Happy Canada Day!
This sermon was delivered to both Trinity Anglican and St. John's Evangelical Lutheran Churches on Sunday, July 1. It is lengthy and not entirely my own words. It simply struck me as important to tell both congregations that the church is God's and is a gift to them. All growth comes from God.
Mark
5:21-43
21 When
Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered
around him; and he was by the sea. 22 Then one of the leaders of the synagogue
named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet 23 and begged him repeatedly,
"My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on
her, so that she may be made well, and live." 24 So he went with him. And
a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him. 25 Now there was a woman who
had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. 26 She had endured much
under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better,
but rather grew worse. 27 She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in
the crowd and touched his cloak, 28 for she said, "If I but touch his
clothes, I will be made well." 29 Immediately her hemorrhage stopped; and
she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. 30 Immediately aware
that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said,
"Who touched my clothes?" 31 And his disciples said to him, "You
see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, "Who touched me?'
" 32 He looked all around to see who had done it. 33 But the woman,
knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before
him, and told him the whole truth. 34 He said to her, "Daughter, your
faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease." 35
While he was still speaking, some people came from the leader's house to say,
"Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?" 36 But
overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, "Do
not fear, only believe." 37 He allowed no one to follow him except Peter,
James, and John, the brother of James. 38 When they came to the house of the
leader of the synagogue, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly.
39 When he had entered, he said to them, "Why do you make a commotion and
weep? The child is not dead but sleeping." 40 And they laughed at him.
Then he put them all outside, and took the child's father and mother and those
who were with him, and went in where the child was. 41 He took her by the hand
and said to her, "Talitha cum," which means, "Little girl, get
up!" 42 And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was
twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement. 43 He strictly
ordered them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something
to eat.
"Do not fear, only
believe."
· I threw out my first draft of this sermon. In fact I threw out all
the drafts of it. I found something better. My cousin, Kevin, in Maryland in
the US sent me this long note, written by another Kevin – Kevin Ryan, but it’s
about a relative both my cousin, Kevin and I had in common.
·
Have any of you heard of Covenant
House? It started in New York as a shelter for runaway and abused teenagers
founded by a Catholic priest of the Franciscan Order. Because of a sexual
scandal, that priest stepped down and eventually Sr. Mary Rose McGeady of the
Daughters of Charity became president.
·
In 1990, when she was asked to lead
Covenant House, Sister was near the end of a storied career, already having run
one of the country’s largest Catholic Charities. She had also led her religious
community, the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, and was ready for a
break. She declined the offer.
·
She’d heard Covenant House was
struggling financially, closing hundreds of beds for kids facing homelessness
across numerous countries, and was reportedly at risk of shutting down.
·
In New York City alone, more than 100
beds were eliminated (including a floor for youth infected with HIV) as were
two vans that brought kids off the streets on frigid nights.
·
When a second call came asking her to
lead Covenant House, she still resisted, but agreed to pray and discern some
more. She confided to friends the offer was unwelcome. She had been dreaming of
retirement, of less stress, of simple joys like spending time with her sisters,
baking and gardening.
·
She later (said) she also wrestled
with the prospect of failure - Covenant House was in grave danger in 1990. What
if she could not help resuscitate donors’ trust and staff morale? What if she
spent the next five years of her life shuttering buildings, closing beds and laying
off staff? She thought some more and said no, again.
·
But the faces of kids living on the
streets tore at her heart as the days wore on. Joe Sullivan, her confidant and
Brooklyn’s auxiliary bishop, appealed to her and asked her to say yes, and she
finally relented. “OK God,” she wrote in her journal, “here we go.”
·
The New York Times put the news on
its front page. She plunged in. Come hell
or high water, she was determined to clean up and expand Covenant House to help
more kids.
·
In a remarkable act of leadership and
faith during her service as president (a few skeptics called it reckless) she
insisted that a $1 million human rights prize from the Conrad Hilton Foundation
be used to build a new shelter for children living on the streets in Managua,
rather than establish an agency endowment.
·
That shelter at Casa Alianza
Nicaragua became a bridge from the streets for thousands of children and today
protects scores of unaccompanied kids from the burgeoning violence that is
engulfing Nicaragua.
·
By the time Sr. Mary Rose retired
from Covenant House (for real this time) in 2003, she had won over hundreds of
thousands of donors and opened new shelters for youth in 11 cities, among them
Oakland, Calif.; Anchorage; Orlando, Florida; Vancouver, British Columbia; and
Managua, Nicaragua.
·
(She and the writer of this article)
spoke often and (he) solicited her advice. (She gave it whether solicited it or
not.) She usually ended the same way: “Let’s pray. We have to trust God’s
providence.” (He) learned a lot from her over the years, much of it delivered
with a mixture of no-nonsense wisdom, thorny assertiveness and Irish wit.
·
Once in 2010, just weeks after they’d
sharply cut the budget and closed programs to address a widening budget
shortfall due to the drop in donations, Covenant House received a miraculous $6
million bequest. The writer (then the president of Covenant House) was stunned.
·
[Quoting now] I called Sister, in
part venting that the gift arrived weeks after I’d already shut down programs.
I could not quickly rehire staff and reopen the sites. “You’re a terrible
president,” she half-laughed. “For 1 thing, you closed those programs and don’t
trust God’s providence. And for another thing, you’re complaining to me about a
$6 million gift!”
·
In 2012, sitting with
my kids at a JETS game, I received a call from Albany. Sister was dying. An
inoperable infection had spread and doctors estimated she had only a few days
left. Sister wanted me to come see her to say goodbye. I left the game, packed
and drove to Albany where the Daughters of Charity welcomed me and let me spend
the week in their guest house.
·
(A few days after my
arrival), Sister was in more pain and the treatment team decided to increase
her medication. I sensed a final opportunity to communicate with her. I took
her hand, my eyes were wet. “You saved us, Mary Rose. Thank you, on behalf of
all the kids.” But she frowned.
·
“With great effort,
she removed the oxygen mask from her face so I could hear her. She was annoyed.
“Covenant House wasn’t my gift to God or the kids. It was their gift to me. And
it’s not your gift to God. It’s God’s gift to you.” She took several deep,
raspy breaths and looked back my way. “I didn’t save Covenant House, Kevin. God
did. It’s not my Covenant House. It’s not yours either. It’s God’s. You have to
get out of the way and let Him use you, or it doesn’t work,” she said.”
·
“She died the next
day, early on a Thursday morning in September. Patty Griffin’s We Shall All Be
Reunited was playing on my phone near her pillows. I slumped my head on the bed
and said goodbye. We buried her a few days later in the nuns’ cemetery, shaded
by a tall statue of St. Vincent de Paul, the Catholic patron saint of the poor.
We stood at the grave: her family, the Daughters of Charity, our Covenant House
community and a handful of adults she had cared for as children and teenagers.”
·
“On the drive home I
thought about our last conversation. I was angry she’d been tough and challenging
right up to the end. But I was also angry she was right. Up to that point, no,
I didn’t really trust God to keep the doors open. I often tossed and turned
with anxiety at night, afraid we’d run out of money and not be able to help the
kids who needed us.
·
And as painful as it
was to admit to myself, Sister saw that I had let it all become the Kevin show
in my head. I convinced myself I had to save Covenant House - and won’t that
make God happy with me?! Back then, I imagined grace as the prize we win for
impressing God. Sigh. Slow learner here.
·
So I took time -
weeks really - after her funeral and dug deep to reflect on the ways our
Covenant House movement was a gift to me. How the kids’ overcoming had
fortified me to confront my own grief and loss. How their ability to forgive
stretched my heart. How their recoveries taught me the effectiveness of, and
need for, high quality mental health care. How their suffering infused me with
empathy. How their hunger for family brought me closer to mine. How their
rising taught me the power of unconditional love and absolute respect. How
their transformations sculpted my faith.
·
Had Sister Mary Rose
left me with puffy sentiment, her words might have fed my vanity, but not my
soul. What sounded like pure admonishment at the time instead became my map of
the world. Sort of like the voice on a navigation app that urges you to
reroute.
·
And at the top of
that map are three lessons I take from her life:
·
First, act with love and trust God for the rest.
·
Second, until the last homeless child is safely sheltered, do
more.
·
And third, the greatest work of your life, the most audacious use
of your heart and the biggest test of your faith, may well be waiting around
the corner for you, just as you plan to curl up and downshift. Be ready.
·
Well, my cousin, Sr. Mary Rose
McGready has both shamed me and inspired me. When I see her in the here-after,
she’ll probably punch me in the chest and then give me a hug. That’s how we
Irish do it.
·
I haven’t trusted God like I’ve
pretended to. And I dare say neither have any of us. But we can start again. We
can always start again. In the face of death, taboos, and so-called unclean
people, Jesus tells the leader and tells us "Do not fear, only
believe." His word can overcome what people call ‘unclean’ and
can overcome death. If we trust God and walk in faith, we’ll be amazed at what
God can do with our congregations. We may have to walk the unknown road. On
such a road there are only two lights to follow. One light is on the next step;
the other is on the final destination. Between the two is only fog… and the
hand of God leading us… and the voice of Jesus, saying again and again, "Do
not fear, only believe."
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