Big, messy, unedited unloading of thoughts ahead.
The sermon this morning was about the second book of John in the new testament. The whole book was read. The idea was about how we should, as Christians, be known for love. Love, love, love. When the world hears the word Christian, they should think: love. This is not really so true right now. This is a problem. We should fix it. We should know that we are loved and then go love others out there in the world.
I sat there agreeing with everything the pastor was saying. About half-way through, I was itching for him to tell us some examples of how we should love. Is it just about being nicer to people? He began repeating himself. Love. Go outside these doors and love people. Ted and I started passing notes back and forth about how he needs to give concrete examples of people who have lived selflesslessly and how we can imitate them. Give us ideas. We are dumb sheep who like our comfort, and we need to be inspired by people who love well. At least for me, I need this. I suspect others might too since Ted overheard someone say that what he got out of the sermon was that he should "pray more."
The last five minutes of the sermon was devoted to how we need to really understand that God loves us. The whole thing imploded in on itself. The navel-gazing began.
The pastor prayed for us, that we would know God's love and then go out and love. A song began, and I couldn't help feeling really cynical as I watched people in the crowd lifting their hands receiving God's love, having not been really encouraged in any tangible, concrete way to go out and live any differently than they had been before walking into the building.
Jesus taught by telling stories. He didn't give us rhetoric the way we got this morning (admittedly, I do agree to every bit of the rhetoric I heard today). My complaint right now isn't about what was said but about what wasn't said.
I kept wishing for a story about someone like Rich Mullins, the Christian songwriter who, as a multimillionaire, lived in a mobile home on a reservation as he worked towards getting his degree in education so he could teach music to the Native American kids living there. Every year he told his accountant to set his yearly salary as the median blue-color worker's and then give the rest away. He never knew how much money his talents ever really brought in. He died in a car crash in 1997 before he finished his degree.
Or he could have told a story like this one, something that happened to one of Ted's students:
"I watched the man from across the street. He looked like he was in his
early 40’s. His skin was light brown, but I couldn’t determine exactly
which ethnicity he was. He had thick, black curly hair. His legs were
in the street, but his torso was on the sidewalk, and his head was
hanging at an odd angle. And he was barely breathing. He wasn’t just
sleeping; he was unconscious.
I got out of my car and went over to him. I said, “Sir, can you hear
me?” He didn’t move. I raised my voice and said, “Sir, please wake
up!” But he didn’t respond. He had snoring respirations, the sound
people make when their tongue is blocking their airway. I rolled him
onto his side, and his respirations became easier. I grabbed his wrist
and checked his radial pulse, which was steady and strong.
Once I had assessed him, I called 911, and asked them to send an
ambulance. When I hung up with the 911 operator, I realized that the
man’s head was still not well supported, so I knelt down and put his
head in my lap. He started to wake up, and he was crying, sobbing,
before his eyes were fully opened.
“What’s your name?” I asked him.
“Jessie,” he slurred, and I could smell the alcohol on his breath.
“Jessie, are you okay?”
He shook his head.
“What do you need?” I asked.
“I need love,” he sobbed.
I gave him my hand, and he held it in a vice grip.
“I need love. I need love,” he said, over and over again, as we waited for the rescue squad to come."
“Jessie,” he slurred, and I could smell the alcohol on his breath.
“Jessie, are you okay?”
He shook his head.
“What do you need?” I asked.
“I need love,” he sobbed.
I gave him my hand, and he held it in a vice grip.
“I need love. I need love,” he said, over and over again, as we waited for the rescue squad to come."
How many of us have ever been willing to do what she did? I never have.
What about telling us the amazing story of those nine women in Tennessee who delivered care packages to people in need for thirty years, all in total secret? How about encouraging us to secretly give to people in need?
What about having a foster parent get up on the stage to tell us about what it's like to love kids who've been pulled from their homes?
What about giving people a list of nonprofits that could use volunteers? Nonprofits like SMART (Start Making a Reader Today) where you simply read for an hour every week with a kid who needs some extra attention at school? I did this for a year before we had kids and ended up assigned to a little boy whose mother was in prison. Every week, he'd pull some tiny object out of his pocket, usually something like a sequin or rock, and tell me about how he was going to mail it to his mom.
How about encouraging us all to simply invite someone out to lunch after church?
As Ted said at lunch, why have we in the American church set the bar so low? If Christ's sacrifice in death is the standard by which we are to love, then few of us have ever come anywhere close to this level of selflessness.
The whole sermon, I kept thinking about the east African widow I met a month ago. She has a high-energy five-year-old son and a year old baby girl. They have been here less than a year. Her husband, the sole breadwinner in the family, was diagnosed with stage four cancer a few months after their arrival as refugees, and he soon after passed away. She was left destitute and then homeless. She and her two children ended up in a women's shelter until a nonprofit got her into temporary housing. I have been to her apartment. As her son played outside with an adult neighbor on one of the busiest and loudest streets in Portland, she offered me food and wept in front of the large framed photo of her deceased husband. She breastfed her beautiful baby and wiped tears from her face.
Her son looks like my son. They were homeless. Her son and infant daughter. Homeless. Here as refugees. Deceased husband. Shelter and temporary housing and shut-off notices from the light company, and how the hell are they going to make it?
I can't get her out of my brain. If I were in her position, I would be wracked with fear every waking minute.
So couldn't the pastor have told us about the people like this in our city who could use the helping hand of the church? Maybe people just don't know there are people like the African widow out there. But they're here. THEY ARE HERE. And what the hell are we going to do about them?
Will they know we are Christians by our love, by our love, just the way the song says? I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. Christ set a high standard. I long to hear a pastor stand up in front of a church and say, "You have one life. It is short, and soon you will be dead. What are you going to do with it?"
Dead, dead, dead, one day we'll all be dead. Even the writers of Southpark know it. Maybe what the church needs most is a healthy reminder of our impending death, not of how much God loves us. I don't mean to diminish the importance of the message of God's love. It's everything. God's love is what sustains us and makes us who we are. But if we aren't picking up the homeless drunks on the filthy streets, reading books to kids whose parents are in prison, and providing food and shelter to the widows and orphans, then what is the point?
Dead, Dead, Dead, someday you'll be dead
Dead, Dead, Dead, someday we'll all be dead.
The minute we're born, we start dying,
We die a little more every day..
Young or old, rich or poor,
There's nothing we can do to stop it..
So look long at that Christmas tree,
It may be the last one that you see..
Decorate your house in green and red,
'cos someday you'll be dead..
Dead, Dead, Dead, someday we'll all be dead.
The minute we're born, we start dying,
We die a little more every day..
Young or old, rich or poor,
There's nothing we can do to stop it..
So look long at that Christmas tree,
It may be the last one that you see..
Decorate your house in green and red,
'cos someday you'll be dead..
--Trey Parker and Matt Stone
“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust
destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves
treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where
thieves do no break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your
heart will be also”
--Jesus of Nazareth
