Life after Birth

When I was in seminary out in New Jersey I often made my way into New York City to hear people speaking who I was interested to hear. Orlando Costas was speaking at Riverside Church in New York City and I went in to hear him at their Sunday morning service (this was just a few months before he died). There was a lot of debate going on in the country then (as now) about abortion. Dr. Costas was an evangelical Christian from Latin America. What he said really struck me that morning. He said, "we spend so much time talking about life before birth -- what about life after birth?"

At worship yesterday at Broadway we shared communion. Right before my eyes passed a lot of life. There were people with struggles and people with joy. People with grief and people overflowing with hope. There was someone celebrating their 80th birthday. There were children filled with laughter and energy. There were a couple of boys who are autistic. The scripture this Sunday was on the Good Shepherd. I thought about how it was that the people I know who are autistic seem to be tuned into something else that others around them don't see or hear. I thought of Temple Grandin, the well known woman who has autism, who has written books about the gift her autism is to her in helping her be aware of the emotional lives of animals (particularly cattle). Jesus seemed tuned in, as well, to something that others couldn't see or hear. Even as a shepherd -- if you think of him as the shepherd who leaves the 99 in search of the one who is lost -- he isn't perhaps a very good one, or at least a very rational one. What he is though, is a Good shepherd...a loving shepherd. He is a shepherd who seems focused on people -- those on the margins, those who wander off don't seem far from him at all.

We came to table of abundance -- bread and wine (okay juice) -- body and blood we call it -- others here say -- a sign of God's love. It is the ordinary stuff of life that breaks in on us on days like today.

Life After Birth. What would life after birth look like? Is it sitting in front of the television watching the NBA tournament, or the Survivor television show (whichever manifestation it is right now), or Who Wants to be a Millionaire? or Oprah? How about sitting in front of my computer e-mailing folks or even writing a blog?

Mike Green has been around Broadway for the last part of the week -- Wednesday-Saturday. He is helping us listen to one another and make room for the stranger, for the person at the margins. Mike, more than most anyone I know, helps us think about how we make room to hear one another's voices and then to actually do something with what we are hearing.

On Saturday Mike led a gathering at Broadway in the morning where he had people sit and talk with one another - have conversations about things that are important to them. When I got there as the gathering was breaking up people were talking together with evident joy and life. Ellie was talking about her desire to see a grocery store in this neighborhood. She was talking with a couple of other people and they were strategizing about what they next steps they were going to take. Joe was talking about how with the little things we do around Broadway we can support economic development work in the community around us (on Tuesday morning I saw this in action as he had hired a guy from a block away to put up the fence around the new air conditioner -- he didn't have to do it. It would have been easier to just let the company who put it in hire someone. But Joe took action, hiring Yusef and Michael).

As people were leaving a few of us went to lunch together to continue the conversations.

To me this conversation is remarkable. Maybe it shouldn't be. But it is. I realize how jaded I've become in the Church to think that it could be a place that people would really take the time to listen to one another -- to make room for one another. Mike pushes the folks around the table to think about what they are doing and about the ways in which we internalize the way we feel about what he calls "labelled people." I realize that this happens all the time -- we think about how we should "mentor" or "tutor" or "help" people. But what we fail to realize is that all of us needs help. And that each of us needs what others have to contribute. But if we only treat the person across from us as one who receives and not as one who has something to give -- we will end up getting exactly what we expected in the first place.

I think about how my friend Phil Amerson reminds me often that "you only learn, what you already know." If what you already know is that the person in front of you is developmentally disabled or poor or at-risk or sick or any other of a million different labels (learning disabled, juvenile delinquent, alcoholic, etc...) we limit what we will receive - because all we see is the deficiency.

But, as Mike so often reminds us, it's not enough to recognize that every one has something to give...how can you act on it? And you must be prepared to act. And acting will actually lead to something meaningful.

It seems like something the autistic Good Shepherd might encourage -- a little life after birth.