or, perhaps, several someones – come weekly to clean the glass, polish its brass fitting, and place fresh flowers. The identity of this faithful someone is unknown – although, perhaps, that person or persons are known to the staff at Forest Hill Cemetery who have certainly observed them over the years but have guarded the caretaker’s anonymity.

I first saw this monument in 1985 as a chaplain intern at Boston University Hospital. We spent a morning at Forest Hill Cemetery to study what other people expressed in their monuments about their belief in death and the afterlife.

Over the years, when I’ve been visiting friends or family in the Boston area and as time has allowed, I have stopped by several times to visit “The Boy in the Boat” as well as one of Gracie Sherwood Allen, a little girl who died of whooping cough in 1880, at about the same age as Louie. Her statue is also encased in glass and rests not far from Louis’.

I’m drawn by the grieving of their parents, their need to immortalize their children in marble, and then, because they can no longer protect them, their stone images, at least, are protected from the ravages of time, sheltered under glass.

But it is the story of Little Louie in the boat that always captures my imagination. Indeed, whenever I hear St. Matthew’s gospel story of Jesus and the disciples in the boat that my mind often wanders to the image of the Boy in a Boat.

In the gospel story, Jesus has gone up to a mountain to pray, sending the disciples ahead of him in a boat. But, a storm suddenly came up and the wind and rough seas threatened to capsize the boat. Suddenly, Jesus came walking on water right by the boat. The men were, of course, startled and scared and thought it was a ghost.

Peter, being Peter, said, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” Jesus said, “Come.” And, Peter did, walking toward Jesus on the water. But then, he noticed that the wind was strong, and he began to sink.

“Lord, save me!” he cried out. And, Jesus reached out his hand and saved Peter, saying, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”

Jesus has his moments, in scripture, where he is utterly and thoroughly human – where his frustration and anger, his impatience and annoyance – come through loud and clear. This exchange between Peter and Jesus has always sounded so harsh to me.

When Jesus chides Peter and says, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” I want to respond, “Umm . . . because I was sinking? And, the wind was strong? And, I wasn’t in the boat? And, you know, because I’m only human?” 

It’s always fascinating to me that Jesus, fully human and fully divine, is his most human self when he chides others for being very human. And, mostly that happens even as he is in full divinity mode – such as in this instance of walking on water. 

“You of little faith.” Those are the words of Jesus that haunt me – second only to his question, “Why did you doubt?”

I have come to know that a big part of faith is doubt. Indeed, I think doubt is one of the guides on the Journey of Faith, which can often lead us to find a deeper, stronger, more robust and lively faith. 

In fact, it was after Peter doubted and he and Jesus got back into the boat that the disciples became even more convinced of the nature of Jesus saying, “Truly, you are the Son of God.” 

Doubt and anxiety are often companions on the Journey of Faith and guides on the Road to Belief.

As I’ve reflected on Louise Mieussett’s grief at the loss of her little Louie, I don’t know if it was doubt or faith that led her to commission that hauntingly life-like monument to her son’s life, but I have come to understand that both doubt and faith are two very strong strands woven deep into the pattern of grief.

To doubt is not to sin. To be anything less than human, to take tragedy at face value – to surrender to a dispassionate state of “It is what it is” – and not grieve and mourn, not doubt and be occasionally anxious or afraid, grieves the heart of God, I think.

Even Jesus cried out from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

I don’t know if there will be a monument to this uncertain, chaotic, turbulent time in our lives, when the winds of misfortune and death and killing prejudice threaten to hurl us from the safety of our life rafts on this fragile earth, our island home. 

If there were to be one, I don’t know what it would look like. 

I would hope that someone would come out and remember this time and all the souls lost to the dual pandemics of COVID and racism.

I would hope there would be some anonymous someone who would come and clean the glass around the monument so we don’t lose sight of the lessons this time has to teach us.

I would hope some anonymous someone would come and sit and meditate on the lives lost as well as the lives of the heroes who risked their lives to save the lives of others.

I would hope there would be some anonymous someone who was faithful to the belief that life is a precious gift and even the occasional unfairness life can bring does not diminish its value ---

To take an occasional risk even though that also extends an invitation for anxiety and fear to be companions on the journey

To ask questions even though more questions and doubt may be part of the answers received.

To know that betrayal is always possible but never a victor and abandonment is never as strong as hope.

To succeed and not grow complacent and self-satisfied.

To fail and not be paralyzed and defeated but rather see the lesson learned.

So that when, one day, in that great bye and bye, when we stand before Jesus, he will say to us as he did to Peter, “Come!”

And, he will stretch out his hand and together we will walk on the peace-filled waters of eternity.

Amen.