John the Baptist

Today we traveled to Fayette, a village on the riverbed. Through dust and rock we drove onward to see our newest group of patients. Those who have been on our medical mission before have been to Fayette, but all seemed equally in awe of the drive. It is the end of the dry season and we were therefore able to literally drive on the riverbed since it will be dry until the rains. People were out washing their clothes and bodies in the little water that trickled through. Goats and donkeys were tethered to rocks in the midst of the great, rocky expanse. You can imagine what it would look like full of water, but, at the same time, it is difficult to fathom what will happen to the people on the other side of the river when the water returns – there will be no way to cross. The other side of the river is where our clinic was today.

Our flow was much better today due to both our space and the set up. We were in the Catholic Church. On the walls are numbers for the Stations of the Cross, but no pictures to accompany the numbers. It was unclear whether they ever had pictures or if the numbers are where they’ve always stopped to pray. It seemed fitting that the pharmacy was set up in the chancel beside the altar. The place where the people go to receive the sacrament of our Lord’s Supper, today became the place where our brothers and sisters in Christ came to receive the gifts of medication to aide in their healing.

I am here as a chaplain. While the healing prayers I offer are not sacraments, they are sacramental. I sit to the side where I can watch the ministry of my colleagues as they diagnose, listen, and lay hands on our patients. Marissa calmly ensures that the balm we offer is the proper dosage, and all of us try to live into our baptismal covenant to respect the dignity of every human being.

In the afternoon as I went outside to pray with some patients John the Baptist appeared before me. His hair was matted and dusty, he wore oversized-baggy cargo shorts that barely covered him and looked more like a loin cloth than shorts. He walked with a wooden walking staff, carried a dirty, empty bottle for water and a disheveled sack with all of his belongings.  He came to me clearly complaining of head pain. I struggled to explain that I was not a doctor. My translator told me that this man was an “imbecile” and we “didn’t need to waste time on him.” I insisted that all people could see the doctor and walked him over to the check in area. The translator at intake also tried to tell me that this man was “sick in his head” and didn’t need help but I insisted that all people would be seen. The translator was then very kind and helped me calm the man so he could wait.

Yesterday we treated two developmentally delayed patients who were originally turned away because they were “imbeciles” and had no need for the medical care we offered. With the help of many colleagues we made sure they were seen. These encounters broke my heart knowing that the daily lives of these people are filed with occasions of disrespect and ridicule. These experiences also beg the question: What would we do if we literally encountered the saints of our scriptures without knowledge of who we were meeting? The bible teaches us the John the Baptist was a disheveled character who did not fully fit in society. Would we accept the baptism of John if he appeared to us today?

Our team was “baptized” today. The other patients laughed as I insisted we treat him. Our patients inside of the “clinic” space shuddered as he passed. But our doctors embraced the man and listed to his rambling to make sense of what ailed him. After his check-up he was brought to me for prayer. Immediately, he dropped to his knees, shed his baggage and bowed his head. I laid my hands on his head and prayed that God might fill him and heal him. But he is already full of Christ. He knows and loves the Lord more than I could ever hope to know Christ.

Jesus told us to let the little children come to him and it has been demonstrated that children often have greater faith development than many of their adult counterparts. Children have an innate ability to trust and know the Christ that is in front of them. Developmentally delayed individuals share in this innate ability. This man, our own modern-day Haitian John the Baptist, was a faithful exemplar of Christ in this place. My prayer for our team is that we might find the strength to discover a personal faith nearly as radical as our “Baptist” exhibited today.

Responding in love

To paraphrase Madonna: It's a digital world and I am a [reluctant] digital girl.

We've all gotten it: the email that unravels all your awesome (if you do say so yourself) plans. You send a simple request to someone and they email back explaining all the reasons what you need is not possible. Or you get an unsolicited bit of advice or feedback that hits every nerve in your body. Or you send a bit of feedback only to receive an email in return that is laden with hurt feelings and accusations. As our world continues to turn more and more to impersonal, digital communication methods it becomes easier to lose sight of feelings and emotions when we communicate with a quick click, click, click... send.

But human beings haven't changed. We are still emotional beings who take pride in our work and try (I hope) to do our best to respect the dignity of others in our communications. So this turn to cold, digital communication is sometimes at odds with our communication needs as individuals. Some personality types are better suited to digital communication than others. But on the whole, we lose something when we communicate as though it is entirely mechanical instead of personal.

So, how do we respond in love while still maintaining appropriate boundaries and professionalism?

Here are my quick and dirty email communication rules that I try to follow:

1. Take a breath or, better yet, several. Just because email means instant communication is possible, it doesn't mean instant communication is necessary. With smart phones, tablets, and wifi galore we've become a society that expects instantaneous answers to all of life's questions. Just because there might be an expectation that we respond immediately it does not mean it is required. Take 24 hours before responding to any email, that is not time sensitive, that is upsetting or inflammatory. If you think that window might further damage the relationship, a simple response that tells the sender you received her/his correspondence and will respond soon can sometimes defuse the situation temporarily.

2. Take it off line. Email is best employed for matter-of-fact, short communications. Once hurt feelings get involved the situation can escalate quickly. Offer to meet in person or by telephone if the correspondence has taken a turn towards hurt feelings.

3. Walk a mile. If you thought the thing you were requesting was simple yet the response you got was complicated, rather than further explaining why your request is really simple - look at it from their perspective. What are the values involved? What other factors are in play? 

4. Get an outside perspective. If you really cannot settle down or see the reasoning in the correspondence, ask an unbiased person to weigh in. Sometimes this might be to validate what you are experiencing, a lot of the time this might be to objectively consider both sides.

5. Remember the Christ that is in them. It is really easy to play the "I'm right, they're wrong" game with email. You don't have to look the other person in the eye when you are communicating and "hearing" their words. I find it is always best for me to assume the best motives and remember that at the bottom of it all the person with whom I am communicating was created in God's image. This is both the hardest and easiest step. If loving everybody was easy, we'd live in a much more peaceful world.

It's only after I've completed the above five steps that I am able to respond to difficult emails with love. Sometimes I do respond before I've participated in these steps and sometimes I luck out and do a good job. Most of the time, though, a quick response leads to hurt feelings and a much longer and more arduous communication than was necessary. 

A gift of great value

A few weeks ago one of my parishioners emailed me the following story from his commute. With his permission I share it with you now:

Today as I was on the subway coming back from Quincy to my office in Back Bay I was riding the Orange line.  A man who was learning impaired approached me and asked if I had any spare change.  At first I nodded no; he then offered me a gift which was a piece of paper 18”x24” rolled up with an elastic band (he had a handful of them). I declined, but offered him a dollar instead and he was grateful.  He proceeded down the subway car, approaching others and got pretty much the same initial response of the nod, except most looked around to see if anyone else was looking to try to get a mutual smirk, evil smile or an eye roll.   I got so frustrated with myself for not doing more; he wanted to give me something.

He worked his way back to me, and this time I was ready with another dollar bill; I wanted what he was handing out.  So I handed him another dollar and he handed me the gift.  He proceeded to offer me a second one, and I declined (much more politely than last time).  He was probably in his mid 50’s and told me he had been drawing since he was 8 years old.  I told him that I would open it when I got back to work.  He proceeded on, and continued to get the same negative responses.  The suspense was killing me, what was in the rolled up paper, and what was his drawing?  I took off the rubber band and unrolled it and saw what he had drawn. 

I went back into my wallet and pulled out a five dollar bill, and said “here; this is worth way more than two dollars”.  He again offered me a second one and I declined and told him that he needed to keep them so he could give them to other people.  It turns out, according to him, that they are all the same picture.  He then sat down next to me on the subway and smiled a lot and introduced himself to me, and told me that he had worked so hard on those drawings in his art class today.  I chuckled to myself because others kept throwing me a glance, some were a friendly smile and others were something more of a look of disgust as if to say “better you than me” and if so they were right. 

 

I practically skipped off the subway.

We will see stars

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it." John 1:1-5

There is something about darkness that is frightening. When it is dark and our sight is obscured, our minds begin painting pictures to make up the difference. Suddenly what was in daylight the woods around our home becomes a dangerous wilderness. What felt safe and secure becomes a frightening possibility of fearful circumstance. As our days grow shorter, our experience of the darkness takes over more of our day and can overwhelm us. It is in the midst of this space where our vision is robbed that our imagination takes over and gives way to both make-believe and memory.

This time of year calls forward memories for all of us. Some of those memories are filled with laughter and family, colors and light. Some of those memories are filled with tears or pain, fear or sorrow. For many of us, we have memories of both sorts that somehow come forward and swirl together into a string of interconnected emotions that become difficult to disentangle. The memories become a weight we carry with us as we try desperately to focus on the light and the joy we are told we are supposed to feel.

But whoever said a call to remembrance is always a joyful experience? The things we remember most clearly are the heights and the depths. We remember where we were when President Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. were shot. We remember what we were doing when the challenger exploded and the twin towers came down. We remember what it was like to hear someone say, “I love you” for the first time. We remember the mirth we felt when we heard that family close to us was expecting a child and we remember the fear and anger that bubbled up when that same child was diagnosed with a painful illness. The call to remembrance isn’t a call to a specific emotion – it is a call to honor the experiences that comprise our existence.

The prologue to the Gospel of John, which we heard this evening, tells the story of remembrance. “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” Like Paul Harvey used to expound in his radio program – We have the luxury of knowing the rest of the story. The Word of God, that spoke the earth into being and was proclaimed by the prophets, became flesh in the person of Jesus for whom we wait. That same Word that was and is a light that darkness cannot overcome became a human being who instructed his followers to “do this in remembrance of me.” Jesus, for whom we wait, the light in the darkness, was a holder of memory and instructed his people to become holders of memory as well.

When we re-member those whom we have loved and lost, Christmases past, health that is now illusive, the life we thought we’d be living, our fears and anxieties, - we are putting ourselves back together in a form of honest and active waiting. This active waiting can be painful and exhausting, but it pays homage to all of the different parts that make us who we are. Tonight, we are calling forward the parts of our lives that are vital piece of the puzzle that makes us whole. Who we are today – right this moment – is because of who we have been, what we have experienced, the people who have crossed our paths, and the hope for what is to come. Friends, we cannot dance in the joy of Easter morning without first walking through the painful darkness of Good Friday.

So whatever feelings you bring here tonight – whatever fear you might have of letting those emotions take up space in your being – know that you, all of you, are welcome here. Do not fear the darkness within your own mind, because there is a light that cannot be overcome no matter how dark it gets. Do not shove these wonderful and terrible feelings aside because they are the reminder that you are here, alive and human, right now. God’s Grace is big enough to hold all that you bring here tonight – and more. If you cannot feel that grace and love I encourage you to make that your prayer this night – or just trust me when I tell you, because I know this to be true. God’s Grace and Love are freely flowing through God’s own Holy Spirit, encircling you even as we speak. Allow yourself to feel and know that all of those feelings are acceptable.

Sometimes this Advent journey of waiting and counting down can feel just as perilous as a walk into the depth of the woods in the dark of night. We can’t avoid the emotions that present themselves but we can remember to look up while we march onward – if we look up we will eventually see the most brilliant stars. 

Cocoa with God

Sermon for the second Wednesday in Advent

‘Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.’ Matthew 11:28-30

I've often heard the expression that something is as refreshing as a cool glass of lemonade on a hot summer day – but I would challenge those southerners that there is actually nothing more refreshing than a hot cup of cocoa on a cold winter’s day. We've all felt that chill – those bone cold days when the snow doesn't seem to end and just as we finish shoveling it is time to start again. Sometimes, as beautiful as a fresh winter’s snow can be it is despairing as well. Walking through Advent’s journey of darkness heading towards light in the winter, therefore, seems fitting.

This image of shoveling to exhaustion also strikes me because Advent seems also to be a season when we decide to become superhuman, and to take on more tasks than are possible to complete. We have shopping lists several miles long, we attend parties and gatherings with friends and family, we decorate our homes, we donate our time and our money, we try to do-do-do because this is the season of giving. But, as my friend Ginny likes to point out – we are human-beings not human-doings. And I think that is what Jesus is highlighting in this invitation to “be.”

In this passage from Matthew we are hearing Jesus as he instructs his followers who are weary and burdened as Israelites who are tired of the legalistic ways of the Pharisees and Sadducees. The people are at their breaking point as they try desperately to follow the law as they’ve been instructed only to constantly be redirected and told they are falling short. The people want to follow God but the burden of doing so in the supposedly prescribed manner is to heavy a burden to bear. So Jesus tells them of another way. He has been instructing them about how they can be his disciples and missionaries in the world and to illustrate the ways this call is different than what they have come to expect his invitation to follow includes this lovely invitation to rest.

We can believe in this invitation because Jesus himself follows it. If we are truly called to emulate Christ as we follow his example than it is imperative that we go off and rest a while as Jesus did frequently, including at some key points in his ministry. There were times when the crowds were pressing in on Jesus and he said to his disciples that he was going off for a time apart to rest and to pray. Hundreds of people pressing in on the Messiah, yet he still insisted on taking time to rest and to pray.

When we look at this example he set for us it becomes hard to believe that we still find it difficult – and sometimes seemingly impossible – to take time away during which we can rest, refresh our souls, and talk to God. Jesus was walking the earth with the weight of all humanity on his shoulders yet he still told his followers that his burden was light.

I was online last night and a friend shared a documentary with me. It is by the Mimi Foundation and it is called, “If only for a Second.” The short documentary teaser is a project the foundation sponsored where they interviewed cancer patients about their lives. In the interviews the people reported that spontaneity and carefree moments were some of the things they missed the most while they were sick. The foundation then offered each of the interviewees a free spa-makeover with the agreement that they keep their eyes closed during the process so the mirror reveal of their new look would be a surprise. What they didn't know was that the mirror was a 2-way mirror with a photographer on the other side and the makeover team was actually outfitting them in outrageous wigs and makeup for a big shock. When the participants opened their eyes and saw their ridiculous appearances for the first time the photographer captured the moment and created a book from the images. For that second when their eyes opened they were no longer cancer patients receiving makeovers – they were human beings captivated by joy and surprise.

What could happen in your life if you laid down your burden for just a moment and choose being over doing? What would happen if you opened your eyes and noticed the wonder around you in a new way? We've a long winter ahead and there will be plenty of time for worry and shopping, working and shoveling. Let’s all find a moment to sit down and refresh ourselves by drinking a cup of hot cocoa with God.