Dismissals

Gruff, with calloused hands, Andy was retired after fifty years at the mill. In our church, Andy was a quiet, steady presence in the choir and at Bible study. One day, Andy said he wanted to do something to help people. Our priest asked, “Well, what can you do?” Answer: “I can run a crane and I’m good with a shovel.” Our priest said, “Not much call for those but tell me what you would most like to do to help people.” Answer: “I’d like to read books to people who can’t read.” To this day, Andy’s ministry is reading.

We were a mixed group visiting West Texas. We had been invited to a Texas steakhouse by Texans. Branding irons and steer horns were the decor. We sat at a big table. The waitress came, “What’ll ya’ll have?” Orders were taken. A man at our table, the last to order, spoke in a loud voice, “I’m a vegetarian!” The room went silent. Forks stopped in midair and the discomfort was palpable. People stared. We drew a collective breath but the waitress didn’t miss a beat, “Just you wait a little minute and I’ll be right back with our vegetarian menu.”

“I am glad I answered your call today though sorry for the news you shared with me. I will remain prayerful about this and listen intently to God for what I am to say or do, though often God would have me say or do nothing, only to be silent, a listener and a friend, never to believe that I alone can remedy problems like yours, as much as I might like to. I will be here for you until God’s word comes to us. Until then, let us continue to share, one with the other, God’s grace and peace.”

The words ‘Thank You’ open our hearts to God’s love. Lord, thank you for the loving hands that prepared this food. Lord, thank you for the rough hands of persons unknown to us, strangers in the fields who worked to gather this food for our table. May they be with us in spirit. May this be a holy hour as we break bread together, as we refresh ourselves in one another’s love, and so in yours. And if a stranger should knock at the door, let them in! For by doing so, some have entertained angels without knowing it. Amen

I’ve visited for years at the men’s homeless shelter in Cleveland but today, for the first time, I visited at the women’s shelter. Sophia was born in Armenia. Her grandparents survived the genocide and began the long, circuitous journey to the United States. Sophia cared for her parents until they died. She lived in their home until she herself fell ill and lost her job. Sophia was evicted as utility bills and home repairs overtook her. Still, her faith remains. “God has been with me this far, from Armenia to Cleveland. God will carry me the rest of the way.”

The man looked lost in the post office lobby. I asked him what he wanted. Stamps? Mail a letter? He looked about and said softly, “I best go now.” He turned toward the steps. I walked beside him. A van, a woman in the driver’s seat, waited. I helped him with his seatbelt. She asked him, “Did you get Christmas stamps?” The man may have shrugged, I’m not sure. Good fortune was with us. I had a few of the new Christmas stamps. “Here,” I said, “Don’t forget these.” The man may have smiled, I’m not sure, but I did.

He sat on a chair in her kitchen and railed against the world, against the bad luck, betrayals, abandonment by friends and family, against miseries and ruin heaped upon him. She nodded, sliced bread, cut meat, stirred soup and rinsed a ripe tomato in the sink. The man sat in the quiet for a long while, anger trickling away, hungry now. She took down a bowl and a plate. She ladled soup and upon the plate she placed bread, meat, sliced tomato and a dab of … was it mustard? You never know what you will get when God prepares lunch.

Pete told me, “If you intend to do something that hasn’t been done before, be ready for the people around you to say it cannot be done.” Thomas Edison: “I think I’ll invent a telephone ….” Jonas Salk: “Maybe a vaccine will work ….” Herman Melville: “I will write a book about a white whale ….” Naysayers notwithstanding, they did what they set out to do. So can we. We can build up the church, feed the hungry, house the homeless, be peacemakers in a troubled land. Folks will say “It cannot be done,” but then, we are not working alone, are we?

The words are carved on a seven hundred year old wooden door in the lower galleries of the Cleveland Museum of Art. “Mal Vit Qui Ne Mande.” Linguists speculate what these early French words mean. Best guess: “One lives badly who does not ask.” As for me … I did not ask her to the dance … I did not ask my dad about the war … or my mother about the ring she gave away … I did not ask my sister about the cancer that took her life. Too late to ask those questions … but not too late to ask other questions.

Workers in an office, bent over their desks, waiting for five o’clock. Kay the custodian came by every afternoon, stood in the doorway and asked cheerily, “How’s your basket?” By this Kay meant, ‘Is your wastebasket full? Should I empty it?’ No one ever answered her. Kay came in and picked up the wadded paper, bottle caps, cigarette butts and whatnot that had been hurled at the wastebasket and missed. Her work done, and no conversation to be had, Kay left. The years went on. Kay died and left two daughters. Who knew? An Army Lieutenant and a university professor.

During the service of Yom Kippur, I heard a story of the Second Jewish Temple. Destroyed in 70 Common Era, the Jewish community needed a substitute for the offering of sacrifices at the Temple. Two rabbis walked past the ruins of the Temple. Said one, “What will we do now without the place that atoned for the sins of Israel?” His companion replied, “We can still atone, just as we did through sacrifices, but now we will do so with deeds of loving kindness, for every act of kindness is a prayer, a prayer that walks, moves, breathes and lives.”