Do Not Hide Your Face From Me (1/22/17)
He Qi, Calling Disciples
On Sunday, January 22, all of the members of the Belle Vernon Area Ministerium addressed the heroin epidemic in our community. In my sermon I told the story of Casey Schwartzmier, a young woman who died from a heroin overdose. We examined the image of light in the darkness in the Isaiah passage and Christ's call to discipleship in the Gospel of Matthew, and how those scriptures call us to act.
Sermon
Good morning! I saw something posted on Facebook the other
day—no, this isn’t a joke about politics or about the Steelers—and the story
grabbed hold of me. It was an obituary for a young woman named Casey Schwartzmier. She was
20 years old; she died from a heroin overdose. (Note: this story went viral. The link above is to a story that ran in Sunday's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.)
At least two of my Facebook friends shared this story, so
perhaps some of you have seen it, too. According to the obituary:
Casey never wanted to be
defined only by her addiction and mistakes; she was so much more than that. She
made it clear if she was to ever pass as a result of it she wanted people to
know the truth with the hope that honesty about her death could help break the
stigma about addicts, and get people talking about the problem of addiction
that is taking away so many young lives.[1]
I never met this young
woman, and as far as I know, she had no connections to this congregation, so it
feels a little strange to share her story. Yet it’s clear that she wanted her
story to be told. Her parents wanted us to know that Casey loved animals and
children. They wanted us to know that she was an organ donor. They wanted us to
know that their daughter’s life mattered.
Casey lived in the North Hills, but her story is all too
familiar here in the Mon Valley. In fact, I know that many of you have offered
prayers and expressed concerns for the family of Wes Bradley. Wes lost his
battle with addiction a few weeks ago. I don’t know how many of you noticed,
but there’s a letter on the bulletin board from Lanny Bradley, Wes’ father.
It’s a letter of thanks from Lanny for all the prayers, cards, notes, and
messages of support for Wes’ family, as well as the many fruit baskets and
personal visits that they received.
In that letter, Lanny also wanted to express what a kind
and generous person Wes was. It reminds me a lot of the obituary I read. Like
Casey, Wes was also an organ donor. Lanny wanted us to know that his son was
more than just an addict. Wes was human being whose kindness and humanity were
always on display. By writing this letter, Lanny took control of the story;
death and addiction do not get the final say.
I think both of our Old Testament readings—the lesson from
Isaiah and the psalm—speak into this conflicted reality of despair and hope.
The central image in both of these passages is light shining in the darkness:
This image of light
breaking through the darkness is a powerful means to capture both a sense of
fear, hopelessness and anguish that is to be associated with not being able to
see in the dark, and the hope, relief and deliverance that comes with the light
being switched on—or in a world before electricity, the fire being kindled, the
candle or oil lamp lit up. The joy and sense of relief that comes from light in
the darkness is universal indeed—ask any toddler who is terrified of the dark.[2]
The light chases away
the darkness and the fear. The Psalmist begins by saying, “The Lord is my light
and my salvation; whom shall I fear?” It’s interesting that the light comes
before the salvation.
We’re very used to living in a world where light comes to
us with the flick of a switch or the push of a button on a cell phone. Physical
darkness is easy to chase away. Spiritual darkness is a very different thing.
Spiritual darkness is riddled with fear and uncertainty.
Fear interrupts faith. Let me repeat that. Fear interrupts
faith. When I’m afraid, all I can see is that big scary thing right in front of
my face or somewhere in the future. I have a friend named Sara. She lives very
close to the margins. Her car needs some repairs, but she can’t afford to have
the work done. She was afraid it wouldn’t pass inspection, so she didn’t have
it inspected. She still drives it, but she lives in fear of getting pulled
over. But she needs her car to get to work. Sometimes she has trouble seeing
past these fears.
Addiction to drugs and alcohol also causes a great deal of
fear and anxiety, both for the addict and for the addict’s loved ones. Heroin
addiction seems to stoke all of our fears in a way that other drugs do not. For
a long time, heroin was somebody else’s problem. Most addicts were concentrated
in the inner city; heroin was an urban problem. Frankly, many people were less
concerned when it seemed that heroin was confined to communities of color.
Today, heroin is everywhere. Washington and Westmoreland counties have some of
the highest rates of overdoses in the nation.
I’m sure that most of you know an addict or two. You
probably also know the families of an addict, or perhaps you have a family
member who is struggling with addiction. Even if it hasn’t touched you
directly, you’ve heard the stories. You’ve heard that the addict has to lie and
steal to support his or her habit. You’ve heard of the person who was in and
out of rehab, but couldn’t stay clean. You’ve heard of the parents who had to
kick their child out of the house, because they refused to tolerate the lying
and the stealing any longer.
I know a pastor whose daughter who was addicted to alcohol.
For most of us, alcohol seems less scary. But eventually, this pastor had to
tell his daughter to leave. He and his wife lived in constant fear that they
would get a call from the police, asking them to identify her body. One day he
decided to write her funeral service, because he knew he’d never be able to
write the service after he got that
call. Every family of an addict faces those fears on some level. We expect
heroin addicts to overdose. We expect them to get diseases. We expect that they
may die.
Now put yourself in the shoes of the heroin addict. Most
addicts try to kick the habit; they get clean for a little while, but the
addiction is so strong. They know that they’ve harmed their friends and family,
but the addiction is so strong. They want to stop because they know they’ve
hurt themselves and their loved ones, but the addiction is so strong, and so is
the hurt they’ve inflicted. They’ve burned so many bridges that they’re afraid
to reach out to their loved ones. Perhaps they’re afraid that they are no
longer loved, so what’s the point? Perhaps some think that God has abandoned
them. I suspect many families of addicts wonder if God as abandoned them, too.
Fear interrupts faith; it can be hard to see God at work in
our lives. This seems to be the very same fear that the Psalmist expresses when
he cries out to the Lord: “Do not hide your face from me. Do not turn your
servant away in anger, you who have been my help. Do not cast me off, do not
forsake me, O God of my salvation!”
Isaiah spoke his prophecies in Judah, the southern kingdom.
He saw the Assyrian Empire defeat and destroy Israel, the northern kingdom. The
Assyrians also threatened to destroy Judah. This was the darkness of Isaiah’s
time; the fear that was in front of the nation. Yet Isaiah never lost faith
that God would deliver the people of Judah; he gives thanks to God: “You have
multiplied the nation, you have increased its joy;” God will remove the yoke of
the oppressor.
In Isaiah’s time, the people were looking for a new king,
another King David, who would drive off the Assyrians. A century later it was
the Babylonians. In Jesus’ time, it was the Romans. But that wasn’t the Messiah
that God sent. Jesus didn’t lead an army to victory; he conquered sin and
death. Jesus worked differently, and we must also work differently.
In this morning’s gospel lesson, Jesus also uses the
imagery of light shining in the darkness. In fact, Jesus quotes the text from
Isaiah: “Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali, on the road by the sea, across the Jordan,
Galilee of the Gentiles the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light,
and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned.”
Jesus is that light!
Yes, Jesus calls for sinners to repent, but he also calls the
disciples to follow him and share the message of God’s love for humanity. He
calls Simon and Andrew, and then James and John. They were all fishermen; they
all drop their nets and follow Jesus’ call. There’s no conversation, no
discussion, they just follow. What about us? How are we supposed to follow
Christ in the midst of this heroin epidemic?
Let’s be honest, God’s face can be hard to see during
addiction. We have to shine the light of Christ’s love into that darkness.
Remember what we heard in last Sunday’s lesson from the Gospel of Matthew.
Jesus said, “I was a prisoner and you visited me.” But the people were
surprised; they asked Jesus when they had visited him, and Jesus responded, “any
time you have done this for the least of my brothers and sisters, so you have
done it for me.”
Jesus offers light in the midst of the darkness—the very
image that Isaiah offers, a vision of what life could and should be:
[Without that vision] people
indeed might remain trapped in darkness. The prophet’s objective in providing
his readers images of light while it is still dark, joy while people are still
sorrowing, peace when the war is still raging is captured well in the oft
quoted axiom of William Arthur Ward: “If you can imagine it, you can achieve
it. If you can dream it, you can become it.”[3]
When I hear the stories
of people like Wes or Casey, I hear stories of what might have been. Their
lives were incomplete visions of what life could and should be—they could see
the light, but they couldn’t quite pull themselves out of the darkness.
We cannot and must not hide our faces from those who are
suffering—whether it’s addicts or their families—we have to show our faces to
those who are touched by addiction. The Church must be a part of this response.
First, we can do this by praying with and for those who are struggling with
addiction, and then praying with and for the families and loved ones of the
addicts. And then we have to be available to those who are suffering.
That doesn’t mean that you all have to become addictions
counselors. And it doesn’t mean that you have to provide financial or material
support to an addict in your family. It does mean that you have to listen and
you have to respond with Christ’s love. As I mentioned at the beginning of
worship today, the Belle Vernon Area Ministerium is holding three ecumenical
services of prayer and worship this week. That’s a place to start. If we want
to ease the suffering in this community, then we have to put ourselves in a
place to hear the stories of those people who are suffering and those who are
in recovery. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Benediction
Now, beloved, as you depart from this place, remember that
we are called to be the Church, the body of Christ. We are called to
participate in His saving work. Go forth and be instruments of God’s love and
peace and reconciliation. Do not return evil for evil to any person, but know
that we are all loved by God, and that we are called to reflect that love to
everyone we meet. In the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, Let all God’s children
say, Amen!
[1]
Obituary for Casey Schwartzmier, retrieved from: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/postgazette/obituary.aspx?n=casey-marie-schwartzmier&pid=183647715
[2]
Juliana Claassens, “Commentary on Isaiah 9:1-4,” retrieved from: http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3127
[3]
Claassens.
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