Betty, my Mother In Law, as a good Mother/Mother In Law, should, loves to impart nuggets of wisdom on us. One of her favorites is to repeat the wisdom that “fools rush in where angels fear to tread”. We probably should listen to that some day. I take on clients that other attorneys actually fear to represent. Cheri tends to take on helping people that other pastors fear to help.
Fourteen years ago, as we had just started to date, Cheri read a story in the Findlay news paper about a group of young men in Fostoria. They were going to be on trial for killing a friend of theirs. These 17-20 year olds had beaten a friend to death and then set a home on fire to destroy the crime scene. Now three friends were in jail for murder, arson, etc. Cheri reached out to all three. One, Josh (not his real name), is the only one who responded. Cheri wanted to learn how these young men’s lives had led to this point.
Josh told her of growing up abused, how he had learned later in jail he was gay and had repressed that all along. How the group had turned to robbing people’s homes. How the group had discovered one of them was a snitch, and how they identified the victim, and pressured Josh into helping with the crime, otherwise he would become a victim too. And the details, I won’t repeat on how they killed a former friend.
Cheri, who was living in what most of us would consider a pretty suburban, middle class kind of town, discovered that her part of the world could still be pretty messed up. Things like this didn’t happen in her world, even though she had been in inner city Atlanta and suburban Cincinnati, even as a police chaplain there. Cheri saw how messed up this world can be at times.
In the end, Josh testified against the ring leader, and he was sent to jail for twenty years to life. Now, this messed up kid is entering adulthood in a world that thankfully most of us will never know. A world of violent roommates, difficult to follow rules, some difficult to deal with jailers, etc.
To make Josh’s world a little better, Cheri has stayed in communication with him for the last Fourteen years. She writes him monthly, talks to him via collect calls almost monthly, sends him a small amount of money each month for the commissary, visits yearly and sends him a Christmas present. Josh will rejoin society when Becca is in college, maybe. At that point, he might be in need of the kinds of help a church like The Village will be able to offer.
Why did Cheri write that letter? She can’t take on the entire prison system. She has other battles to fight. I can’t tell you how much time and money she has spent in letters, overly expensive collect calls, monthly & Christmas gifts, etc. As she says, you can’t afford to change the whole world ourselves.
Why is answered by looking at the viral video I posted on Facebook profile. Here’s a link to the You Tube video if you aren’t my Facebook friend or can’t find it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR3rK0kZFkg&feature=related. It is little girl, Jessica, having a really good day. She talks to a mirror about how great her life is and how she can do anything. Cheri is working for a world where every child feels that way and stays like that, a beloved child of God. A world where kids experience no violence, no fear, no loss of hope.
One person at a time, can we make a difference? It’s overwhelming sometimes when you move beyond one. Jesus usually worked one person at a time. In our story from worship this week, John 8: 1-11 if you’re following along at home, Jesus was presented with a real challenge in this story. The self-righteous of the time wanted to trap him in a no win situation. They brought him a woman who had been caught red handed committing adultery. The law of Moses was pretty clear on this one. Stoning it was. Right now in Iran, you can see a woman facing a similar fate.
Jesus, though, being Jesus, figured out another way. He simply turned to the angry leaders and said, you’re right, but the first stone should come from the one among you who is sinless. Of course, none of them can go, slowly, one by one, they walk away. Jesus turns to the woman and says, no one can condemn you, now go, and sin no more. Does she not sin again? Probably not, but you hope that a moment like that changes the path of her life.
Jesus had that way of leveling things out, of cutting through to the humanity of us all. Even those of us who screw up hourly, like me. We are all part of the human race, that God loves. We make it complicated though. One person at a time is what it really boils down. You have to write that one letter to a Josh, or whatever your first step is.
Yesterday the Village had a booth at the community festival for Toledo Pride. Our team of volunteers had a blast. We performed acts of hospitality including giving out a couple of hundred re-useable water bottles, filled with ice cold water. We gave away a combo of 24 gallons of water mixed with over forty pounds of ice. Also, we handed out stickers with the church’s name & web address on it, along with a message that most people, sadly, found hard to believe, “you are made in God’s image”. Cheri and our team handed out hundreds of these. Some people were taken aback, some didn’t believe it.
Cheri found a group of high school kids who are getting a different message at school. Their principal and a teacher at the school were not at all welcoming of their “alternative lifestyle”. The teacher went so far as to sprinkle holy water around the chairs of these “troubled kids” in the hopes of fixing them. Hearing a group of people who follow the same God tell them they are beloved may not bring them to church, but I am willing to bet it had a better effect than the holy water.
We believe God is putting our church in a place to touch lives, to change a world in need of changing. We don’t want people to settle for less than a fully realized, happy life. The Village wants to provide a place of healing and support for those who society does not value, who are given a message that they are less worthy than others.
Dorothy Day and her colleagues at The Catholic Worker Movement did just that. They joined those who society did not value. They reached out to the poor, the voiceless, the oppressed. This week in worship we watched a scene from the movie on her life, "Entertaining Angels," where Dorothy is in a jail cell, when a young African-American woman, high or drunk is thrown into her cell. Dorothy shows the woman she is loved by God, even as she throws up on Dorothy’s shoes.
At the Village, we are working to change the world by following Jesus. We get told, almost daily, that people already feel like we are changing the world. As a baby church, we’re feeding the poor, helping give shelter to the homeless, and giving a safe haven to those in need. Today we went to St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in the Old West End. There we sat down with those who were hungry, we didn’t sit behind a window or counter, but came to those who needed our help and ate with them. Next month, we will be working with the Interfaith Hospitality Network to feed homeless families, again eating with them, one night, maybe two if we can get the volunteers in place. So, what is your role in all of this?
What is your part in that, or something we’ll do as our church grows up? What is God calling you to do? Beyond these wonderful service projects, we need people to help as we expand what we do. On Sundays, we need people to greet visitors and everyone attends, make them and serve them our wonderful coffee, make & run Powerpoint presentations, etc as we expand how we change the world.
Do you want to be part of a movement to change the world, like Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker movement that has 100+ centers around the world? Consider joining us on Sundays at 10:30 AM or starting October 3rd at 12:30 PM. Like Dorothy Day, you are made in God’s image and you can change the world.
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