Privilege

Isaiah 11:1-9

 

        Writing a weekly sermon is a strange phenomenon. Normally I read the text a couple of times on Monday. I pick a idea and write a prayer that is printed in the bulletin. I think and sometimes dream about the text until Wednesday. Then I sit at my computer and begin to compose something I audaciously, sometimes fearfully, will throw your way come Sunday morning. The last couple of weeks have been different. Everything during our Advent season is revolving around four candles. Weeks ago I chose the scriptures that would complement the distinctive identities we chosen for each candle.  Today we lit the candle of Privilege. Webster’s New World Dictionary defines privilege as, “a right, advantage, or immunity granted to a particular person, group or class which is withheld from all others.”

By Monday morning I was paying more attention to the candle than the text. My imagination took me to the world of Charles Dickens. He championed the children of 19^th century London more ferociously than anyone. Oliver Twist exposed the cruelty that befell orphans. Hard Times takes a critical look at English culture and the disparity between the privileged and the rest of society.  Perhaps Dickens’s greatest personification of the English gentry was exhibited in the character of Ebenezer Scrooge.

Tuesday morning I traveled to a prison, hospital and nursing home. Time alone in a car is a dangerous commodity for someone on a holy mission to expose the dark side of American society. I began a sermon that would have made a few of you angry, most of you guilty, and caused some of you to exclaim, “Finally, the sermon I’ve been waiting to hear.”

But often something happens on the road to Emmaus. A few members of the Adult Sunday School class took a field trip. Tuesday afternoon we gathered at the Zeus Theater in Waynesboro to watch It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood starring Tom Hanks as Mr. Rogers. It was not the movie any of us expected to see. But it was the movie I needed to experience.

I remember watching Mr. Rogers with my children. Martina thought he was a rock star. I have to admit, I didn’t quite understand what all the fuss was about. To begin with, the show was too quiet. There were no dancing clowns, pies in the face, and sophomoric jokes. There was very little humor, just this mild mannered man and his imaginary friends having an intimate conversation with my child. The   production was amateurish and the message seemed terribly naïve, yet the message molded my children.

When I was in my 30’s and our world was struggling with The Cold War, Mutually Assured Destruction, and AIDS, Mr. Rogers seemed……childish. Mr. Rogers endorsed the absurdity of a wolf lying down with a lamb. I let my kids watch the show because I wanted them to be neighborly toward their friends. But I knew no one was going to bring about World Peace with a hand puppet.

I announced my skepticism to a clergy friend who told me of an incident that had happened years ago in Pittsburg. One Monday afternoon, with the temperatures rising close to 100, some African-American children climbed the fence of a local country club and went for a swim. The club was closed on Monday’s in order to clean the pool. Residents were outraged, local authorities were notified, and the children were hauled off to jail. A week later Mr. Rogers sat in front of the children of America filling a little plastic swimming pool with water when his friend Officer Clemmons dropped by to visit. Together they took off their shoes and socks and placed their tired and hot feet into the pool. The swimming pool incident was never mentioned. Officer Clemmons, a regular on the show, was played by an African-American actor. I quickly became a fan of Fred Rogers.

Needless to say, Tuesday, with tissues in my pockets, I joyfully sat down in my theater seat. Little did I know Fred Rogers was about to interrupt a sermon that was already bustling in my head and ready to be placed on paper.

I will not spoil the film for you. I just noticed that every time Fred Rogers, on or off camera, met someone he began the conversation by telling them what a privilege it was to meet them. Now those might not be the exact words, but it is what God allowed me to hear. Mr. Rogers stopped everything he was doing and made the person in front of him the most important person in the world. I watched as people were transformed by this incredibly act of kindness and recognition. He listened, and by listening, made each person’s life unique. He would take a picture at the end of the conversation and then write their name down in order not to forget them. Each night Fred Rogers would open a book filled with names and he would mention each by name as he began his evening prayer.

Tuesday morning I was hopelessly raging against the machine that always seems controlled by a small privileged group of the economically elite. By Tuesday evening I was transformed by two gestures of righteous behavior. 

People come up to all the time and will ask me why God is not more involved in solving the problems of poverty, inequality, climate change, racism, sexism, and I could go on and on and on. I always give the same answer, “God created us to lead the way.”

The quick response is always, “I am doing the best I can. It is all those other people who are the problem.” I understand that response. We don’t live in a world where the wolf and lamb lie down together because everyone we disagree with is a wolf…………and vise versa.

So allow me be a bit naïve. How often do we say to someone, “It is a privilege to meet you”, and then listen to their story? How often do we go home and put their name in a book filled with folks for whom we will mention is our prayers? You might be thinking, “I don’t have a prayer book.” Sure you do. It is called the church directory.

Deb and I moved to Wilmington NC in 1981. We had one baby, one job and one car. Deb needed to work so we could survive. This meant we needed a second car. I got a call from Carl Ferger, a man who lived down the street. Carl had a proposal. He had a car which he could no longer drive. Carl’s body ws being destroyed by arthritis and he could not function without a wheel chair. Carl said I could have his car if once a month I would drive him to his doctor. The car was in worse shape than Carl but the deal was struck. Once a month I would lift him from his bed, carry him to the car, and take him to the doctor.

Needless to say I spent a lot of time with Carl. We would sit together at the hospital. Nurses and doctors would come up to speak to him. I was amazed that he knew everyone’s name. The conversation would quickly switch from his health to their lives. I watched as this crippled old man became a healer.

After six months I began to notice the folks who spoke to Carl were just not five or six regulars. I couldn’t keep up with all the folks that stopped to talk. Finally I asked Carl, “How do you keep up with all these people and their stories.”  His answer was, “I pray for them every night.

By that simple transition from, “It is a privilege to meet you” to “It is a privilege to pray for you”, miracles happen.

A kind and gentle man talked to America’s children telling them he had the privilege to be their neighbor. Did he make a difference?  Ask my daughter.

A kind and crippled man sat in a hospital healing folks with his ears. Did he make a difference? Folks in Wilmington still remember Carl Ferger.

The spirit of the Lord rested on both these men. It was a spirit of wisdom and understanding, a spirit of counsel and knowledge. It was a spirit that delighted in God. And what was their reward for such righteous behavior? They sat down as wolves and lambs and became friends.      Amen.