Bent Over Unable to Stand

Bent Over Unable to Stand

Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas

August 25, 2013;14 Pentecost, Proper 16, Year C

Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

(Luke 13:10-17)  Now Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, "Woman, you are set free from your ailment." When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, "There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day." But the Lord answered him and said, "You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?" When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.

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As I entered the International Terminal in Atlanta a few weeks ago headed to Africa, I stopped at a display I’ve looked at before.  It’s the airport exhibit honoring Dr. Martin Luther King.  There are pictures, handwritten notes from his speeches, a suit that he wore on a significant occasion.  I had not noticed before, but the exhibit continues on the back side of the display, and as I went around to the other side, my eye was arrested by something familiar.  I recognized a picture.  It was the side of a building with familiar columns and a balcony.  It was the courthouse on the square in my hometown of Oxford, Mississippi.  And in the foreground, the top one-third of the photograph, was the sign that hung on that building during my childhood:  “Ladies Rest Room – Whites Only”.

This week is the fiftieth anniversary of the 1963 “March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom” when a quarter of a million people gathered to call for full civic and economic rights for African Americans.  It was the setting for Dr. King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech. 

For three hundred years, black people in America lived burdened, oppressed lives, like the woman in our gospel today, “bent over and unable to stand up straight.”  In my hometown we had separate schools, separate drinking fountains, separate waiting rooms and public entrances.  Our neighborhoods were segregated and so were our churches.  Black people were not allowed into restaurants or soda fountains, motels or the front seats of buses.  Or in the voting booth.  All of this was legal.  It was the law of the land, enforced by police and judges.  Sometimes laws are bad.  Sometimes what everybody thinks, is wrong.

On this week fifty years ago, Dr. King stood upright and tall upon a high podium and reminded the world that fifty years after the Emancipation Proclamation the life of an African American “is still sadly crippled by the manacles segregation and the chains of discrimination,” living “on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity… an exile in his own land.”  Dr. King reclaimed the founders’ promise of “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

At age 23, John Lewis was the youngest speaker that day.  He had already been arrested 24 times in the non-violent struggle for equal justice.  He had been beaten severely on several occasions.  Today John Lewis is in his twenty-sixth year of service as a U.S. Congressman from Georgia and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

I heard him tell a story on the radio the other day.  It was from 1987, when Congressman Lewis returned to Montgomery to help dedicate a civil rights memorial.  An elderly white man came up to Lewis and said, “I remember you from the Freedom Riders.”  Then Lewis recognized him.  He was Floyd Mann, Alabama’s safety commissioner in 1961 and a dedicated segregationist.  Mann believed he had reached an agreement with the Birmingham police chief that when the Freedom Riders came to town there would be no violence.  But as the Riders got off their bus, a white mob with baseball bats, iron pipes and bicycle chains moved to attack, unimpeded.  There were no police present.  It quickly became violent and bloody.  On his own, Mann “charged into the bus station, fired his gun into the air and yelled, ‘There'll be no killing here today.’  A white attacker raised his bat for a final blow.  Mann put his gun to the man's head.  ‘One more swing,’ he said, ‘and you're dead.’” 

Remembering that day, Congressman Lewis spoke softly to the now elderly Floyd Mann, “You saved my life.”  They embraced, and Lewis began to cry.  “I'm right proud of your career,” Mann said, as they parted.

Floyd Mann stood up for John Lewis and a small group of Freedom Riders when they were bent over and unable to stand up straight from the blows of bats and chains – people whom Satan had bound for 300 years – and Floyd Mann set them free from their bondage that day.

Did you hear the story last week of Antoinette Tuff, the bookkeeper at an elementary school in Decatur, Georgia.  A man armed with an AK-47-style assault rifle and 500 rounds of ammunition entered the school and fired one round into the floor.  She called 911 and stayed calm and gentle as she kept a conversation going between the gunman, herself and the 911 dispatcher.

He told her he had “nothing to live for.”  He wanted to kill himself.  “No. You don't want that,” she told him.  “You gonna be okay.  I thought the same thing.  You know, I tried to commit suicide last year after my husband left me, but look at me now.  I'm still working and everything is okay.”

He mumbled something about no one wanting to listen to him.  “I’m sitting here with you and talking to you about it.” 

He told her he should have gone to the hospital.  He was off his medication.  She told him she would try to help him.  “Let’s see if we can work it out so that you don’t have to go away for a long time.” 

Antoinette kept talking and listening, until finally he said he was sorry and put his gun down.  “It's gonna be all right, sweetheart.  I just want you to know that I love you, though, okay?  And I'm proud of you.  That's a good thing that you're just giving up and don't worry about it.  We all go through something in life.”

Antoinette Tuff saw a man whom most people would only see as a threat, a monster.  But she could see him as a human being, “bent over and unable to stand up straight.”  With words of understanding, compassion and honesty she verbally laid her hands on him and set him free, simultaneously freeing children, police and everyone in that school. 

The scripture says, “Perfect love casts out fear.”

Wherever people are “bent over and unable to stand up straight” – wherever people feel oppressed, stifled, boxed in, burdened and powerless – the perfect love of Jesus casts out fear, insisting that every human being is God’s child, created in the image and likeness of God, beloved of God, therefore worthy of the perfect love of God that casts out fear.

There are all kinds of laws that cripple human beings in the name of high principles – sabbath laws, immigration laws, insurance laws, moralistic laws, debtor laws, laws of privilege and place.

Jesus simply sees the bent-over woman and heals her on the sabbath.  Floyd Mann simply sees defenseless people and stops the violence.  Antoinette Tuff simply sees a scared man off his medication and talks him down.  Compassion in action.

We can look at today’s gospel from two perspectives. 

You may be that woman.  You may be “bent over and unable to stand up straight” for countless reasons.  Jesus says to you, “Stand up, erect and tall.  You are freed from your ailment.”  Don’t let your burden oppress you.  For you are God’s beloved.  As Antoinette Tuff says, “Don’t worry about it.  We all go through something in life.”

Or, you may see someone like that woman.  It is your calling to be her advocate.  Put your hand and your power on the side of the oppressed, and stare down the enforcers of oppressive sabbath laws.

It's all about love.  Perfect love.  God’s perfect love.  Let God love you so infinitely that you can stand up straight and tall.  Let divine love flow through you so perfectly that you can help others stand up straight and tall.  We all need our place in the sun.  The Son of God gives us that place, and invites us to share the light with everyone, especially those who are bent over and living in the shadows.

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The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church is to explore and celebrate

God's infinite grace, acceptance and love.

For information about St. Paul's Episcopal Church and its life and mission, please contact us at

P.O. Box 1190, Fayetteville, AR 72702, or call 479/442-7373

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Perspectives From Africa

Perspectives from Africa

Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas

August 11, 2013; 12 Pentecost, Proper 14, Year C

Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

(Luke 12:32-40)  Jesus said to his disciples, "Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

"Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks. Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes; truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them. If he comes during the middle of the night, or near dawn, and finds them so, blessed are those slaves.

"But know this: if the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour."

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Note:  This sermon was preached at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church where Lowell supplied for Pastor Clint.

I

've thought a lot about possessions during this past week.  For five days I lived among people who have few possessions.  And yet, living among them, I experienced the presence of the Kingdom that God promises to give us.

Last week I lived in a Maasai village in Kenya.  My home, shared with two others, was about ten feet by ten feet, barely taller than my head, made of sticks and limbs, plastered with a dried mixture of mud and cow dung.  It was dark, except for a few small openings and a little LED solar lamp. 

In a separate stick house was the guest latrine, two porcelain potties over an earth-dug pit.  Each morning a villager would start a fire to heat water for their guests' hot shower in the latrine hut.

On our second day we were invited to our neighbor's home two cottages over to see a typical family arrangement.  The dung hut had a little bigger footprint, maybe 15 by 15 feet.  There was a small area for a cooking fire, about four feet square.  The smoke from the little fire stung my eyes.  On either side of the fire were bed mats -- father on the left, mother on the right.  Three children slept with their parents and the two smallest slept on the floor in between.  At the foot of the mother's bed was an L-shaped stall where fifteen goats and two young calves stayed inside with the family each night, safe from predators.  Earlier that morning I had watched a mother cow released from her night enclosure walk to that door and moo until the family opened up to let her calf come to nurse.

Each day village women walk to a creek about a hundred yards away or to a pump some further distance to bring water.  The women milk the cows and do all of the cooking.  They also fetch the firewood.  The women are responsible for all of the construction and upkeep of their buildings.  After the cattle pen was emptied one morning I watched a woman collect dung for patching the roof and sides of her home. 

On one of our mornings in the village, the women in our group helped with the tasks of carrying water and chopping sticks for fire and building. During the day the village women make necklaces and bracelets, and some go to sell their crafts at the nearby gate to the Maasai Mara Game Preserve.  Before and after school, the young girls help with all of these things. 

The men and many boys are in charge of the cows, sheep and goats.  Some stay up all night by a fire guarding the flock inside an enclosure of sticks.  They also protected us, especially the night when elephants roamed our camp.  Each day other men and boys take the flocks up the nearby mountain to graze and return them at evening.  They carry with them neither food nor water during their day's work. 

Wealth in the village is measured by cows.  One villager asked one of our group how many cows he owned.  The other villager with him was embarrassed by the impolite question, the equivalent of asking "How much money do you have?"  They have little or no money.  It costs a man 10 cows to become engaged to a bride.  Our 23 year old guide has 4 cows.  It will be a while before he can afford to marry.

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o electricity, no plumbing, no TV, no cars; but many cell phones.  I could go on about what they don't have.  But let me say something about what they do have.

The people of this village have a deep sense of community.  They know that they belong to something greater than themselves.  They belong to that place -- to the land, its animals and resources.  They belong to their tribe.  They have a deep sense of identity, of knowing who they are and what they will be doing with their lives -- lives that are deeply interconnected -- meaningful and purposeful.  You get no sense of anxiety among them about what they should do or who they should become. 

One of our hosts, Angela, will forever become for me an icon of the meaning of the word "joy."  Angela was responsible for our meals.  Whenever she arrived she greeted us with an effervescent smile and a song-like voice -- "Good morning!"  "Good evening!"  "Did you sleep well?"  "How are you?"  She spread joy simply, as an expression of her being. 

Angela is also the teacher for the youngest children of the village. We visited her class, where she uses joyful songs to teach things like the alphabet, the days of the week, the months of the year, and basic math.  Their learning was like play.  One evening when we told Angela how much we enjoyed visiting her class, she sang joyfully, "I love my children, and they love me."  Her face beamed.

Before dawn one morning I encountered Angela picking coals from the evening's fire and placing them into a small tin fire-starter.  She asked me, "Do you have something like this for your cooking?"  I thought of my fancy Green Egg grill and said somewhat falsely, "Yes, I do."  Angela and the other women wash clothes on the rocks in the creek and dry them on the bushes.  Someone in our group told her about washing machines and dryers, and showed her a picture.  "And for dishes?" She asked.  "Yes, a machine for that too."  Angela smiled and shook her head, perplexed over such things.

We wondered how she had the time to build fires, gather water, cook and serve our meals, clean the dishes and cookware, and teach a full day at school.  She made me think about all of the conveniences we take for granted -- plumbing and water that is safe to drink, washers, dryers, ovens, stoves, dishwashers, paved roads and cars.

I came home more thankful. 

I

t strikes me that so many of these things are conveniences to save us time.  How long it takes Angela do to the same things that we do.  Yet why do so many of us always seem so rushed and so short of time?  Why do we feel anxious over whether we can get everything done that we think we ought to do?  We are a busy and rushed people. 

Time seems different in Africa. Africans don't seem pushed and stressed to do, and to do so quickly.  They don't seem pressured by time.  Even the walk of the Maasai has a slow, dignified grace. 

Our main host was a Maasai community leader, James Ole Lesaloi --(jplsemadep@gmail.com).  Our group learned about his safari-plus-cultural experience project through the "Responsible Travel" website.  James offers discount safaris of the famous Maasai Mara and uses the income to address many of the needs of the Maasai people.

We saw a water well that his non-profit has installed.  It serves ten villages with water that is cleaner and more dependable than the creeks.  We visited his school with more than 1,000 students, 600 of them as boarders.  The school can teach, board, feed, and give a uniform to a student for only $210 a year, a price beyond many Maasai families, so John provides many scholarships.  They need scholarship sponsors. 

We visited John’s new rescue mission for girls whose families would otherwise sell them into polygamous marriage by age 14 to men much older.  John's non-profit has established a Community Health Center with diagnostics, treatment, drugs, hospital beds and simple surgeries for basic health care and for the myriad of accidents and illnesses that afflict the people -- malaria, typhoid, HIV, measles, and more.  He's hoping soon to develop a videoconference link that will allow doctors to consult on cases from a distance.  John's most recent project is a computer lab donated and installed by Cisco. 

When I read today's gospel encouragement to "give alms" I thought immediately of John's development organization as a worthy subject of my giving.  Being with him and his people challenges me to think differently about my possessions -- my privilege, my wants, my needs. We live a life of remarkable material privilege here in the U.S.  But sometimes we live with exaggerated anxieties -- exaggerated needs. 

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 wouldn't want to trade places with John or with Angela.  I feel fortunate to live in this privileged land.  But coming home again reminds me of what I am most deeply thankful for. 

Jesus said, "Where you treasure is, there your heart will be also."  My real treasure is the people in my life -- the relationships of love and friendship.  The network of family and community where I belong and have a sense of identity and place and meaning.  A network of relationships with the divine living mystery of God, especially as God is incarnate in Jesus, and in all humanity, and in the communities who embody God's Spirit.  These relationships are the unfailing treasures which no moth can destroy. 

These are the treasures of the kingdom of God.

It is "the Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom," Jesus tells us.  This past week I have experienced that kingdom fresh and alive among neighbors who have few material treasures.  And they have reminded me of what is truly of value.  They invite us in the West to live with less attachment to our possessions, and with a lighter sense of time.  They invite us to share and to give, for we have more than our share of things.

They invite us to embrace the true treasures of relationship and community, and to celebrate our deepest identity as God's beloved children.  As God's children, we thrive most deeply when we simply love God and love our neighbor as ourselves. 

So, "do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom...  Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out...  For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

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__________________________________________

The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church is to explore and celebrate

God's infinite grace, acceptance and love.

For information about St. Paul's Episcopal Church and its life and mission, please contact us at

P.O. Box 1190, Fayetteville, AR 72702, or call 479/442-7373