Christians--Stand Up for Jesus not Politicians

photo by Daimon Eklund / flickr

For quite a while now I have been worried about our country. The mean-spiritedness of the current administration reflects some of shabbiest of our values--if we call them values. The President sets the pace for the rest of the country. Cruelty, selfishness--bullying have no place in this society. Countries who have looked to us for years as the the shining city on the hill feel like the lights have been turned out. To privatize everything institution simply will throw more and more money into the hands of the already well-heeled. 

It was horrifying to hear right-wing pundits say terrible things about the millions of kids that marched for life just days ago. They have been made fun of, debased, called ugly names--and even accused many of them of being paid actors. Those who crawled under desks to save their own lives--while watching their classmates gunned down have a right to speak. The current climate which begins at the top trickles down and people feel license to smear and hate anybody that disagrees with them. This is not the American way.

The article I hope you'll read is published in Sojourners Magazine by its Editor Jim Wallis. Jim Wallis has been on the front line of peace and justice issues for many years. Once in Birmingham I heard him speak. He held up a copy of the Bible. It had holes all in it. He said this is the American Bible. He had taken a razor blade and taken out every passage that dealt with the poor and needy. Many of those holes have never been filled. Today we might snip out the Ten Commandments and all those passages dealing with peace and justice issues as well.

Bill Coffin once said, "Where there's doubt, there's more considered faith. Likewise, when citizens doubt, patriotism becomes more informed. For Christians to render everything to Caesar--their minds, their consciences--is to become evangelical nationalists. This is not as distortion of the gospel; that's desertion...It's wonderful to love one's country, but faith is for God. National unity too is wonderful--but not in cruelty and folly."  

A group of leaders of almost every mainline denomination met on Ash Wednesday to ponder the state of the nation and the church. They call their document: "A Confession of Faith in a Time of Crisis."
If you read their words you will find they are concerned Christians--as we all ought to be. This document gives me great hope. 

https://sojo.net/articles/reclaiming-jesus-trump-evangelicals

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

It's Easter!

I've had this picture in my office for years and years. I look at it when I need hope. Maybe it will help you too.

  

Propped up on pillows, she asked, “Whatcha going to preach on Easter Sunday? She had been in the hospital for days. She had an IV in one arm and her hair was coming out from the assault of chemotherapy. “Wish I could be there…” and she left the wistful sentence hanging. What was I going to preach on? “You’ve asked a good question.” I said. “ Easter is the hardest time for the preacher to preach. Easter is just too big to capture. There is no way you can put Easter into words. I guess that is why we use Easter lilies and a lot of music.” I kept thinking: what was I going to say on Easter Sunday? I responded to my sick friend like this: “What am I going to preach on? I’m not sure what I’ll talk about. Maybe I will begin reminding everyone that Easter began in the dark, in the cemetery with a cluster of weeping women. That’s quite a stretch from Easter bonnets and Peter Cottontail. But Easter came at a hard time. They couldn’t get over the execution of their Lord—the injustice of it all. Their grief was heavy and more than they could take in.” She said, “I never thought about it that way.” “Yeah, it’s a part of Easter we usually miss. Easter comes to the hard places in life. To the things we don’t understand. To grief and unfairness and dead-end streets. I think Easter means that this special day is for anybody who faces the darkness and the unfairness of life.”

“You got me to thinking, Sally. Maybe I’ll move on to talk about Mary Magdalene and how she stood at the Empty tomb weeping. Christ’s body was gone and she assumed someone had stolen it. She stood there talking to someone she thought was the gardener—she finally came to see that she was talking to Jesus. If you read the accounts of Jesus’ appearance to others, we get the feeling that Easter was hard to see. Hasn’t it always been that way? With our fifteen-year-war and wounded vets and Washington scandals. All those kids who hid under desks and feared for their lives who marched last week. We worry about a multitude of things. What’s true and what’s false. All the lies.

Easter is hard for most of us to see. It must be hard for you lying in that bed, worrying about the future. Don’t you wonder about what Easter has to say to all these other people in these hospital rooms?” She said, “I’ve thought about that a lot. I never wondered too much about if Easter was real or not until I got sick. Now I think about it all the time.” “Easter has always been hard to see for most of us,” I told her. “ No wonder so many find it hard to believe.”

“Christ called Mary’s name that morning in the cemetery. So Sunday, “I told her, “I might say that Easter is a very personal word. Everybody’s name is called. We are all included. So much of religion today deals with who’s in and who’s out. Easter is not some yardstick of judgment. ‘He is risen’ spread like wildfire because it was best news that ever was. Easter touched their needs. The woman with a sordid past. The old mother overwhelmed in the loss of her son. The doubter who could not believe what he could not see. Easter walks into every hospital room and knows the names of those in every bed. Easter is not qualified by status or health or gender or race or sexual orientation. Some want to pare Easter down to the size of our prejudices but Easter cannot be boxed in--everyone’s name is called.”

            Easter is more than azaleas and dogwoods blooming and the lushness of the first greens of springtime. But maybe the budding flowers and trees are a sign that the life force really is stronger than the death force. None of us need despair. My friend in that hospital room. The woman who stamped my ticket at the parking lot when I left. Even the man that blew his horn and waved an angry finger at me on my way home. The worst things that happen to any of us need not be the last word. 

As I had left my friend’s room she had said to me. “Sounds like a pretty good Easter sermon. Lying here, I need an Easter real bad.”  We all need an Easter. Maybe that’s why it keeps coming around year after year, decade after decade. In the middle of all those signs the kids held up in Washington last week one girl held up a sign that simply said: Hope. Maybe underneath it all hope is what Easter is all about.

photo by John Sonderman / flickr

(This article appeared Easter week-end in the Anderson-Independent (SC) and the Greenville News (SC)


--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

The Sixth Word: "Father"

photo by Chema Concellon / flickr

Some poet wrote words that I think are appropriate for today. Listen:

“Did Mary make a birthday cake

For Christ when he was small,

And think the while she frosted it,

How quickly boys grow tall?

Did Joseph carve some foolish thing

From extra bits of wood,

An ox, a camel, or a bird,

Because the Christ was good?

Oh, sometimes years are very long,

And sometimes years run fast,

And when the Christ had put away

Small, earthly things at last

And died upon a wooden cross

One afternoon in spring

Did Mary find the little toy,

And sit…remembering?”

Slumped there at the foot of the cross, leaning on the disciple John I think Mary remembered when Jesus spoke from the Cross: “Father, into your hands I commend my

photo by Katrina Cole / flickr

spirit.”Today we have taught our children: “Now I lay me down to sleep…”But in Jesus’ day little Jewish boys were taught another going-to-sleep prayer. Mary’s heart must have turned over. For she had taught little Jesus a prayer at bed-time. Do you know  what not was? “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” She would alway remember that the last thing he had said she had taught him. 

So the last word that came down from the cross was: “Father…” Did Mary remember when Jesus was twelve and they lost him?She and Joseph were so frantic. And they finally found him in the temple with the religious officials. And they said, “Why are you here—we were so afraid.” And Jesus said: “I must be about my Father’s business.” 

Father—a word that would be a thread that runs through the whole story. At his baptism, at the beginning of his ministry there was that word again. As he was baptized the Father said: “This is my beloved son…” And Jesus whispered back: “Father…” Early on he taught his disciples to pray. He said, “Our Father…” Or that time when Mary and Joseph came to bring him home. People were saying terrible things about him and his parents wanted to protect him. He said the strangest thing about other brothers and other sisters and even a larger family—and another Father. There toward the end when he gathered his disciples in that Upper Room—do you remember what he said, :”Let not your heart be troubled…in my Father’s house are many mansions…” And then: “I am going away but the Father will send you a comforter—the Holy Spirit to be with you forever.” But he kept saying that word over and over.  That dark night in Gethsemane when he prayed for that awful cup of suffering to pass—what did he say? He said Father. But he used the term of great endearment when he prayed: “Abba,” he said. It meant Papa. “Papa take this cup from me.” And John said, “Mary did you hear what Jesus called God? Papa.” And then dying on a cross—our Lord’s time had run out. There was no other place to go. And he prayed, ”Father…Father…into your hands I commit my spirit.” He was like a child calling out to a parent in the dark. 

We can’t get away from this word, Father. Oh I know some fathers are lousy fathers. I know there are dead-beat Dads. Some are abusive fathers. Mean and cruel. I know there are absentee fathers. I know all that. So many with pursed lips say we can’t use this term Father any more. It diminishes the picture of God. If God is like my Father, they say, God help me. But let us come back to the cross—and listen to the words of Jesus there at the end. There is another Father—an eternal Father strong to save, who saves us from the restless waves. Who saves us from all the perils of the sea. From every perils of the sea.

Of course he said that God was like a mother hen that gathers together her brood and loves and protects them. God is like a mother. But when we bow our heads before sleep comes…we remember he taught us to say: “Our Father…,our Father in heaven.” And when we come here on Sundays after a week of hard work and worries and just tired. We bow our heads and we say it together—for we all belong to him. We are all members of his family. We pray like he taught us to say, “Our Father…”

The phrase is a word of trust. Maybe call it faith. But Jesus had bet his life on the providence of God. “I have meat that you know not of… He gave himself over to the will of the father and so there at the end it was all he had to say. “Into your hands I commit my spirit.”

Sculpture by George Grey Banard
Speed Museum, Louisville, KY

What else is there to say? I told you last week about a funeral I just had. John was 34 years old. He has struggled with addiction for years and years. His parents had done everything they knew to do. And because I had known him since he was a little boy and I always loved him—they asked me to give the meditation at his service. What was there to say? And this is what I said: “We remember the story of a stubborn, stubborn boy that took his father’s money and left home in a huff. He said he’d never be back again. Thank God those days were over. The Father of course tried to hold him back. Nothing worked. And so the old Father every day would ask over and over: “I wonder where he is. I wonder if he is OK. I wonder if he is safe.” Night after night the father tossed and turned. The boy had broken his heart. But one day when the boy’s money was gone and he was starving and nobody would take him in—in desperation and shame—he turned back down that road he hoped he would never see again. Barefooted. In rags. Nearly naked. Skinny and dirty. Ashamed and broken. Smelling of cheap beer. But we know the rest of that story. The old Father ran to meet him. And he would not even let his son finish his confession. He put his gnarled hands on the boy’s face and just looked at him. Just looked at him. And the old Father just opened his arms and took him in. And he turned to his servants and said: “Bring the best robe. Bring good sandals. Bring him a ring —he lost the last one or pawned it. But another ring for it says he is my son. And let’s have a feast—a great feast.”  And the old man remembered the boy’s favorite foods. “Fried chicken. Potato salad. Macaroni and cheese. Homemade rolls. Banana pudding and Red velvet cake. Set the table with the best silver for this my son was dead and now is alive.” Who wouldn’t want a father like that? 

From beginning to end the book there is this word: Father. And we people of faith hang on to it like a life-raft—or should. Where else is there to go. When we slosh through every day. When we face the hard, hard things of life. When we have nothing to say in the face on injustice and suffering. When the world is just too much for us. Jesus taught us that the only word for good times and bad is this wonderful word: Father.  

No one captures this word from the cross better than Victor Hugo in his classic, Les Miserables. The story has stirred millions. It is the tale of little Cosette who is scared and lonely.

Cosette is alone and in the dark that she so dreaded. She strained at the bucket that she was forced to carry. She was quite unaware of the event that would change her life forever. 

“She had only one thought, to fly; too fly with all her might, across woods, across fields, to houses, to windows, to lighted candles. Her eyes fell upon the bucket…She grasped the handle with both hands. She could hardly lift the bucket.

She went a dozen steps in this manner, but the bucket was full, it was heavy, she was compelled to rest it on the ground…She walked bending forward head down, like an old woman: the weight of the bucket strained and stiffened her arms.

                                  .                     .               .               .                  .

Arriving near an old chestnut tree which she knew…,the poor little despairing thing could not help crying: ‘Oh! my God! my God!’

At that moment she felt all at once that the weight of the bucket was gone. A hand, which seemed enormous to her, had just caught the handle, and was carrying it easily. She raised her head. A large dark form, straight and erect, was walking beside her in the gloom. It was a man who had come up behind her and whom she had not heard. This man, without saying a word, had grasped the handle of the bucket she was carrying.

                          .                      .                     .                   .                     .

There are instincts for all the crises of life. The child was not afraid.”*

Later, Hugo writes, the child learned to call him father and knew him by no other name.

Is it any wonder that there, toward the end when it was almost over—he said the word he had been using all his life. “Father…into thy hands I commit my spirit.” Let us use it too.

photo by gato-gato-gato / flickr

*Carlyle Marney, Faith in Conflict, (Abingdon, Nashville, 1957) p.42

(This sermon was preached on Palm Sunday, March 25, 2018 at the First Presbyterian Church, Pendleton, SC)

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

We the People--Not the N$R$A

photo collage by Vince Reinhart / flickr

It's been quite as day. High school kids led the way. Those that hid under desks and saw their fellow-students gunned-down--all 17--had to do something. And so something they did. They planned this Rally today and it spread like wild fire. Every State in the Union had a March for Lives Matter. There were 800 marches in this country alone.

They reminded us of what we adults have let slip away. The Declaration of Independence does not begin with the Second Amendment or even the First. It begins: "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquillity, provide for the  common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States." 

We the People...

Not the N$R$A

We the People...

Not we the Democrats

We the people

Not we the Republicans

We the People

Not we the Lobbyists

We the People...

Not we the President...

We the People

Not we the Congressmen...

We the People

Not we the Senators

We the People.

We the victims

We the bereft parents

We the young people

We the people.

There were 800,000 that filled the streets of Washington. And they filled the streets all over the country. Will the speeches, the dreams, the songs, the camaderie, the marching and the deep love for all the people in American make a difference?

This country does not belong to any special interest group--or should not. It is time...high time...for us to do something about this serious problem that is killing not only our young but citizens of all ages. We the people.

photo by Lorie Shaul / flickr

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

The Fifth Word: "I Thirst..."

rendering by Rembrandt

Today we come to the fifth word that came down from the cross. “After this, Jesus knowing that all was now finished said, ‘I thirst.’ A bowl full of vinegar and sour wine stood there; so they put a sponge full of vinegar on hyssop and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the vinegar, he said, ‘It is finished,’ and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.”

Let's read it again. "After this, Jesus knowing that it was all finished, he said, 'I thirst." After what? After four other words were spoken. After the sun was high in the sky and the afternoon wore on. After the blood had dried and the flies came. After the laughter had worn thin and the crowds had grown tired and began to dwindle away. After the dehydration had set in. For exposure to sun and wind and rain is the worst part they say of crucifixion. The body of the crucified literally dries out. Across the body there would steal a terrible desire for something to quench the thirst--to soothe the burning throat--just a drink to kill the parched, dry feeling for the moment. "After this...Jesus said, 'I thirst.'"

After what? After he had forgiven them—the crowds? After what? After he had remembered a dying thief?  After what? After he had given his mother to John and, the disciple John to his mother. After what? After he had spoken his “Why hast thou forsaken me?”—to the Father himself?

After all of this—we come to the fifth word. ”I thirst.” His time was almost gone. It would not be long now. This is the only word in seven that deals with physical pain. This is the only word that Jesus spoke about his suffering. 

What does this fifth word mean? Unless it means that he identified with all the hurting folk whose needs are elemental and basic. Abraham Maslow—psychologist—years ago said that if we do not meet the basic developmental needs of people we cannot ever deal with their other needs. They cannot hear, they cannot understand, if their primary needs have been ignored. Nor can ours.

Basic needs? The need for bread. The need to be loved. The need to be affirmed. The need to bed warm and safe and free. The need just to have a chance. Rubbing as Q-tip of water over cracked lips, holding a head so gently and putting into their mouths one of those little curving straws and whispering, "Can you taste it?" It's taking a glass of water down a darkened hallway in the middle of the night to a child who has called out, "Mama, I'm thirsty." This is basic business--this fifth word.

photo by Michael Hamann / flickr 

This is also a word for self. It is also a word for humanity. He asked the crowd, "Somebody, somebody out there help me!" Here he stands with all those whom the church has largely ignored. For Jesus knew that until the basic needs are met we cannot talk about other thing. Even Jesus or salvation or heaven or whatever.

Abraham Lincoln told this funny story about an extremely pious chaplain in the Civil War who would go from division to division asking theological questions. The soldiers dreaded to see him coming. He would purse his lips and say, “Do you believe in the sovereignty of God? “ He would say things like: “What do you think of predestination?” “How do you feel about the Antinomians in the book of Galatians.” Real cutting-edge questions. One day after it had rained and rained and the cannons were stuck in the mud, the Reverend came to a boy knee-deep in mud trying to push a cannon out of the mud. Tip-toeing through the muck the chaplain put his hand on the soldier’s shoulder and asked, “Brother, have you accepted the Lord?” And the man turned and said, “Don’t ask me any riddles I’m stuck in the mud!” 

And this fifth word that came down from the cross is a word for all the mud-splattered. They are everywhere.My daughter-teacher talks about all the kids in her school that get breakfast and lunch or they would be hungry all day. And on week-ends the school gives them food to take home in little sacks so they will have something to eat Saturdays and Sundays. This is America. And how in the world can we expect people to get any better when they don’t even have enough to eat. 

And all these people standing outside abortion clinics don’t have time for the born. They are trying to protect fetuses. And we know what happens to those born that fall through the cracks. Every person who has taken an AK 47 had shot up schools and churches—were kids who had never had a decent home life. Never had anybody to really love them. Because nobody met their basic needs—nobody took them a cup of water some night when they needed it. Nobody was there. 

We’re too busy worrying about giving teachers guns and talking about mental health facilities which we have cut almost in half. Talking about prayers in the classroom. Or getting those aging grandmas taking care of grandchildren off the rolls and back to work. Let’s quit dealing with riddles when people are hanging on by their fingernails.

photo by gato-gato-gato / flickr

Our text says that at the foot of the cross there was a bowl of vinegar—really soured wine. It was used for anesthetic purposes. They would place a sponge-full on a spear and hold it up to the parched lips of those on the cross. The crowd heard the fifth word that Jesus spoke, “I’m thirsty” and somebody responded and it helped—it helped enormously. Caring always does.

Caring matters. We’ve all known it. Remember that time you were in the hospital and couldn’t get out of bed. There were too many tubes and you felt terrible after surgery and you couldn’t help yourself. Nauseated and in pain that seemed endless. And you pushed the button on your bed and somebody came. They patted you on the am, they gave you a shot, they lifted a cup of water to your lips and wiped your brow. And that said, “Honey, it’s gonna get better.” And you made it because somebody heard you were thirsty and came and touched your need.

Do you remember the last parable that Jesus gave? What did he say, there toward the end? “Inasmuch as you do it unto the least of these…” Lord, who are the these? Who are they? And he named them one by one: the hungry…the thirsty…the naked…those in prison…the homeless…the sick. Anybody in need. And then he said: “Inasmuch as you do it unto the least of these—you do it unto me.” No qualifications. No deserving. Just folks. 

But we want to talk about the infallibility of the Bible. What are we gonna do with these gays? Reckon he believes in the virgin birth? Why is New Spring so big and we are so little. And down beside all of these we have this fifth word. Simple. Basic. “I thirst.” This is a word of identification. Whoever out there needs. This cross-beam comes all the way down to where you stand and I stand and where we weep and wonder. It is a word for all of us. A word for every human being. Nobody is left out.

photo by Lane Foumerot / flickr

Not even those women who wear hajis on their head and wonder if somebody will say something mean in the mall.  Not even children who dress in old hand-me-downs and never get chosen for anything. Nobody is left out. Not even that little couple with one little baby and not enough money and having such a strain in their marriage. They need somebody to knock on their door and invite them to church or just smile at them in the grocery store—or treat these strangers like they are somebody.

God knows my track record has not been too good with this fifth word. I have passed by more times than I should. Lousy Samaritan. But when I first lived here behind our church there was an old house the Drug and Alcohol Abuse Center wanted to use for a half-way house. Well—that was quite a discussion. But when the dust cleared we finally said yes and these troubled, troubled men came to find healing—we hoped. There was one man that lost his family. They couldn’t take the drinking and the drugs. But he got better and he talked his family into coming back. And the wife worked at our church for awhile. And they needed a place to live. And at that time we were trying to build a Habitat House for somebody. Its was the first Habitat House in Pickens Country. And we chose this family. I even worked a little on that house—but not enough to brag about. But when we finished this couple and their three children moved in. He got a job on a Garbage truck in the city and life began slowly to come together. We moved away. Were gone over twenty years and moved back. One morning I forgot to put our garbage can out. As the truck moved on I ran down the street with my garbage. And yelled, “Stop! Stop!”  And the truck stopped. And a black man got off the back and came to get my garbage sack. As he got closer he looked familiar. It was the man that received our first Habitat House. I couldn’t believe it. “Curtys,” I said. “Curtys, is that you?” And he said, “Dr. Lovette! Dr. Lovette!” “Curtys”, I said, “I didn’t know you were still here.” “Oh yeah” he said, “Still living in the house. Got it paid far. Getting ready too retire from the City.” 

We don’t get enough victories in this business. But once in a while it happens. It is the job of us all. Like that soldier at the cross. He dipped his spear in the soured wine on a sponge and lifted it up to the parched lips of Jesus. Somebody said of all the people around that cross he would have liked to be that soldier. I think he was right. 

Let’s try to take a cup of water to somebody out there who is thirsty. For inasmuch as you do unto the least of these—we do it unto him. Maybe that is where we meet him after all.

(This sermon was preached at the First Presbyterian Church, Pendleton, SC, March 18, 2018)

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

Drugs Addiction--What We All Need to Understand

Linda and Tim Willis--good, good friends lost their 34-year old son, John after years of struggling with addiction. None of us can really understand the deep pain this family carries to this very this day. Pray for them. Linda, John's mother shared the following words of Facebook. They are worth reading. Attention must be paid.
--rl

His Mother, Linda writes these words on Facebook. "Borrowed from an Al-Anon group post. I wish I could credit the writer, but honor the anonymity of the group. John did not choose addiction. Nor did our family."

You yourself may not be a addict but try and love one, and then see if you can look me square in the eyes and tell me that you didn't get addicted to trying to fix them.

If you're lucky, they recover. If you're really lucky, you recover, too.

Loving a drug addict can and will consume your every thought. Watching their physical deterioration and emotional detachment to everything will make you the most tired insomniac alive.

You will stand in the doorway of their bedroom and plead with them that you "just want them back." If you watch the person you love disappear right in front of your eyes long enough, you will start to dissolve too.

Those not directly affected won't be able to understand why you are so focused on your loved one's well-being, especially since, during the times of your family member's active addiction, they won't seem so concerned with their own.

Don't become angry with these people. They do not understand. They are lucky to not understand. You'll catch yourself wishing that you didn't understand, either."What if you had to wake up every day and wonder if today was the day your family member was going to die?" will become a popular, not-so-rhetorical question.

Drug addiction has the largest ripple effect that I have ever witnessed.It causes parents to outlive their children. It causes jail time and homelessness. It causes sisters to mourn their siblings. It causes nieces to never meet their aunts. It causes an absence before the exit.You will see your loved one walking and talking, but the truth is, you will lose them far before they actually succumb to their demons; which, if they don't find recovery, is inevitable.

Drug addiction causes families to come to fear a ringing phone or a knock on the door. It causes vague obituaries. I read the papers and I follow the news; and it is scary. "Died suddenly" has officially become obituary-speak for "another young person found dead from a drug overdose."

Drug addiction causes bedrooms and social media sites to become memorials. It causes the "yesterdays" to outnumber the "tomorrows." It causes things to break; like the law, trust, and homes.

Drug addiction causes statistics to rise and knees to fall, as praying seems like the only thing left to do sometimes.

People have a way of pigeonholing those who suffer from addiction. They call them "trash," "junkies" or "criminals," which is hardly ever the truth. Addiction is an illness. Addicts have families and aspirations.
You will learn that drug addiction doesn't discriminate. It doesn't care if the addict comes from a loving family or a broken home.

Drug addiction doesn't care if you are religious. Drug addiction doesn't care if you are a straight-A student or a drop-out. Drug addiction doesn't care what ethnicity you are. Drug addiction will show you that one decision and one lapse in judgment can alter the course of an entire life. Drug addiction doesn't care. Period. But you care.

You will learn to hate the drug but love the addict. You will begin to accept that you need to separate who the person once was with who they are now.

It is not the person who uses, but the addict. It is not the person who steals to support their habit, but the addict. It is not the person who spews obscenities at their family, but the addict. It is not the person who lies, but the addict.

And yet, sadly... it is not the addict who dies, but the person.

Thanks, Linda for sharing this--which really is a piece of your heart. 

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

John Willis: A Tribute

Ever since I got that sad phone call last week saying John Willis had passed away—no words can express my feelings. And then I remembered those words of the black poet, Langston Hughes. Over and over I kept remembering them. And today I place them down beside the broken hearts of this family and for all of us. They are a prayer:

“At the feet o’ Jesus,

Sorrow like a sea.

Lordy, let yo’ mercy

Come driftin’ down on me.

At the feet o’ Jesus

At yo’ feet I stand.

O, ma little Jesus,

Please reach out yo’ hand.”

Reach out yo’ hand to dear John—you already have. Reach out yo’ hand to Linda and Tim and David and the relatives and friends and all of us. You already have. For this family could not walk down this aisle and sit here without Jesus reaching out his hand.

So we come to honor this special life of John Willis. He was born in 1983 in Galveston, Texas the second son of Tim and Linda. They moved here from Texas when John was about two and a half. And they moved around the corner from our house—and they were our neighbors. And two of the people that came were little John and David. They were two of the cutest the kids I have ever seen. I became friends with that little blond boy and his brother. For five years I was their Pastor. John grew up in this church. Walked down this aisle right here one Sunday and said he wanted to be baptized. And the Sunday of his baptism he wrote this note—right before he was baptized. He read to the church that morning. Here it is:

“I am being baptized because I have accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior. Today I would like to make that public before the church that I love. I do this because I love Jesus and I know he loves me.”

And then he went upstairs and his Daddy baptized him. So I say out loud today—John Willis has been baptized. And from then until now—he has been kept in the Father’s love and the Father’s care.

I know what some of you will say. But he had this problem with addiction for years and years. Yes, he did. And there were times when his demons just raged. But drugs do not nearly define this special life. Or anybody’s. He loved his family. He loved Clemson. He loved baseball. He was on the Soccer team at Seneca High. He attended two different colleges. He was an artist and I am told a great salesman. A charmer. I saw that when he was three years old. So John wore many hats. He was also a son and a brother and a grandson and a nephew and a friend to so many that are here today. But most of all I think he was a Father. To Isaiah. I’ve seen picture after pictures of little Isaiah and his Daddy. He loved his little boy fiercely—no wonder he wanted to beat his addiction and raise Isaiah. In the Fellowship Hall look at the pictures of John and Isaiah. They are wonderful.

John wanted to continue to live—and I don’t think he had any intention last week of dying. He just wanted peace—he just wanted the demons to subside. He just wanted to be like everybody else—not knowing that everybody is a whole lot like him. We are all poor little sheep who have lost our way. We are broken. Maybe not as John was broken. But we are all broken. We are all Prodigals. Maybe we still have our shoes…and our coverings…and you can’t see our pain by looking—nobody knows the trouble we’ve seen. But folks we are all part of the human family.

During this Lenten season I have been preaching on Jesus’ seven last words that came down from the cross. And last week—I preached on that third word. From the cross—Jesus spoke to his mother and he spoke to John. Even in dying he remembered the pain of his mother and the pain of that disciple. And I give that word to Linda and Tim and to David especially. He looked down and remembered them. And the God who could not take the nails out—reached out to his mother and those others, too I think. Mary never forgot those words. And I hope Linda will never forget that that third word that came from the cross is for her. And Jesus linked his mother's grief to John's grief—and he said take care of each other. Is it too much to believe that it is a word for us all—this word of relationship. Take care of one another.

Bill Coffin and the Willlis became friends and Coffin tried hard to help John. When Bill Coffin’s own son Alex died in an automobile accident, he was only 24 years old. Dr. Coffin mounted the pulpit and spoke to his large church family sitting out there a week after the funeral. And he talked about the food they brought and the flowers that came. And he said in a terrible time they were holy reminders of the beauty and life that these gifts bring. But toward the end of that sermon he said to his congregation: “You gave me what God gives us all—minimum protection and maximum support.” And then he said, “I swear to you, I wouldn’t be standing here were I not upheld.” As was Mother Mary…John…all those other scattered disciples. And also Tim and Linda and David and all of us. Minimum protection—but maximum support. And this is why we have come too surround this family and to carry them through the dark days ahead. Some of you here—like Mary and John—come at great risk. You put aside your own griefs and sadness to whisper to this family—we love you and we will care for you. And if we are making it—so can you.

Tomorrow I will turn to the fourth word from the cross. It may well be the hardest. “My God,” Jesus railed out, “my God why has thou forsaken me?” That question just fell down like cold rain on Mary and John and all who came. And like Jesus in this setting—we ask the same question too: “Why have you forsaken dear John and Linda and Tim and all of us. Why? And from beginning to end of the book—there is no answer. The “why’s” just hang there. Why? Why have we lost more to addiction since 2017 than the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and Vietnam combined. More than 64,000. Why? We cannot say. But we weep with those who have lost the battle and every loved one who has stood by so helplessly. I told Linda and Tim—and this is true—you did everything you could. Everything. And sometimes that is not enough. So we have no answer to the why’s.

But we remember the story of the stubborn, stubborn boy that took his Daddy’s money and left home in a huff. The old father could not hold him back. And every day he would ask over and over—where is my boy?  Is he OK? Night after night the Father tossed and turned. The boy had broken his heart. But one day when the son’s money was gone and he was starving and nobody would take him in…he came back down the road to home. Barefooted. In rags—nearly naked.  Skinny and dirty. Ashamed. And broken. And we know the rest of that story. The old Father ran to meet him. And would not even let him finish his confession. The Father just opened his arms and took him in. His beloved son. Saying over and over: "My son! My son!"

And when John slipped away into the mystery on that Tuesday evening in Anderson—we know the rest of the story. The Father—wouldn’t let John finish his confession. He just opened his arms and whispered: “I love you…I love you…It’s all right.” And John has found now what he tried so hard to find here and never really did. A peace and joy and incredible wonder and dazzling light.

But that is not the end of the story folks. For that same Eternal Father strong to save—reaches for all of us—in our grief and in our brokenness. And he will calm all the restless waves…and he will somehow save us one and all from all the perils of the sea. From all the perils of the sea.

We thank God for the life of John Willis. He didn’t live long enough. But he did live long enough to touch his family with a love that will always be. And he loved dear Isaiah as much as anybody could. I still remember the Willis last Christmas here at our Christmas Eve  communion service. I looked back over any shoulder and there were the Willis’—Tim and Linda and David—and John, too coming down the aisle to received what God gives to all his children.  And I waved—and smiled and I threw John a kiss.

And so, friends I leave you with the prayer we began with. It is for us all:

“At the feet o’ Jesus

Sorrow like a sea. 

Lordy, let yo’ mercy 

Come driftin’ down on me.

At the feet o’ Jesus

At yo’ feet I stand.

O, ma little Jesus,

Please reach out yo’ hand.” 

AMEN.

Pastoral Prayer

Lord God—bearer of all our griefs and carrier of all our sorrows…we thank you that in this hard place you do not leave us alone. You are here or we could hardly stand it.

We thank you for dear John and for the many facets of his life. So very many. Like us—he was one of God’s broken children. So we ask you to receive him into that clean, well-lighted place where every tear is wiped away…and death will be no more…and mourning and crying and pain will be no more.

So Lord Jesus reach out your hand to Linda and Tim and David and all of us. Even in our darkness help us to remember that there really is a peace that will pass all understanding. Help us to know deep in our hearts that there is a stubborn, stubborn love that will not let us go—ever.

Thank you,  Jesus for always reaching out your hand.  Here and always. AMEN.

John Willis

May 20, 1983 - February 28, 2018 

(This Meditation was spoken at the Memorial Service for John Willis at the First Baptist Church, Clemson, South Carolina March 10, 2018)

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com