Spiritual Sight: In Memory of Peg Swieringa
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“Seek the Lord while he wills to be found; *
call upon him when he draws near.”
Perhaps the greatest gift of all gifts is the gift of sight. I’m not talking about being able to read tiny words on a page or hit a target from 30 yards out. I’m talking about a different kind of sight altogether. I’m talking about spiritual sight. I wouldn’t have always ranked this among the greatest gifts. For many, at the beginning of our lives, our greatest gift might turn out to be the love given and received by our family. As teenagers, we begin to focus on freedom, having a seat at the table. And then later on in middle life, family often makes a comeback. These important aspects of life are good gifts. But developing spiritual sight lets us see things more objectively. It lets us see things, things that used to be ultimate things and put them in the right place. It’s this gift that lets us rightly appreciate and rank the other gifts. It properly orients us, with God as God, and man as man, family, freedom, and everything else where they truly belong.
While spiritual sight is a gift, it’s not a possession detached from the Giver. As soon as we grasp for it to take it to ourselves to be left alone in our self-actualization, it vanishes. And so when the prophet Isaiah says to seek the Lord while he wills to be found, we must ask what happens if we wait to seek him when he no longer wills to be found. When he doesn’t will to be found, are we going to be able to find him? I bring this up because when I think of our sister Peg Swieringa, I think about spiritual sight, about seeing things clearly, having priorities straight.
It was something that characterized her character and her life. She was able to see what was important. She knew who she was and she knew who God is. And the reason she knew those things is because she sought the Lord while he could be found. She was raised in the country and brought her simple and robust country delights with her when she moved to this part of the country. She sought the Lord and found him in her work and rest outside. She saw Him in all of the intricacies of nature, its sights and sounds and the smell of flowers and the first Autumn rain. She saw the Lord of Creation at work in the beauty all around her. But she especially shone and found special joy in the people she shared her life with, her husband, Gerry, her family, her friends. She was kind to her husband and held back most of her quick quips at home, but when she entered into the group, she often had a timely word, one that would make you think about something in a new way, or just bust up laughing. And her husband loved that about her. We all do. Again, while Peg got the joke, she was someone who could be depended on when things weren’t going well. And I think I’m safe in saying that this is because she had the gift. That gift of spiritual sight. She really knew and understood who God was and because of that, she truly saw who she was. Her heart and mind were rightly calibrated on the source of her sight, the source of her love, the source of her life. And truly seeing, she really saw. She was able to see when things were going well with someone and when they weren’t. And she approached both of those types of situations with immense grace. And because of this, she truly lived.
That life she lived began in Michigan where her family ran a nursery. Her time in the outdoors had always been dear to her. She met her husband, Gerry, at Hope College in Michigan and moved out West to Ferndale for his work. In 2010, he moved into full-time ordained ministry, and that means, in some sense, so did she. She was a great friend to the people of this church and her imprint is found throughout our life here together.
She passed away unexpectedly when her heart stopped beating. She was outside her home.
But that’s not the end of the story for Peg. Jesus said: “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” And Martha said to him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.” In that moment, Martha bore witness to the truth. Her affections were rightly aligned. And she showed herself to be a recipient of the promise: “Everyone who believes in me shall never die.” Like Martha, Peg eventually left her body behind, but in that moment she passed from life into life. And we can take comfort in the same promises that Martha and Peg trusted in.
When Fr. Gerry discovered that she had fallen, he went to her and did all that he could to save her. And afterward, the difficulty of that moment made him want to stay away from that particular place where she had passed away. It was a tough place for him to walk by, just passing through his property. He confessed as much to his friend, our Bishop, who had come to be with him, and Gerry asked for him to pray over the place, that it might receive some sort of restoration, some sanctification. And so the Bishop picked up some of the dirt of the ground in that spot and proclaimed: May this place never be known as a place of death, but as the portal through which Peg passed forever into life. And that moment was a real blessing to Gerry. Not because it was inspirational, though it was, but because it was true. It brought God’s perspective, the perspective of eternal life to that moment.
The ability to get a view of God’s perspective, to be taken out of our struggle and see things as they really are is available to us as we seek the Lord and find him.
I believe that this is one of the moments where he wills to be found. Peg would not want me to end this message without telling you this. You are loved. And you can know this because Jesus Christ told you this as emphatically as he could when he died for you to make peace between imperfect you and a holy God, when there was love on his part and only ignorance, indifference or hostility on ours. If you want an anchor point to calibrate your life to, you’ve been given one: it’s a piece of wood placed in the ground where Jesus Christ proved that he was willing to die to express his love for you. And that was the anchor point that Peg’s life was wrapped around. When you think of her smile, or her friendship, or any of the other good things she blessed you with, she would want you to know that they came from that moment in history, from that source, from that person, Jesus Christ. Peg sought the Lord while he was willing to be found. And he blessed her with spiritual sight.
The alternative is sobering. It’s my greatest fear, actually. Without spiritual sight, we lose all alignment of life with God. To stop being able to see him for who he is and putting everything else in it’s rightful place at his feet. It’s letting one’s spiritual senses be dulled so that other things gain in importance until our view of God slips away. And then we start complaining about his absence and listening to the lies we start telling ourselves, that he doesn’t care about us, that he’s not even there, that he never was. And this spiritual blindness is by far the norm, not the exception. It has been since the Fall of Man. And as humans, we’ve all had such moments. Maybe you’ve been living in a long one, complex and self-perpetuating. But it does not have to be this way. As we amble along in the spiritual fog, as we look to gain our bearings, to regain our senses, as we seek the Lord, we discover that he has made himself easy to find. He wills to be found. He’s the one upon the Cross, telling you that he loves you and cares for you better than you can ever care for yourself. And if you want a new anchor point in this world, one that rightly orients your life to the truth, to the way things really are, he has driven the wood of the cross into the ground for you to point your life towards him. Is there a better anchor point? It’s not money. It’s not power. It’s not family. These things shift and change. But the cross of Christ will not. It does not. It cannot. The death of Jesus punched a hole in eternity to let our spiritual blindness fall away, to give us real sight. Let us open our eyes to this gift.
And one day our spiritual sight, our very eyes will be filled with Him and all those who have gone before us into his presence, including our dear Peg. So we remember her life, the gift that it was, and we acknowledge the source of her blessing, just as she would want us to. And we look forward to one day where in the great resurrection of the dead, we will see her kind smile and hear her laugh and be with her again. Until then we trust and hope in the one who will bring it to pass. To God be the glory, through our Lord Jesus Christ, in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. Amen.