FOURTH SUNDAY OF EASTER
Prayer of the Day: O Lord Christ, good shepherd of the sheep, you seek the lost and guide us into your fold. Feed us, and we shall be satisfied; heal us, and we shall be whole. Make us one with you, for you live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
“How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?” I John 3:17.
That question haunts me. One of the few regrets I have in life is that Sesle and I never took in a foster child. I have encountered a number of foster children who have found their way into loving and secure homes where they were able to thrive. But I have also encountered too many who have languished in group homes where they have received little in the way of personal attention, were compelled to wear ill fitting clothing and lacked sufficient space and privacy. I have encountered children with physical and emotional problems who were bounced from one foster care family or facility to another without ever receiving the care they needed. We could have taken in one or more of these children, but we did not. There were good reasons for that. We had three children of our own, after all. We had serious health issues in our family that were taxing on us and jobs demanding long hours and weekends in the office. Still, the truth is that we had the resources, we had the space and we could have made the time. So I have to ask myself, how does God’s love abide in me?
Hunger, poverty and the injustice that gives rise to these scourges have always been high priorities in my giving, volunteerism and ministry. Yet when I drive into Boston for doctor appointments (a frequent occurrence these days), I routinely drive past dirty and disheveled men and women with their soggy cardboard signs reading, “unemployed, three kids,” “hungry, haven’t eaten in days,” “need money for meds.” There are good reasons for not stopping. For one thing, I don’t carry much cash these days and I doubt I could readily get my hands on what little I have from behind the wheel. Furthermore, stopping on a busy street in Boston can easily result in an accident. Besides, these folks have problems bigger than I can solve with a few bills. Better to make a check out to the local charity and let the professionals deal with these people. Yet the truth is, I could pull over to the curb for the few minutes it would take to hand someone a few dollars. These folks are not asking me to solve all their problems-just the immediate one, namely, a meal. Moreover, the professionals are not out on the street where I meet these folks, but I am. So, again, I wonder how does God’s love abide in me?
These are just a few instances in which I could have helped a brother or sister[1] in need-but did not. My life experience reflects all too accurately the attitude that appears to have been taking hold in the faith community John addresses. It is an attitude that has taken hold in a world where nations guard their borders with guns, dogs and barbed wire against people desperate to find food, shelter and sanctuary. It is an attitude prevalent in communities like mine that resist affordable housing with law suits, letter writing campaigns and ballot initiatives. It is an attitude that has taken hold in congregations guarding their assets, facilities and resources against the needs of the communities in which they reside and against the call from the church at large to support global mission and ministry. How does God’s love abide in us, who are part and parcel of this tightfisted world?
Author, philosopher and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel warns us that the opposite of love is not hate. The opposite of love is indifference. The Nazis nearly succeeded in murdering the Jews of Europe because too many people simply did not care enough to stop them. I fear that, in much the same way, the hard won protections people of color have fought to put into law opening a way out from under the suffocating oppression of systemic racism will soon be erased because too few people care. I fear that women will increasingly be denied critical reproductive health care because it is simply not important enough to protect. I fear that transgender teens, already at risk for self harm and suicide, will lose access to the care and treatment they need due to misguided laws championed by religious extremists and implemented by state legislators eager to placate them, all because too few of us care. What matters to the American people, we are told repeatedly, are “kitchen table issues.” That may be the case. Just as so many people in Europe looked the other way as the Jews were being dispossessed and murdered, so too many of us Americans will be content to sit in the security of our kitchens stuffing our faces with roast beef, offering perfidious prayers while our siblings in the human family suffer. In the words of poet Robert Frost, “I think I know enough of hate/ To say that for destruction ice/ Is also great/ And would suffice.”
How does God’s love abide in me? I think that the only comfort to be derived from this haunting question is that it haunts. If we are asking ourselves this question, it can only mean that our hearts have not yet turned to ice and that love for our siblings has not yet grown cold. It can only mean that there is yet some stirring of the Holy Spirit in our hearts. It can only mean that we are still capable of recognizing the voice of Jesus calling to us from people who desperately need the help, support and advocacy we are capable of offering. While the hour may be late, it is not too late, as long as we have life and breath left in us. Now, more than ever, we need to heed the Spirit posing to us this haunting question: How does God’s love abide in me?
Here is the poem by Robert Frost to which I alluded above.
Fire and Ice
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
Source: The Poetry of Robert Frost, (c. 1969 by Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc.) p. 220. Born in 1874, Robert Frost held various jobs throughout his college years. He was a worker at a Massachusetts mill, a cobbler, an editor of a small town newspaper, a schoolteacher and a farmer. By 1915, Frost’s literary acclaim was firmly established. On his seventy-fifth birthday, the U.S. Senate passed a resolution in his honor. The State of Vermont named a mountain after him and he was given the unprecedented honor of being asked to read a poem at the inauguration of John F. Kennedy in 1961. Through the lens of rural life in New England, Frost’s poetry ponders the metaphysical depths. His poems paint lyrical portraits of natural beauty, though ever haunted by shadow and decay. You can learn more about Robert Frost and sample more of his poetry at the Poetry Foundation website.
[1] I am aware that many biblical commentators assert that Saint John is principally concerned with the faith community to which he writes and that “brother or sister” refers to fellow believers within the community. I am not convinced that is so. Nonetheless, whatever John may have intended in this context, we know that Jesus never limited our duty of love to any group or community. Just as God lavishes God’s good gifts on all people regardless of merit, so disciples are called to reflect that same love to all people, even the enemy. Matthew 5:43-48.
Peter's Outer Cape Portico 