Catching People

A Sermon for Sunday, February 6, 2022. Emory Presbyterian Church. Luke 5:1-11

While searching for an illustration to begin today’s sermon, I came across a couple of clever and funny cartoons about Luke 5:1-11 where Jesus helps Simon Peter, James and John catch an abundance of fish and then summons the fishermen to be his disciples.

In the first cartoon, Jesus is standing in the bow of the boat. Behind him are four fishermen, one of whom is twirling around and clacking small pear-shaped wooden instruments in his hands. One of the fishermen says to dancing musician: “You idiot, he said ‘Cast the nets!”

In the second cartoon, two sharks, outfitted in fishing gear, are a few feet from the shore, attempting to lure a sunbather with a hamburger on the end of their line. One shark, with his Bible open, says to his buddy: “Somewhere in here Jesus says he’ll make us fisher of men.”

All joking aside, this fascinating and wonderous event that occurs at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, has much to teach us about the identity of Christ and the purpose of the church.  

First, Jesus shows up in the most ordinary of moments to do an extraordinary thing, something we least expect, and ever doubt could happen. After teaching the large crowd of people from his seat on Simon Peter’s boat, Jesus asks Simon Peter to take the boat into the deeper parts of the lake and cast the nets. Although the fishermen—who have been working all night and haven’t caught a thing-are uncertain that they will be successful, they take a chance. To their astonishment, they catch so many fish the nets start to break, and they have to hail another boat to help them with the large haul. And then, once the boats are filled with all the fish, each vessel sink a bit into the water, causing Simon Peter to recognize the amazingness of God.

More than a decade ago, a group of high school youth and I were surprised to see God at work in the unlikeliest of places during a summer mission trip in San Antonio, Texas. The mission trip organizers split us up into three small groups to go out to look for and interact with God for a half-hour. Two of the groups were assigned a local park filled with numerous God sightings: children playing games, families having picnics, people walking dogs, couples sitting on benches, artists painting nature and the homeless camped out on the edges of the grounds. The third team, the one I was in, were asked to walk down the street to the gas station and convenient store, which seemed boring and lame. How in the world would we see the face of God at the gas station? Gas stations are nothing like parks. Motorists slowly pumping gas (Oh look, God buys premium). Customers deciding whether to purchase a red or yellow Gatorade. (Sweet, God loves red). The activity is mundane and the idea of chatting up those who are filling up their cars or shopping for snacks seemed awkward and creepy. But nevertheless, we complied with the instructions and …we sat for 25 minutes in 98-degree heat on the sidewalk facing the pumps and the front door of the store.

Hot, tired, and irritable, we were about to acknowledge our failure with the assignment and leave when a man with dirt on his face, a scraggly beard and torn and stained clothes walked by us and into the store. One of the other adults, Erik, in our group instinctively got up and followed him inside. A few minutes later, Erik came out to tell us, “Our homeless friend asked the clerk if he could give him a sandwich and some water. The clerk politely said he couldn’t help. I told him we might be able to do something.”  We pooled all the cash we had in our pockets and gave it to Erik who went back inside and bought God two sandwiches and a large bottle of water.  

Witnessing God’s presence requires boldness, patience and perseverance to go into deep water and unfamiliar territory.

Secondly, Jesus doesn’t ask the fishermen to leave their trade and become a part of his mission without making sure the community is cared for in their absence. The families living on the shore, who rely on the fishermen’s haul, are provided with an enormous abundance of food, a jubilant feast! According to Revs. Matthew and Elizabeth Meyer Bolton, “God’s call is toward abundance amidst apparent scarcity, particularly abundance for the most vulnerable.”^[1]

I can’t tell you the number of occasions where I thought there just wouldn’t be enough—enough food for the people we were feeding at a local shelter, enough cement to finish out a few remaining floors in a Honduran village or enough materials to package up and send to tornado devastated areas. And every single time my worries are for naught. There is always enough.

Six months ago members of this church gathered in Fellowship Hall to assemble home kits of toiletries and kitchen supplies for Afghan refugee families who were fleeing their country of violence. About midway through the process of filling bags with items, it seemed as if we would run out and some families would have less than what they needed. And though we did have to order a few extra products (which happened to come in plenty of time) we had leftovers of other things. In the end, it all worked out and there was enough. 

With God, there is always enough… and still more that God urges us to go and do.

Jesus’ calling of the disciples is at the heart of the passage because it tells us what God is about. God doesn’t choose the perfect, the flawless, the best and the brightest to help establish the kindom. God calls people who are imperfect and flawed and broken—people who have missed the mark—to walk with him. People like you and me. People like Simon Peter and James and John and many more. 

The passage says that immediately after Simon Peter drops to his knees and confesses that he is unworthy, Jesus tells the fisherman to not fear and to accompany him in ministry. Jesus loves Simon Peter and the other fishermen, and nothing they’ve ever done is going to dissuade Jesus from asking them to be a part of what he’s doing.

Jesus loves us and believes in us too, despite our failures and mess-ups. He puts a hand on our shoulders and says that he wants us to follow, regardless of the mistakes we’ve made. Jesus deems us worthy in his eyes, no matter how often we feel unworthy and fearful or how regularly we are told we’re inadequate. Jesus sees our hearts and knows that we have incredible gifts that are meant for “catching people.”

Mind you, neither the gospel writer nor Jesus is implying that by “catching people,” we should be trapping folks in nets as if they were fish to be consumed or forcing them to convert to a certain set of beliefs and become servants to our own cruel intentions and self-interests. What Jesus means when he says, “catching people” is that we should be reaching out to others, especially the downtrodden and marginalized, enveloping the entire world with the grace of God. 

As God’s people, we are each created to show welcome and hospitality to all, both within and beyond the doors of our sanctuaries. 

As disciples of Jesus, we are beckoned to invite people to join in the life-long mission of bringing dignity, transformation and healing into the lives of individuals and communities. 

As members of the body of Christ, the church, we are called to do the work of catching people’s hearts so that we might all grow together in a love that is always freeing and never ensnaring. The love of God that says each of us are worthy of being and belonging. 

Let no one tell you differently. 

Amen.

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^[1] https://www.saltproject.org/progressive-christian-blog/2019/2/5/call-to-mercy-salt-lectionary-commentary-for-epiphany-week-five

Wrestling With God

A Sermon for Sunday August 3, 2014, Genesis 32:22-30 and Matthew 14:13-21

We live in a fearful, violent and broken world:

The rising death toll of children killed in Gaza amid the war between Israel and Hamas.

An outbreak of the Ebola virus in West Africa that has claimed 729 lives and infected more than 1,300 people.

 War in the Ukraine that has already resulted in the killing of nearly 300 people aboard a commuter airplane.

Strife in Syria, Libya, Nigeria and China where numerous civilians have been attacked and slaughtered by terrorist groups.

The hundreds of thousands of children and youth who have fled to the U.S. border to escape atrocities in Central America only to be met by armed and angry protestors.

Drug addiction, domestic and child abuse, gun violence, murder, teen rape, racism, homophobia, sexism and political bickering runs amok in our towns and cities.

All of this turmoil around us (in addition to our own personal worries and struggles) is enough to make us lock our doors, shut our blinds and curl up in a ball underneath our beds.

There are many people who attempt to lead a safe, secure and insulated life where no harm can touch them or their loved ones.

Some believe that if it is not happening directly in their own back yard, there’s no point bothering with what’s going on anywhere else.

Others focus on wealth and an accumulation of things to distract them from the pain that is consuming their neighbors.

Most of them, however, are just plain scared as they tip toe through every moment of life, constantly wondering when the sky might literally begin to fall into pieces.

But tiptoeing is not a luxury for people of faith, especially ones who are called to follow Jesus.

Treading softly through life or retreating into a dark corner wasn’t an option for the people of the Book and neither is it an alternative for us, the ones responsible for sharing the Book and living out God’s story.

When birthrights have been stolen and you’re on the run for your very life from a brother who has sworn to kill you, there is no tiptoeing or hiding.

In the midst of conflict and chaos,

fear has to be confronted,

violence has to be transformed and

brokenness has to be healed.

Like Jacob, one must wrestle with God who draws people from the darkness of night into the dawn of a new day.

One must grapple with God’s call to practice reconciliation, compassion and love.

And that wrestling with God and God’s call—the gut-wrenching, mind-bending, heart-aching discernment of the soul—changes a person and the world.

That deeply profound struggle dislocates the joints and marks a person’s body with pain, making it impossible to run away from or ignore the agony of others.

In the blood, sweat and tears that comes with….

tending a garden that provides fresh produce for low-income families;

spending time with homeless veterans;

cleaning a homeless shelter;

talking to the homeless on the streets,

learning about poverty issues, and

playing games with underprivileged kids in Asheville, NC;

and

digging the foundation of a Pentecostal church;

leading Vacation Bible School;

assisting with a medical clinic;

making friends with folks who’ve never been in relationship with white Americans;

worshipping in a different tradition in San Pedro, a province of the Dominican Republic

…one sees the face of God and recognizes that life is a blessing to behold.

It is not to be dreaded or taken for granted as senior and elder Lauren Borders (who spent a month in the DR before joining the mission trip team) explains:

Sometimes we like to glorify mission. We like to pose with children like Disney World characters and convince ourselves that happy people could never be as poor as they are. And it makes us feel a lot better about the need we stand in the midst of.

I spent six weeks in the Dominican Republic, which was just long enough to move past the “glory” stage. When you’ve been swinging a pick-axe and shoveling on a work site for two straight weeks or someone tells you that you cannot hold a crying child because she’s covered in scabies, you tend to wake up. Waking up saved my life. I have found that now that I’m back, I can’t live on the surface. It’s a lot harder to take blessings for granted.

Working for God is really hard, especially when it seems as if everything is caving in around you. But one of the most important things that I learned on this trip was that most people don’t really care. I met youth and adults, including our own, from all over the country who are up for the challenge. And I found out, to my surprise, so was I.

God has a habit of signing unsuspecting people up to do his will. And when I held a small boy whose stomach is severely distended in my arms, I realized that I was tricked into coming here. I was tricked into loving on a Dominican child who probably is in desperate need of affection. I was tricked into swinging a pick axe. Because when I take a step back from both of those situations, neither of them really sounds like they were originally on my summer to-do list. God has a habit of signing unsuspecting people up to do his will.

I am so thankful to have been called to spend my summer in the Dominican Republic. I am so grateful to have been woken up to the reality of the hurting and I am so grateful to have seen the determination of my church family. I am so grateful to have been tricked into experiencing a deeper love. And I look forward to being tricked in the future.

The fear and violence and brokenness of the world can be so overwhelming that it is tempting to dismiss the trouble all together and remain in our own protective little bubbles.

Like Jesus’ first disciples, we sometimes want to ignore the bedlam and dump the problem on someone else so we don’t have to take responsibility.

But there is no ignoring or tiptoeing or retreating.

When the hour is late and the world seems bleak, we can’t demand that the crowds of people in pain be sent away.

Even when there are hecklers—people who say it’s foolish to serve the poor or go to another state or country to serve alongside others—we can’t give up and walk away dejected. Nor can we expect someone else to fix things.

We can’t even put it all squarely on Jesus for him to do it all by himself either.

Not that Jesus can’t do it by himself; he most certainly can. It’s just that Jesus would prefer that we be a part of what he is doing.

That tricky Jesus says to us: “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.”

And we must give those in need something to eat, something to drink, something to wear, something to heal, something to protect, something to trust—something that acknowledges their worth as human beings created in the image of God.

We must provide love, mercy and hope that is always abundant, never scarce and eternally satisfying.

Once we do such challenging things, we see the presence of God among us and we are instantly and forever changed by the encounter.

There is no going back. There is only forward.

Jacob didn’t return to his outlaw ways. Jacob persevered through his hardships and helped bring forth the 12 tribes of Israel.

The disciples didn’t resume lives of apathy. They kept following Jesus and doing difficult ministry, inching ever so closer to Jerusalem and the cross.

Similarly, the youth and adults who attended this summer’s mission trips haven’t gone back to being the people they were before their experiences in Asheville and the Dominican Republic.

They have wrestled with God and God’s call. Their minds and bodies have been stretched. Their eyes and hearts have been open. They have been changed.

And they are determined to be the change for others, even if they have to tussle with that calling for the rest of their lives.

At the close of their eye-opening trip with Asheville Youth Mission, the Middle School Youth devised a mission action plan they would like to implement in this congregation and community very soon. Over the next year, they want to:

• start a clothing drive competition between adults and children & youth to see who can collect the most clothes for the low-income and homeless

• create a community garden on the church’s grounds to feed the poor and hungry in Duluth

• clean up and take care of the church’s labyrinth

• volunteer (more) with Family Promise, Rainbow Village and Duluth Co-Op, and

• participate in the Atlanta Community Food Bank’s Hunger Walk/Run in spring 2015 

After spending 10 incredible life-changing days in the Dominican Republic, the High School Youth desire to continue helping the community they grew close to in San Pedro by

• sharing their stories and raising $20,000 in funds to complete the church building project.

• returning to the country next summer to work on the project with their Dominican brothers and sisters and build stronger and deeper relationships with them.

In the meantime, they plan to be more involved with mission work in their church and community and to practice more humility, compassion, love, tolerance and peace toward people who are vastly different from them.

And both the Middle and High School Youth want nothing more than for this congregation to join in the grueling but amazing work God has called them to do.

They want you to lift up your head and raise your hands, 

They want you to open up your eyes to the needy ones 

They want you to stand out…oh you know that’s how we gotta live

They want you to stand out…just like ones that came before us did

They want you to stand out from the rest

And wrestle with God’s call to make this world better.

The only question is: are you ready to rumble with them?

Amen.

Dust

Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.  Return to the Lord, your God, who is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.

(Words used during the Imposition of Ashes during  Ash Wednesday prayer services at Pleasant Hill Presbyterian Church)

Aimee and the Middle School Youth of Pleasant Hill Pres in Asheville City Park, June 2012

On this Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, I can’t help but think about the sudden and shocking death of a beloved servant leader in the Presbyterian Church (USA), respected colleague, and friend, the The Rev. Aimee Wallis Buchanan.

Last summer, the middle school youth at Pleasant Hill Presbyterian in Duluth spent a week with the mission organization that Aimee and her husband Bill founded a few years ago, Asheville Youth Mission in Asheville, NC. On the last day, Aimee took our group on a morning spirituality walk through Asheville. Along the way, we stopped at various spots to read and discuss the story of the paralytic in Luke 5:17-26.  It was one of the most profound and sacred experiences that we’ve ever had, due greatly in part to the love of God that exuded from Aimee’s entire being.

I remember we were walking down one street when Aimee saw a friend, a homeless woman named Raven whom she had helped out on several previous occassions. “Raven!” Aimee shouted enthusiastically and with that trademark smile on her face. “How are you doing?”  Aimee stopped and gave Raven a hug and then listened for a few minutes as Raven told her about the troubles she was having.  Aimee hugged her, told her that she loved her and that she would be praying for her.  A few steps later, we came upon a man sitting on the sidewalk with his head in his hands.  Aimee explained that Ray, who was also homeless, often had severe migraines and health problems that made him despondent at times.  Again, she stopped and spoke to him, leaned down so Ray could hear her and to make sure he wasn’t in need of any emergency medical care and then led us onward. It was clear that Aimee had become immersed in the city of Asheville and the lives of the poor and downtrodden. She was, I thought at the time (and still believe) the Mother Theresa of Asheville.

Water fountain in Asheville, NC

Later, toward the end of the walk, we stopped at a beautiful fountain overflowing with water that then drips down and forms a pool around the base.  It was here that Aimee reminded us of who we are (children of God) and to whom we belong (God). She spoke about how baptism is a sign of God’s love for us and how baptismal waters cleans, refreshes and sustains us on our journeys. As a way of joyfully remembering our baptisms and the life we have been given , Aimee then encouraged us to splash one another with the water from the fountain. And with a spark of mischief in her eye, she hinted that the youth might want to make sure they did a good job reminding me of how the waters feel. Needless to say, I was soaked. But also renewed at the same time.

You see, there had been some tension in the group that week, especially between me and some of the 6th grade girls (typical you’re not listening and acting immature v. you’re being over-bearing jerk with the rules). Aimee knew instinctively that frustrations and anger and tiredness and stress had dried us up and that we needed to play in the refreshing waters of life.

I find it more than ironic (quite providential actually) that Aimee’s legacy of AYM is having to begin without her during this Lenten season and beyond.  Although Asheville is named after an 18th century North Carolina governor, the homophone is significant.  Aimee lived and breathed the meaning of Ash Wednesday and Lent in a town of Ash (which is actually representative of all towns and places) where the broken are waiting to be mended and healed, to be treated with dignity and respect, to be marked with the unconditional mercy of Christ forever.

Thanks be to God for the mark of Christ and the saints like Aimee who came from dust and return to dust, having sprinkled love and grace on God’s people forever.

Like those who have gone before walking the road of Christ, on this day you also wear the mark of the cross. As you wear the mark this day, may you be mindful of ways in which the cross has already marked your life. At the end of the day, when you wash this mark of grit and ash from your body, may you remember the one whose love washes over us.

(Blessing used at end of Ash Wednesday prayer services at Pleasant Hill Presbyterian Church)

Warning: “Toxic Charity” In Your Community

What Americans avoid facing is that while we are very generous in charitable giving, much of that money is either wasted or actually harms the people it is targeted to help.

Giving to those in need what they could be gaining from their own initiative may well be the kindest way to destroy people. We mean well, our motives are good, but we have neglected to conduct care-full due diligence to determine emotional, economic, and cultural outcomes on the receiving end of charity. Why do we miss the crucial aspect in evaluating our charitable work? Because, as compassionate people, we have been evaluating our charity by the rewards we receive through service, rather than the benefits received by the served. We have failed to adequately calculate the effects of our service on the lives of those reduced to objects of our pity and patronage.

This is the premise that underlies  Toxic Charity: How Churches and Charities Hurt Those They Help by Robert D. Lupton, community strategies expert and founder/president of Focused Community Strategies (FCS) Urban Ministries based in Atlanta.  With numerous first-hand accounts as well as solid facts and figures about the unintended affects charity has on the poor or system of poverty, Lupton champions a better and more faithful way to care for “the least of these” (Matthew 25:31). It’s a revolutionary book that shifts the paradigm on how many of us have viewed our relationship with the poor and the vision of our call to serve those in need.

Through the lens of the church where I serve as associate pastor for Mission & Outreach (and Youth Ministry) I was pleased to discover that there were many things we are doing that are healthy. But I also encountered passages that were convicting of some of the toxic charity we do practice, albeit unintentional of course. That’s the point of the book. We, especially those in the Church, don’t realize how much harm our good intentions cause.  Even when we’ve served in good faith and with a solid scriptural and theological understanding of Jesus’ command to care for the poor, we still can and do make huge mistakes!  A synopsis of the book on the FCS website puts it this way:

The poor end up feeling judged, looked down upon, only worthy of charity and handouts that end up making them more dependent instead of learning skills to help themselves…a better system would be to treat the poor as business partners, empowering them to start businesses, build houses, plan communities, etc. He offers specific organizations as examples of this healthier model of charity and gives practical ideas for how to get involved in service projects that truly help.

I won’t go into the examples Lupton shares to support his point but once you read them, it’s hard to ignore that Lupton is on to something here about the toxicity of our mission work and giving.  But more revealing is the idea that we can turn our toxic charity into transformative charity, according to Lupton.  There is, the author says, hope for doing mission work in such a way that the poor are truly empowered to rise above their poverty and contribute their own gifts to the betterment of the world and God’s kingdom. Lupton suggests that true change begins by adopting what he calls “The Oath For Compassionate Service”:

* Never do for the poor what they have (or could have) the capacity to do for themselves.

* Limit one-way giving to emergency situations.

* Strive to empower the poor through employment, lending, and investing, using grants sparingly to reinforce achievements.

*Subordinate self-interests to the needs of those being served.

* Listen closely to those you seek to help, especially to what is not being said–unspoken feelings may contain essential clues to effective service.

* Above all, do no harm.

In addition to explaining each of these points in detail, Lupton also proposes that we also need to evaluate our mission ministries and ways of giving (to determine their toxicity) by asking the following questions:

* Does the proposed activity strengthen the capacity of neighborhood residents to prioritize and address their own issues?

* Will the proposed activity be wealth-generating or at least self-sustaining for the community?

* Do the moneys generated for and/or by local residents remain at work in the community?

* Does the proposed activity have a timetable for training and transferring ownership to indigenous leadership?

If the answer to some or most of these is “no,” then there is a lot of work to be done. The solutions Lupton offers are definitely daunting and challenging but also practical and doable.  This is a book that is worth picking up for yourself if you are a church leader and recommending to your church’s staff and mission committee or members actively involved in mission work in the community.  I recently grabbed a few copies for our church’s staff, the three elders on the Mission & Outreach Committee and a long-time member who helps coordinate the church’s Adult International Mission Trip.

Already we’re finding God changing our hearts and minds through Lupton’s wisdom and experience and are beginning to enter into some thoughtful and caring conversations. I look forward to sharing more of what we end up doing different in our mission work as a church. So what about you, dear reader…

If you or members of your church or non-profit have read Toxic Charity, how has your perspective on “giving” changed?

In what ways have you unintentionally contributed to “toxic charity” as an individual or as a church or non-profit?

Caminos de Dios/God’s Paths

A Sermon for Sunday July 17, 2011, Proverbs 31:8-9; Isaiah 58:6-9; Matthew 25:34-40

During the National Prayer Breakfast in 2006, keynote speaker Bono, world renowned humanitarian and frontman of the legendary rock group U2, made the following remarks about global poverty, which included references to two of the scripture texts that were read this morning:

The one thing we can all agree, all faiths and ideologies, is that God is with the vulnerable and poor. God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house… God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives… God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war… God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives, and God is with us if we are with them. “If you remove the yolk from your midst, the pointing of the finger and speaking wickedness, and if you give yourself to the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then your light will rise in darkness and your gloom will become like midday and the Lord will continually guide you and satisfy your desire in scorched places” (Isaiah 58:10)

 It’s not a coincidence that in the Scriptures, poverty is mentioned more than 2,100 times. It’s not an accident. That’s a lot of airtime, 2,100 mentions. You know, the only time Christ is judgmental is on the subject of the poor. ‘As you have done it unto the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me.’ (Matthew 25:40). [1]

 Many of us are familiar with the biblical passages regarding God’s call to do justice for the poor and oppressed, particularly Matthew 25.  The verse, “For as you have done to the least of these who are my brothers and sisters you have done unto me” is a central tenant of the Christian faith and a core belief that drives the mission and outreach ministries of this church. And yet, like the sheep in Jesus’ parable, we are often puzzled as to when we saw that Christ was hungry and gave him food or thirsty and gave him drink, or a stranger and welcomed him or naked and gave him clothing, or sick or in prison and visited him.  After a week of doing challenging mission work in Honduras, the second poorest country in the world, one of the youth (on the last evening of our trip) confessed to our group of 28: “This has been a great experience and I’m glad we came, but I don’t feel like I’ve done anything.”

Teaching a Sunday School lesson for 30 impoverished Honduran children at Mt. Horeb Evangelical Presbyterian Church; helping church members Juan and Maria build a cement block bathroom and kitchen extension on their existing home where they reside with their grown daughters and their elementary and toddler-aged grand-children; playing soccer and making friendship bracelets with 50 kids at Hogar Diamante, a home for troubled boys who are often ripped from their families by drugs and gang activity; forming friendships with the staff and their families at the ranch house where we stayed during the trip—all in the busy, crowded and poverty-stricken capital city of Tegucigalpa—seemed natural and routine. Some folks in the group, I’ve recently discovered, are not sure we did anything extraordinary—they don’t quite feel that we made much difference at all in Honduras, that they made a transforming impact on people’s lives.

It’s a normal feeling and a valid sentiment that mustn’t be dismissed.  We certainly did good things under the guidance of PCUSA missionaries Tim and Gloria Wheeler who since 1990 have worked with Heifer International in Honduras. But we didn’t change the system of poverty, oppression and injustice that exists in the country.

The people we encountered are still poor, still hungry, still suffering, still struggling to find jobs that will keep a roof over their head and put food on their family’s table.  Hondurans like the boys at Hogar Diamante still battle the allure of drugs, gangs, and subsequently violence and death that plague their neighborhoods…even after they’ve been treated with love and care by teachers and reconciled with their loving families.

For all intents and purposes, Honduras is still the same poor and undeveloped country today as it was before 18 youth, 9 adults and I embarked on our mission trip. Therefore, it is understandably difficult to see that our week’s work of service actually changed and improved the lives of 100 people much less the more than 1 million that reside in Tegucigalpa…as one of our youth, rising senior Mirabella G., can attest:

I’ve struggled to believe that our group did anything for Juan and Maria and their family. We improved their day-to-day life, but they’re still living in abject poverty. They might live a little longer, but their financial status hasn’t changed. We didn’t give them a better place in society, a better education, or better jobs. Just a kitchen made of brick and a flushing toilet. The world they live in is so corrupt, I can’t imagine them suddenly being able to go to college and get real jobs just because they don’t have to go to the bathroom in a hole in the ground. But that’s the thing, isn’t it? It won’t be sudden. I’ve come to realize that our presence will have long-term effects on the family.

 Tim, Gloria, and Heifer International have a vision to help others make a sustainable living, learn trades and skills, and build communities that will grow to prosper. While the family is still in poverty, their lives are steadily improving. Juan and Maria will receive an eco-stove for their kitchen, which will be more efficient and sanitary than their little gas-burning contraption. Hopefully, Juan and Maria’s daughters Amanda and Roxanne will be able to work and earn enough to have groceries every week. And Juan and Maria’s grandchildren, Sarah and Catherine, have the opportunity to get a high school education, which could help them earn enough to go to college, or to send their own children.

 By going to Honduras and making a connection with this family, we’ve empowered them to better themselves. We planted the seeds, seeds of hope that will spread through the community in Tegucigalpa. It’s not going to happen overnight, but maybe someday they’ll be able to overcome the poverty and oppression. We will have helped “the least of these” to become great. I’d thought we’d done nothing for these people, but in fact, we’ve helped them begin to achieve things on their own. Supported by the love we shared with them that week, they can finish building their house and move on to building their lives.

 Mirabella and I had a lengthy discussion on a Facebook messaging thread about how, despite this realization that she’s shared, she is still not 100 percent sure if our presence in Honduras had or will have an impact on the people who live there. Mirabella said that she would’ve liked to share more personal stories from her experience in Honduras, but was concerned they weren’t nearly as positive and uplifting. She wrote, “There wasn’t much in those moments that seemed hopeful.” I replied, “It’s completely understandable and normal for you and others to have the feelings you do. I’ve had those feelings and will have them again. I for sure have them about Haiti.” Truth be told, I also have similar feelings of hopelessness regarding Honduras as well as the turmoil in Sudan and the Middle East. I convince myself at times that no amount of mission work will change the suffering and injustice that millions endure in those areas every day.

The world is a broken and messy place where human beings are treated inhumanely.  To observe that messiness first-hand—to literally stand in the mud and muck of the poverty that surrounds and nearly suffocates good people like Juan and Maria and their family—is overwhelming.  Seeing such misery makes it that much harder to return to the comforts of home.  Even with a renewed sense of humility and gratefulness for a poverty-free life, it is tough to resume day-to-day living in the U.S.  As several youth affirmed in Facebook statuses the day after the group returned from Honduras, “we are forever changed.”

We are forever changed.  All of us to be exact, those serving and those being served, are forever changed…because we have seen the face of God in one another. We or more specifically the youth and adults who went to Honduras have seen Christ-in-the-flesh in our friends, our family and most definitely in the poor, the sick, the stranger and the prisoner.

The mission team shared food and drink with Juan and Maria and her family and their friends who helped work on their kitchen and bathroom. Many of the youth intentionally bought sodas and snacks from a local gas station for our bus drivers Carlos and Nehemiahs and for our guide and protector Don Jose.  The entire group prepared and shared a July 4^th feast of hamburgers and hot-dogs with avocado and salsa toppings with the ranch’s kitchen staff, Luisa and Almeda, and their families. Brigid Richardson cooked a safe and healthy meal of rice and plantains for Juan and Maria’s youngest grandchild, 2-year-old Wilbur.

When you give food and drink to the hungry and thirsty, you give food and drink to Christ.

The mission team built relationships with people they never met. The youth played games with Almeda’s two boys Steven and Kevin and some of the adults read stories to them or gave them plastic spider toys or let them draw in their journals.  Our young people laughed, sang songs and acted silly with Juan and Maria’s grandchildren.  They had conversations with troubled 11-year-old boys on the benches of Hogar Diamante.  They spent hours patiently showing some of the younger boys how to make a friendship bracelet.  They walked into a children’s classroom in a church they had never seen and taught a lesson on Jesus calming the storm that was tossing the disciples’ boat to and thro.

When you welcome the stranger, you welcome Christ.

                 The youth and adults gave friendship bracelets to the guys at Hogar Diamante, to Juan and Maria’s family and to random children on the streets of Tegucigalpa. At the end of the week, each member of the mission team piled several of their belongings in a corner of the meeting room at the ranch—shirts, hats, tennis shoes, boots, shorts, jeans, jackets and more—to be distributed by Gloria Wheeler to those in need of clothing. The group also took up a collection of money to give to the kitchen staff, Nehemiahs and Don Jose so they could buy clothing or other items for themselves and their family if they so chose.

When you clothe the naked, you clothe Christ.

             The mission team took care of one another. They rotated among the various jobs and made sure each person was getting plenty of water and taking a break from the heat by sitting in the shade. Margo Vuchetich and Missy Thurlow, nurse and occupational therapist by trade, respectively, gave us medicine for headaches, ointment for sore muscles and a lot of TLC, especially when a couple of team members were hugging the toilet on the last day.  The team helped with the building of a kitchen and bathroom that, as Mirabella mentioned earlier, will make conditions more sanitary and thus healthier and safer for Juan and Maria’s family.

When you care for the sick, you care for Christ.

The youth and adults spent an entire week with people who are imprisoned by poverty and oppression as a result of corrupt government officials, wealthy landowners and greedy businessmen who look out for their own self-interests.  The mission team made two visits to Hogar Diamante to be with boys who some courageous Honduran adults are trying to keep from a life of prison.

 When you spend time with the prisoner, you spend time with Christ.

             Caring for others as we would for Christ is not something we can deny or avoid. As group of Latin American bishops and priests once explained in 1977:

As the followers of Christ that we are trying to be, we cannot fail to show our solidarity with the suffering—the imprisoned, the marginalized, the persecuted—for Christ himself identifies himself with them. We once again assure the people of our support and our service in the fulfillment of our specific mission as preachers of the gospel of Jesus Christ who came to proclaim good news to the poor and freedom to the oppressed.”[2]

         Whenever we do mission work in the name of Christ, regardless if it’s in Duluth or in Honduras, we—simply by our presence, by our being there—witness God’s love for creation and all of humanity. We don’t ride in on a white horse to save the day or push our own agendas and plans or set out to make a quick fix.  Instead, we stand in solidarity with the poor and oppressed and (often without words) we communicate the message: We love you. You are a child of God. You are family. You are part of my story… and you are not alone.

          And just as we do for Christ as we do for the least of these, we also receive, simultaneously, the same love in return which Anna Hoffman, a soon-to-be freshman at Georgia Tech, pointed out to me the other day:

When we go on trips to work with the poor we’re always told to look past racial, social and cultural differences. And I’m my opinion we do this! What surprised me was how well the Honduras we worked with looked past our differences. They didn’t see us as useless, ignorant Americans. They saw us as individuals trying to help their fellow man. Even though they knew we had wealth, I felt no prejudice or hard feelings from them. With these trips where the standard of living is so drastically different than our own, I sometimes worry about how the people will accept our help, but during this trip we might as well have been working on a family members’ house.

Whenever we are with the poor and oppressed and they with us, regardless if we don’t immediately make a vast improvement in their lives, the unexpected happens. Christ happens. God’s love and mercy happens.  And by embracing those moments when God is happening and on the move, each of us come one step closer on God’s paths to the reality of the kingdom. A popular pastor and author put it this way:

Our standing in solidarity with the single parent, the unemployed, the refugee, our joining the God of the oppressed to work for justice in the world, doesn’t just make a difference for those who are suffering… It rescues us. Have you ever heard someone return from a trip to a third-world setting and talk about how the “people there” have nothing and yet they have so much joy?[3]

                  Those with nothing but the clothes on their back, a few tortillas and a wage of $2 a day gave us as a mission team as much as we gave them, possibly more. What we have is an account of their suffering, their faithful perseverance and their longing for hope. What we have is their story, their lives of compassion and kindness to share with our friends, family, communities and world.

What we have is memories of how they treated us with mercy, kindness and love—Maria passing out our lunch; Juan insisting that we take breaks; Roxanne making tiny cards on colorful paper splattered with glitter and inscribing a note of thanks and a scripture verse inside for each one of us; Almeda and Luisa cooking for us; Don Jose shepherding us and bearing are workload.

What we have is a message that proclaims the gospel is real and the kingdom of God can be established in the here and now. Richard Stearns, the president of World Vision U.S., reminds us that:

The kingdom of which Christ spoke was one in which the poor, the sick, the grieving, cripples, slaves, women, children, widows, orphans, lepers, and aliens—“the least of these”—were to be lifted up and embraced by God. It was a world order in which justice was to become a reality, first in the hearts and minds of Jesus’ followers, and then to the wider society through their influence… The perfect kingdom of God was to begin on earth. … Proclaiming the whole gospel. … encompasses tangible compassion for the sick and the poor, as well as biblical justice, efforts to right the wrongs that are so prevalent in the world. This whole gospel is truly good news for the poor, and it is the foundation for a social revolution that has the power to change the world. [4]

 Charlotte, Adam, Eric, Nicole, Mirabella, Colby, Anna, Brad, Harry, Sarah, Kelly, Amy, Hope, Evan, Luke, Molly, Chandler, Hannah Ruth, Nancy, Glen, Mary, Erik, Brigid, Greg, Missy, Margo and Jerry (and the entire congregation who supported these young people and adults on their mission trip to Honduras)—you encompassed tangible compassion for the sick and poor, as well as biblical justice, efforts to right the wrongs that are so prevalent in the world.

                   My friends, know deep in your hearts that your presence truly made all the difference in the world in Honduras—every breath, every step, every word, every action no matter how small or large. Believe with all your might that coincidence wasn’t the reason you were in Honduras and are now back to share an experience that is full of wonder, joy, laments, humility, gratefulness, doubts, questions and righteous anger.

Each one of you was chosen to embody God’s love for those in need and to experience God’s love in return. Each one of you has been on one of God’s paths that led you to this moment in your lives. Each one of you, in the words of the prophet Isaiah, has given “yourself to the hungry” and satisfied “the desire of the afflicted” and “your light will rise in darkness and your gloom will become like midday and the Lord will continually guide you and satisfy your desire in scorched places.”

Don’t underestimate what you can and are doing for the least of these or what they are doing for you through the simple acts of loving and being. Keep faith and hope. Continue onward on God’s paths, always being in solidarity with the poor and oppressed. Don’t delay and never hesitate because…

God’s love and mercy for the poor and all people is happening—God is on the move!

Amen.

---

[1] On The Move, Bono, 2006

[2] We Drink From Our Own Wells: The Spiritual Journey of a People, 20^th Anniversary Edition, Gustavo Guiterrez, 2003

[3] Jesus Wants to Save Christians: A Manifesto For the Church in Exile, Rob Bell and Don Golden, 2008

[4] The Hole In Our Gospel, Richard Stearns, 2010

My Story is True

Says SW a tall lanky man

with blondish hair and glasses:

 

Went to the gas station

Misplaced my card

Need some fuel for my car

                to get to the airport

                to pick up an old woman

                                                dear to my heart

 

I hate havin’ to ask

I gotta job that pays plenty of cash

Please, please help me, I’ll pay you back by Wed’nsdy

I’m so nervous, I’ve never done anything this foolish

 

 Thank you, thank you

for the $40 Kroger cards to buy gas

I need to be off in a flash

 

……

 

And away he went

                this man in a sweater and kakis

Not a homeless person was he

                just an ordinary guy like you or me

                who did something slightly silly

                                                but very ordinary

 

Had a pretty good feeling in my heart

                Knowing that I did my part

 

Until I discovered later that I had been snookered

                by a con who visited last week with

                                                Similar story

                                                Slightly different name

                                                         JS instead of SW

                                                                but “S”cott was the same

                                               

That day he got a $20 Kroger card for gas and

                $10 cash for the airport parking lot

 

Less than a hundred for the story we bought

                                nothing more than a lie and a flop

Now it’s between him and Big Pop

 

 

 

off the street

the other day

a curly red haired woman comes off the street

 

she steps into the church’s lobby

a pleasant place for members to greet

she is  looking for a bite to eat

      and a full tank of gas

      to prevent endless walking on her feet

 

a smile and a kind word I give

she sheds tears, worried about how she will live

     without food,

     without gas

     without rent

to pay the rehab house that welcomed her

     when she arrived bent

 

a list of local agencies and $40 worth of grocery cards

    is all I have to share

she nods her head, thankful for a short break from despair

 

and then the the curly red haired woman

   with watery eyes

   says goodbye

         

she rises from her comfy seat, 

    leaves the lobby, cozy with heat

     walks to the parking lot, tired and beat

 

motionless inside the car

 she waits as her husband dials numbers

       to places not too far

she listens to voices on the cell

   hoping for more loving assistance

   to keep them from the edge of a living hell

 

only time and God can tell what they will meet

      once they return

      on the street