October 2007

Reflections - "God's Search for Us All"

My 2 ½ year old granddaughter Tielyr has a simple way of invitation that melts the human heart. I’ll come home and she’ll greet me and then I exchange some chitchat with her, Lani, Colin, and Riley our dog. Invariably Tielyr will approach me, take my hand and say one word, "Come" or "Come Poppa," or "Come here" and I will follow her to a private place where she has some fun activity in mind for the two of us. Like jumping on our bed, walking Riley, or riding her bike or walking down to the river. "Come" "Come Poppa" "Come here."

Bishop George Councell at our Homecoming Day last week shared his fondness for the Episcopal Church’s daily meditation book Forward Day by Day. Along with the Methodist’s "The Upper Room" it is really one of the best devotionals. Our Bishop once asked his wife Ruth, who grew up in the Lutheran Church, if the Lutherans had a Daily Devotional. Ruth couldn’t remember, but shared if there was one she suspected that it would have been entitled "Behave Yourself" distorting God’s mercy into laws, keeping rules, and duties. "Don’t let me come down there" as one Christian billboard puts it. But the Good News of God revealed in Jesus is that God yearns to come down to be with us. The Gospel is not rule but relationship, not doom but delight, about belonging, being close, not centered on being zapped by God.

In the Gospel reading Luke 17:11-19, Jesus encounters 10 lepers on the road between Galilee and Samaria. Before their cries from a distance "Master have mercy on us!" Jesus tells them to show themselves to the Jewish priests at the temple and they will be welcomed back into community. As the lepers go on their way they are made clean. The cure occurs as the lepers put their trust in Jesus and do as he invites them. All 10 of the lepers are healed. But only one returns thankful, receiving even the greater gift of realizing that the source of the healing wants relationship, wants humanity to come close. No more isolation, no more punishment, rather the invitation in Jesus is to come to the source that satisfies our deepest longings.

Come, come close – come here. Three years ago I was at Bridgeway Nursing Home to visit Marion Dressler, Deborah Williams’ mother, to give her communion. As I walked down the main hall to her wing, a woman in a wheelchair looked at me and asked, "Could you give me communion Father, I can’t find any priests around here?." My stock answer is always - "Sure, but you should know that I’m an Episcopal Priest." Usually that’s a show stopper. "Oh" the other responds, "Never mind, I’m a Roman Catholic." But this woman in the wheelchair, named Gloria Klemens, responded with a smile, "Oh, that’s OK, I’m an Episcopalian too." Now, I have to admit that I figured if I said I was a Lutheran, a Presbyterian, a Methodist, a Baptist clergyman she would have responded, "Oh, that’s OK. I’m whatever the denomination mentioned, too" After visiting Marion Dressler I took communion to Gloria for the first of many times.

Over the years of my visits I came to learn that Gloria really was an Episcopalian, the mother of three children and a widow for over 25 years. She was a wanderer, busy, engaged, active in the life of Bridgeway. Seldom in her room, I usually had to search for her in the activity room or dining room or rehab area, or in the halls wheeling in her wheelchair. No matter what she was doing, she would drop it to receive communion. Communion was one of the essentials of her life.

Gloria came to several of our Shut-In Feasts at St. Martin’s, thanks to Philip and Nancy Muniz, and Alison Jandak who coordinates them. It was there that I learned that she loved good home cooking, especially homemade bread. On one occasion she even asked me for the recipe of the bread we served at the Easter Feast. Gloria also had a sweet tooth, loved nuts and candies of all kinds. Gloria was a bit of a flirt. Not with me, but with the male aides. She asked me with her Brooklyn accent and a twinkle in her eye one day, "Father, you know what I really need is the company of a man."

Often when Gloria came to the Shut-In Feasts at St. Martin’s she would go to the Eucharist. On several occasions there was a Baptism. When I would process the newly Baptized around the church I would make sure Gloria would get a good look and touch. She would always say to the baby, looking at it with delight, "You precious child."

When it became obvious that Gloria’s life was coming to an earthly end, she lost her appetite for food and wandering, unable to do either. She did not fear death, but rather longed for that place where there would be no more weeping, moaning, suffering or pain anymore. Only relationship with God and loved ones in the Kingdom was in store for her. Not a big talker, our times together were often short. Relationship was important but communion was what she thirsted for. After each visit Gloria would smile at me and say "Thanks, Father!"

When Gloria died this past Monday morning and when we celebrated her life on Friday at a Requiem Eucharist, I thought this is what it is to be the church. To welcome the stranger in need, whether shut-in, blind, sick, dying, leper, alone, and offer ourselves, but also Jesus for them too. I learned a lot about life, faith and love from Gloria for which I am thankful. I wondered in the end if it was St. Martin’s who adopted Gloria, or if Gloria adopted St. Martin’s, or was it that God adopted us all to be together.

We are called to be healed, yes, but also beyond our needs getting met, we are called in our healing to thankful relationship with God and then as wounded healers to offer what was done for us to others. Jesus came not to call the respectable righteous people but to call outcasts, the isolated, those at the margins of society. "It is the sick who need a doctor, not the well," Jesus said.

So as outcasts, sinners, broken people we have approached Jesus in our lives and he has invited us beyond healing to come, come here, come closer to God and needy humanity. Christianity has been noted to be different from all other religions. They all involve the human search for God, but in Christianity it is clear that the central theme of the story is God’s search for us. When God finds us, God melts our human hearts and takes us by the hand to a place of wonder, beauty, and hope. God takes us to the Kingdom of God in this world and the next where gratitude and selfless love abound and all are adopted into the family together. Thank you for being the church for others!