Sermon for the 14th Sunday after Pentecost 2009 (Proper 18B)
Sunday, September 06, 2009 at St. Andrew’s in Montevallo, Alabama
Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23 Psalm 125 James 2:1-17 Mark 7:24-37

Let us pray:
Beloved sisters and brothers, let us look to the Lord.
May only God’s word be spoken,
May God’s word be heard.
In the name of Jesus, I pray. Amen.

In the first half of the 7th Chapter of the Gospel According to Mark, that we heard last week, Jesus says that you can't judge a book by its cover; you must look beyond external factors like nationality or religious heritage or social position to get the real story on someone's faith. He then puts this theory into practice by traveling a good 100 miles out of his way into the region of Tyre and Sidon – into the heart of paganland – to make the arduous journey from the theoretical to the practical.

So, here we find ourselves with this week’s gospel that poses difficulties from a variety of angles. Jesus encounters a Gentile woman who wants him to heal her daughter. He says no, essentially calls her and all Gentiles dogs, and states firmly that his mission is only to Israel. She argues with him. He then agrees to heal her daughter. So, what happened?

One thing that has happened in this encounter is that when Jesus answers the woman, regardless of what specifically he says, he is recognizing the woman’s right to speak with him. Just by making the request, she is implying – even if perhaps solely out of desperation – that she has a right to claim his time and power. By arguing, she implies that she is worthy of challenging him. And by answering, Jesus affirms that she has that status in his eyes. This is a profoundly counter-cultural recognition of her dignity. But then Jesus insults her by calling her and her people dogs (and no, there's no trick of Greek translation that can make it about cute little puppies – Jesus is calling her people scavengers of the lowest sort).

But then, to all appearances, Jesus changed his mind – not only about healing one girl, but about his mission. This bothers a lot of people; most sermons I've heard that have spent time with this aspect of the story, have suggested that Jesus really knew all along that his mission was to Gentiles as well as Jews, and that he was only pretending to think otherwise to help the woman increase her faith, or to further demonstrate his power, or some other reason.

Personally, I find that kind of reading offensive as well as unconvincing. If Jesus changed his mind, then Jesus can’t be the kind of eternally changeless “unmoved mover,” to use Plato's phrase, that a lot of people present God as being. But if Jesus didn't change his mind and was just saying things he didn’t believe so that he could accomplish some other end, then Jesus is a liar – and a pretty cruel one at that, since the poor woman is clearly worried about her child.

And besides, who – other than Plato – says that Jesus isn’t allowed to change his mind, to learn something he didn’t know before? Certainly, learning is part of what it means to be human. Try to turn Jesus into someone who knew everything and could do anything from day one and you'll quickly get drawn into fairly silly speculation about how Jesus could have spouted the full Sermon on the Mount (and in any language to boot!) on the day he was born, but faked being able to talk only like the baby he was – perhaps so he wouldn't give away his secret identity, like Clark Kent having to hold back from running at full speed on Smallville. That kind of speculation is evident in some of the later gospels that are outside the Christian canon, but it’s not in any of our canonical gospels, which consistently portray Jesus as a real, honest-to-goodness human being who as a baby needed his diapers changed and who, like the rest of us, learned to walk and talk and function by playing and otherwise interacting with his mother and other people.

In other words, Jesus had to learn words and speech when he was a child. As Luke puts it, “the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom” (Luke 2:40). Jesus changed, not only getting taller and physically stronger, but learning things he didn't know before. If that idea is offensive, it's the offensiveness of the Incarnation, of the idea that God could dwell among us in the flesh. Human beings aren't born knowing and doing everything they will ever be able to know and do. They learn and grow, and in particular, they learn and grow in relationship. Jesus did too – all his life, as human beings do. I might even go so far as to say that part of being made in God's image means that we become more fully ourselves in relationship. Knowing others and loving others changes us, teaching things we didn't know before and helping us to grow into the fullness of our identity and vocation, and our capacity to grow in relationship comes from a God who experiences that too.

I know that doesn’t fit in very well with that picture of God as an “unmoved mover,” never experiencing a change of mind. But that picture is Plato's far more than it is our bible’s. Our scriptures are full of stories of human beings trying to change God’s mind. We call it intercessory prayer, and scripture shows it as working at least sometimes – God is moved to show mercy, to act in deliverance because someone asked. Observing that raises a great many problems of theodicy and the nature of evil in the world, among other things, but there it is, scattered throughout our canonical writings. And though it doesn’t make things any easier for me, I’m glad it’s there.

I'm glad because it is a wonderful corrective to our human tendencies toward arrogance and hardness of heart. Why should we listen to someone else's view on a matter of importance when we already know what the scriptures say, what those words mean, and therefore what the truth of the matter is? If any had the right to that kind of posture, it would be God. But if we take our scriptures seriously, we have to allow the possibility that God too is changed in relationship.

That may sound radical, but I find that radical message in our scriptures; as God is moved after observing the destruction wreaked by the great flood to say “never again,” and hangs God’s bow – God’s weapon – in the sky as a sign of God’s permanent swearing off of such moves. God – the one Plato presents as “unmoved mover” – is MOVED to mercy, and makes a covenant of mercy with all of humanity.

Is it so radical, then, to think that Jesus, God’s agent, might also be moved by his encounter with a Gentile woman seeking healing for her daughter? I not only don't think so but I thank God for people who aren’t willing to take “no” for an answer – even or especially “no” plus “Godtalk” coming from a perceived religious authority which is a particularly potent combination when coming from powerful men – but rather I thank God for people who will push for compassion and mercy. They prove to us that even God isn't the sort to say, “God said it; I believe it; that settles it.”

They teach us something that we would have gathered anyway had we been paying attention when Jesus says, “be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” and then makes clear that the “perfect” he means isn't about being static in a “right” position, but rather compassion toward righteous and unrighteous alike (Matthew 5:43-48).

They teach us that no one should be so certain that they are right that she or he cannot make room to listen; and to listen in a way that allows us to be changed by what we hear.

They teach us that God is love, and of course it’s a very poor lover who is eternally unmoved by her or his beloved.

So when Jesus encounters a man who is deaf and therefore mute – someone who is unable to listen and therefore was unable to learn to speak – Jesus is very well prepared.

“Be opened,” he says. He says it not only with compassion for someone who has suffered, but also with the authority of one who has experienced what it is that he’s talking about. That is, after all, what the persistence of the Gentile woman said to him when he was deaf to her cries and therefore unprepared to speak of God's love for all peoples. “Be opened” – and Jesus was.

And so must we. And so shall we.

We must forgive, deepen our love.

In so fulfilling our vocation, we ourselves are healed.

Thanks be to God.
In Christ’s Name,
Amen. Alleluia.

Mission to New Orleans - Advisory Group on Forced Evictions

Since 2005, New Orleans residents – particularly in low-income communities – have been fighting against forced evictions resulting from the city’s rebuilding plans. As part of the city’s overall development approach, which favors private sector interests over the interests of low-income residents, the Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO) has demolished thousands of public housing units without regard for residents' human right to housing and denying them the chance to participate in the development process.

In response to this, and at the request of local activists, between July 26th and July 31st 2009, the Advisory Group on Forced Evictions (AGFE), an independent international group that advises the Executive Director of UN-HABITAT, is conducting a fact-finding mission to New Orleans, to investigate the city’s continuing forced eviction issues. The issues that will be addressed range from the destruction of public housing to the lack of adequate rebuilding or rental assistance at either the federal or local level which has effectively left thousands of people homeless since the storm, to new plans to evict residents who have rebuilt in favor of large development schemes.

This page will be documenting the AGFE mission with a series of videos featuring testimonies from affected local residents and the groups involved in coordinating the mission.

Download this factsheet to learn more about AGFE's Mission, and this schedule to see who they're meeting.

THURSDAY: AGFE to New Orleans Day 5 - DC meetings
Eric Tars, Human Rights Program Director at the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, reports from DC on visits with federal officials, including Rep. Maxine Waters, chair of the Housing & Community Opportunity Subcommittee, with the Advisory Group on Forced Evictions mission, July 30, 2009.

Watch the previous vlogs by following these links:

TUESDAY: Day 2 AGFE to New Orleans - Charity Hospital and Mid-City Visits - Eric Tars reports on the second half of the July 28, 2009 site visits of the international Advisory Group on Forced Evictions, to the Mid-City area of New Orleans, where hundreds of residents are threatened with imminent eviction due to plans to construct a massive hospital complex that government studies have shown is unnecessary and disregards the needs of the community.

MONDAY: Day 2 AGFE to New Orleans - Homeless Site Visits - Eric Tars reports from two squatters settlements in New Orleans about homelessness since Hurricane Katrina as part of the international Advisory Group on Forced Evictions visit.

SUNDAY, Part 2: New Orleans Town Hall Meeting Wrap Up - Eric Tars reports from the town hall meeting with New Orleans advocates and residents for the Advisory Group on Forced Evictions [July 26, 2009].

SUNDAY, Part 1: Setting the Stage for the Advisory Group Visit - Eric Tars, on his way to New Orleans for the AGFE visit, provides additional background information on the origins of the mission and some of the housing rights violations that have occurred.

SATURDAY: Forced Evictions - Public Housing Residents Speak Out: In this video by the National Economic & Social Rights Initiative (NESRI), two residents of public housing in New Orleans talk about their recent efforts to save public housing.

FRIDAY: Preparing for New Orleans - Eric Tars explains the background to the AGFE mission, and gives a preview of what he'll be vlogging about throughout the week of 27th July.

HUMAN RIGHTS & HOUSING
So what is the Human Right to Housing, and what are the actual provisions in human rights law that guarantee this right? Here's an overview from NESRI:

The right to housing guarantees the right to live in security, peace and dignity. This right must be provided to all persons irrespective of income or access to economic resources, and the housing provided must be adequate, meaning 'adequate privacy, adequate space, adequate security, ... adequate basic infrastructure and adequate location.'

The right to housing is guaranteed in human rights declarations and treaties, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, and the American Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Man.

"Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care." - Article 25, Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Excerpted from NESRI's Human Right to Housing Info Sheet no. 1. See also NESRI's factsheet on the Human Right to Development.

RELATED VIDEOS AND RESOURCES
"Coming Home": A clip of this forthcoming documentary about the demolition of public housing in New Orleans, featuring Mayday NOLA.

HUD Secretary Donovan Denies Community Participation: A brief video from Mayday New Orleans about trying to reach HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan when he visited New Orleans. Not only does this second video underscore how public housing residents have been denied their right to participation, but it also inspired a similar video from a housing advocacy organization in North Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Further links:
NESRI
NLCHP
Mayday New Orleans
Terms of Reference for AGFE
NLCHP Wiki on housing issues on the Gulf Coast

NOTE: This post is a product of NLCHP and NESRI, with the assistance of WITNESS, and not affiliated with AGFE or UN-HABITAT

Salsa at The Granada

the lovely erin is my one and only daughter *smiles*

Jubilee Ministry Centers —

Providing Refuge and Hope
By the Rev. Deacon Steve Shanks,
Our Diocesan Jubilee Ministry Officer

When Jesus stood in the synagogue in Nazareth, unrolled the Isaiah scroll, and read God’s promise of good news to the poor, of Jubilee—the Year of the Lord’s Favor, he opened for us a window into the Kingdom of God. As we see the work of congregations, congregational clusters, and ecumenical clusters doing the work of compassion—feeding, clothing, sheltering, and visiting, and the work of justice—speaking, teaching, and prophesying, we honor the commitment they are making to reflect to the world the generosity of God and the invitation to live in his Kingdom.

The concept of Jubilee was established by the words of Leviticus 25:10:“You shall hallow the fiftieth year, and you shall proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants.”The stated goal of Jubilee Ministry in the Episcopal Church is to teach others to connect the talk of faith with the walk of peace and justice for all people.

Jubilee Ministry is faith in action—faith that can be expressed as that which grows out of loving God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength and action that can be expressed as that which compels us to love our neighbor as ourselves. Jubilee Ministry seeks to hold these two important dynamics of our spiritual journey in tension so that God’s reconciling work is known by our witness.

Jubilee Ministry Centers throughout our diocese serve as places of refuge and hope, living expressions of our Baptismal promise to seek and serve Christ in all persons.

St.Timothy’s in Athens provides a multicultural preschool, tutoring, basic language skills programs, English as a Second Language classes,AA Groups (including a prison AA group) and a Hispanic Al-Anon, and a drop-in pantry.

Christ Church in Fairfield (Birmingham) provides CityWorks:The Fairfield Initiative, an interfaith Community Development Corporation that offers affordable housing with “strategic neighbors”; a literacy program; a thrift store; a prison ministry; and emergency services.

Grace Church in Woodlawn (Birmingham) provides 55th Place Thrift Store, Grace-by-Day, the Interfaith Hospitality House, emergency food packs three days a week at the Woodlawn Christian Center, Community Kitchens, and a Hispanic ministry.

Good Samaritan Health Clinic in Cullman provides free primary healthcare for low-income, uninsured, and under-insured county residents; hearing testing; eye disease exams; dental exams; free medications; and diabetic/nutrition education.

St. John’s in Decatur provides a Community Free Clinic offering free healthcare and prescription drugs, health-related education programs, eye exams, and dental care; Parents and Children Together (PACT) offering services for at-risk families to prevent child abuse and neglect as well as child-wellness programs; and Camp Joy offering camping experience and adult and youth volunteers to serve at-risk children.

Nativity in Huntsville provides individual tutoring for reading, math, and computer skills in the Adult Learning Center of Huntsville; English as a Second Language classes; and the HEALS free medical clinics at target elementary schools.

The Jubilee Community Center in Montgomery provides an after-school program with tutoring and mentoring by volunteers from local colleges, entrepreneurial class for ages 15 and up, clothing, direct health services, the Jubilee Choir, youth-enrichment programs, lobbying on issues affecting the community, job training, Vacation Bible School, and a free tax-filing service for working families.

Chattahoochee Valley Episcopal Ministry Inc. (CVEM) supported by St. Matthew’s in Seale and St. Stephen’s in Smith Station provides direct economic assistance; continued community revitalization efforts; programs for children and youth; women’s mentoring; housing advocacy; services related to homelessness, race relations, and prison inmates; and a Peace and Justice Group that meets regularly to study social issues and offer forums and other means of education and action.

Bishop Parsley and Bishop Sloan invite every congregation in our diocese to examine the work they are doing with and among the poor, both here in Alabama and around the world, and prayerfully consider applying for designation and affirmation as a Jubilee Ministry Center. Holy Trinity in Auburn and Trinity in Clanton are currently in the process of applying to become Jubilee Ministry Centers.

Sometimes a Center starts with a single congregation that wants to begin walking in faith. Sometimes it begins with a cluster of churches within a community that perceive a need to serve the poor in a particular way. Any of these congregations or clusters of congregations can become designated by the Episcopal Church as a Jubilee Ministry Center if they agree to do one or more of the following: advocacy on behalf of the people they serve, empowering staff and volunteers to connect their work with their Baptismal vows, evangelizing through prayer or pastoral presence, and inviting others to share in worship. In this way all Jubilee Ministry Centers give back to God through what God has given them.

For more information about applying to have your outreach initiative designated a Jubilee Ministry Center, please contact the Rev. Steve Shanks, Diocesan Jubilee Ministry Officer, at srshanks@gmail.com or 205/960-1826.

Excerpted from the Alabama Episcopalian, The Episcopal Diocese of Alabama, Pentecost, May-June 2009 / Vol. 94, No. 4

Sermon for the Seventh Sunday after Easter, Year B
at Trinity in Clanton, Alabama
Acts 1:15-17, 21-26 Psalm 1 1 John 5:9-13 John 17:6-19

Beloved sisters and brothers, let us look to the Lord.
May only God’s word be spoken,
May God’s word be heard.
In the name of Jesus, I pray. Amen.

"If we receive human testimony, the testimony of God is greater; for this is the testimony of God that he has testified to his Son." That's what we hear in the reading from the First Epistle of John. And a friend has reminded me that thanks be to God that the testimony of God is greater – because we certainly have some pretty odd ways of discerning and trying to testify to God's will.

I think that the passage from the book of Acts makes for a pretty good case in point. The role of the Twelve is on one hand so very, very important that it just can't be left to eleven or thirteen; and on the other hand, the person to fill the seat left vacant by Judas Iscariot is chosen by lot. The judgment of Israel left to a couple of thrown rocks or bones. Sometimes, reading things like this, one has to say to oneself what might be the ultimate question in life… "Just what is God thinking??!"

It's a question that I've asked myself more than once, and I'm glad to say that it's a question that God fears no more than I might have the capacity to answer it for myself.

What I believe is that God is calling us to abundant life in a world that welcomes, facilitates, and spreads abundant life; and yet I pick up a newspaper that tells me about deaths in battle, in traffic accidents, in inexplicable illnesses. It's all well and good for John Lennon to encourage us to imagine a world of peace, compassion, and responsibility to further these qualities, but imagining it will only get us so far… "so", in this case, being a synonym for "not." Imagine all the dreamers, yes – but imagine what would have happened to their work if they had only stuck with what seemed realistic. And if we're really going to take Jesus seriously, we might want to ask what's realistic anyway.

… and speaking of where our dreams bump up against reality… church unity is a highly desirable goal and will undoubtedly be a topic of continuing conversation and likely some debate at our church’s General Convention in Anaheim this summer. Actually, it's more than a goal; it's a description, a word we say when we see people living as God intends, as sisters and brothers with any who will break bread and share resources with them. It's an appealing goal, and so a lot of people get on board with it without pausing to think about how they want to actually build a world, a network of people and resources, to help the Church move toward being what God truly intends for it to be.

Now, I know that this might be starting to sound like some kind of a "get back to work" speech, but it isn't. The reason rests in Jesus' prayer that we hear in the Gospel: “that we all might be one, as he is one with God.” The unity of the church isn't just a goal toward which we strive; it is a reality that we live into more deeply as we explore, with others in community, just what it might mean that we are children of God.

That's not just a fancy theological way of saying "Get back to work" either. What might it mean to us – to you and me – if we really took Jesus' prayer in, really believed that God's children are one because God is one, that the unity of Christ's Body is a consequence of Christ, rather than the end goal toward which we strive, but most often fail?

One of the main consequences of taking that leap of faith, I think, would be the dismantling of a lot of our excuses. Without it, we might convince ourselves that we can treat those around us anyway we want to until such a time as they ‘toe the line’ and thereby effect the unity for which Jesus prays in this Sunday's gospel. In other words, I'll wait and treat that person as a brother or sister the moment that he or she behaves!

And, of course, that path is one of madness. As long as we're waiting for everyone, but us, to meet some standard before we'll declare ourselves to be of the same Body as them, we're choosing the thankless and joyless task of monitoring those around us, and perhaps the world itself, for signs of dysfunction and misery.

It's a destructive way to live, in the way that our mind's “background processes” work. We are constantly on the lookout, making judgments and reevaluating them. The “search requests” we make on our brain most frequently become “wired” into the brain and the life of our psyche. If we call upon our brains several times a week, or a day, to figure out what's wrong with those around us and the world in which they work and live, it's natural for our minds to start performing these tasks in the “background,” constantly creating categories and placing people in them. A theology based on that is going to dwell on what's wrong with the world in ways that is going to use up energy that we could devote to participating in God's work of making things – all things – right.

In other words, we don't have to struggle to become a member of the Body of Christ; Meister Eckhart reminds us that we can't find God shouting and chasing after him in the wilderness, we have only to open the door and let him in, it is a free gift Christ offers, and what we do in response to that gift is up to us. The hard part of that oftentimes is that it places us in the company of people who aren't much like us, and the more differences arise, the more we stress about whether the relationship will fracture. And the more we stress about whether the relationship will fracture, the more likely we are to avoid a sense of loss both of relationship and of control by coming up with reasons why fracture and decay are inevitable. It gets in the way of our becoming close with one another and with God.

A friend is fond of saying that we waste too much time in church “building community.” Community, oneness already exists. We may not see it, may not act like it, but it pre-exists our recognition of it. This is the hope I take away from today’s Gospel, the hope I preach.

Me and my worst enemy are one. Jesus asked it of the Father. It’s done. Now, what shall I, what shall we, do about it?

So, what if we took as our starting point that we are members of the Body of Christ, not because we achieved a goal but because of who Christ is and what Christ has done?

It just might give us courage to be honest about our differences, since our connectedness with others is based not on what we think or what we do, but on who and whose we are.

It just might challenge us to search for avenues of compassion toward others; if we are by action of the Creator of the universe one with our sisters and brothers around us, we ought to get used to it, since our fellow members of the Body of Christ will depart from us only when Christ departs (that is to say, sometime between "never" and "later than never"), and our central task shifts from trying to find ways to figure out who should matter to us, to one of learning to live as joyfully and lovingly with those with whom we are, one way or another, journeying.

And it just might give us what we need to change the world, bring healing to the sick, sufficiency to the destitute, freedom to the captives, because as members of one Body we are called to witness to Christ's presence everywhere it is, and that's throughout a world being made new by grace, and called to respond in extending grace.

Thanks be to God!
Amen. Alleluia.

Neko Case Interview and Music

saw Neko at Workplay a few weeks ago and have been a long time fan of her writing, wit, and esthetic, and really enjoy the interview and music

Jubilee officers roll up sleeves to clear ruined houses during gathering in Cedar Rapids, Iowa

By Rebecca Jones, March 27, 2009

[Episcopal News Service, Cedar Rapids, Iowa] The Rev. Canon Debbie Shew gripped her crowbar and tugged a sheet of rotted paneling from the wall of a flood-ravaged home and thought about the carpenter who nailed it up. She thought about the children who grew up there, the family that called the house home.

"I thought about leaving them a note," said Shew, jubilee officer for the Diocese of Atlanta. "It might be cool for them to find it and know that people from all over – from Georgia and Puerto Rico and Kansas and New York – all helped to clean it up."

Shew was one of nearly three dozen diocesan jubilee officers from all over the country and the Caribbean, and others associated with the Episcopal Church's Jubilee Ministry network, who met here this week to discuss the 27-year-old network of about 600 programs aimed at alleviating poverty.

Participants spent March 25, their first full day together, rolling up their sleeves and doing the dirty work of helping rebuild a city laid low. In June 2008, the Cedar River overflowed its banks. In that summer, the devastation exceeded 500-year flood plains. Some 20,000 people were forced to evacuate and an estimated 5,400 homes were left ruined. It was, said chroniclers of the city's reclamation project, Iowa's "storm of the millennium."

Nine months later, the city is still drying out and cleaning up. Whole neighborhoods still contain empty shells of ruined houses, the water lines clearly visible high on their walls. Cedar Rapids' catastrophe didn't get the national attention that New Orleans or Galveston, Texas received after hurricanes Katrina and Ike, but the devastation was no less real.

That's why the Rev. Chris Johnson, the Episcopal Church's program officer for Domestic Justice and Jubilee Ministries, decided to schedule the meeting in Cedar Rapids. He wanted to make sure the city's pain did not go unnoticed by the church. "I didn't know what to expect, but I just knew it was important that we find a way to embrace the community," said Johnson. "We had to meet somewhere, and I'm glad we can meet here. Now people from all these points will take these stories about what happened in Cedar Rapids away with them."

Johnson and Shew were among a dozen volunteers who spent the day mucking out two houses, one of them untouched by any cleanup effort. Across town, another crew of Episcopalians worked hanging dry wall in the basement of St. Wenceslaus Church, a Catholic church in the heavily damaged Czech Village neighborhood.

Still others spent the day in the kitchen at Christ Episcopal Church in Cedar Rapids, baking thousands of cookies, brownies and cakes that will continue to fuel the reclamation work long after the visitors have gone home. The sweets will help feed the hundreds of volunteers that continue to come to Cedar Rapids every week.

"We must have more work projects like this," said Phillip Mantle, jubilee officer for the Diocese of Chicago, who spent the day at St. Wenceslaus. "It's not good enough just to go to a hotel and have a meeting. We need to be of service in the community. And besides, I learned a lot of things about building today. I learned how to do framing. And I learned that if you're just a quarter of an inch off when you cut, you're in big trouble."

The Rev. Colleen Lewis, jubilee officer for Diocese of Nebraska, took up a broom and began sweeping at St. Wenceslaus. She's taken numerous mission trips to the Dominican Republic, where she's helped on construction projects. But this was her first such project so close to home.
"It's been a long time since I've done drywalling, so they'd have to coach me on that," she said. "But sweeping, I can do. Sweeping, that's a deacon thing."

Lisa Butler, director of congregational life at Christ Church, has been coordinating that church's response to the flood. The church, which is hosting the jubilee officers' event and providing meals for the visitors, is able to house teams of up to 20 volunteers per night. Christ Church, which is also home to a jubilee ministry, has been booked to capacity through much of March as school-age volunteers from around the country have come to Cedar Rapids during their spring breaks to assist with clean-up efforts. After a brief lull in April and May, Butler says she'll be booked again come June and through much of the summer.

Many of the churches in Cedar Rapids have come together to form Faithful Response, a group that coordinates the work of most faith-based volunteers. The group works with the United Way, which assigns Americorps workers to accompany volunteer groups to projects that are identified as being that day's priority.

The volunteers' efforts produce results in two ways: they provide clean-up labor and the Federal Emergency Management Agency grants $19 in matching assistance money for every volunteer hour logged. So far, volunteers have generated more than $900,000 in federal assistance grants.
Butler said she expects the clean-up efforts to take at least another five years. But she said the benefits that have come to the community through its response to the catastrophe will last far longer than that. "When this (clean-up) is all finished, we'll still have issues we have to address in this community," she said. "The coalition that all the faith-based groups have formed needs to stay strong."

By early afternoon on March 25, the crew had moved on to its second house. Inside, amid the ruined furniture and fetid carpeting, they found a birth certificate, a diploma, ruined photo albums, military medals, old letters.

"It became a sacred space," said Deacon Stephen Shanks, jubilee officer for the Diocese of Alabama, who witnessed a similar phenomenon when helping clean out houses ruined by Hurricane Katrina. "People became very quiet when we were handling teddy bears and birth certificates. It was very personal. This was what was left of someone's former life."

Shew got out her camera and began photographing some of the items, so that at least they would be preserved in some form before going out in the trash. She also took the military medals, in hopes of cleaning them off and somehow returning them to their rightful owner.

"I sat there thinking that if some stranger was going through my stuff, I'd want them to take a picture of my Hannah's baby book," she said. "By the end, I felt like I knew a lot about that family."

-- The Rev. Rebecca Jones is a jubilee officer in the Diocese of Colorado.

Lenten Reflection
by Elizabeth-Anne Vanek

You thumbed grit
into my furrowed brow,
marking me
with the sign of mortality,
the dust of last year's palms.

The cross you traced
seared, smudged skin,
and I recalled
other ashes
etched into my heart
by those who loved too little
or not at all.


**************************************************

Mememto,homo,quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris.

Remember, human, that you are dust, and to dust you will return.

Genesis 3:19

Nonviolence and Direct Action Training
School of the Americas Watch
Columbus, Ft. Benning, Georgia
November 21, 2008



... thanks to Wilton Vought for sharing his vlog "Other Voices, Other Choices"