Rev. Eugene N. Nelson, Jr.
The Community Church of Sebastopol
August 10, 2003
Ephesians 4: 24 - 5:2
The baby was abandoned at birth. She was born with a cleft palate and with an under-developed brain. Doctors said her chances of long-term survival were not good; indeed there was no chance. Some women from a near-by church heard about the child and said they would look after her. Which is just what they did. They could not imagine leaving this child to die alone. They cared for her, looked after her needs, surrounded her with love. It was difficult, at times heartbreaking work. But when asked about the child, one of the women, refusing to dwell on the baby’s many physical problems and grim prognosis, instead had this to say: “You should see that little baby in church. When we sing hymns, she just opens her mouth and sings and sings.” “And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you…and live in love, as Christ loved us…”
A letter from a young mother to family and friends, thanking them for their love and support during a difficult, at times frightening, pregnancy and birth: “Thank you to everyone for the cards, letters, flowers, plants, balloons, magazines, books, movies, cookies, taking our numerous middle of the night phone calls, leaving fishing trips early, taking care of our dogs, planning a shower that could never happen, leaving work early to come to the hospital; thanks for breakfasts, lunches and dinners, ice cream, candy, care packages, visits, lots and lots of phone calls, thoughts and prayers….We truly know how loved we are.” “And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you…and live in love, as Christ loved us…”
In a recent newspaper column, I shared these words from one of the characters in Toni Morrison’s novel, Beloved. He is reflecting on the impact one woman has had on his life: “She is a friend of my mind,” he says. “She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order. It’s good, you know, when you got a woman who is a friend of your mind.” Reflecting on those words, L. Gregory Jones of Duke University Divinity School, writes, “We all long to have ‘a friend of the mind.’ Such friends are agents of healing and wholeness, people who mend our lives by gathering the tattered pieces of our selves and quilting them into a redemptive fabric. Such friends are a holy gift.” “And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you…And live in love, as Christ loved us…”
Now I realize this might sound like the sort of sentimental encouragement one might expect to hear from a pastor on Sunday morning – long on religion and short on reality: forgiveness and tender-heartedness and all that sort of thing. Yes, keep talking preacher and we’ll try to tuck some of it in around the edges of life…when we have time.
But you had better read the text again. Does not Paul challenge us to go just a bit deeper than that? Does he not recognize that each of us possesses the creative power, the healing power, to be friends of the mind, agents of healing and wholeness, helping each other to gather back together the tattered pieces of our lives? “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving…live in love.” This is not sappy sentimentality. This is a call, a challenge, for us to take seriously our capacity to give to each other that which we may need most…healing, wholeness, nurture, hope. I think of that young mother’s letter: “We truly know how loved we are.” These are not words to be taken lightly. What a gift family and friends gave to her and her husband in what was a terribly frightening time. Just look what we can do for each other, says Paul.
The two brothers, ages 8 and 10, were always trouble just waiting to happen, and it often did. Whenever something bad happened at church, whenever something was broken or messed up or lost, they generally had a hand in it. A new minister came to the church and it was decided that he should meet with the brothers … separately. The youngest went in first. He sat in the minister’s office and after introductions, the minister asked him, “Johnny, where is God?” No answer. He repeated the question, “Where is God?” Still no answer. The question was repeated, same lack of response. And then suddenly, Johnny bolted from his chair and ran out of the office. He grabbed his brother who was waiting outside and both of them ran home where they immediately hid in a closet. “What happened in there?” his brother wanted to know. Johnny answered, “We’re in big trouble this time. God is missing and they are blaming us!”
Well, you might say that Paul is asking and answering that same question…where is God? For Paul, God certainly is not missing. No, God is found in those moments when we share with each other – tenderheartedly, forgivingly - the same love which God has shared with us in Christ; when we are friends of the mind, helping each other to mend our lives. No way those women were going to let that baby die alone.
Some of you have perhaps read Pat Conroy’s, My Losing Season. It is the story of his senior year as the point guard on the Citadel basketball team and what he learned during what proved to be a disastrous losing season. But it is also a memoir of people who tore his life to pieces and of one man who helped him mend it back together, who became a friend of his mind.
Conroy’s father was a master at demeaning, attacking and undermining his son. He did it verbally, emotionally, as well as physically. In Conroy’s words, “There was nothing my father could not teach me about the architecture of despair. I knew all its shapes and blueprints. My father could send me reeling down its hallways and screaming into its bat-spliced attics with a curl of his thin-lipped mouth…His cruelty baffled me, shamed me, and I promised myself I would never be anything like him.”
His basketball coach, Mel Thompson, furthered tested Conroy’s psyche. Although not physically abusive, his harsh words and loathing attitude gradually beat down Conroy and his teammates. Phrases such as “You’re just mediocre,” and “Conroy don’t you dare shoot,” haunted him for years. In Conroy’s words, “My teammates found themselves reduced to a state that was birthplace for me – a despair without windows or exits, a futility that made hope vain and the future unthinkable.”
But there was someone else who entered Conroy’s life at a crucial time. His English professor, Colonel John Doyle, saw something in this young, beaten-down student. He befriended Conroy and encouraged him to become a writer. He had an unshakable faith in Conroy‘s ability, at one point telling him, “You’re too hard on yourself. Know this. I think you could be special if only you thought there was something special about yourself.” With these words and this friendship, Conroy was able to begin mending his life, putting the pieces back together in a right order. His “friend of the mind” was a powerful, life-changing, life-mending, gift.
“Be kind to one another,” says Paul, “and live in love…” Don’t underestimate the power of his words. He’s telling us that we share in God’s creative power. We truly have the power to build each other up, mend each other, help each other to put the pieces back together. We can do for each other what God in Christ has done for us.
It’s an old New Yorker cartoon. It shows the Three Musketeers, raising their swords together. But instead of shouting, “All for one and one for all!” they declare, “Every man for himself!”
Well, maybe sometimes. I suspect we all like to think of ourselves as pretty strong, self-reliant, I-can-take-care-of-myself kind of people. More than once I have had a grieving spouse or caregiver say to me, “It’s so hard for me to accept help from others.” We like to think we can get through it, can take care of it, by ourselves. And yet, more and more I am convinced that we just can’t make it, that we cannot be fully human, without a few Colonel John Doyle’s in our lives. And, we are also called to be holy friends to others. Who out there right now might need someone – someone like you and me – to be tenderhearted and forgiving, someone to share the love of Christ, someone “to give them back the pieces of their lives in the right order.”
And surely you have guessed by now that I believe the church, this church, can be a place where God’s love can become specific and concrete and immediate, where person meets person and hand reaches out to hand in a great network of caring. When the church is such a community, it is then prepared as a corporate whole to be God’s catalyst in the world, reaching out to comfort and support and heal, to be kind, tenderhearted, and forgiving, mending lives and loving the world as Christ has loved it, helping the whole creation finally to claim its membership in the Great Family of God’s own heart.