May 23, 2004

Luke 24: 44-53

Ascension Sunday

Living the Ache

Rev. Elizabeth Macaulay

There was a packed auditorium at South High School Friday night this week. A mixed bag of people with purple hair and white hair, well worn skin and fresh faces. They had come together to celebrate the retirement of a man they know to be amazing. A man who spent almost thirty years teaching music to Jr and Sr high school students.

It was Dennis Malmberg's final concert as the band director at South High School.

It was also his mom and dad's anniversary. Larry and Louise, longtime members of this church, celebrated 59 years of marriage Friday.

Cassie Klint is in that band. And so is my daughter Rachel.

Now I know this about myself, and my kids do, too. I cry at band concerts. I can't seem to help myself. I see those kids on stage and I watch them work together to make beauty and I think of all of the love and support they receive from parents in order to be able to be on that stage and I know full well at such times that life is grand and good and almost too beautiful to be borne.

I approached Friday's concert with a bit of dread, knowing it was Mr. Malmberg's last concert. It promised to be a many Kleenex night. Mind you, I have known him less than a year. But in that year he has gifted my daughter with a community and a program that have made her adjustment to a new school so much easier. And, I think the world of his parents, so I feel a connection that way.

Well, the tear choking was predictable. Until I gave up even trying.

The point of full surrender came when Mr. Malmberg called up one of his old students to come and sing with the alumni jazz band. Before he began his song, the man, now about 28, wanted to testify a bit about what Mr. Malmberg and his music program had meant to him.

In a tear choked voice, he told us that when he came to South High School so many years ago, he was a runaway, a drop out kid who considered himself thrown away by society. He was lost and alone.

What he found through Mr. Malmberg's presence in his life was... life. He found an outlet and a place to be and he found his gifts and he found grace.

He told us that Dennis Malmberg changed his life. Not a one of us there doubted it.

His was not the only story. There were people back to play in the jazz band and the concert band who have gone on to careers in music - teachers and performers and people who know the power of music and beauty and working with others toward a common goal.

Oh, it was a night. The music, incidentally, was exquisite - with some great French Horn and Bass Clarinet work.

There was a very important flavor to the night that made it even more powerful.

The marking of transition could have been so very melancholy. The night could have been spent gnashing teeth and bemoaning the fact that never again would the music program at South be as good as Denny Malmberg made it.

That was not the message. I suspect that the message of the night is the finest tribute to his teaching of all. The message instead was this: carry it on. It was good. There was love lavished and passion spent building a great program. And, there are well mentored people in place to carry the vision on.

The ache of the great teacher's leaving is great. It will not be the same program next year. But the lessons of the teacher will live on. Do your best. Surrender yourself to the wonder of good music. Work hard and play hard and share the story of life made resonant through music by telling it and making it and living it.

Sitting at the concert, with the text for this morning living in my soul, I could not help but see the parallels between the teaching ministry of two consummate teachers as they made their farewells.

Great teachers make a life long impact upon us. And, they leave us.

Our parents, our loves, our children, any number of teachers who so profoundly touch our lives.

We know that they will leave us. Ingenious as we may sometimes be in the ways of trying to keep it from happening. And, stalwart as we might be in denying that losses will happen, in the honesty of the wee hours of the night, we know living and having the courage to love means losses.

So how do we live on when the ache happens?

What Jesus told the disciples, both while he lived in their midst and right before he ascended into heaven, was that they were in the presence of love more powerful than they could imagine.

His presence in their midst would be changed. But the love unleashed through their learning and growing together would never die. Never. It would live on in the ways they lived love, cultivated love, practiced love.

He told them that they would be wrapped always in the power of the Holy Spirit; a force of Holy love sent down into their midst on Pentecost. A power no longer just confined to Jesus, the teacher, but a power unleashed and humming through the bodies and hearts of his followers.

He told them that there was no time in which he and his love was not. Even if he was no longer touchably present.

So when they felt the terror and ache of being left behind.

When they were unsure that they could carry on his vision and his movement.

When they felt small and puny and so lonely for the reassurance of his presence

They were to remember. To remember his teachings. To share his teachings. To breathe in the power of being a people forever changed because he lived, touched and taught and continues to live through them.

How do we each live the ache of being left behind?

We savor the memories, and we pass on our teacher's vision.

Mr Malmberg taught the rich power of music. His students will carry it on.

Your parents taught the rich power of their passions. You and your family will carry it on.

Jesus taught the rich power of Holy love, made flesh in him and through each one of us.

Let us sing that love on.

Amen.