Sermon 2023.05.28
Rev. Wesley Menke
This past Tuesday I had the opportunity to participate in a ride along with Sheriff deputy Chris Carrico, who is a member of this church. Chris is part of a homeless outreach assignment and so we spent the day talking with people who are homeless. I am deeply thankful for the work of Chris and his team, including a nurse by the name of Brittany. Ironically Chris’ wife is named Brittany too! So Chris is very fortunate to have at least two people in his life named Brittany who try to, ahem, focus his work. It kind of sounds like the beginning of a joke: a deputy, a pastor, and nurse walk into a homeless encampment. Normally there is also a person from the Department of Behavioral Health Services on the team. Currently that role is vacant as they look for someone to fill it.
The homeless outreach team approaches people, gets to know them, and offers services to them. It is a job that takes a massive amount of patience and persistence. A few times throughout the day I would ask people, “Would you like a prayer?” Everytime the answer was, “yes.” So we would pray for housing, for health, for safety, and for thanksgiving for the people who do outreach, like Sheriff Deputies and nurses, and social workers.
Today we read in Acts the story of Pentecost, the birth of the church, and the gift of the Holy Spirit, and it says this:
2:21 Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’
Each time that we prayed we called on the name of the Lord to save. But were people saved?
We started our morning off in Rancho Cucamonga and we were in a very nice neighborhood where we saw a homeless couple. They looked out of place in the well manicured suburbs because they had three large shopping carts filled with stuff that they were pushing, and two dogs. We caught up with them at a gas station and talked with them. Both people said they would be open to getting housing, but the other one didn’t want to. One of the questions that was asked was do you have any income? The woman said that she did side jobs that paid about $250 a job. They had two large bags of recyclables; and the guy said that was his job. It makes you wonder though what her side jobs were, and what kind of role the guy played. It is deeply troubling to consider. When they were asked about going to a shelter each blamed the other for not wanting to go. So you could see there was a kind of dependence going on; and probably not a good one either.
That’s not what Paul meant is it? He said in 1 Corinthians 12: Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; 5and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; 6and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. 7To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.
There’s something about being homeless that appears to be kind of an addiction itself bound up with other destructive and addictive habits. It involves dropping out of social conventions and expectations. Once a person is accustomed to living outside of mainstream social conventions and expectations it is so hard to get back into them. There is a bizarre kind of enslavement from not having to work a regular job. It sounds a little bit like our Psalm today.
27All of them | look to you
to give them their food | in due season. R
28You give it to them; they | gather it;
you open your hand, and they are filled | with good things.
29When you hide your face, | they are terrified;
when you take away their breath, they die and return | to their dust.
We drove to Fontana and went up Sierra. There at a bus stop we saw a guy that was well known to the team. This man who wore a Lakers hat had received services from the team some months ago. One of the opportunities to get someone back into civilization is when there is a medical need. So this man had gone to a hospital and then to a skilled nursing facility for some months. But now he was back on the streets.
Nurse Brittany did a thorough job talking to him and assessing his medical needs. When he saw us pull up he looked angry. Why? He didn’t want to be taken away from his friends again. He found the rules of where he had been living to be too strict, and he wanted the freedom to socialize and do as he pleased, even if it degraded and hurt his body.
Who were this man’s friends? There was a man sitting next to him on the bench. He was so out of it that he was nearly flopping off the bench onto the sidewalk, but each time he almost fell off the bench he would sort of wake up enough so that we wouldn’t have to call medical help. Deputy Carrico took great care to keep watch of Nurse Brittany, myself, and the people there making sure that everyone was safe.
You know one of the interesting things that the Homeless Outreach Team told me was that there are a couple of windows of time when people are most open to receiving assistance and getting off the streets. The first window is when someone is first homeless, like within the first year of living on the street. They aren’t yet adapted to the lifestyle and possibly not yet fully and deeply addicted to drugs. The second window comes when they are much older, and tired of living on the streets, they have had enough. So it is like there is a really big donut hole.
John 20: 20:21 Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” 20:22 When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 20:23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
So what is the good news? The good news is that you are saved by grace through faith and not by works. What does this mean? It means that if good works aren’t enough to save us from our sin, they certainly aren’t enough to save unhoused or homeless persons. Good works are like chasing after the wind. It would appear that about 99% of the time people say, “no” to going to a shelter. This can be very discouraging. It makes you wonder if any amount of work would work.
What is needed more than work is faith. Lot’s of faith. The difference between work and faith is that with work we expect something to come out of it. Faith has to do with accepting difficult realities and forging ahead anyway. Faith isn’t a passive attitude where we sit around and expect God to take care of our problems. Faith is believing that each and every human being is made in the image of God; and therefore treating them as such. Serving the homeless, the extremely mentally ill, the criminal, and the drug addicted (these are not all the same) is a true test of faith. I asked the outreach team what keeps them going? Nurse Brittany said that when a person says thank you, and how much it means that they are treated as a human being. Faith is treating people like human beings.
Finally there is grace. What is grace? Grace is the amazing fact that we are alive in the first place; that so many people can hang onto life, smile, and have a sense of humor, and gratitude is grace. Luther’s dying words are, “We are all beggars.”
Up the road on Sierra we stopped at another spot and talked with some people. Two people were in a tent; and two people sat outside the tent. All day long there were some very interesting smells. There were some smells so strong that I can’t really get them out of my head. But at this place there was a beautiful smell of flowers. One man asked for a sleeping bag which Deputy Carrico graciously got out of his truck. Eventually Nurse Brittany asked why it smelled so good. The same man pulled out a bottle of scented Hand Sanitizer and we all laughed. Then we prayed. We held hands. I said in the prayer, “thank you for the sweet smell of fellowship.” That is grace; and there is an endless supply of God’s sweet smelling fellowship and grace. There is enough for all of us, and more than enough for us to be included in fellowship of mutual care and support. Amen.
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