Psalm 23 Prepare a table.
Acts 9:36-43 Get up!
John 21:1-17 Feed my sheep.
I.
Those who are eagle-eyed readers of the Rock Spring News, our church’s newsletter will recognize that this Sunday’s sermon title has been changed. The unspeakable tragedy at Virginia Tech is the reason for this change, although the advertised title, A Matter of Life and Death would also have been oddly appropriate.
As we learned what little we could about the young man from Northern Virginia- our suburban region- who exploded in violence that took so many lives, one fact became quite clear. He was an extreme loner and had been from his childhood in South Korea. It was his nature to be a loner. He spoke so little as a child that he worried his family. This behavior continued throughout his early, middle and high school years as family, neighbors, friends, and teachers tried to reach out to him. Even in college, his suite mates were unsuccessful in drawing him out. To say he was shy would be quite an understatement. This young man apparently was mentally incapacitated in some fundamental way. He just would not speak!
However, the tragedy of this disability was compounded by the fact that the boy apparently was allowed to remain isolated in his disability. Perhaps it was his family’s cultural background that contributed to the problem. It may be that their impoverished circumstances contributed. News reports tell us his parents worked very long hours leaving their children alonea great deal of the time. In school years, his teachers made efforts to reach him, but in the end, he was passed along, year by year, grade by grade. I am certain that dedicated educators, guidance counselors and school administrators tried to work with him and his family. But how is it possible that, with only minimal verbal communication skills or willingness in classroom work, this student could be evaluated as a successful to the point to being recommended for college?
Certainly our state’s legal system failed him. Is it possible that there is nothing in the law that prevents such a student from being passed along…to the point that he gets to be an upper level student in college; even though he refuses to answer a professor’s direct questions in class; even though some professors did not know his name? Mental health specialists tried to intervene without success, failing to assess the seriousness of this boy’s problems. And, let’s not even begin the discussion of how such an individual- or any individual in the Commonwealth of Virginia- can so easily purchase automatic weapons- a type of firearm available in most countries only to law enforcement authorities.
And what about the religious organizations, the churches of Northern Virginia, the large youth groups in Fairfax County available to Korean youth, and all youth, with their tremendous outreach; all of our churches with all of the resources we spend on youth ministry? None of us made contact with the lonely boy, this isolated youth. How is that possible?
How is it possible that this boy’s family, part of a self-defined close-knit ethnic community in Northern Virginia, was all but invisible to that community? Loners! Countless neighbors, acquaintances, clergy and other leaders in the 200,000 person Korean community here say that they did not know this family, and had virtually no record of their participation in their churches or other organizations. Even the head of the tightly-knit dry-cleaning industry trade organization in this area, stated to the media that he is astounded that he had not heard of the father or mother. He thought he knew all of the people in his industry in the region.
II.
In the days since the shootings, my mind has been stuck on a line from an old Beatles’ song, “Eleanor Rigby.” It’s a song of despair and mockery of the institutions that the older generations had established. Of course, ‘guess who is now the older generation! You may recall some of the lines-
Ah, look at all the lonely people
Ah, look at all the lonely people…
Father McKenzie writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear
No one comes near.
Look at him working.
Darning his socks in the night when there’s nobody there.
What does he care?
All the lonely people.
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong…
As a young seminarian, this song sometimes troubled me. I wondered if my ministry would turn out that way- writing sermons that no one will hear! In those mid-‘60’s days, Vietnam days, all of us preparing for ministry worried about the power of the gospel and the Church to combat the power of bombs and politics and the social alienation all around us. The Beatles seemed to represent a countervailing drug culture of abandonment of everything that seemed solid. Respected theologian Paul Tillich began suggesting that we should give up praying to God and try praying instead to “the Ground of Our Ultimate Being.” It was a lonely time of soul searching, and of searching for the soul of the church.
And in that search, some of reclaimed the Church as faith community. We realized that it was all well and good to be a medieval mystic or a spiritualist. We knew we needed to return to daily chapel at the divinity school and to relearn how to pray in worship that spoke relevantly to the day’s struggles. And we reaffirmed, with Bill Coffin and other great social justice and anti-war activitists that we must state clearly our convictions in the public forum—that the Gospel of Jesus Christ called all people to peace with justice. But we also reaffirmed in those chaotic days that, underneath it all, without faith community, the Church gathered, we would be in danger of losing our souls. That is to say, we would become lonely people, wandering from cause to cause, alone.
And God does not create us to be alone. God creates us to live in community. Even monks live in supportive community as they devote themselves to their ministry of contemplative prayer for humankind. Our morning texts help us understand the power of community.
Psalm 23, the most well-known psalm if not text of all Judeo-Christian literature, tells of God’s love and protection even in the most dangerous of circumstances. The shepherd has responsibilities for his flock. But God is with him in the loneliest and darkest of places…leading him to the lushest of grazing for the welfare of his flock. God’s love represents the love of the entire faith community, the temple gathered and scattered. The shepherd is by himself but not alone for he cannot help but he aware of holy protection and the warmth of faith community such love represents. For him, a table is prepared, even in the dangerous wilderness!
The early missionaries, represented by Peter in Acts 9:36-43, revive Tabitha (Dorcas, Gazelle) thereby showing all around them the power of God through them. This faithful woman is not to remain lifeless, but to live and bear witness to God’s resurrection love. The church in Joppa thrives and grows for the miracle is not done in secret but for the benefit of the vitality of the faith community and its powerful witness of bring life to all people. All people are to get up and be united with the Lord and one another.
Finally, we find in John 21:1-17 a witness of a faithful follower who cannot resist making clear his faith that Jesus was and is raised from the death and is alive to all who have eyes to see and are ready to follow him. While scholars debate whether Chapter 21 should have been included in this gospel, most agree that it provides an indispensable witness to the early church and to us. For who of us would deny that the purpose of the church is to feed my sheep, to nurture all people in the faith community to greater faith- and to find any lost sheep beyond the church door and bring them into communion with God their creator and into Christ’s body on earth, the Church?
III.
There we have the mandate for the Church, for Rock Spring Church in 2007,
and for each of us individually in our lives each day-
To seek the lost and lonely as we have been sought,
and prepare a welcome table of safety and hospitality,
as one was once prepared for us.
To help all people who are discouraged and despairing, alienated, left for dead.
To get up! Rise, be alive again!
To feed (God’s) sheep, like we have been fed,
By faith community, the church.
That there be no more lonely people…
In our families, our churches, communities…our nations…
Because we notice, care, go the extra mile of concern on their behalf…
Not easy sometimes….
May take us into courtrooms for advocacy…
Into homeless shelters, detox centers…
Into facilities for the aging…
Into all manner of situations…
But it is holy work…
For no one is created to be alone…all alone…
The Church is called to go to all the lonely people…
Even as today, we pray for the lonely and lost family of the boy who was so lonely and lost that in his sickness he finally exploded…
Their pain is our pain too…
And there is only One who can help us know where we all belong now. Amen.