Olivia Hamilton
Easter 6, 2016
Easter 6, 2016
I was very captivated by a news story I once
read about a Baptist pastor from Virginia named William Lee, who during the
height of the AIDS epidemic, made headlines because he refused to wear
protective gloves when he visited his congregants who were dying of the disease,
even though hospital protocol insisted that he do so. In the late 1980s and
into the 1990s, when little was known about the disease, and when the fear of
transmission was paralyzing for many people, Lee recalled thinking that people who were dying of AIDS needed to know that they were
human, and touching them, holding their hands as they died, was one way he
could do that. In an interview, Lee spoke about his motivation to forgo the
gloves, saying, “I’m not reading the Harvard Medical Review or some theological
magazine. These are people I know.” He went on to say, "I'm just not in
the condemning business. My Jesus Christ was too merciful for that. He was
touching lepers, so I can hug people."
I am always fascinated by the
movement within the human spirit that allows us to overcome fear, despite the
overwhelming cultural messaging that might convince us to cling to it. I see
this same movement of the human spirit at play in my hometown of Cincinnati,
lodged right in the epicenter of the heroin epidemic. A doctor named Judith
Feinberg who specializes in infectious disease was horrified at how the rates
of HIV and Hepatitis C were rising in correspondence with the increasing rates
of I.V. drug use. Feinberg set out on a mission to bring a needle-exchange
program to the city, where drug users could get clean needles and
non-judgmental healthcare and referrals to treatment centers. Even though
research shows that such programs not only curb the spread of infectious
diseases, but also help people struggling with addiction to access the
resources they need to get clean, Feinberg’s program was met with endless
pushback from community members. Many people feared that these programs would
enable drug users, and others took a “not in my backyard” position, not wanting
to undertake the risk associated with having those people gather in their neighborhoods. Finally, after months
of being rejected by neighborhood counsels and potential host sites, Reverend
Paula Jackson, the Rector at an Episcopal Church in downtown Cincinnati,
emailed Feinberg and offered the church’s parking lot as a site for the
needle-exchange RV to do its work. A few months earlier, a parishioner at Jackson’s
church had died of a heroin overdose, and she felt compelled to act. “We’re talking
about our people. Anybody can be an
addict,” said Rev. Jackson in an interview in the Wall Street Journal. Similarly
to William Lee’s beloved congregants who were dying of AIDS, those people who others feared were
people that Rev. Jackson knew and cared about.
Again, I am fascinated by
tracing the movement of the spirit that allows William Lee to take off the
glove and touch the person dying of AIDS, and that allows Paula Jackson to open
her church’s space to the needle-exchange program despite the risks it might
entail. Obviously personal relationships were at the heart of these two
encounters, but I have to imagine that to some extent, faith played an
important role in each of these stories, as well. Maybe William Lee didn’t have faith that he wouldn’t contract
HIV by touching patients, and maybe Paula Jackson didn’t have faith that there would be no problems or pitfalls with the
needle exchange. But it seems both were rooted in a sense of stability, and a
security, that surpasses the changes and chances of this life, resting in God’s
eternal changelessness, as the prayer goes. I think that in their actions,
these folks echo Luther’s eloquent message from last week – that eternal life
in Christ is not so much about security or certainty in the future, but instead
it is about living without fear, in the face of uncertainty, in the here and
now.
This pattern of overcoming
fear in the face of uncertainty plays out many times in the gospels. When the
birth of Jesus was first foretold to Mary by an angel, the words the angel
spoke to her were these: “do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with
God.” So even before his birth, the narrative of Christ’s life is one of
assurance and promise to those who are willing to believe what they cannot see,
and further, to take risks based on that belief.
In the reading from John today, we
hear part of Jesus’ farewell discourse to his friends, the disciples, on the
night before his death. It seems to me that this scene could almost be read as
a bookend to the Annunciation. Although we are now at the end of Jesus’ life
rather than the beginning, like Mary, the disciples are uncertain of what’s to
come. They are riddled with anxiety about the future and their place in it. Earlier
in John’s gospel, Simon Peter asks Jesus, “Lord,
where are you going?” and Jesus replies, “Where I am going, you
cannot follow now, but you will follow later.” And after that, Thomas asks, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we
know the way?” and Jesus answers, “I am the way and the truth and the life.” The
questions that the disciples raise not only point to the vulnerability of what
might happen to Jesus’ body, but also the vulnerability of the body made up of
Christ’s followers. What will happen to them when he is gone? They are grasping
at concrete indications of what the world will be like when Jesus is gone, and
they want Jesus to give them straightforward answers and timelines and
turn-by-turn navigation, but he doesn’t. He simply assures them that if they
love him, they should live without fear in the midst of uncertainty. “Do not
let your hearts be troubled,” he says, “and do not let them be afraid.”
In previous passages, Jesus’s words
of assurance to the disciples are somewhat vague. They want to know what to
expect, but can’t quite imagine it. But in tonight’s reading he offers them
something a bit more precise; he tells them that when he leaves, the Holy
Spirit, the Advocate, will be there to guide them on their way.
I admit that I don’t often think
about the movement of the Holy Spirit in my life. I tend to experience the
presence of Christ, and to wonder and pray about God’s will, more so than I
contemplate or marvel at what the Holy Spirit is up to. However, in thinking
back to William Lee or Paula Jackson I wonder if that moment of taking off the
glove, or pressing “send” on the email to offer up the church parking lot, are
moments when the Holy Spirit is at work. In a world riddled by fear – fear of
physical danger, fear of rejection, fear of the consequences of speaking up or
not speaking up – and in an ethically complex world where there rarely seems to
be a clear “right answer,” it is helpful for me to think about the Holy Spirit
as one of the ways that God’s love is revealed to us in the midst of uncertainty.
The Spirit also, I think, serves to remind us that what God is doing in our
lives, transforming fear into love all around us all the time, is far more
beautiful than we can ever anticipate or even comprehend.
Just like William Lee said “those are
my people. I will not leave them alone to die without knowing they are loved,”
and just like Paula Jackson said “those are my people and I will not stand by
as they are lost to addiction,” Jesus knows us, and loves us, and will never
leave us alone. We are his people.
So whatever anxiety might be
crowding your mind at this moment, however small or large or passing or
permanent that anxiety might be, do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not
let them be afraid. Be at peace, if even for this moment, knowing that Jesus
has sent the Holy Spirit to be our guide and our companion, and will lead us to
places of wholeness and peace beyond what we can imagine. Amen.
