The Miscellaneous Children

“Congratulations”, the email said, “I hope you feel validated in your ministry.” We celebrated with you in spirit”.  This in response to my email indicating that I wouldn’t be present for regular church service because the agency I am blessed to be the leader for, had been nominated and selected for an award, and I would be accepting the award that day.   

That congratulatory email sent me into the cave—that cave of silence and introspection—that place of silence I retreat to when things are too hard and too heavy to bear.  No way for the sender to know that I would somehow be triggered into doubt and despair and the ever spiraling “what if’s” of my interrupted path to ordained ministry in the church denomination that owned my heart.  No way for the sender to know that, though I had begun the process of thawing out from the big freeze that had become my latest coping mechanism, that simple sentence – “I hope you feel validated” – would send me back into lock down, and into a hole from which the only way out, was to crawl out on my hands and knees and to prostrate myself at Jesus’ feet in surrender to whatever it was that God was saying, whatever it was God wanted me to see, whatever it was God needed me to surrender to—again.

All this frozen in the cave-ness, in the middle of the time that I should be writing a sermon because somehow I am now on the rotation and it’s my turn. OY!

Routine is generally a good antidote when one is on spiritual lock-down. My routine is running a busy agency where no days are exactly the same. My agency is such that the running joke is that we show up every day just to see what’s going to happen next. There is nothing really routine about my daily work routine. We do what needs to be done, we do it with care and with heart, and occasionally something magical, mystical even, happens. 

The mystical happens for me a lot at my agency. I am spirit-led so I recognize it when I see it. Daily, I lean into the Holy Spirit to lead, guide and direct me. I do this because for the most part, I generally don’t know what I’m doing.  This perhaps seems an odd thing to say or even admit. But the simple truth is that the work unfolds and evolves and is only slightly predictable. On any given day we gear up, prepare as best we can, and simply move from one task to another because we know what needs to be done, and we are reasonably sure we are doing the right and appropriate thing.  Nothing is ever certain. The work, is very like life; you go on – day by day—doing what’s necessary—because to not do so is irresponsible—there are people depending on you—lives in the balance—bills must be paid—people must be tended to—and even if the world ended tomorrow—that’s tomorrow—this is today—and stuff TODAY needs to be dealt with.

So, while turning my face and attention to my routine, a story unfolds smack in the middle of the team meeting – during the round the table check in—a story – a life story about families, about alcoholism, about mental illness, about abuse and childhood neglect—and how one team members son, until very recently, never wanted to go to his grandmother’s house out of fear of being left there like the other miscellaneous kids that were there. These miscellaneous kids had found a haven at the grandmother’s house.  This grandson, even at his tender young age,  knew on some level, that these miscellaneous kids had been abandoned,  maybe not physically, maybe not completely. But for some reason, those children had found a safe haven in the house of someone not officially their family.  That inner sense of possibly being abandoned made him afraid. So he simply refused to go, or be left there without his parents.  

And since we were clearly off the agenda of the meeting—and because this is actually how we roll at our agency—we stopped; we paused in that time and space where the Spirit of Truth showed up – we paused for that spirit to spirit connection that was happening …and I spoke up ….”I was one of those miscellaneous kids”, I said, I was one of those kids that found a safe haven in the neighborhood—that house where that lady lived—who let you play and gave you cookies and really looked at you when you spoke.  That lady – an angel from God really—who didn’t ask why you were there, just enfolded you in with the rest.  The moment passed, we carried on with our agenda. Tasks were delegated. On to the next thing.

But the story of the miscellaneous children, of which I was one, wouldn’t let me go after that meeting.

I tried and tried to write a normal type sermon, a text, a title and three take home points, but the words wouldn’t come together in a way that seemed real or true.  So, I went to the text this week to see what David or Paul or John had to say about miscellaneous children and their journey through life.  And there, right there did Spirit speak --and pierce through the veil ---and demolish my unbelief and my lack of faith.

  

For like Paul, or in his earlier incarnation, Saul, I have been a true believer. I have been a grasping on with both hands soldier for the church.  Some would say, simply by virtue of my membership in some of the most fundamental Christian denominations, that I was very, very orthodox or conservative, if we want to go there, in my Christian belief and practice. My daughter could tell you old stories of my “issues” with Halloween, and of my being firmly in the camp of “keeping the Christ in Christmas”.  I’m BETTER NOW.  Somehow though, even though I was very fundamental, I have always been a social worker, even before I was officially a social worker – because we are BORN not MADE—and the realities of people’s lives dampened my enthusiasm for “all they need is Jesus”.  Because even back then, I knew that, yeah, they needed Jesus, but they also needed someone to help them get their faces out of the mud, and to help them get food in their bellies, and to help them get to safe shelter FIRST—and then maybe I can tell them about Jesus.

So, reading about Saul, before he was Paul, I understood Saul’s zeal for the Jewish faith.  The Old Testament historical account of the journey of the Children of Israel, had taught the Jews of Saul’s day, that disobedience of God’s laws and God’s ways would cost them dearly, so they held fast to what they thought they knew.  It was Saul’s job to root out and destroy that which would endanger the nation, that which would tip the balance of that tricky little dance of home rule that the Jewish authorities had worked out with the Roman authorities. Saul, and his Jewish countrymen and women were children of trauma, historical and culturally embedded trauma.  As a survivor of trauma, I understand the language.  I understand about clinging to a person, clinging even to the dogma of the family, because this is what you know, and it is terrifying to know or even think of the consequences, the known consequences of straying off the path.  Straying off of the path will get you exiled away from your land, all that you know, all who you love. You will be abandoned by your God, and cast out to spend your days outside of the city gates, away from love and safety, separate, apart, no longer considered worthy to be cared for. Trauma. Those lingering effects will keep you lock step committed to a cause, a person, a country, a political system, a way of life, because THIS. IS. ALL. YOU. KNOW.  THIS is all you’ve been taught. There is safety and belonging by staying within the lines of all you know, all you’ve been taught.  So, Saul, in his zeal, pursued to the death, those who, in his mind, would rain down punishments on his country, on his people. Saul was good at his job. Saul, by all credible reports was a smart guy, a dedicated guy, a passionate and determined guy. A guy who embodied the mission, and pursued it with all he had.  This was how he came to be on the road to Damascus. Pursuing to the death those who would tear down the fabric of safety and security he and his countrymen and women fought and died for across the centuries. 

The Road to Damascus, the text says, is where Saul’s life, got turned upside down and sideways, and all he knew, all he understood was ripped away by a supernatural visitation by none other than the risen Savior himself, who blinds him with his holy illumination and at once separates him from all he knows, and chooses him for divine purpose.   When Saul is healed by Ananias, the text says that “scales fell from “ Saul’s eyes. I submit that those were more than physical scabs that fell, but Saul’s heart and mind were changed—in that moment, Saul, now Paul, was given new sight, new INSIGHT about God, the world, his life, his purpose. 

So as I kept trying to put together a regular sermon, with a title, and three take home points, I continued my review of the lectionary text for this week when God coaxed me out of the cave of frozenness with Psalm 30, where through the words of David, God spoke plainly and gave me new eyes to see--- that in the year of my defeat, awards and accolades abound.  Because you see, this most recent accolade, for which I received the congratulatory email, was not the first. In the 16 months that I have been sitting outside the city gates, set adrift by the church of my heart, there have been several awards, and magazine features, books launched – lot’s of praise and fanfare for me, and for this agency where I serve, and where I lead. And that was all fine and wonderful, but it was still not ministry, or at least not considered ministry, by those with the power and authority to name a thing as such. It didn’t matter that I believed the work I was involved in was sacred, it only mattered that what I was doing was not leading people to sit in the pews of a local church, somewhere—or at least that’s what I was told.  

So when you are in the cave, you need for The Word to talk to you, and from the words of David in Psalm 30, came this prayer of praise:

“God—you brought up my soul from the dark cave, you did not let my foes rejoice over me;  O’Lord – awards and accolades abound for this sacred work, in the year of my defeat.  You, O’God, thawed out my heart through the love, acceptance and validation of my gifts, you allowed me to experience Resurrection – you ended my exile, my isolation from your house.  You reclaimed me.”

It was like the scales falling from my eyes.

After Paul's encounter on the road to Damascus, this adult child of cultural trauma became a miscellaneous adult child of trauma. Abandoned by all that had been his foundation.  Now having to rely on the help and kindness of strangers, strangers who offered their help, reluctantly, but out of obedience to the risen Savior, stepped past their own comfort zones to aid in the healing and help of this enemy, turned brother.  And for Paul, accepting help from those who would give it, even those who gave it reluctantly was only the beginning of his journey of going where he was led, talking to people who mistrusted his motives, never again being accepted back into the family of his birth.  Paul was now a part of the miscellaneous community. That community that Jesus built with his body and with his blood.  Those reclaimed to the heart of God.  Partnering with people he didn’t know, humbly, because of his past misdeeds, Paul didn’t necessarily feel worthy to be among their numbers.  Many of these, who might have been his family of choice, could not accept who he ultimately became.  Paul was a miscellaneous adult child, called to do a great work, without the grounding that had served him his entire life.  Yet, in the end having the legacy as perhaps the greatest disciple of Jesus.  

Miscellaneous kids often have trouble with acceptance and belonging. It's hard to trust anything but your own truth. Many times they are difficult to understand. Hard to know.  Once they believe something, unless they have an encounter on the road to Damascus, they are often immovable forces.   God has to get their attention in a big way, to bring a new level of awareness.  Before this latest award, I had been living in my own version of the road to Damascus.  God’s illumination kept growing ever brighter, the longer I resisted coming out of the cave of frozenness, that place of safety and retreat.   

This text, marks, only the beginning of Paul’s ministry. All that he initially feared would come to pass—he would be rejected by family and friends. He would be ousted from his faith community. Even the new people that might have been his friends because of their now shared belief system, could not forgive him for his earlier misdeeds and did not fully welcome him into the fold. But then that was not his purpose.  Paul’s purpose was to be the instrument God used to bring to pass the Gentile Church, and he fulfilled that mission, unto death.  Paul had to go his own way to fulfill his mission.  Scripture tells us that he knew, in the end, that he had fought the good fight.

In true miscellaneous kids fashion … the writings ascribed to Paul are hard to understand at times. His motivation often comes to question. His purpose is often challenged by the powers that be. But if there were ever a take home message from the text this week, it is that even though the powers that be doubt you, reject you, count you out, we still must show up every day, to whatever work God has called us to, and present ourselves as willing servants of the most High.  We still, no matter our circumstance, “affirmed”, lauded and celebrated or NOT, we still must SHOW UP fully each day to meet the DAY.  We show up, if for no other reason then, just to see what God’s going to do NEXT. We remember that we are simply grateful that God chooses to use us in the feeding of His sheep.  We are not sure, when we are being brutally honest with ourselves if what we are doing is ministry in the traditional sense—but we absolutely know that when we look into the face of the one standing before us expecting rejection, but receiving acceptance instead—we know for sure—that the work we do is holy.  And in that moment, graced with a sense of the sacred, we can surrender to calling it, not a work, but a ministry.  And after all that, the only thing left to say is, Amen. Amen.