The Diefenbunker and never giving up
Sermon by Paul Peters Derry on Luke 13: 10-17
It’s called the “Diefenbunker,” now operating as Canada’s Cold War Museum, located in the hamlet of Carp, just west of Ottawa. Back during the time when Conservatives were forward-thinking rather than reactionary, the government of John Diefenbaker, Canada’s only Prime Minister from Saskatchewan, ordered construction of an underground bunker. It was the height of the Cold War, and as someone who was born right smack in the middle of the Cuban Missile Crisis, I’ve long held fascination with that time of nuclear arms escalation, how the world it seemed teetered on the brink of nuclear war.
The Diefenbunker, as it came to be known, began as a top-secret military project on the Carp Military base. You enter through a long, cavernous tunnel, and the entrance to the Diefenbunker appears part way through that blast tunnel, at a 90-degree angle, so that in the event of a nuclear blast, the force would be channelled directly through the blast tunnel, bypassing the entrance. The entrance is a huge vault-type door, weighing several tons, and then inside, you walk through a first shower (which you would take fully clothed), then you’d strip down, and dispense with your now-wet clothes through a lead trap-door shoot, and take a second shower, further along the maze, at which point you’d be issued a new set of clothes.
There are four stories, all underground, covered with about 15 feet of earth on top of reinforced concrete. It was intended to provide continuity of government. It could house up to 500 government and military personnel, with provisions to last at least 30 days. There was a medical centre, complete with an operating theatre, a CBC sound studio for broadcasting emergency updates, rooms of teletype machine for communication with the outside world, a room for the federal cabinet to meet, and offices for essential cabinet ministers (Defence, External Affairs, Treasury Board, etc.), as well as a Prime Minister’s Suite, which included a separate bathroom and shower, a room with one single-sized cot, an office with one of those 1960s style desks, and an office for the Prime Minister’s secretary.
It came to be called the Diefenbunker, though apparently, Diefenbaker never set foot inside that facility. Thank God, the feared nuclear attack never happened. There were, apparently, plans for the Prime Minister to spend a weekend at the bunker, as a test run of sorts. When informed by the Chief of Defence Staff of these plans, Diefenbaker directed that Mrs. Diefenbaker be informed as well.
“Prime Minister, that cannot happen.”
“Why not?”
“This is a top-secret military exercise. Spouses are not welcome.”
“Well then,” Diefenbaker replied, “I won’t go.” Diefenbaker sent instead one of his subordinates. He was not going to spend a weekend without Mrs. Diefenbaker. The Sabbath would not be the Sabbath if they could not be together.
That bit of Cold War historical trivia provides an interesting segway into tonight’s gospel, which on the surface, appears to be about the conflict Jesus initiates – as he was wont to do – with religious authorities about what is permissible and what is not, on the Sabbath. A debate which centuries later would continue with The Lord’s Day Act, which directed how Sunday was observed as a day of rest (and worship), with no retail locations open save for the odd corner store, perhaps a pharmacy and a few gas stations. In many a community, we rolled up the sidewalks on Saturday night. Nothing else happened on Sundays. And most certainly nothing that might hint at the commercial, the secular or – God forbid – the profane.
Healing a woman possessing “a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years – a generation – and leaving her “bent over” and “quite unable to stand up straight,” it seems that Jesus is breaking all the rules.
Commentator Jeannine K. Brown channels the perspective of this No-Name woman had gotten used to looking at people out of the corner of her eye, looking up and sideways. After eighteen years No-Name could hardly remember any other way of seeing the world.
This Sabbath, there was a special excitement. Jesus of Nazareth had come to town. Word was he was gonna be doin’ some teaching. Everyone had heard reports about this Galilean preacher and prophet who talked about God’s reign arriving even here, even now, and he healing people. Unsure about how many of the rumours to believe, No-Name tried not to get her hopes up. No-Name had known more disappointments than she could count. No-Name enters the synagogue. The place is abuzz. Jesus begins to teach, and the room is a mixture of hushed anticipation, charged with excitement. Jesus’ words turn from teaching to invitation. Jesus catches her eye… no mean feat, given that he had to lean over and crook his head to do so.
“Woman, you are set free.” Jesus speaks, lays hands on her broken, bent and worn-down body, No-Name feels power surge through her, straightens her once crooked back. Lifting her heart, offering thanks and praise, No-Name is suddenly given a name, “Daughter-of-Abraham” … and Daughter-of-Abraham takes her place.
Incarnating audacity of hope, Jesus dares risking an action that will attract the attention, ire and more of sabbath purists. Daughter-of-Abraham takes her place. It’s all quite stunning. Hope and chutzpah all mixed together.
Quite apart from the debate over lawful behaviour on the Sabbath, the essential thread with tonight’s gospel is how the Holy One never gives up on any of us. No matter what we do. No matter how far we wander. No matter what burdens, real, imagined, temporary or chronic, episodic or recurrent, that we carry. No matter how forlorn or forgotten, bent, bruised and forgotten we might feel – and those feelings are real – God never gives up on us. We take our place as part of “this holy people.” We are called, commissioned, invited and provided food for the journey.
Anne Lamott provides a parallel “for instance,” recalling regular weekend visits to a flea market just outside of Sausolito, California:
If I happened to be there between eleven and one on Sundays, I could hear gospel music coming from a church right across the street. It was called St Andrew Presbyterian and it looked homely and impoverished a ramshackle building with a cross on top, sitting on a small parcel of land with a few skinny pine trees. But the music wafting out was so pretty that I would stop and listen. I knew a lot of the hymns from the times I’d gone to church with my grandparents and from the albums we’d had of spirituals.
Finally, I began stopping in at St Andrew from time to time, standing in the doorway to listen to the songs. I couldn’t believe how run-down it was, with terrible linoleum that was brown and over-shined, and plastic stained-glass windows. But it had a choir of five black women and one rather Amish-looking white man making all that glorious noise, and a congregation of thirty people or so, radiating kindness and warmth. During the time when people hugged and greeted each other, various people would come back to where I stood to shake my hand or try to hug me; I was as frozen and stiff as Richard Nixon. After this, Scripture was read, and then the minister … would preach … and it would be … enough to send me running back to the sanctuary of the flea market.
I went back to St. Andrew about once a month. No one tried to con me into sitting down or staying. I always left before the sermon. I loved singing, even about Jesus, but I just didn’t want to be preached about him.
I could sing better here than I ever had before. As part of these people, even though I stayed in the doorway, I did not recognize my voice or know where it was coming from, but sometimes I felt like I could sing forever.
Eventually, a few months after I started coming, I took a seat in one of the folding chairs, off by myself. Then the singing enveloped me. It was furry and resonant, coming from everyone’s very heart. There was no sense of performance or judgment, only that the music was breath and food.
Something inside me that was stiff and rotting would feel soft and tender. Somehow the singing wore down all the boundaries and distinctions that kept me so isolated. Sitting there, standing with them to sing, sometimes so shaky and sick that I felt like I might tip over, I felt bigger than myself, like I was being taken care of, tricked into coming back to life. -- Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies (1999)
All of us some of the time, and some of us all of the time, like Lamott, like that No-Name-turned-Daughter-of-Abraham, feel so shaky and sick that we’re afraid we might tip over. And yet when chutzpah-infused grace meets us wherever we might have wandered, catches our eye, and touches our heart, we find ourselves connected with something bigger than ourselves, our wounds honoured, our vulnerability respected. We are healed and taken care of. We are indeed tricked into coming back to life.
We come. We cry. We watch. We wait. We look. We long for God.
+ In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen
