Manna Collecting at Our Feet: A Review of Christ on the Psych Ward

As a pastor and chaplain, I have experienced the presence of Christ on behavioral health units, or psych wards. I led a weekly Bible study on a local behavioral health unit as a volunteer chaplain, and served on a behavioral health unit as the student chaplain before that. Nearly every experience I had on the behavioral health unit brought me face to face with God. One week, we read the Beatitudes together in Bible study, and we spoke of how blessing does not mean being lucky, because we did not feel very lucky that day on the locked-down unit. It does not mean being prosperous. It means God is walking alongside of us, choosing us, whether or not we realize it. So many weeks, a patient would lead us in prayer for another patient, for me, for our world, in a way that we would know the Holy Spirit was with us. It was hard, too; especially on days when everyone sat and stared at me, or when someone tried to read scripture out loud but couldn’t because the hospital didn’t have Bibles at a more accessible reading level, or when I met someone who was so angry I remembered why the nurses’ station gave me a panic button. But even then, God was there, offering love again and again. When I would share (in very general terms to keep confidentiality) about my experiences on the behavioral health unit, my parishioners would begin to open up about their own stories of mental health struggles. In his new book, David Finnegan-Hosey asserts, "telling our stories is an act of resistance to the alienation and isolation of mental illness." And we have found, in telling those stories, in resisting alienation and isolation, we draw closer to one another and to God.

 David Finnegan-Hosey has written a book to help us tell those stories and to share his own. Christ on the Psych Ward is part memoir about his experience in and out of psych wards and part theological text, using the Biblical story to help frame not only his story but all of our stories. As he tells his story, he helps us discover what my congregation was beginning to discover as we broke the silence around mental illness. He writes, "Rather than a conversation about people with mental illness, and how the church can help them, I want the church to listen to and hear the stories of people with mental illness, and to discover the surprising gifts we have to offer."

One of the most surprising gifts that Christ on the Psych Ward offers was not surprising to me at all, because I have known David for a long time.* I found it incredibly refreshing to experience his readings of scripture, especially his interpretation of Genesis 3, the story we often refer to as "The Fall." He asks questions of the text, doesn't fall into easy readings, and, from the depths of the psych ward, shows us why these stories and how we read them matter. Who told you you were naked? God asks in Genesis 3:11a. And David imagines God's voice shaking, saying, "Who told you...that you were lacking in anything? Who told you that you were anything but beautiful and good?" These are questions of life and death when read from psych wards, but they are also questions of life and death that our faith communities should be wrestling with instead of perpetuating tired agendas of shame. I want to use this book not only to interrupt the stigma of behavioral health struggles in church, but also to teach confirmands about sin and shame and challenge Sunday school classes to locate the presence of God in their own lives every day.

I found refreshing challenge in David's words, and I also found grace. This book gives us, clergy and Christians and simply people who are seeking, the grace that is God’s vulnerability in our own vulnerability. When I first read this book, it was on the eve of the first anniversary of my beloved mother-in-law’s unexpected death and while recovering from surgery before my last (in this chapter at least) attempt to live out my call to have a baby. And so I found myself drawn in because of my own need, not only as a pastor, but as a child of God. David speaks of God’s grace being sufficient for us, about learning to take life day by day, moment by moment. He said in the psych ward, he kept a “victory column,” with things like getting out of bed, taking a shower, eating a meal, and other small wins, to help him notice the sufficiency of grace we have to help us get by. He said, using the story from Exodus 16, “Perhaps we are all struggling, longing for an abundance that seems always out of reach, missing the manna collecting at our feet." David’s book was some of that manna collecting at my feet as I struggled on a difficult day. It was a surprising gift, much like many of the patients I have worked with behavioral health unit and the sharing of stories in my own congregation. May it be so for you as well.

Manna collecting at my feet. Or, in this case, laying on my feet and snoring.

*David and I met on a mission trip to Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2006. We got to work together often in United Methodist Church circles, but he has since joined the United Church of Christ because The UMC's commitment to justice has rotted as we continue to discriminate against queer folks and as we have been unwilling to listen to and act upon our missionaries' call to peace in Israel/Palestine (among other things). The whole time I read this book, I lamented the loss of his voice in our denomination (the guy is so freaking Wesleyan, really) and wonder at the sheer number of passionate theologians The UMC has lost or silenced because we just can't love our neighbors. But that is a whole other blog post.

A Plentiful Harvest

This is the first sermon I preached as the new pastor of Presbury United Methodist Church in Edgewood, Maryland. 

 
Scripture: Luke 10:1-11, 16-20 (NRSV)

After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. He said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road. Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house!’ And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you. Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the laborer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house. Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; cure the sick who are there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, ‘Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near.’

“Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.”

The seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!” He said to them, “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning. See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

Sermon: A Plentiful Harvest

I am so blessed to be here this morning as your pastor. This is a beautiful church, filled with beautiful people who have been so incredibly welcoming to me and Aaron, despite the fact that we are duck farmers, you know graduates of North Harford. Don’t hold it against us, ok? But in all seriousness, we are so excited to begin ministry with you. Too often, you hear about churches that are social clubs, insular, focused in on themselves, but you are a strong congregation of disciples striving to be a missional community, and we feel so blessed to be a part of that.

So when I turned to scripture to prepare for this morning, I was immediately drawn into our gospel lesson from Luke, when Jesus commissions not just his twelve disciples but seventy of his followers to proclaim the kingdom of God. I thought Jesus’ instructions to his followers were important for us to hear this morning as we face this time of pastoral transition.

So let us pray:

Patient Teacher,
we come to you this morning, perhaps uncertain, but reaching out to you.
May we feel you reaching back to us, lifting us up,
as we look to your instructions this morning to learn how we are to live. Amen.

A plentiful harvest. The harvest metaphor is a popular one in scripture, particularly in scripture that announces the coming or the nearness of the kingdom of God. It is a metaphor that speaks of sending people out of their homes, out of their comfort zones, to get their hands dirty and foreheads sweaty. And it is a metaphor that reminds us that though we are the hands and feet of this operation, we aren't the creator of the seed, beacause it is God who prepares the harvest, not us--- God, who whispers in the hearts of people. And, perhaps most importantly, it is God who whispers in our hearts too.¹

So in our scripture today, Jesus is using the harvest metaphor to send seventy of his followers ahead of him to spread the news of the kingdom of God. But in the Gospel of Luke, unlike in the more familiar Gospel of Matthew when Jesus says, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations,” Jesus' commissioning of his followers to do the work of evangelism has some pretty specific instructions.² First, the followers of Jesus were to bring nothing with them, then they were to offer peace to those they encountered, then they were to eat and drink whatever was set before them, then they were to cure the sick, and proclaim that the kingdom of God has come near. So that's: Come empty handed, offer peace, eat, cure the sick, and proclaim the kingdom of God. Well, as good Methodists, we've got the eating part down pat, it's just the other stuff that we aren't so sure about.

I don't know about you, but when I think of evangelism today, when I think of “harvesting,” I don't think of the vulnerability and reciprocity that Jesus so clearly intended by these instructions. I don't think of dialogue and friendships, a two-way street. But even today, when perhaps the model of going out two-by-two into strangers' homes doesn't work in the same way it did in Jesus' time, the underlying instructions of vulnerability and reciprocity--- key ingredients needed for transformational relationships--- remain.

I think I like the Great Commission from the Gospel of Matthew better. Being less specific, it seems a little less difficult to me! And Jesus' instructions in the Gospel of Luke don't just seem difficult to us--- even the disciples struggled with them! Just before the passage we read this morning, in the ninth chapter of Luke's gospel, Jesus and his followers go to a village of Samaritans who did not receive them, and this apparently upsets the disciples James and John so much that they ask Jesus if they could get God to rain fire on the village. After such a question, Jesus must have thought specifics, no matter how difficult to follow, were necessary. His own disciples seemed to miss the point about the whole kingdom of God thing, so he needed to come up with some rules that would help them understand a little better.

And so these specifics make me wonder if such a commission to proclaim the kingdom of God is less about changing “them” than it is about changing us.

You will hear me tell a lot of stories about working as a chaplain at a hospital in New Jersey my final year of seminary. It was a formative experience for me as a Christian, and so when I was thinking this week about reciprocity and vulnerability I kept thinking back to my first day as a chaplain. One of the floors where I served was the psyche ward, or behavioral health unit. I had specifically asked to be on this floor, thinking that there the harvest would be plentiful, a whole floor of people aching to hear God's word of life and love. I wanted to be the one saying, “Peace to you,” as Jesus instructed his followers.

My first day in the behavioral health unit, though, I was the one who needed peace. Being a chaplain is a very vulnerable experience. You are walking into hospital rooms you were not invited into, facing rejection at every turn; and those places where you aren't rejected, you often have to confront some of your greatest fears about mortality. So, I had stopped in the behavioral health unit already that day shaking and uncertain and had one of the nurses ask if anyone wanted to speak with a chaplain. Everyone responded with resounding no's. Rejection. So, instead of sitting with folks and being for a few moments, I escaped easily, promising half-heartedly to return later.

Jesus told his followers not to move about from house to house, perhaps knowing that moving on can be an excuse to cover up our own fears and anxieties. But I did return later, and that time I did not announce myself; I just said hi to folks watching the TV, wandered down the hallway, and just when I was about to awkwardly leave again, I decided to walk through the game room area. A young man was in there, and we greeted each other. He was collecting board game pieces, monopoly money, Life cards, and so I assumed he was manic, unable to sit still, and probably not capable of holding a conversation. I wrote him off, and was ready to shake the dust off of my feet and move onto the next place.

But as started to walk away, he asked me rather conversationally where I was from, so I turned back and sat down next to him. He proceeded to tell me about himself, where he was from, what he studied, a little of what brought him to the behavioral health unit. He was, in fact, bipolar, and a recovering alcoholic, and he spoke plainly to me about the hospital program and how much of its merit to him was that he saw examples of what he did not want to become. I felt guilty for walking by him without even giving him a chance, but apparently not enough to change my assumptions about our relationship. When I was leaving, I asked him if he would mind if I kept him in my prayers. He said of course he wouldn't mind, and as I got up to leave and started to turn around he said that he would be keeping me in prayer as well.

This is the kind of vulnerability and reciprocity that Jesus had in mind when he sent the seventy out. He wasn't sending them to drop knowledge on those poor unfortunates who hadn't heard the good news yet--- he sent them, and sends us today, to form relationships, to change others while being changed ourselves. That is part of the reason why the harvest is so plentiful because we are helping not only new people to see God's love, but we ourselves are learning to see God's love anew through our relationships with these new people. You see, I had missed the point completely, thinking I had some special authority by which I could proclaim the kingdom of God as the chaplain of the behavioral health unit. Instead this young man was a witness to Christ's healing, forgiveness, renewal, all wrapped into one stark sentence: “I'll be praying for you too.”

Last week, Dave Moyer preached about being ready for a change. And I think Pastor Bonnie's ministry with you was also getting you ready for change. You have said you want to be the church in the community for the community, that you want to help Edgewood become a safe, vibrant, healthy, loving place. But to do that work is not just a one-way street, us helping Edgewood. It is about us listening to the community, being in relationship with people in the community, and allowing that relationship to transform us for the better too.

Just because we're all Christians and get up to come to church on Sunday morning doesn't mean we've gotten it. Remember James and John wanting to reign down fire on some poor unfriendly village? They were disciples, sitting at the feet of Jesus day in and day out and they still missed out on some pretty important pieces of the gospel message! And look at me, a chaplain in the hospital forgetting the way Christ was working not in me but in hospital patients as well. Jesus instructs us to be vulnerable and enter into relationship seeking to feel God's love ourselves as well as to show God's love to others.

At the end of the passage from Luke, we read, “The seventy returned with joy.” Entering into the unknown, going out and making connections with people, letting people open us up to God's love even as we are trying to show them God's love: all this is scary, unsettling. But it brings joy too, a plentiful joy! So I pray that as we begin our ministry journey together and continue our ministry of being a church in the community for the community, we may all be open to the way God is shaping us. For though the laborers are few, God is with us, and so the harvest will be plentiful. Thanks be to God.

1David J. Lose writes, “God is responsible for the growth of our communities. We are called to be open to this growth; to plan, organize and work in a way that anticipates, rather than impedes such growth; and to pray for and invite others to join us in gathering the harvest God has prepared.” Homiletical Perspective on Luke 10:1-11, 16-20, Proper 9, Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year C, Vol. 3, eds. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010) 217.

2Matthew 28:19 (NRSV). See Elaine A. Heath, Theological Perspective on Luke 10:1-11, 16-20, Proper 9, Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year C, Vol. 3, eds. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010) 214.

Do Not Fear, Only Believe

Okay, so even though I had a huge list of stuff I wanted to write about but only wrote about two of those things, here we are moving on. This is my first sermon for my first appointment, Deer Creek and Mt. Tabor United Methodist Churches.

Before even getting to the sermon, I need to write what probably should be its own post of gratitude. I was welcomed with countless hugs and good food by the congregation. My dad came out to support me in worship, as did my almost brother-in-law David Harrington. Aaron turns out to be an amazing preacher's husband, so I am even more excited to have him as my partner in ministry. At Deer Creek, Ruthanna Hipley, a woman who watched me grow up at St. Paul, came in to see me preach. At Mt. Tabor, Caitlin Katrinic, who went to high school with me and Aaron, showed up and sang beautifully. And on top of all this was the surprise appearance of Carolyn and Wendel Thompson, friends who went to Bosnia with us in 2004! I am so filled with joy and honored to be beginning this new part of my ministry journey at Deer Creek and Mt. Tabor!

Scripture: Mark 5:21-43 1

When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered around him; and he was by the sea. Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet and begged him repeatedly, "My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live."

So he went with him. And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him. Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, for she said, "If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well." Immediately her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, "Who touched my clothes?" And his disciples said to him, "You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, 'Who touched me?'" He looked all around to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease."

While he was still speaking, some people came from the leader’s house to say, "Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?" But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, "Do not fear, only believe." He allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. When they came to the house of the leader of the synagogue, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. When he had entered, he said to them, "Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping." And they laughed at him. Then he put them all outside, and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him, and went in where the child was. He took her by the hand and said to her, "Talitha cum," which means, "Little girl, get up!" And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement. He strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.

Sermon: Do Not Fear, Only Believe

I am so blessed to be here this morning as your pastor. Bonnie and I knew each other before we knew I would be coming here, and she used to brag about you a lot. So that good recommendation on top of being home is really exciting. Aaron, my fiancé, and I graduated from North Harford, and we always said we were going to move to the city or someplace and not come back; yet here we are, seven years later, and we could not be happier to be home. We keep talking about how beautiful Harford County is, and now, of course, we have one of the most beautiful views in the county from our own front porch!

But this is still a scary time for us, as I'm sure on some level some of you may be scared or at least nervous. Change, no matter how many times you go through it, always comes with some level of uncertainty that can be unsettling. When I passed my first ordination exam, we were excited for half a second but then we were afraid we would be placed far away--- Aaron works at APG--- because we thought there were no appointments available in Harford County, and lo and behold, we end up right down the road from where we grew up! But we are still scared, still trying to figure out what this part of our ministry journey will look like.

And so all this is what's going on in my mind when I read the scripture for this week. It's no surprise that Jesus' instruction to Jairus in our Gospel lesson this morning jumped out at me: Do Not Fear, Only Believe.

So will you pray with me?

Patient Teacher, Gracious Healer,
we come to you this morning, uncertain, but reaching out to you.
May we feel you reaching back to us, lifting us up,
as we look to your life this morning to learn how we are to live. Amen.

Jairus was afraid. He probably had watched his little girl slowly fade away, sitting by her bed without sleep, his own face mirroring her sickly one just from the sheer exhaustion of worry. Because what else can you do when your child is sick and you are no healer? He sits. He worries. He waits. Until he heard about Jesus.

So too, the unnamed woman interrupting Jairus' story this morning was also afraid. You see blood means life. "Blood was such a sacred, precious, and dangerous force in Jewish belief and practice because it was what God said constituted the very life of a being," according to one of the commentaries I read in preparation for today.2 So the unnamed woman is watching her life seep out of her day after day for twelve years. She has been to see physicians, she has tried everything. And still she bleeds. There is nothing left to do. Until she hears about Jesus.

Femme Touchant Jesus by Corinne Vonaesch

But hearing about Jesus doesn't even end the fear there for either of them. Jesus' presence doesn't even end the fear. Jairus knows there is no time left. He tells Jesus, "My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live." Jesus is his last hope. When Jesus agrees, I can still feel the anxiety within Jairus as he scrambles through the crowd, praying for a few more minutes. You can see on the image of our bulletin today how Jairus is pulling Jesus and all the people pressing in around Jesus, Jairus, and the woman.

The woman sees there are too many people pressing in, too many needing healing--- why would Jesus stop for her? She's a nobody, certainly not a synagogue leader like Jairus. She's a woman, first of all, and maybe she's heard that Jesus does have women followers, but still she must doubt his acceptance of her. Besides that, she could touch him and render him unclean under Jewish purity laws; but even beyond that, how is she supposed to explain to a man what is wrong with her? Even today, two thousand years later, there is such a taboo about women bleeding! She fears his rejection. And yet she presses ahead through the mass of people, arm outstretched as far as she could reach.

It is at these anxious moments when I can really relate to Jairus and the woman. I knew as soon as I got the call about this charge that the Holy Spirit was in the room with the bishop and the cabinet, sending me where I needed to be. I am confident, as Jairus and the woman who was bleeding were confident of Jesus' healing power. But there is still so much uncertainty, so much about which to be anxious.

But Jairus and the woman turned their fear into boldness.

The woman in particular. She had two moments of boldness, the first being when she reached out to touch Jesus. She grasped that one thought in her mind: "If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well." That's all well and good, a simple solution, right? In Mark's Gospel, Jesus is constantly surrounded by crowds. He is always amidst all these sweaty, needy people. I don't know if any of you have seen Jesus Christ Superstar before, but there is a scene in which a crowd of people almost crawl over the stage and chant/sing, "Won't you touch, will you heal me Christ?" all while reaching out to Jesus, pulling on his clothes. It is overwhelming. This bleeding woman in this story is like one of those people. She must see that. Surely she fears never getting to him, never being healed, and yet she boldly pushes forward, herself crushed beneath the mass of people.

And then--- the moment of wholeness. She was healed, but she barely processes the thought before yet again, she must be bold. Jesus turns around and asks who touched him, looking around him, searching faces for some sign of who he healed.

This moment really must be frightening for the woman. Did she go through all that only to have her healing taken from her? But, she must have felt no choice but to act boldly again. If she has the faith to know that just brushing against Jesus would bring healing, perhaps she would know Jesus could recognize her. And so, it is out of this fear that she comes forward to reveal the truth. In Mark's gospel, the term truth is only used to describe Jesus' teaching, yet here it is used to describe the unnamed woman.3 Despite her fear, through her trembling, she speaks boldly. And Jesus blesses her, telling her to go in peace, healed.

Now, Jairus' boldness was in his ability to continue to move forward. Can you imagine the turmoil inside him when the people came from his house to say that his daughter was dead? He has watched her fade away, sat beside her, only to leave her to finally find help. But it was too late. Instead of succumbing to grief, though, he put one foot in front of the other, supported by Jesus' words, "Do not fear, only believe."

We have all come to points in our lives when we are grieving, or afraid, and yet must keep moving. That time for you may not be having a new pastor. One of your church's great gifts is forming pastors for ministry. Yet there is still uncertainty, and you are still grieving Bonnie, who just blossomed under your care. And, as you have done in the past, and as I am learning to do, we step through that grief, that uncertainty, to act boldly. To believe, as Jesus told Jairus not to fear, only to believe.

I learned the importance of believing in spite of fear, of acting boldly, when I served as a student chaplain in a hospital in New Jersey, particularly from my friend Lauren who was also a student chaplain in our first week at the hospital. Lauren is not afraid of much. She is one of those people who exudes confidence about her ministry. When we divided up floors in the hospital to serve as chaplains, though, she specifically asked not to be on the oncology floor. Now, most of us have been to the oncology floor of hospitals before--- very few of us have not been touched by cancer in our families or friends. So we know that it is a very hard place to be for patients and caretakers alike. But it was more than that for Lauren. She had lived with a family in college and the man of the house had become in those years a second father to her. In her last year of college, he died after a long, protracted battle with cancer. She was still grieving and didn't think she could face situations so similar to her own so soon.

But the end of our first week, the Spirit had other ideas. We were sitting in the break room, packing up to leave and debriefing, when a patient advocate walked in needing a chaplain. Apparently a family in oncology had been asking for a priest for two hours for their mother on hospice care and could not get through and the patient advocate was desperate. Lauren and I just looked at each other. We went down to the oncology floor with the patient advocate and met the family. They still really wanted a priest, so I, rather cowardly, volunteered to find the priest, telling the family I would be back when I contacted him--- though I tried for almost an hour before I could go back to them with the priest.

Lauren took a deep breath and then began to talk to the family about their mother. Initially, the nurses told the family they still had a few hours left, but while Lauren was in the room, they realized it was only a few minutes. Lauren arranged the family around the bed and they listened to the mother's favorite music in silence for a few minutes as the mother passed away. Then the daughter asked Lauren to say something. Lauren read Psalm 121.

I lift up my eyes to the hills— from where will my help come?
My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber.
He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.
The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade at your right hand.
The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.
The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life.
The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and forevermore.4

This is a beautiful Psalm. One of comfort, one that reminds us of the peace that the mother of this family now has, and one that reminds us of God's constant presence with us, even when we don't feel it.

Lauren's hands were still shaking when I found her in the hallway, bringing the priest in too late behind me. But the family thanked her for her presence, telling her it had been a perfect death which confused Lauren who had been so scared throughout the situation. Yet the family was at peace.

This experience for Lauren was difficult, even ugly in a way because of the way it sneaked up on her. But she believed. She had faith. This is not to say that she had faith that everything would turn out all right in the end. Faith, as one of my seminary professors has said, is not about certainty but about courage.5 Lauren's faith in this story was not about certainty, it, like that of the woman and Jairus, was about courage. Lauren was uncertain what would happen in that room. She was dealing with her own fear, her own grief, her nerves, her confusion in that room. She had no idea how she would react to the situation, how the family would react...but she was courageous through her fear, believing the God was present with her and being witness to that presence with that family.

The woman who came to Jesus for healing was courageous when she spoke the truth, believing God was present with her. She wasn't certain what would happen if she spoke up, but she had the courage to do what she thought she had to do. So too, Jairus was courageous when he continued to lead Jesus to his home, though he must have been breaking apart inside at the news of his daughter's death. These are people who do not let uncertainty or fear stop them, but rather they have the faith to act towards wholeness, to bring in miracles.

May we also in this time of transition in the life of this church act with boldness. May we act out a faith not of certainty but of courage as we begin this journey together. Amen.

"I like to pray like this"

An Advent Reflection.

When we prayed, she pressed her palms together tight.

"Comforting God," I begin.

"Is it okay if I pray like this?" she asks, holding her hands up to show me, fingers straight, pressed together. "I like to pray like this because then my palms feel warm."

I wanted to cry. Of course, I told her, it is ok to pray like that. Your body knows how you need to pray. And I could not think of any more beautiful reason to pray in any particular way than it makes your palms warm. In a place where there is so much cold isolation, seeking the warmth of your own body that comes as you pray to the One Who Loves You just seemed so absolutely essential to me in that moment. I unkinked my fingers and pressed my palms together too, feeling my palms get warm.

On the day of this conversation, my third with this woman, she was feeling some sunlight breaking through the fog, and she thought by speaking with a chaplain, she could continue to nurture that breaking through. She felt prayer was a tool that could help strengthen her, which is why she focused so intently on how to pray when we talked.

For myself, I could not get over how excited I was to see such a huge improvement in her. The last time I spoke with her she cried the entire time. Every interaction I had had with her made me anxious because it took so long for her to respond to me, as though my words to her got stuck in that fog around her, moving as though through molassas and so taking forever to get to her ears. But despite this anxiety, I feel very close to her. Part of the reason probably is our ages; we are only two years apart. But part of my connection to her too is I feel that deeply spiritual Spanish-speaking patients I had talked with before charged me with her spiritual care. For them, she was someone I was to actively seek out and be actively praying for. And so I was.

And yet, I learned far more from her than I provided for her. She was just so innocent but so knowledgeable at the same time. It reminded me of a poem I liked a lot in high school (printed below) that I still feel drawn to at the same time I find some of its language clumsy. This is what I want for this young woman. I want her to feel that God says yes to her, that God calls her sweetcakes. I want her to feel her belovedness. And I want to feel it too.

God Says Yes to Me 1
by Kaylin Haught

I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic
and she said yes
I asked her if it was okay to be short
and she said it sure is
I asked her if I could wear nail polish
or not wear nail polish
and she said honey
she calls me that sometimes
she said you can do just exactly
what you want to
Thanks God I said
And is it even okay if I don't paragraph
my letters
Sweetcakes God said
who knows where she picked that up
what I'm telling you is
Yes Yes Yes

This poem is so joyous, which is again what I want for this patient, but the joy is also what I felt when I saw how much better she was doing. I felt that God was saying yes to her.

I talk about our belovedness a lot, and I talk about hope a lot, but too often the hope I am talking about is the sad hope in something like, to borrow my friend David's words from one of his Advent blog posts, "10-year old children somehow thinking they can oppose militarism and religious fundamentalism just by walking to school."2 There is a hardness to that kind of hope at times, I think. It is hope that if we keep running into the wall at top speeds, we will make a crack in the wall until evenutally it crumbles. And I am the kind of person who gets swept into focusing on that kind of hope, being content with being sad because I am working for change, for something better, never mind if I am miserable now.

Beautiful art by He Qi of Ruth and Naomi.*

This young woman's visible change, the way she so broke through the fog around her to teach me about prayer helped me to feel hope differently, to feel hope as impossibly happy, to feel God saying Yes Yes Yes.

This is what Advent is for me this year: a time of healing and listening for Christmas, a season when God says yes to us.

---

1 Kaylin Haught, "God Says Yes to Me," from Steve Kowit, In the Palm of Your Hand: The Poet's Portable Workshop (Tilbury House Publishers, 2003).

2 David Hosey, "What is foolish in the world," City of..., 18 December 2011, http://hoseyblog.blog.com/2011/12/18/what-is-foolish-in-the-world/

*This picture is of Ruth and Naomi (a romanticization of the story that I will be learning about in my January class on Ruth), but, more than that, to me it is about prayer. About finding that closeness, that warmth wrapped up in God. Also check out more of He Qi's work here. He came to visit Drew last semester and is amazing!

To See Every Bush Afire

After a long and crazy semester, I will be posting a couple stories about my experience in Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE), a fancy way of saying I have been a student chaplain in a hospital near Drew Theological School, taking classes and working as a chaplain on a geriatric floor and the behavioral health unit, as well as everywhere else in the hospital when I am on-call. It has been a difficult experience for me, but also one in which I have seen God in so many beautiful ways. A reflection from the beginning of my experience is posted here, and in sermon form here.

There is something I find strangely comforting about sitting in the midst of people speaking a foreign language. The quick pace of it, the strange sounds, the occasional familiar word that grabs at your ears and forces you to again try to make sense of these sounds. Okay, maybe that description does not sound comforting at all, but it is to me. It takes me back to places like Bosnia and Herzegovina and Venezuela, where I was able to sit and be in community with others at the same time I could step back and let this foreignness wash over me. I was expected to do nothing but absorb the sounds, watch the way bodies moved to the music of their own words, and in that you find often that words are unnecessary tools of communication.

I found myself again relaxing into this game of uncovering what is said in a foreign language, but this time the setting was far different than smokey kitchens in Bosnia or greenhouses in the side of mountains in Venezuela. This time I sat in the behavioral health unit in the hospital in which I am a chaplain. The unit is really nice, lots of natural light coming in from the windows, more light wood than white walls, and cushy furniture. But for all its attempt at trying to be like home, it is still...not.

I was sitting with three women, one of whom was my roommate and fellow chaplain Lauren, and one man. I had noticed earlier that day that we had at least two people coming to spiritual events on the floor who spoke only Spanish, and I felt it terribly isolating for us not to try and care for their spiritual needs. So I grabbed my roommate, who speaks Spanish, and drug her up the stairs to a floor that generally makes her feel very uncomfortable with the promise that I would stay with her.

Lauren began by asking each person, one a beautiful dynamic mother of three, one a sweet older man who had been taken under the first woman's wing, and a woman who was also older and funny but who also hallucinated, what happened. Trying to get them to share a little of their stories. As I watched, I heard the first woman speak of her babies who were not in the USA yet and give their ages, I heard the man speak of a tumor and a great loneliness, and the third spoke of lost love. And so, they told their stories, but the first woman, the dynamic one who broke into the others' stories to explain something they said, turned the conversation away from their lives. Instead, what concerned them, was another young woman on the unit.

This young woman was one I had met before. She was in a lot of pain, and speaking to her was off-putting as it took her several seconds to respond to you, as though your words had a distance to travel before they got to her. She was certainly a sweet woman, but--- and I made Lauren ask them to double check--- she was not Spanish-speaking at all.

But it was a really beautiful moment for me, the way that these patients were so concerned about another patient. I guess it is even more beautiful because in Spirituality Group we talk about how depression (which is what two of the three were seeking treatment for) is such an inward-focusing disease. That it is so isolating. And here, people were breaking out of that isolation that had wrapped them up so tightly to love a young woman who could not even speak their language.

Throughout scripture there are continually stories of how God chooses to reveal Godself in the "least of these" (to use language from Matthew 25), and yet because I come from a culture that is so hierarchical and oppressive I am always surprised when I see God in these places so clearly. When I hear God in these strange sounds that I do not understand so clearly by looking at the concern on one of the women's faces, concern not for herself but for another young woman, one she saw as needing someone to talk to, someone who had something to say and was not getting the help she needed from doctors.

Burning Bush by Seth Weaver

Earlier last week, I prayed a prayer with some of my classmates:


"now, not next time, now is the occasion to take off my shoes, to see every bush afire"1
This prayer disarmed me when I prayed it, took away from me the to do list I was agonizing over in my head and forced me to see these bushes afire all around me. I sat listening, watching, even though I don't know Spanish, rather than letting my mind wander back to all the things I have to get done before Christmas. Instead I heard Christ in the music of a language I do not know, I saw Christ in the concern for a young woman struggling for healing in the midst of inward struggles for their own healing.

And so I was reminded to take off my shoes and let God in.

---

1 Ted Loder Guerrillas of Grace: Prayers for the Battle (Innisfree Press, 1984).

Clothing Christ

This sermon was preached at Verona United Methodist Church in Verona, NJ, for a celebration of their knitting ministry. We dedicated 92 hand-made scarves, hats, and mittens that were knitted and sewn for the needy in Irvington, NJ. The items will be taken down to the community center on Saturday, November 19, when this church serves a home-cooked Thanksgiving feast. It is not my best sermon, and many of you will have read the story about my experience as a chaplain in the behavioral health unit before, but I wanted to post the sermon because it was just a great experience to be in that church! Hopefully once this semester is over, I will be posting more often and maybe not all sermons! We'll see, though...

Scripture: Matthew 25:31-46 1

I am reading from the Cotton Patch Gospel this morning, which is a modern paraphrase of the bible with a “Southern accent,” written by Clarence Jordan, a Greek scholar and organic farmer who helped inspire the creation of Habitat for Humanity. I figured many of us have heard this scripture many times before, so I thought it might be refreshing to read it in a new way.

"When the son of man starts his revolution with all his band around him, then he will assume authority. And all the nations will be assembled before him, and he will sort them out, like a farmer separating his cows from his hogs, penning the cows on the right and the hogs on the left. Then the Leader of the Movement will say to those on his right, 'Come you pride of my Father, share in the Movement that was set up for you since creation; for I was hungry and you shared your food with me, I was thirsty and you shared your water with me; I was a stranger and you welcomed me, ragged and you clothed me, sick and you nursed me; I was in jail, and you stood by me.' Then the people of justice will answer, 'Sir, when did we see you hungry and share our food, or thirsty and share our water? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or ragged and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in jail, and stand by you?' And the Leader of the Movement will reply, 'When you did it to one of these humblest brothers [and sisters] of mine, you did it to me.'

"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Get away from me, you fallen skunks, and into the flaming hell reserved for the Confuser and his crowd. For I was hungry and you shared nothing with me; I was thirsty and you gave me no water; I was a stranger and you didn't welcome me, ragged and you didn't clothe me, sick and in jail, and you didn't stand by me.' Then these too will ask, 'Sir, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or ragged or sick or in jail, and do nothing about your needs?' Then he'll answer, 'When you failed one of these humblest people you failed me.' These will take an awful beating, while the just ones will have the joy of living."

Sermon: Clothing Christ

I just want to let all of you know that I am honored to be here with you this morning in this absolutely gorgeous sanctuary and on such a special day in the life of your church. I am deeply appreciative of your welcome to me this morning.

So will you pray with me?

Patient Teacher,
you who have knit us together as one Body, grant that this morning we may see that connection between us, that you may speak to us through this scripture, the words of my mouth, and the meditations of all our hearts, so we might better live out your teachings. Amen.

One of my best friends since high school, Laura, decided to take up knitting probably five years or so ago. Her first project was to knit me a scarf. To this day, it is my favorite scarf--- and I have a ton of scarves, let me tell you. But this one, this one that Laura made, is the warmest scarf I own, it is a beautiful color purple, it is soft--- and there is magic, I think, in something that a friend's hand makes for you. When I put on this scarf, I know that someone loves me enough to keep me warm; and when the sting of winter wind hits me so hard I can't breathe, I duck down my mouth under my scarf, tuck it tighter into my coat, and thank God for that reminder of love. And I'm sure Laura has no idea that that little scarf, the first one she knit for anybody, means that much to me. So when I heard about the work that your church does with its knitting ministry, I was touched. How beautiful, I thought, this is a tangible reminder of the warmth of God's love.

See, we live in a world today where that warmth is not easily accessible to so many of us. Our Gospel lesson this morning puts in stark contrast two world views, the way of justice and the way of injustice. Now I know I may have lost some of you here. We were just talking about warmth and love and then I start talking about justice? Some people might think it strange to talk about justice, when the word often conjures up images of the criminal justice system with scary courtrooms and stern-faced judges, hand in hand with the word love as rather strange. Even though we think about justice as a good thing, we certainly don't think about it as love. But as American philosopher and Civil Rights activist Cornell West points out, "Justice is what love looks like in public." And that is what this morning's gospel lesson is getting at. Jesus names those on his right, the sheep, or as Clarence Jordan paraphrases it, the cows, as people of justice.

See justice dictates that we are to share food with the hungry, drink with the thirsty, we are to welcome the stranger, clothe the ragged, care for the sick; and we are to support those in prison. Injustice obscures our connections to one another and focuses on greed and self-preservation, trying to keep the warmth of our love to ourselves as Rainbow Fish in our children's story this morning tried to keep his scales to himself.

So one important piece in this gospel lesson this morning is that desire to reach out with the warmth of God's love is what separates the sheep from the goats, or, as Clarence Jordan paraphrases it, the cows from the hogs. These specific acts of sharing, standing up with, welcoming, are acts of love towards our neighbor, warmth poured out of us. These public acts of love like knitting scarves and placing them over the necks of those without homes in Irvington is a public act that says, we care about you and God does too, and so we are going to do something to change your situation. There is a power in that similar to but way more powerful then the magic that I see in the scarf my friend knit for me.

I don't know if you noticed this morning, but Clarence Jordan instead of talking about a king as it is usually translated, refers to Jesus as the Leader of a Movement. Aaron, my partner, did not like this paraphrase, and maybe you don't either, but hear me out. The word Movement is Clarence Jordan's translation of the kingdom of heaven. I really like that because I think it reminds us that it is these little things like knitting scarves to clothe the ragged and serving at soup kitchens to feed the hungry are little actions that can build up this Movement that is the kingdom of God, moving us all towards a different way of living that God is calling us to live and that is described in the scripture we read this morning.

Christ in our gospel lesson today does not talk about love and warmth. He does not even talk about how when we act with love towards our neighbors we are in fact channeling God's love, being agents of God's love. I have read that into the scripture using my own experience to understand how the physicality of making scarves to clothe the ragged is such a powerful act of love. What Christ focuses on in the telling of this story is not the love, though; he focuses, rather on how when you clothe the ragged, you are clothing Christ. You may be acting with God's love, but what Christ wants to highlight in his story is not whose love you are acting with but that the person who you are loving is Christ. "When you did it to one of these humblest brothers [and sisters] of mine, you did it to me."

I work with Pastor Sharon in the student chaplaincy program at Overlook hospital in Summit, which is how I come to you now this morning, and it is there that I have learned a lot about seeing Christ in others. One of the floors where I serve as chaplain is the psyche ward, the behavioral health unit. This is an important ministry to me because even though all of our families are touched in some way by mental health issues, too often we look upon those people who are sick as weak, as scary, as worthless. To love them then becomes an important public statement that we see all people as beloved of God.

My first day in the behavioral health unit, though, I struggled with realizing this love because I was so nervous. I had stopped in, one of the nurses asked who wanted to speak with me, and everyone responded with resounding no's. So, instead of sitting with folks and being for a few moments, I escaped easily, promising half-heartedly to return later. When I did, I did not announce myself, I just said hi to folks watching the TV, wandered down the hallway, and just when I was about to leave again, decided to first go through the dining room/game room area. A young man was in there, and we greeted each other. He was collecting board game pieces, monopoly money, Life cards, and so I assumed he was manic, unable to sit still, and probably not capable of holding a conversation. I wrote him off.

But I smiled at him, said hello, and started to walk away, and then he asked me where I was from. I turned back and sat down next to him. He proceeded to tell me about himself, where he was from, what he studied, a little of what brought him to the behavioral health unit. He was, in fact, bipolar, and a recovering alcoholic, and he spoke plainly to me about the program and how much of its merit to him was that he saw examples of what he did not want to become. I was shamed for walking by him without seeing him as a valuable person--- even though this is my job, right?---, but apparently I was not shamed enough. When I was leaving I asked him if he would mind if I kept him in prayer. He said of course he wouldn't mind, and as I got up to leave and started to turn my back he said that he would be keeping me in prayer as well.

Here I was on the behavioral health unit surrounded by what Clarence Jordan calls one of these humblest brothers [and sisters] of Christ, and what many of you may know as “the least of these,” people struggling with mental health issues, often abandoned by family and friends and seen as bad people or even lepers in a way. I was trying so hard to bring the warmth of God's love to these people, but as is apparent from this story I missed the mark completely. Instead this young man in the behavioral health unit was Christ to me. He was witness to Christ's of healing, forgiveness, renewal, all wrapped into one stark sentence, "I'll be praying for you too."

This is why the justice work of sharing food and drink, welcoming the stranger, clothing the ragged, caring for the sick, and standing with those in prison is so important. It is more than just that we should show others the love of God through out justice work, it is that we are showing God our love and leaving ourselves vulnerable to learning from God through people society sees as worthless. I connected with that young man, gave him the opportunity to reflect aloud about how he was healing over his time in the behavioral health unit, reminded him of his own worth just by talking with him after I got over my initial culturally enforced response to ignore him, and I still pray for him. But all of that work I did did not come close to the gift he gave me of his prayers. I knew Christ in him.

When you give your scarves to people in Irvington, do you know Christ in them? When I told my roommate, also a seminarian, about your ministry of clothing the ragged with beautiful, hand-knit scarves, she immediately began to think about what else cloths are used for in the bible and thought of the swaddling cloths that baby Jesus was wrapped in. I thought that was a beautiful image to think about as we come into Advent in a few weeks. Have you ever thought about how these scarves are dressing Christ as those swaddling cloths did in the manger on that first Christmas? It is a question that maybe we should consider as we dedicate these scarves later this morning.

Seeing ourselves as serving the Christ in all people may be a daunting prospect though. As a young person, I have often been taught to understand what the church values to be the boring, the chaste, the goody-two-shoes thing to do. That is unfortunately the way my generation characterizes Christian work. Many of you from other generations may more easily see the joy inherent in this work, but that is sadly not common among people my age. For me, though, I don't think you can read this mandate to share food and drink, welcome the stranger, clothe the ragged, care for the sick, and stand with those in prison and think of it as boring work. Instead, and many of you may agree with this even if we aren't from the same generation, this is scary work. Seeing Christ in everyone means getting dirty, it means owning up to your own prejudices as I had to after I tried to walk past the young man in the behavioral health unit. But ultimately, and Clarence Jordan catches this in his paraphrase of the last verse of our Gospel reading this morning: the just ones will have the joy of living. The work of seeing the Christ in everyone may be scary, but it will move us towards a better way of living, a more abundant way of living.

The kingdom of God, the Movement with a capital M that Clarence Jordan writes of, is not about giving us this checklist: yes, my church has a soup kitchen so we feed the hungry and give water to the thirsty; yes, my church is very friendly, we welcome new people; yes, we knit scarves so we clothe the ragged; yes, our own minister serves as a chaplain at the hospital so we care for the sick; and sure, there are some folks in prison we love and support. We can't just check those things off, say we followed the rules, and call it a day. No, this passage points to a way of living that is so abundant that we can't not knit scarves and think with love of those people who will receive them as Christ in our lives. It is about loving big and opening ourselves even bigger to the mystery that is God's love in our lives.

Let us pray,

Holy One,
We ask that you help us keep our eyes ever open for your presence among us. Especially today, we ask that we remember as we dedicate these scarves that we are a people who are clothing Christ among us. And help us to live into this Movement of abundant love to which you have called us. In the name of the Leader of that Movement, Amen.

1Clarence Jordan, The Cotton Patch Version of Matthew and John, (Koinonia Publication 1970), 84-85.

"I'll be praying for you too."

This is a journal entry that I wrote today. Though it could be a good idea to reflect a bit more on this experience and then write about it, I felt drawn to putting it up raw. Forgive the stylistic harsh edges.

I had no preference of where I wanted to work in the hospital during my Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) experience. In our program, you are assigned to a general floor and a specialty floor to work as the chaplain. Somewhere towards the end of the summer I began to feel this still small voice drawing me towards behavioral health, a voice that had perhaps begun the year before when a friend told me they were looking for chaplains at his supervised ministry placement in a behavioral health facility. Certainly, the issue of mental health came into the picture for me because a friend has recently struggled and shared with me his experiences on the psych ward. Yet his openness about his experience dredged up memories of three close friends in high school being institutionalized, seeing family struggle with depression and substance abuse/misuse, and just seeing people in church denying needing help though they were obviously manic. Much of my motivation to participate in a CPE program was growing up seeing my mom spend most of her parish ministry visiting folks in hospitals and knowing that I too will be doing visitations as part of my ministry; so too, as in my own life I can see just how much we all all touched by mental illness, I thought it was my responsibility as a future pastor to be able to destigmatize mental illness in my church and learn how to minister to those in the struggle.

Once I had been assigned to the behavioral health unit (referred to often as 7E in the hospital) and shared it with seminary friends, I had one tell me of her own experience with adolescent depression and another tell me that her own father had spent time in a behavioral health unit. Mind you, I had not even begun working yet, all I had to do was mention it and my belief that it is important for ministers to destigmatize mental illness and stories came flowing out.

But I am writing this piece not to talk about the why, though I have spent so much space already on that it seems. I am writing this because I began my ministry in 7E today. I was nervous. When I had stopped in a few hours earlier, one of the nurses announced my presence, asked who wanted to speak with me and then left me to resounding no's. So, instead of sitting with folks and being for a few moments, I escaped easily, promising half-heartedly to return later. When I did, I did not announce myself, I just said hi to folks watching the TV, wandered down the hallway, and just when I was about to leave again, decided to first go through the dining room/game room. A young man was in there, and we greeted each other. He was collecting board game pieces, monopoly money, Life cards, and so I assumed he was manic, unable to sit still, and probably not capable of holding a conversation. I am an asshole.

I smiled at him, started to walk away, and then he asked me where I was from. I turned back and sat down next to him. He proceeded to tell me about himself, where he was from, what he studied, a little of what brought him to 7E. He was, in fact, bipolar, and a recovering alcoholic, and he spoke plainly to me about the program and how much of its merit to him was that he saw examples of what he did not want to become. I was shamed for walking by him, but apparently not enough. When I was leaving I asked him if he would mind if I kept him in prayer. He said of course he wouldn't mind, and as I got up to leave and started to turn my back he said that he would be keeping me in prayer as well.

On my first day serving as a chaplain, I escaped (I guess I do that a lot) to the chapel in the hospital to try to re-center myself and breathe. In the prayer book put together by the Pastoral Care department, I found a prayer ending with those words about presence:

Let me see the presence of God in others, let me be the presence of God in others.
I often try so hard to be the presence of God part of this prayer, but as is apparent from this story I miss the mark completely. But this young man in 7E was the presence of God to which I was witness today. God of healing, forgiveness, renewal, all wrapped into one stark sentence, "I'll be praying for you too."