Here's the sermon I preached this past Sunday. It's titled "Practicing Resilience" but, as it often happens, I titled it before I wrote it. A better title is "The Correct Way to Use Spray Paint."
“Practicing
Resilience”
Philippians 4:1-14
May 26, 2013 ~
First Christian Church, Wadsworth, OH
In a sleepy little village a little over 3 hours from
here in western New York, a community woke up to quite a surprise this past
Monday morning. Someone or a couple of people had vandalized several of the
buildings in the town of Randolph, NY. Buildings across the town were spray
painted with graffiti. Many of the messages were malicious in nature. But one
was clearly a cry for help.
Randolph, NY is a small town. Smaller than Wadsworth with
only about 2000 people calling it home. There are similarities. It has several
churches which seem to be at the heart of the community. One of those churches
in Randolph is Grace Episcopal Church. It is a lovely Victorian style wooden
building.
On Monday morning, Father Tom Broad the pastor of Grace
Episcopal began his day like any other until he drove up to the church. There
on the side of the building someone had spray painted in huge letters: Can I
still get to heaven if I kill myself?
Other messages spray painted around the town were typical
messages you would expect to find in graffiti: profanities, vulgar language,
things I would not repeat. But, the message on this church was different. Who
knows why someone wrote that on the wall of the church? Who knows what was
going on in that person’s mind at that moment? Maybe he was just copying some
lyrics from a rap song he knows. Or maybe he was asking a serious question.
Who knows? But, the question was now out there for all of
Randolph, NY to see spray painted on the side of the church. And, the church
had to decide what to do next.
Before I tell you what they did, I want to know. If you
drove up to the church tomorrow and saw a question like that spray painted on
the side of our lovely white church, what would you do? Would you be mad at the
vandals? Would you call up the trustees, go to the paint store, buy a can of
white paint to cover it up quickly? Or, would you answer the question?
Father Tom and the lay leaders of Grace Episcopal
gathered together to discuss the problem before them. They asked themselves,
“Was the person who wrote this suicidal or just being shocking for the joy of
provocation, an adolescent equivalent of a toddler learning he can cause effect
in his world by shouting, “No!”?
The people and clergy of Grace prayed and talked, then
decided it did not matter, at least not that day. They also discovered that
being angry, or feeling violated, or even scrubbing and repainting the wall
were not the most important things they could do on Monday.
Instead, they spoke to the unmet need of those around
them. They answered the question. They answered the shocking question, the “cry
for help,” they found written in foot-high blue spray paint letters on the wall
of their building.
The minister borrowed a can of spray paint from a
neighbor. In green spray paint, in foot-tall letters right next to the
question, he wrote, “God loves you with no exceptions.”
God loves you with no exceptions!
By doing so, Father Tom and the people of Grace Episcopal
Church in Randolph also answered the implied question, “What do I need to do to
be loved?” All that we need to do to be loved has already been done for us. [i]
(*If you want to see the pictures, please follow the links at the bottom of the page. For some reason, I can't get them to load.)
Imagine: in foot tall letters, using the side of this
church building as a social media platform to express love and grace to someone
who is in desperate need of help. What kind of impact do you think a message
like that can have?
The church talked about the way to respond. Somehow a
letter to the editor didn’t seem the right response. On the church’s Facebook
page, Father Tom mentioned that the culprits probably wouldn’t read a letter to
the editor. But they would see the spray painted answer on the side of the
church building. The culprits would see it and so would so many others who
drive by the church every day. And, also the hundreds, if not thousands of
others who have seen it since it hit the internet.
Maybe it’s not the way you or I would respond to an act
of vandalism like that. But I think it was a courageous way. And, I think it
says a lot about the resilience of that small community. You see, the church
only averages about 40 people on a Sunday morning. Like many churches, it is a
small church with a once and glorious past that is facing an uncertain future.
But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a message for the world around it. It
does! A message filled with love and grace. But both the church and the people
on the other side of the doors have become disconnected. In the words of Father
Tom:
“I think people in our parishes sometimes think there’s
Grace Church in Randolph, the Holy Land on the other side of the world, and
nothing in between. This experience has opened us to all kinds of new questions
in the local community and the wider world about how people become disenchanted
with the church, about how they deal with their problems. We can’t help but pay
attention.”[ii]
We can’t help but pay attention! That’s important and
that’s what we need to do. We have to pay attention! We have to pay attention
to what is happening around us. Grace church literally had a question written
on the side of the wall that called them into action. It called them to notice
that the world around it is in pain. That the world around it is changing. And,
they decided to change with it. They did not change the essence of themselves
or what they believe. Instead, they changed their form of communication in
order to address a need in the community.
When Paul wrote the letter to the Philippians, he was in
jail. The Philippians heard about his imprisonment. They had prayed for him and
sought to help him. He was very grateful for their concern and their prayers
and he shares with them the secret of his resilience: Rejoice in the Lord, give
thanks, keep practicing the faith, and know that we can do all things with
Christ who gives us the strength. That’s the secret to being resilient. Notice
though that none of those answers were to stay the same. Paul learned fairly
early in his ministry that he had to adapt his method of communicating the
message depending on his audience. His message about God’s love and grace
stayed the same. And, no matter how many times he was thrown in jail or
threatened or was in distress, Paul remained resilient because he truly felt
and understood that he could do all things with Christ at his side.
If someone spray painted a statement on the side of our
building tonight, what do you think it would say?
Would it have
the same question found on the side of Grace Church? It might. After the deaths
of two teenage boys in our own community, that is a question many kids are
asking.
Or, would the
statement be something else about the poverty in Wadsworth. Or the drug use. Or
bullying. Or hunger. What are the cries for help that our neighbors and
friends, our youth and young adults are too afraid to say in public? What are
the things that concern us all? And, what would our answer be?
When I started
working on this sermon, I kept thinking about those “life comes at you fast”
commercials. Even though things seem to stay the same for the most part, life
can change pretty quickly. And, if we aren’t ready for it, those changes can
overwhelm us. But, when we are prepared, change doesn’t have to overwhelm us.
Paul’s surroundings changed all the time as he moved from location to location.
He adapted to the different cultures. He kept his faith strong. Even when faced
with prison, hunger, and death, Paul held on to his core values: the grace,
love, and faith he had found in God through Jesus Christ.
Those are the
same values the people of Grace Episcopal in Randolph, NY have. Those are the
same values we have. The question for us is how do we share that grace, love,
hope, and faith with a world that so desperately needs it? How do we reach
beyond these doors into a world that looks vastly different today than it did
15, 20, 30 or even 50 years ago? Do we spray paint our message on the wall of
the church? Do we live it out in our lives daily in profound ways? Do we find
new ways to connect with those who think they are unlovable?
I don’t know
the answer to those questions just yet. But I do know a place to start. Please
pray with me: Holy and Loving God, we live in a world that seems to be changing
faster than we can keep up. Sometimes, we need to see the writing on the wall
to realize there are problems surrounding us. Lord, help us to see new ways to
connect with those in need. Help us to be resilient in our faith even as we
learn to respond to the changes in our lives and in our world that we face each
day. We pray this in the name of the One whose love for us never changes. Amen.
[i]
“Western New York: Randolph church responds to vandalism with grace,” Episcopal News Service, May 22, 2013 (http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/ens/2013/05/22/western-new-york-randolph-church-responds-to-vandalism-with-grace/).
& Bob Fitzpatrick, “God Loves You in Randolph NY,” St. Anne’s blog, May 21,
2013 (http://www.stanneswashingtonville.org/2013/05/god-loves-you-in-randolph-ny/).
[ii]
Elizabeth Drescher, “Vandalism as Conversation-Starter,” Religion Dispatches, May 21, 2013 (http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/culture/7120/vandalism_as_conversation_starter/).
