Sermon: Too Much Bad News, January 31, 2010 Kari Nicewander
Too Much Bad News
Kari Nicewander
January 31, 2010
It may not have been great art; it may not have been an exceptional photo. But the image stays with you: the crying child, the elderly man dressed only in his underclothes, a burned-out mountain shack behind them, just a chimney remaining…the charred debris of what had been the family’s sole possession. The little boy clutches a pair of patched overalls and weeps, while the grandfather bends down, speaking to the boy. And beneath the picture are the words of that elderly mountain man, words spoken in the midst of devastation. “Hush, child, God ain’t dead.”
It is a vivid picture in my mind: the burned-out mountain shack, the half-dressed man, the weeping child, and those words "God ain't dead." It is a picture I need in the midst of all of life's troubles and failures; a picture I especially needed over the past few weeks.
Lately, it has been feeling like God is dead. The pictures from Haiti are horrific; not just the mountains of dead bodies, but the agony of the survivors, the suffering of the wounded, the mental images of people with no food or water, of children and elders who wait and wait and wait for relief. Where is God in the midst of this?
And still war continues, and we see a build up of troops in Afghanistan while bombs explode in Baghdad. In our country, we wonder if there will be any success in health care reform, if we will ever get to a place where people get the care they need. We watch as political turmoil threatens progress again and again. In our state, we wonder when job loss will end, when home values will go up, when the economy will get better. And in our lives, we witness the pain of family upheavals, the anxiety of job loss, and the despair of death and loneliness. We long for that voice to whisper, “Hush, child. God ain’t dead.” Is it true? Is it really true? If God ain’t dead, where is God?
Good Shepherd Orphanage has been operating in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, for over 40 years. Papa Cassey, now an elderly man, began taking children into his home as a young priest; over time, with the help of volunteers and generous benefactors, his small home was transformed into a much larger orphanage, where he continued to provide care for Haitian children, usually about 60 at a time. Papa Cassey cared especially for those who were differently abled, children with developmental delays, young adults with mobility issues, babies who were severely malnourished.
It was about four years ago that my mother went to Good Shepherd Orphanage for the first time. As a pediatric physical therapist, my mom helped work with the children, increasing mobility, and helping the caregivers learn exercises and programs that would help the kids develop and grow. She grew to love many of the people there, including a young man named Johnson, who was approaching college-age. After she left, having become Johnson’s “American Mama,” she continued to correspond with him, and has been paying to send him to a university for the past three years. Johnson called her last month, over Christmas, to check back in. His studies were going well and he was looking forward to his next semester.
After the earthquake, our family waited, like millions of people, for word of the orphanage, for word about Johnson. On Thursday night, a phone call came from one of my Mom’s Haitian friends. She was told that Johnson had died. Friday morning I spent in tears, as did she. And then on Friday afternoon another call came; it was Johnson. He was alive. They had mistaken his brother’s body for his.
He asked my mom to come; he asked for prayers and spoke of the loss and the horror. But then he spoke of other things, of the orphanage, where all of the children and all of the caregivers had survived. Where a huge shipment of food had come in over Christmas, and water was still available in their deep well. Not only that, 2,000 people had come to the orphanage, living on the ground, but fed from the stocked up food that had been donated the month before, and nourished from the well that was meant for only 60 children. 2,000 being fed from resources meant for 60.
A few days later, Johnson called my mom again. There was only enough water to last until Saturday, with 2,000 people depending on it, 2,000 people eating and drinking and living at this tiny orphanage. Mona, who had missing for days, was back at the orphanage, running this food and water distribution, parceling it out so that all would have enough, even as they knew it would only last so long. Mona knew the kids, loved the kids; she could have chosen to turn away the hungry; “We only have so much,” she could have said. But instead, she parceled it out, feeding the 2,000. Help came, in time, and the orphanage that housed 60 children, ended up saving 2,000 lives.
Where is God in Haiti? God is at Good Shepherd Orphanage. God is in the vision of Papa Cassey, who started this ministry of love 40 years ago. God is in the hands of Mona, who distributed food and water to the hungry, even as supplies dwindled. God is in the heart of Johnson, who continues to care and to love, despite his terrible loss. God is in the future, in the recovery, in the hope and promise of young Haitians like Johnson. Hush child, God ain’t dead.
Apparently, God was also on Facebook. Immediately following news of the earthquake in Haiti, Facebook users posted status updates containing the word “Haiti” at a rate of 1,500 posts per minute. One campaign, asking people to send 5 or 10 dollars via text messages raised over $27 million. $27 million raised at just $5 and $10 a time. That is an enormous number of donations. Early on, the amount coming in after the earthquake amounted to roughly 10,000 micro-donations per second. Math wise, this means even Americans feeling the worst of the economic crisis, the ones losing homes and losing jobs, texted donations. Furthermore, volunteers from all over the world were ready to leave at a moment’s notice, desperate to help. Skilled crews poured into Haiti from many, many countries, getting there as fast as they possibly could. In the midst of astonishing horror, the world responded with astonishing humanity. Hush child, God ain’t dead.
As images of rubble and ruin stagger us, the image of a refuge offers peace. A refuge for the weary, for the broken, for the wounded, for the mourning…a refuge. This is what the Psalmist writes about in our Psalm for today. God ain’t dead. God is my refuge.
In the scripture, the Psalmist is in enormous amounts of emotional pain. He faces extreme anxiety, knowing that enemies are plotting his death. He sees his accusers consulting and scheming; he knows he is in danger. And so he asks God to be for him what God already is. In essence, he says, God you are my refuge, so be my refuge. God you are my strength, so please, come and be my strength. In the midst of pain and fear and loss, the psalmist asks God to be the God that he has known his whole life.
The Psalm breathes the air of quiet trust, a trust founded on a long life lived in the presence of God. Even though the enemies are plotting against him, he keeps trusting in God. That kind of confidence gets one through the kind of days that Jesus, in our next scripture reading, had to face.
Jesus has endured 40 days of temptation, hunger, and thirst. He finishes this time of trial and begins to teach and preach, traveling throughout the countryside. And finally he arrives home. Nazareth, where he had been raised; the synagogue, full of people who knew him as a child; the Sabbath spent among his people, in his home, in his community. Finally, some rest.
But instead, as Jesus stands up to read and speak, words of praise turn to grumbling, and the happy welcome turns to rage. Jesus, who declares that God’s love is for the outsider, suddenly becomes the outsider in his own hometown. The people in the synagogue are so angry with Jesus, so infuriated by his words of inclusion, that they drive him out of town, and bring him to a cliff; they are ready to kill him, to hurl him from the mountain. And Jesus, having now faced temptation, hunger, thirst, and finally, rejection, walks away. He leaves home, knowing that he no longer has a home.
And this is where God comes in. Because Jesus knows that God ain’t dead. Jesus knows that God is all the refuge he needs. Jesus knows that despite rejection, pain, loss, and fear, God is there. And so he continues on, teaching, healing, and traveling. Because God ain’t dead. In fact, God is alive and well, living in the person of Jesus.
Despite pain, despite people plotting to kill the Psalmist, people plotting to murder Jesus, despite the fear and the loss and the pain, God is not dead. God is our refuge, God is our strength, God is our hope for today and tomorrow.
Now, it may be easy to just say, “Oh, yes. God was a refuge for Jesus, because God lived within Jesus in a unique and special way.” But from what we know of Jesus, we know that he faced fear, that he faced sorrow, that he faced loss. We know that Jesus wept, that Jesus asked God to take away his cup of suffering, we know that Jesus struggled with the choices that he had to make. And we know that Jesus needed his friends; in fact, when Jesus was facing his death, he asked his friends to stay up with him, to pray for him, to care for him and to love him. And we hear the sorrow in his voice when he friends abandoned, betrayed, and denied him. Jesus needed God as a refuge, not only through prayer and faith, but also through the presence of others. God worked through other human beings in Jesus’ life, just as God works through human beings in our lives. And Jesus struggled with pain and sorrow and loss, just like we do.
Later in the service, we will be singing “It is Well with My Soul.” This hymn was written by Horatio Spafford, a man who lost everything he owned after a fire in Chicago. He arranged for his family to move to France, and his four daughters preceded him on a ship across the Atlantic. He would follow in a few weeks. But in spite of all his preparation, the ship carrying his four beloved daughters was rammed by another vessel and sank, carrying his children to the bottom of the ocean. Weeks later, as a broken and devastated Horatio passed over the watery grave of his daughters, he wrote the words to the hymn “It is Well with My Soul,” finding refuge in God. In the midst of deep and horrible loss, Spafford still believed that God was not dead.
A few months ago, 300 people were assembled at the Tony Aguirre Community Center in Kansas City to watch a high school basketball game. In the fourth quarter an argument broke out between two groups of people in the stands. At one point guns were drawn and 8 people starting firing.
As the hail of bullets sped across the hall, 19 year old basket ball player Jullaion Jones quickly stepped off the court, pushed 6 year old Desean Merritt to the floor, and covered him with his body. Jullaion kept protecting the little boy like this even when a bullet grazed him in the leg. “Jullaion moved me and hided me in the corner, and covered his body over mine,” six-year-old Desean explained.
God ain’t dead. Even when homes are destroyed, God ain’t dead. Even when bullets fly across a playground, God ain’t dead. Even when buildings collapse and lives are lost, God ain’t dead. Even when ships sink and children drown, God ain’t dead.
God lives in every hand held out for comfort, every cup of water offered from a dwindling well, every person risking his life for another, every text message donation, every home opened to a stranger, every act of love in the midst of tragedy boldly proclaims again and again - God ain’t dead. God ain’t dead. God ain’t dead.
So let us mourn the losses, let us grieve the pain, let us work for change, for justice, for healing, and for peace. But let us never give into despair, for God ain’t dead. No, God ain’t dead.
