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Over the years I have learned to pay attention when two things come together in an unusual way. We sometimes call them coincidences. Someone has said that a coincidence is God’s way of staying anonymous. A few weeks ago
Lisa shared with me that the Children’s Choir would be singing a piece of
music at the I BELIEVE IN
THE SUN even when it is not shining; There, in a dark cave, in a world gone crazy, it is miraculous that someone could make these affirmations. Not only could think them to him or herself but hoped somehow that perhaps these words would survive beyond his or her life as a witness to the hope that could still be held in the human heart when it appeared there was no way hope could live. They are a powerful testimony for us on this last Sunday of the Church Year, the feast of Christ the King, when we leave the old year and our King to die on the cross. When Lisa told me about this anthem, I immediately made another connection, and I decided that I would share with you the story of Mike. I have the words of this anthem on my altar on a little plaque given me by a young man named Mike just before I went on sabbatical two and a half years ago. I had met Mike
in the Mental Health unit of the local hospital where I was serving as chaplain.
He was 27 and totally without family who would own him. He had been abandoned by
his parents and put in a group home when he was ten. He had moved
from He impressed me in a couple of ways. First, he had no body and no where to go when he left the unit. He also knew his Bible and would tell Bible stories when he thought they fit in with whatever was happening. I think he was trying to reach out to me, and it worked. When you serve as chaplain on such a unit, you have to be careful that you don’t show partiality or become over involved with a patient in an unhealthy way. When Mike was deemed ready to leave the unit, I asked him if I could visit him at the half-way house where he would be leaving for awhile and he said yes. So I went there and had dinner with him and his housemates and became a frequent visitor. I asked him if he would like to come to the church where I was a priest. He said yes, and I made arrangements for someone in the neighborhood to pick him up. Mike loved the worship services. He liked the people and the people liked him. He came every Sunday, and he looked around to see what needed to be done. He shoveled snow; he swept walks. He even noticed that my right side mirror on my car was being held on with duck tape and he somehow got the part and fixed it for me. Meanwhile, social services was finding a place for Mike to live, they found a subsidized two room apartment in a public housing unit for the elderly and disabled. Mike qualified because he had a severe seizure disorder and could not hold steady employment, in spite of all his talent for fixing cars. His new friends at the church helped him furnish his apartment. We found a table and chairs, a bed, a dresser, pots and pans and dishes. Two older women in the church had taken him under their wings, and he sat with them every Sunday. They added the finishing touches. His new home was close enough he could walk to the church, and I would often arrive and be told that Mike had been there earlier, raking the pin oak leaves that come down in the spring, or doing some other job he noticed needed doing. When it came to Holy Week, he participated fully in all the services. When the usher for Good Friday failed to show up, he took over the job of passing out bulletins. The Easter Vigil and Easter Day services were absolutely elating for him. Shortly after that he came to a newcomer event and sang and met people and told me later that he felt he could just be himself at Trinity and that he was accepted for who he was. Still, I was concerned that while I was on sabbatical the doors might close a little for him, and so I made sure people would look out for him and drop by and visit with him. When I stopped by to visit him, he would always have a friend or two. He would have been doing something for someone. He also had a cat by now—a stray that recognized his good heart and moved in. The last time I went to visit, just before I went on sabbatical in May, he gave me the plaque with the I BELIEVE words on it. It wasn’t that he spent a lot of money; he had seen it at a garage sale and thought of me. So he bought it and gave it to me. I was very
touched. I told him I would put it on my desk, and I told him I would see him
when I came back from sabbatical. Off I went to I had been back in the country for two weeks, but still on sabbatical, struggling with whether I should drop by and see how he was doing, when I read in the paper a brief obituary for Mike Guess, age 27. I found out later he had had a severe seizure and died in his apartment alone. He was found by one of his many new friends the next day. It was a hard death for me and for the church partly because he was so young, partly because he was so alone. But after the shock of it, we realized that we had played an enormous part in creating a happy, meaningful time in his life. His last months were peaceful, joyous ones for him, because of the church. So, why do I share this story on the Feast of Christ the King? I share it because of the archetypal myth of the king who goes disguised as a beggar. You know how it goes. Some people are invited to come and to meet with the king. On their way they pass by a beggar. Most people ignore him. But when one person simply responds to his human need, he discovers his true identity and he is richly blessed. There is a version of this in Matthew 25 when Jesus tells the people that visited in prison and clothed the naked and fed the hungry and sheltered the homeless that they did this for him. In our Celtic tradition, we have this Rune of Hospitality I saw a
stranger yestreen; Mike was such a stranger, a Christ figure, a disguised king. I could go on and on about some other interesting things about him—he liked to fish, an apostolic hobby if there ever was one. He had the name of the Archangel Michael. They make him no more or less someone we were privileged to take in and get to know, to help on his way. He gave us the gift of knowing how important a church family can be for someone who is in the words of theologian Robert Capon, one of the least, the lost, the last and the lonely. In giving me the plaque the last time I saw him, I have come to believe these words were given to me directly from God, a message for me and for others. Mike wasn’t perfect—he had some digestive problems that made sharing a meal with him an adventure. He smoked, and one of the hardest things I ever did in my life was buy cigarettes for him. But he had a good sense of humor and always thought about others, and his joy was open and contagious. I know that you could share similar stories of people who have been given to this church, or to you in your own daily lives. They are sometimes difficult, sometimes a blessing, but we have on some level a feeling that when we fed them, welcomed them, housed them, we were doing this for Christ. This is our king—the one who came and suffered, the one who calls us to minister to those who come to us in their suffering. These are the humble ones, the simple ones, the ones who have no great resources or defenses, who would be victims along with him if it were not for us. So as we leave an old church year and get ready to start a new one next Sunday, the first Sunday in Advent, let us look for the one who is to come, who comes in disguise, and let us prepare to welcome him or her—or them, in the name of Christ. Now at the foot
of the cross, in the words of a Jewish refugee, I affirm:
Amen. |
