A Good Friday Meditation

"Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people through His own blood, suffered outside the gate. So, let us go out to Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach. For here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come" (Hebrews 13:12-14). On this Good Friday, I will reflect on who are the crucified of our time with whom Jesus identifies, and how to be joined with them and him as we keep another world in view in which "every tear is wiped away and death is no more" (Revelation 21:4).  And I will keep in mind that the "blood" of Jesus is his life, not a mere liquid.

Of Football, Maps, Mourning, Mom, and Foot Washing

Robert saw me bending over to pick up a discarded coffee cup at Manna House this morning.
“Not so easy getting down low anymore is it?” he asked.
“Some days are better than others.  But on all days I’m not nearly as flexible as I used to be.”
“Me neither.  I was in the hospital most of yesterday with back spasms.”
“Sorry to hear that Robert.  That’s painful.”
“Years of cement work on top of high school football.  I’m paying the price.”
“Where did you play?”
“Orange Mound, Melrose.  I was a halfback.  Fast and strong.  They could count on me.”

John likes maps.  He always carries a few with him.  He likes to peruse them while he drinks his coffee at Manna House.  He had heard that I was up in Minnesota this past weekend, so he was curious about where in Minnesota I had been.  When I told him “Rochester,” he wanted to know which county.  “Olmsted.”  Then the conversation really took off.
“Is that in the southeastern corner of Minnesota?”
“Yes, about an hour or so southeast of the Twin Cities.”
“Not far from Iowa?”
“About an hour or so.”
“You know those northern counties of Iowa?”
“Not really.”
“Winnebago.  Worth. Mitchell. Howard. Winneshiek.  Allamahee.”
“I really don’t know those counties, John.”
“I study maps.  I just like knowing where things are.”
When I got home, I checked up on the list (which I had written down).  Sure enough, those counties go right across northern Iowa.

We started the day with sad news.  “Dusty” also known as “Charles” has died.  Dusty was a regular guest at Manna House for many years.  When he first started coming he was on crutches.  He only had one leg.  He went everywhere on those crutches, and he went through lots of those rubber tips at the bottom of the crutches.  We’d buy them and just keep on replacing the tips.  June Averyt started working with him and tried to get him into housing.  He’d been on the streets so long he didn’t feel comfortable inside.  So, she agreed that he could stay in a tent in the backyard of where she had housed other folks.  Dusty eventually lost his other leg and so he got around on a motorized wheelchair.  This happened about the same time that he was able to get himself to move into a place to live.  He was still a regular in the neighborhood.  He was well liked.   Along with our guests we took news of his death hard.

Another guest had additional mourning today.  He mother died yesterday of cancer.  He’s now an orphan.  One of thirteen children, Keith is more or less in the middle he said.  Nine are still alive.  The funeral is tomorrow, and Saturday morning she will be laid to rest.  “I have to stay strong for the rest of the family.  They’re taking it pretty hard.  I knew it was coming.  I’ve been going to see her in the hospital and so I’m at peace.”

Every third Thursday, Camille and Ashley head up the Foot Washing and Foot Clinic at Manna House.  Guests sign up in advance for this evening, which includes a meal.  Tonight’s Foot Washing and Clinic happened to fall on Holy Thursday when many Christian churches commemorate the Last Supper, including in John’s Gospel, where Jesus washes the feet of his disciples, telling them, “So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.  For I have set an example for you, that you should do as I have done to you” (John 13:14-14).
 Eight guests had their feet washed by four volunteers, enjoyed a meal prepared and served by two more volunteers, then saw a foot doctor, and in turn were fitted with gently used shoes courtesy of Fleet Feet.  It was a good liturgy.

Grief and the Promise of Life

A guest I’ll call “Tom,” shared a bit about his life with me this past Thursday morning. He moved to Memphis with his family from Milwaukee when he was seven. He’s lived in Memphis ever since. When he was seven, his father died. When he was twelve, his mother died. When he was twenty-four, his grandmother died. He had no other living relatives that could care for him or about him, so he was alone in the world. He did construction work for the next twenty years, until he was hurt on the job and couldn’t work anymore. He said he drank a lot for most of those years, but he has been sober for the past three years. 
Along the way he was married, but his wife left him, and also left him with a lot of debt. “God’s getting me through it; most days. Some days its just hard, but I try not to get focused on the negative. It just makes me bitter and I don’t want to be bitter.”
Through the loss of work and the debt Tom lost his home and now lives in his car. Tom asks me each day for a “word for the day.” But before I could share some Scripture with him today, I got called into the house for a few minutes, and by the time I got back Tom was having a heated argument with another guest. Both were asked to leave. Another guest said to me, “He’s carrying a heavy load and just snapped.” Indeed he does and he did. He’s welcome back Monday. 
With the sun shining and temperatures rising, I got a lot of questions about when we’ll be opening the backyard. Our backyard is like a little park, with picnic tables, plenty of shade from the trees (once they get those leaves back), and a lot more room than the house. Guests can spread out and relax. My answer, “We’ll open the backyard when it is consistently in the 50’s at opening time.” I hope that is soon.
As I was picking up a bit in the front yard later in the morning, a guest asked me if I knew Ethel Sampson. Indeed I did. She was active for many years in our work for abolishing the death penalty. Then she just got a bit too infirm to be out on picket lines or participating in vigils on the front steps of Immaculate Conception Cathedral during the time of an execution.
“How’s she doing?” I asked.
“She died about two years ago.”
“She was a great lady. Always doing something good for other folks.”
“I know. She took me in for quite a while.”
Spring is a strange time. There are signs of new life all around with flowers and trees blooming, and birds building nests. But there are reminders of winter, the cold front that occasionally blows through dropping temperatures, the still bare trees. It is Lent before Easter. Guests carry grief while holding to the promise of life, and we do too.

Preparing for Holy Week

MTS Chapel  4-8-2014                                   Preparing for Holy Week

1 Peter 1:13-21

Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming. As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: “Be holy, as I am holy.” Since you call on a Father who judges each person’s work impartially, live out your time as aliens here in reverent fear. For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.

“Be holy as I am holy” writes Peter.  He was drawing upon the injunction in Leviticus 11:44-45, “For I am Yahweh your God, so you must consecrate yourselves and be holy because I am holy. You must not defile yourselves….  For I am Yahweh, who brought you up from the land of Egypt to be your God, so you must be holy because I am holy.”  And also Leviticus 20:26, “You shall be holy to me, for I the Lord am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine.”

            But going beyond the Old Testament, Peter is clear that our holiness is predicated upon our being joined to Christ.  The holiness of Christ is what makes us holy as God is holy.  Our holiness must be that of the holiness of Christ who joins our humanity to God’s divinity.  Given these passages from Scripture, and with Holy Week bearing down upon us, it might be helpful to consider what it means to be holy, or how in our humanity we can be joined to God’s divinity.  Holy Week, after all, is when we celebrate our redemption through Jesus Christ, a redemption which practically means our humanity is joined to God’s divinity.  It is in this redemption that we are made holy.

            Peter is clear that our holiness is grounded in the holiness of Christ.  Peter writes, “with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming. As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do.”  Redeemed by Christ, graced by Christ, we are to be holy as Christ as Christ is holy.

            And Peter emphasizes, as does Leviticus, that holiness has an inherently ethical dimension.  Holiness separates us from the world, sets us apart, and sets us on a distinctive way of life.  Jesus not only redeems us by his life, he redeems us in giving us his way of life.  In being disciples of Jesus, we are set us apart as we are set upon a distinctive way of life.

            But we need to be clear, Jesus’ way that sets us apart is not a way of life that sets us upon self-righteousness.  Jesus spends much of his life and teaching undercutting an approach to holiness that makes holiness a method of self-righteousness.  He, in fact, takes particular care to puncture the hardness of heart that typifies self-righteousness. 

He tells one self-righteous group of religious folks, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you” (Mt 21:31).  If you go to a banquet Jesus says, don’t seek the highest place of honor, but rather be humble. 

And Jesus tells the host of a banquet, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, don’t invite your friends and family and relatives and rich neighbors. If you do, they will invite you in return, and you will be paid back. When you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. They cannot pay you back. But God will bless you and reward you when his people rise from death” (Lk 14:10-14).

            Throughout his life, Jesus overturns the usual expectations of who is holy and who is not.  Instead of the professionally holy, such as the Scribes, Pharisees, and Sadducees, Jesus’ list of holy ones would likely include the following:  the woman who anointed his head who was accused of wasting money (Mt 26:6-13), blind people, lepers, children, the Canaanite woma-n whose faith he saluted (Mt 15:21-31), a centurian whose servant was sick (Mt 8:5-13), a Samaritan woman at the well (Jn 4:3ff), a man born blind who is panhandling near the temple (Jn 9:1-41), and finally the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, the imprisoned, all of whom Jesus directly identifies with in Matthew 25:31-46.

            What do all of these holy folks have in common?  If you hang out with them, you will be separated from the usual order of things.  If you offer them hospitality, you will be rejected by the powerful folks who reinforce the status quo.  A fancy term for all of these folks is that they are “the Other,” they are people on the margins. 

            In making this claim, that those considered “the Other” are closest to God, and are most holy, Jesus shows his faithfulness to the God of Israel.  After all, it was the God of Israel who made an enslaved people, God’s chosen people.  God’s holiness continually undercuts notions of holiness that are about superiority or self-righteousness.  God’s holiness rejects the way we typically value other human beings, by their attractiveness or power.  Instead God in God’s holiness values those not considered attractive or powerful.

            I think holy people in the history of Christianity reflect this kind of holiness, a holiness in which being set apart is being set upon a way of life in solidarity with those who are hurting, oppressed, other. 

St. Martin of Tours took his cloak off for a poor man and came to reject participation in the Roman military.  St. Francis kissed and ministered to lepers.  Saints Martin Luther King, Jr. and Fannie Lou Hamer stood with those beat down by Jim Crow and by poverty.  St. Dorothy Day stood with men and women who are homeless, mentally ill, addicted, despised.  St. Cesar Chavez stood with farm workers, many of them immigrants, some of them not “legal.”  St. Andre Trocme stood with the Jews hunted down by Nazis.  St. Dietrich Bonhoeffoer was martyred in his resistance to Hitler.  St. Oscar Romero was martyred because he stood with peasants and those subject to death squads.  Saints Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth stood with African American slaves.  The martyrs of Memphis stood with those suffering from Yellow Fever who because of their poverty couldn’t escape the city.

            As we remember Jesus in the Holy Week which is about to begin, we are called to enter into his way of holiness, a way holiness that is set upon a way of love for those who are despised, rejected, neglected, and set upon a way that seeks justice.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer describes this way of love with justice, “[The church's] task is not simply to bind the wounds of the victim beneath the wheel, but also to put a stick in the wheel itself."    

Peter tells his first century follows of Jesus, “you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors … with the precious blood of Christ.” 

That empty way of life was the way of the Roman Empire.  The Roman Empire’s way was a way much like the way of empire today.  Such an imperial way is premised upon powerful domination of others instead of hospitality for others.  Such a way is premised upon criminalizing and exploiting and despising the poor.  Such a way uses violence and war to intimidate and control others.  Such a way creates “vagrant free zones” in downtown Memphis and puts up “no panhandling” signs in Overton Square to criminalize the poor.

            The good news is that in Jesus Christ we have another way, a way of truth and of life.  Jesus sets us upon a way of welcome and inclusion.  Jesus set us upon a way that recognizes the dignity of each person.  Jesus sets us upon a way of peace with justice.  It is the way of Jesus that embraces the Other, embraces those on the margins, and so also embraces us, the broken and sinners of this world.   

So during Holy Week as we remember the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, may we remember the holiness of Jesus, how he was holy, how his holiness makes us holy, and how he sets us upon a way of holiness in which we share life with God who is Other.  

May we meditate upon that call to holiness to be holy as Christ is holy.  In doing this, we might focus our holy week meditation not only on First Peter, but also on the words of the New Testament book of Hebrews, “Jesus also, that He might make the people holy through His own blood [that is His own life], suffered outside the gate. So, let us go out to Him outside the camp [that is to the margins], bearing His reproach. For here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come.” 

In that holy city we are joined with those Jesus invited us to invite to the banquet, and in that holy city we thus all sit down together at the welcome table, a welcome table Jesus prepared for us all!

Some Reflections on “Here I Will Stay”

 Carla Piette was a 40-year-old Maryknoll sister who was tragically killed during a flash flood just five months after she arrived in El Salvador in 1980.  She had come in response to a plea for help from Archbishop Oscar Romero.  Romero was murdered (by troops trained at Ft. Columbus, Georgia) the day she arrived in the country.  Before she died, she wrote a poem called “Here I Will Stay.”

“Here I will stay.”  There is a phrase that goes around Catholic Worker circles about committing “for the long haul” in offering hospitality and engaging in works for justice and peace.  Benedictine monks take a vow of “stability” which means to live in a particular monastic community and not go flitting about seeking a better place.  Carla Piette in her poem reflects these Catholic Worker and Benedictine sensibilities.

“The Lord has guided me,
dropping me here
at a time and place in history
to search for and find him.
Not somewhere else.
But here.”

A visitor at Manna House asked me today how long we’ve been open.  It will be nine years this coming September.  We continue to offer hospitality in the Catholic Worker tradition.  With this tradition we emphasize that each guest is to be treated as Christ (see Matthew 25:31-46).  We find God (or God finds us) in our guests.  Catholic Workers also refuse government funding (as we do), do not get paid for offering hospitality (also true of us), are opposed to war and the death penalty and urge the creation of a society in which it is easier to be good (all stances we share), and are quite good at being fools for Christ (we like foolishness). 

“And so here I will stay until
I have found that broken Lord
in all his forms
and all his various pieces,
until I have bound up all his
wounds
and covered his whole body,
his people,
with the rich oil of gladness.”

            We’re not planning on going anywhere.  When we opened we made a commitment to our guests to offer hospitality at Manna House three mornings each week. We’ve found three mornings a week to be sustainable.  When we try to do more (like we do sometimes) we find it wears us down.  An occasional emergency response we can handle for a while, but not for long.

            There is plenty of work to be done each day that we are open.  Despite the official proclamation of a few weeks ago, we don’t see any decline in the numbers of people experiencing homelessness on the streets of Memphis.  There are still plenty of broken and wounded walking the streets.

“And when that has been done,
he will up and drop me again,
either into his promised kingdom
or into the midst
of another jigsaw puzzle of
his broken body,
his hurting people.”

            Though God can be surprising, I don’t see this work here ending any time soon. The “jigsaw puzzle” which is Manna House is where I’m called, with others, to be.  Those Catholic Worker and Benedictine commitments to the long haul are worth attending to. And although I like the Book of Revelation for its unveiling of the pretension of Empire, I don’t see God’s Kingdom coming anytime soon.  I’d be happy to be wrong.  “Come Lord Jesus” (Revelation 22:20).

Love and Limits

Hospitality isn’t all sweetness and light.  Mark came in for a shower at Manna House today.  But he was drunk.  So I had a short conversation with him, and not one that was pleasant for him or for me.

“Mark, we can’t let you shower today.”

“Why not?”

“You’ve been drinking.”

“I’ve had some, but I’m ok.”

“No.  You’re not ok.  You can’t shower here today.  You’re not steady on your feet.  You could fall in the shower, and that wouldn’t be good for you or for us.”   

“Please.  I’m dirty and I don’t smell very good.”

“Not today.  You need to be sober to shower here.”

“I’m just feeling it some from last night.  I’m ok.”

At this point I remembered some advice from someone, “Never argue with a drunk.”

“Mark, you need to go.  You’re welcome here when you’re sober.”

Mark left and as he did my heart ached for him.  He struggles mightily with alcohol.  He has come to Manna House many times sober.  And when he does he’s a quiet and pleasant person.  Even when he’s not sober he’s still quiet and pleasant; just not very steady on his feet.  And my heart aches because I know that even if there comes a day when Mark seeks help for his alcoholism he’ll find treatment programs are few and far between and often have a long waiting list.

I didn’t want Mark to fall in the shower, like he did once before when he was drunk but had been let into shower.  I also was reflecting Manna House policy.  We try not to allow drunk or high persons in for hospitality.  Our experience is that when people are drunk or high the possibility increases that arguments or even fights will take place.  Manna House seeks to offer sanctuary, a peaceful place for people to be without being hassled by persons whose personalities have been altered by drugs or alcohol.

            So, I said “no” to Mark.  And he went away.  His next opportunity to shower at Manna House will be Monday.  Four more days in the clothes he had on will not be pleasant for him, to say the least.

            Because the hospitality we offer at Manna House is shaped by a conviction of welcoming our guests with love, our saying “no” must be framed by love.  In the Christian tradition there has been a long argument about the nature of Christian love.  Is it self-sacrificing with no regard for one’s own well being?  Or is it self-sacrificing for the sake of building a community of mutual well being?  For us it is the latter.  We accept that the love we try to practice accepts some degree of limits and boundaries.  We accept that we have expectations for each other, guests and volunteers alike, and to violate those expectations has consequences.  Love doesn’t mean anything goes; it means seeking the good of each person so that a community of mutual respect can develop.

            To practice that love means Mark does not get to shower when he shows up drunk.  It means saying “no” with some gentleness and ongoing respect for Mark and his struggle. It also means we’ll continue to offer a shower to Mark and not hold today against him.  He’s welcome on Monday, if he’s sober.   

The Aroma of Christ

“But thanks be to God, who always leads us as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere.  For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing” (2 Corinthians 2:14-15).

There is a long tradition in Catholic Worker circles of regarding guests who come for hospitality as Christ.  As Dorothy Day wrote, “The mystery of the poor is this:  That they are Jesus, and what you do for them you do for Him.”  One of the particular wonders of the incarnation, of Jesus as the Son of God become human, is that Jesus like all human beings had an aroma.  In plain language, Jesus could either smell nice or stink, just like you or me.  Dorothy Day also wrote that “If everyone were holy and handsome, with ‘alter Christus’ shining in neon lighting from them, it would be easy to see Christ in everyone.” 

As I reflected this morning on this scripture passage and Dorothy Day’s writings, I was led to consider how hospitality at Manna House presents a plentitude of powerful aromas.  In arriving at Manna House, there is the bracing smell of the morning air, slightly damp, yet inviting with promise of the day to come. This is quickly followed by the inspiring perfume of percolating coffee, and in serving the coffee its smell stays in the air all morning.  I particularly relish the fairground’s smell of the whipped sugar of cotton candy when I open a new twenty-five pound bag of sugar to put into the “sugar bucket” from which sugar containers are filled.  

There is also the acrid incense of cigarette smoke from guests gathered in the yard.  (No smoking is allowed in the house or on the front porch).  Sometimes I catch the faint whiff of alcohol on a guest’s breath.  In the house, some guests carry the smell of dried sweat, which becomes especially pungent as the weather warms. 

From time to time, when doing the laundry, there is the stench of human excrement and urine on the clothes.  The lack of access to bathrooms is made odiferously concrete.  Sorting clothes from the laundry bucket there is often the smell of earth and leaves and twigs from the pants and sweatshirts that have been lived in and slept in on the ground.  Countering those smells is the fragrance of laundry soap and bleach. 

From the shower room there are the fresh scents of soap and shampoo and clean water.  Just outside the shower room there is also the faint trace of body and foot powder and deodorant as guests emerge from taking their showers.  Some guests also add a dash of aftershave or cologne to complete their transformation.

When a guest exchanges their old shoes for a used but slightly newer pair, the stink of old shoes and sweaty feet gives way to the welcome relief of a somewhat cleaner smell from the new shoes. 

Back in the sorting room, as we go through donations, there is the musty smell of clothes that have been in closets or drawers too long.  Or sometimes there is a mysterious whiff that summons the question, “What’s that smell?”

At the end of the day, when bathrooms, and showers, and the kitchen need to be cleaned, the scents of Scrubbing Bubbles, vinegar water, Lysol, toilet cleaner and dish soap all announce their presence.

            Although there are a variety of smells in a morning of offering hospitality, I return finally to Paul’s emphasis which was on the “pleasing aroma of Christ.”  That “pleasing aroma” can certainly be detected in the specific scents of delicious coffee and clean guests coming out of the shower room.  But it is most fully savored in the hospitality offered all morning as our guests share with us the aroma of Christ they bring.