Are you really helping?

One of the first lessons I have learned on this renewal leave: just because you think you are helping doesn’t mean you actually are.

You have to ask.

You have to find out what they really need.

You have to probe beyond their own discomfort and go a little deeper.

You have to listen.

For over a year, my spouse has had an ankle injury that has gone untreated. Like previous sprains or twists, he had followed the tried and true instructions of RICE – rest, ice, compression, elevation. It got better. But then it didn’t.

And for a year, I’ve been trying to figure out how I can help.

Offering to do things that would reduce time on his ankle.

Compromising and not going on the hikes or walks that I’ve wanted to take with him.

Gently encouraging him to see a doctor.

Nagging him to see a doctor.

Asking how it was feeling.

But what I never asked was: what kind of help do you need from me?

I took on his problem as if it were my own and tackled it in a thousand ways, but I never actually asked him what would be beneficial to him as he worked out solving the problem.

I ended up in the ER in mid-December with what turned out to be heartburn. But at the time it felt like I was dying and it wasn’t getting any better and while I sat on the bathroom floor in tears, he sat next to me and asked – “what do you need?”

And what I needed was to know that I was going to be okay and the only way to do that, after googling symptoms and having these red boxes keep appearing that said “go to the ER”, was to go get it checked out.

We had different plans for that morning: Christmas shopping followed by lunch out together. Instead, we spent the morning there, with him right by my side, and me feeling more than a little foolish when the GI cocktail worked to relieve my pain.

A couple weeks later, that trip to the hospital came up again. But he was frustrated and upset and it wasn’t about the time or the money. It was because he felt like I hadn’t done the same for him.

I realized that I had never sat down with him, really listening to his fears. I hadn’t taken the time to ask him what he needed. His fears about what could be wrong, anxiety about navigating the scheduling, it had in some ways paralyzed him from taking the one step he needed to take. What he needed, the only thing he really needed, was for me to call and schedule an appointment.

Crap.

Do you know how many times I had thought about doing that? How many times I was frustrated with him for not doing so? How often I wanted to force him to go… but then backed away from that idea because I thought he would find it to be over bearing or insulting.

What if I had just asked?

What if instead of trying to fix his problems on my own, I had sat down with him and listened to what he needed and what I could do.

What if I had bypassed the assumptions and set aside all of the drama and stress and distraction in my life and had just asked:

“What do you need?”

How many times in ministry do we encounter similar problems? Someone walks into our office with a personal crisis. A staff member is having difficulty accomplishing a task. A committee is paralyzed by lack of involvement.

How often do we jump to problem-solving and offering solutions and doing the work for them? How many times have I taken on the burden of their situation and have wrestled with a thousand ways to help?

What do they actually need?

Maybe the answer is far simpler than we imagine.

Despair to Hope

There are only two things that I really want to comment on this morning – and then I want us to turn our hearts and minds to a time of prayer – because Heaven help us, this is going to be a long summer in Eastern Iowa.

First of all, I was so surprised last night when I again read the scripture from the book of Romans in this week’s lectionary. Not realizing what the situation would be, I had actually planned on not sharing this passage of scripture – I wanted to instead focus on hospitality and use the text from Genesis… the story of Abraham welcoming the three strangers.

But again, knowing that what was happening around us was more important than any preconceived notion of mine, I went back to our texts this week and was ready to use something completely different. Until I read Romans. (5:1-5)

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. 3And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

When I wasn’t helping out my husband’s family in the past few days… helping to calm worried spirits, getting meals for 11 people on the table, trying to get to places around Cedar Rapids to help sandbag… I was glued to the television. I’m sure many of you were also. And what continued to amaze me were the statements of hope and strength that kept being shared with the community.

Rev. Linda Bibb is the pastor at Salem United Methodist Church. It is on the corner of First Avenue and 3rd Street West and on Thursday evening, their stained glass windows were almost completely under water. And when she was interviewed on KCRG she said: “that the church is not the building, so they Salem church is doing well and proclaiming that they do not fear the future because God is already there.”

Gail Gnaughton – President and CEO of the National Czech and Slovak Museum and Library had this to say:

“The Czech and Slovak peoples have endured many devastating events in their history and have survived to become stronger. Iowa is filled with the strength of those who settled here and built the Cedar Rapids community. The museum will rise again from above the flood waters to continue as the touchstone for Czech and Slovak cultural heritage in the United States.”

In Walter Bruggemann’s reflections upon this passage, he shares that the amazing thing about both the Jewish and Christian communities is that memory produces hope in us, in the same way that amnesia produces despair. “We hope in and trust the God who has done these past miracles, and we dare to affirm that the God who has done past acts of transformation and generosity will do future acts of transformation and generosity.”

He shares the hope of Israel even though their communities and cities were destroyed and they were sent into exile. In the prophetic words of Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Isaiah, the people heard “a vision that defied and overrode circumstance…” They heard about a restored temple in Jerusalem, a new covenant with Israel where God would completely forgive them and would start again, and they heard of a wondrous, triumphant homecoming to Jerusalem. “So these exiled Jews – the most passionate, the most faithful – took these dreams and hopes as the truth of their life. They acted toward that future.”

In the same way, Christians refuse to see “the present loss as the last truth (for it is) a community that knows that God is not finished.” We can call the dreaded Friday on which Christ died “Good” because we know that it is not the end. This passage from Paul is a refusal to give in.

Bruggemann goes on to say that our ability to turn memory into hope, even in the midst of loss “is not about optimism or even about signs of newness.” In fact, if watching the images on television and even seeing the waters recede in Cedar Rapids, there is little hope there, little sign of newness anywhere – the streets, the buildings, and everything inside is covered with a disgusting brown film.

No, claiming that hope does not disappoint is according to Bruggemann, “a statement about the fidelity of God who is the key player in our past and in our future… “ and so we have the ability to say: The Kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe the Good News.
(Walter Bruggemann- http://www.icjs.org/clergy/walter.html – “Suffering Produces Hope”)

Secondly, I want to share with you the call that is before all of us from the Gospel of Matthew. Here again these words at the end of chapter 9:

35Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness. 36When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; 38therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

The phrase that strikes me the most in this text is that Jesus had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless. The Message translation says they were “confused and aimless” and the American Standard Version says they were “distressed and scattered.” In any case… these were people who needed some guidance. They were having a tough time and they needed some love and compassion and some real help. And Jesus said – we can do this. There are so many of them and there are so few of us… but we just need to pray to God that more people will be sent our way and that we can do this!

At about 10pm on Thursday night, I was watching the news and heard a cry for help. The last remaining water pump in Cedar Rapids was in danger and there was great need to secure the well with sandbags. Evidently only about 10 people were helping there and it simply wasn’t enough. I desperately wanted to help, but I couldn’t get there – it was on the other side of the river, and with the interstate being shut down, it would have taken at least an hour to travel the half mile it would normally take. I couldn’t do anything but pray.

The next morning, they showed footage about what happened that night. More than one thousand people had showed up and created a HUGE fireman’s brigade to get the sandbags to where they were needed. And within a very short time, they had saved and protected that well and in doing so – saved the whole city’s limited water supply. It was extraordinary. A simply cry for help on the television resulted in that amazing response.

Two weeks ago, we heard about the communities north of us that were suffering from tornadoes and flooding, and we quickly sent out a plea for people to head up to that area and help in any way we could. With very short notice, we were able to get a team of 13 people together and go up and make a significant difference in one woman’s life.

The truth of the matter is, in these next weeks and months – the harvest that Jesus talks about is plentiful. There are so many hurting and helpless people in these communities that have been affected and they are going to need more help than what FEMA can provide. They are going to need more than money and flood buckets (although those things are necessary and we should give all we can). They are going to need people to stand beside them and to believe with them that there is hope for their lives. They need people to work along side them and to share the good news that this present circumstance is not the final word of God. And we can be the people who do so.

In your bulletin there is an insert… and it shares the ways that we can respond as a church to the disaster that has struck our part of the world. Two weeks ago I shared with you that Teresa of Avila once wrote: Christ has no body on earth but ours… with which to look with compassion on the world. And that statement is as true today as it was two weeks ago, as it was two hundred years ago. There are so many people out there, right now, who need our help, and we can respond with our hands and our feet and our hearts.

In the Message translation of the bible, the commission of those disciples who go out to serve in the name of Christ goes a little something like this:

“Don’t begin by traveling to some far-off place to convert unbelievers. And don’t try to be dramatic by tackling some public enemy. Go to the lost, confused people right here in the neighborhood. Tell them that the kingdom is here. Bring health to the sick. Raise the dead. Touch the untouchables. Kick out the demons. You have been treated generously, so live generously.
“Don’t think you have to put on a fund-raising campaign before you start. You don’t need a lot of equipment. You are the equipment…”

You are the equipment. You are all that Christ needs to help those that are hurting… and we can share that love freely, because we have been given that love freely by Christ. We can help others and freely give of our time, because we know that others have freely given of their time to help us in the crises of our own lives. We can freely give of our hearts to others, because we know that others would freely give to us if we were the ones in need today.
So take the time to look over the call to help. Take some time to pray about it. And then I hope and I pray that you will say yes. Let us together walk with those who are suffering, and let us together find hope. Amen. And Amen.