Sermon: The Star of Hope -- Epiphany, 2000

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The Star of Hope -- Epiphany, 2000

By Charles Rush

January 9, 2000

Santa Claus Workshop

r world is full of bad news and our papers seem to bring more of it each day. Take the following, which I received this week on e-mail and surely a bunch of you did too. Can you imagine working at the following company? It has just over 500 employees and the following statistics are for real:


29	have been accused of spousal abuse
7	have been arrested for fraud
19	have been accused of writing bad checks
117	have bankrupted at least two businesses
3	have been arrested for assault
71	cannot get a credit card due to bad credit
14	have been arrested on drug-related charges
8	have been arrested for shop-lifting
21	are current defendants in lawsuits
84	were stopped for drunk driving in 1998 alone

What company could that be? No, it is not the partners at Goldman Sachs. I'll give you a hint. There are actually 535 members. It is our United States Congress. We wonder why we have problems. We don't have to look for an evil conspiracy. We have met the enemy and it is us. Having said that, I'm sure that our Congressman, Bob Franks, is not to be found on that list. (Right Bob?) No, our world is full of bad news and this background of bad news can make us cynical, jaded, aloof and diffident, can it not?

The story that we tell during this season is one of a little star of hope on the horizon that we are invited to follow. It is not a blazing torch that overpowers us. It is just one little star of hope. But maybe that is enough.

I was looking at a box full of old slides with my brother the day after Christmas and we came on one taken of us when I was about 7 and my brother was 5. We were at the Baptist Church in Little Rock, Arkansas, holding these candles and singing. "This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine, let it shine, let it shine let it shine." It was a children's song they taught us. I like to think of Christmas at Christ Church as something like that. I don't pretend to be able to roll back the tidal wave of influence that is set for us by those beguiling models for J. Crew, the slinky svelte at Abercrombie, or the throw money chic at Nieman Marcus. The guys that do their advertising have a very big budget and their influence is the more profound because more and more of us can afford it to boot.

I don't pretend to be able to slow down the over-paced socializing of the season, the ever-expanding check-list of chatchkas and bric-a-brac we are supposed to buy for colleagues, scented candles for the teacher, and the gift certificate to the GAP for the kid that walks our dog. It's a problem and it's getting worse every year. I got two Christmas cards this year from the guy that delivers the New York Times, not a good sign. The first one is a polite request for a tip. The second one means send some cash now or your paper will hit the dog poop pile on Monday. It's a problem. I don't pretend to be able to roll back this huge business, social obligations, charity fundraisers of the season of Saturnalia.

It seems to me that we are only likely to be little candles of hope in the midst of the bustle and the strange, alienation of the Mall shopping during the season.

But we are little candles of hope, too. I want to share a couple of them with you because I get to do probably too much of the fun stuff and we all make it happen. You remember those White Gifts that we gave? After the service, we haul all of them back to my office and cover the floor and the chairs with all that stuff. It's great.

On the 23rd, our 8th grade Confirmation class gathers at the church with their sponsors. They make about 10 lunches a piece, bowl up our soup, and pile on over to Battery Park. We are so lucky to have Francis coordinate this trip for us. He organizes the runs every week and we've done this run together for 23 years. He has a wonderful way of talking with our kids to explain to our kids what homelessness is really like. As you know, homelessness has changed since Mayor Guliani has enacted his reforms. Gone are the cardboard shantytowns under the Brooklyn Bridge. Nowadays, when we pull up, we have to scour around to get the word out that we are here. It is like putting a bible study together in the old Communist bloc. Two or three spreading the word that we will meet by the yellow truck. They come, a few here, a few there. These days they are dressed better because they work harder at blending in.

We trade lunches and soup. The kids search through the packages for a pair of gloves that are needed over there- Mens large, very large; a blanket here; the kids ask what they are doing for Christmas. Most of them have a story. Some just look back blank and say This. That, too, is an answer. If you can't think of something to say, all you have to do is ask what they think of the Mayor. Everyone has a story, two, three. It's cold and dropping down. And in a very strange, non-eventful, nothing great really happening sort of way, this is the one place I most want to be during the season. All the pageantry and the family stuff, and the church worship service, all that can start now. It is just very grounding.

We go to the Brooklyn Bridge, see some people we know, more conversation. We go to City Hall.

Francis takes us all over to World Financial Center 3 and we walk into the beautiful atrium, all lit up for the season. He taps different people on the sleeve and asks them if they need anything. Our kids are surprised to see how hard it is to tell the homeless from other people just sitting at the tables in the evening. A few of them follow us out to the truck and we empty the last bit of stuff.

It is a simple thing, not a big deal. Every year, I have some kid say to me that the one little trip to New York was the best thing they did in 8th grade. A little light shines in the darkness.

The next day Jeannette Brown comes over to the office and we pile the rest of those white gifts in my truck and we head off to the Sherman Community Center in Newark. Jeannette talks to Daisy Hardgrove who has been the Director of the nursery school for 20 years. Daisy is really unpacking some stuff this year because the State has mandated a bunch of changes so that her staff has got to get more education, there is a boatload of paper work, there are meetings. It is a real headache and Daisy may need our help right shortly. Jeannette is making a list.

Two other guys at the center help unload the gifts and we just fill up a floor for Daisy to distribute. She knows who really needs what and I supposed that in that quadrant of the world where Santa Claus is a black woman, Santa probably looks like the face of Daisy Hardgrove. Daisy will get back to us about the rest of her needs.

Earlier that week, our church made the space for one of the best things we do here in town during the Christmas season. The Summit Fortnightly group hosts an annual Santa Claus Workshop. Every year they raise about $25,000. This year they invited some 330 families to come to our church, pick out presents for their family, get them wrapped and bagged. They target families that might fall through the cracks, not the poorest of the poor, but folks that would have a hard time making a Christmas for their families because they don't quite qualify for any kind of outside aid and have to live on very limited means. They lit hundreds of candles of hope with that event.

Meanwhile, the Deacons have been working with a family in our town, the father is a Summit kid that has moved back after many years. There is illness, there is disability, there is poverty. Another Minister in town knows them very well and they have been working with the family as well. He assures me that they will have nothing for Christmas. The mother comes to ask me for a small amount of money before the holidays and I tell her I can't help her with the money, for a variety of reasons, but to come back just before Christmas and I might be able to get a present or two.

We make an announcement in church and three families adopt all six of her kids, each family adopted two kids. And in a couple of cases, the families were buying for kids that were their kids ages, so we got the kids involved too, shopping for other kids, buying some stuff that they would want for Christmas. Someone else comes up to me and asks about the parents. They agree to get them a coupon for food up at a local grocery store. Great idea. We don't know how to coordinate the giving because this woman has no phone but it will work out somehow, so everyone drops their gifts off at my office. It is Christmas Eve. I'm running around doing various errands and the woman comes by. No one is here, except Christine. Chris takes her into my office and shows her this heap of presents for all of her kids.

The woman puts her hands over her mouth, steps back, and starts to cry. I think Christine was so startled she started to cry too. You shed a little light in the darkness.

Christmas eve we take up a collection at Christ Church at both services, half of the money goes to a local family in need that is picked by the Deacons, the other half goes to a mission outreach that the Board of World Fellowship picks.

This year, one of the members of our congregation nominated a family. They had an ongoing relationship with them and knew that there was not only real need in the family but that a substantial gift would make a profound difference for the good in their home. That is the best way, so keep on the lookout this year for people you know.

After the first service was over, Mary Campbell counted the money, and told me that we didn't have enough hundred-dollar bills to get this money neatly in a card because our plate collection was larger than last year. Thank you. What to do? You can't write a check on these things that is no good. So I said Mary just put it in an envelope if it will fit. Just give me a big wad of sweaty, well-worn cash in small bills. That is the way poor people spend it anyway, a few dollars here, a couple there.

The family from our church took me over to their house. Julie usually goes but couldn't this year. We were coming to give them a present for their children and a little something from the saints at Christ Church, such as they are. We exchanged greetings. They speak only a little English, having recently immigrated to our country out of desperation, leaving behind a life of poverty, frustration, and futility. It is still true that the Lady in the Harbor beckons the world saying "Give me your tired, your poor, your dispossessed." They are living with relatives in the basement, on one side of a duplex.

The father works in a sweatshop in a nearby town that takes advantage of recent immigrants with no language skills and no power of legal recourse. Last week he made $90 for a long week of work. He has good work skills, good discipline, will get out of that but that is the way that it is right now. They were religious people, which I like, not necessary but it is good. They gave us cards. We talked with the kids for a minute. We took a picture together. We gave them presents. I handed them a sealed envelope, stuffed full of about $1700 of sweaty, well-worn cash in small bills. I included a note that said, "The journey is long. You are not alone. In the future, you will know how to give thanks to God. Peace be with you." We all said goodbye and we left.

The next time the couple from our church saw them, they had a speechless gratitude. The only thing they could say was, "why us? Why so much?" I can tell you what happened to them. Their first thought when they opened that envelope is that they couldn't take it, there are so many other people in greater need. But they can't give it back because that would be rude. Then they think they don't deserve it. Then they are filled with the strange tingling sensation that happens when something totally unexpected and unpredictable happens. In the middle of the night, one of them woke up and wondered what it meant and what they were supposed to do. They were filled with sensational hope that people are really good and that good things can happen, that there is possibility on the horizon, and things might work out after all. One of them thought that there must be a purpose in all this that they would figure out. And they felt like they could accomplish something important. And in the morning they had a great expectation that comes with true gratitude, that life was good and full of promise, even when it is hard and it is good to be alive. I don't know what was in their mind but I bet I'm right. And you did it. You lit a little candle of substantial hope in the darkness. Thank you.

And the rest of the collection that night. The Board of World Fellowship designated about the same amount of money to go to the Food Bank, which feeds people with dented cans that grocery stores can't sell and other foodstuffs that we collect. Feeding people at Christmas time. That seems right. You lit a lot of little candles of hope with that donation.

The Alternative Gift Market from before Christmas. That was started by the good women in our Morning Guild who were tired of giving chatchkas and bric-a-brac to distant relatives that they didn't know what to get, people at the office, et alia -- all the people you have to get some obligatory gift for that really don't need anything more and can't be moved one way or the other by the little trinket you have budgeted. So they decided to make their own chatchkas and donate some money to one of 18 different charitable organizations. They can now give a little chatchka that says "A contribution was made in your name to support Heifer International. Your contribution will help to buy part of a cow for a family to bring them to subsistence living." This was our 3rd year. We raised $18,700 for all kinds of work, both here and abroad. You may be interested to know that we raised $1200 for America Reads and one of our kids, Kristen Salisbury, is working with that organization, teaching inner city kids to read. Kristen, of course, recently graduated from one of the best colleges in the country, Wake Forest University. We lit up a whole room full of little lights of hope in the darkness there. Finally, there were a whole bunch of small acts of warm humanity that wont get mentioned individually for want of time. Some of you visited people I heard about, some of you were there in support of others who were under stress because their families werent working or they were just sad over the memory of the loss of a loved one. I even think, pitiful as our singing can be at times, that bringing some Christmas carols to folks was important. I thought it was great to see our little band, led by young Swope Fleming home from college at Princeton, singing to the folks at Glenside Nursing Home. Someone said, they have to listen, they can't escape in those wheel chairs. And thats true. But, in it's own simple way, that too was a blessing. Even there, you lit a little light of hope in the darkness.

I tell you this because I want you to know what you are doing. I'm just the emissary but you make it happen. And I want to spread that emissary role around more too. And I hope you see how you can spin it next year for there is a way, in a season that can be simply rushed, over-sated, glutinously material, and checking off a list of social obligations -- there is a way that you can light a light of hope in the darkness and at least for a moment, you can feel the grace of God move through you, beaming out into the world.

Amen.