Daniel Berrigan, Squirrels and the Suffering Servant: Proper 23A

There are times when I read the Gospel--proclaiming the good news of God from the midst of the people--and my overwhelming desire is to be reading SOMETHING else.  

There are beautiful passages in scripture.  Love of neighbor, love of God.  There is poetry and prose, metaphor and miracle...

Then there is this, this passage from Matthew that has preachers throughout the country doing exegetical backbends to try to get around a text that seems so contrary to our fundamental understanding of a God of inclusion and love, a God of redemption and calling.  

The Girardian theologians, who are committed to reading non-violence in the text, suggest the preacher consider the joke, “when is a squirrel just a squirrel”--a pastor in preaching a children’s sermon holds up a stuffed squirrel and asks the children what it is...after a long pause, one of the children says “I know the answer is supposed to be Jesus, but that sure looks like a squirrel to me”.  So, when the text describes a king, we think the answer is supposed to be “God” but it’s not...

The Girardians suggest that what we hear described in this Gospel is not actually a story about the nature of God.  That this is not allegory, and that what we have here is a description of the actions of a human king--specifically suggesting that the Greek which introduces this parable refers to “anthropos”, a man, rather than God.  So, if a MAN is the king, what does it say to us about where we find Jesus in this text?

It was at this point in my research that I considered Jesus’ procession into Jerusalem...the hosannas that became cries of crucify him...

And, I wonder what happens to this Gospel if we understand the king as human, and the man cast out as Christ?  

As a college student I spent three months living and working with an intentional community called Agape, a community dedicated to living and teaching Christian non-violence.  It was at Agape that I had the privilege of meeting the Reverend Daniel Berrigan, a poet, activist, priest known for acts of civil disobedience.  Daniel in a sermon on this text writes that,  “The parable of the king’s banquet is brutally secular. It tells of the domestic misbehavior of the powerful and the victimizing of the powerless, of war and retaliation.”

Do our human understandings of inclusion end up excluding and destroying the very one we have called upon?  The very one we are, ourselves, called to serve?

If the kingdom of heaven is to be compared...Daniel Berrigan reminds us that compare means to find those things alike and those things which stand in stark opposition.  

Does the ease with which we identify the king as God demonstrate far more about who we are and our own understanding of what power means than it does about God?  

I would hazard, yes.  Just as last week we may have found ourselves nodding along to the Pharisees answer that the vineyard owner would be justified in destroying those who destroyed his son--this week we may find ourselves accepting that ruthless violence of a capricious king, because it makes sense based on our understanding of what human rulers do.  

But, let us remind ourselves, we serve a God and not a king...a God whose own son was cast out from the banquet, a God who suffered for our silence, a God placed upon the cross with our cries of crucify.  

the Reverend Daniel Berrigan writes, 

“In the parable Jesus presents to us the king. You choose, you decide. Is this a valid exercise of authority? Here is a clue: Don’t miss the storyteller for the story.

The One who tells the story knows both goodness and wickedness, because He is good, consistent and compassionate. He longs to see humans standing in the orbit of God’s love. He rejoices to see the speechless and poor, the nobodies, at His table.

In our story, he condemns no one, not even the king. Such a judgment is redundant, the royal behavior being self-condemned.

And to sum up matters, in utter contrast to the worldly king, the storyteller will give His life rather than take life.”

Give rather than take...our faith is redolent with those who have given rather than taken lives.  We call them martyrs, when they die, award them Nobel Peace Prizes when they live.  Advocates for justice, equality, for love and mercy.  

Last week, my sermon asked us to remember who we are, the beloved children of God, and to whom we belong...

And, I made the argument that we belong to God, but we also belong to each other.  

So, if a martyr is one who dies rather than renounce their faith...if our faith teaches us that we belong to God and each other, the idea of martyr is broken open and I am reminded of those who choose suffering, rather than renounce God or their fellow human beings.  

“the storyteller will give His life rather than take life”.

The storyteller who is Christ.  The storyteller who stands at the heart of the Gospel.  The storyteller who has the last word even as he breathes his last.

The storyteller whose story is now OUR story.  

Now, will we be silent, or will we keep telling the story of a God of love?  A God who invites each and every one of us to the table of Grace.  A God apart from our petty powers and principalities.  A God, who we describe as lover of souls.  A God of invitation.  The God in whom we can, as Paul implores us, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say Rejoice.  Let your gentleness be known to everyone...And the peace of God which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

Who We Are and To Whom We Belong, Proper 22A

Proper 22A 2014

When I was a teenager I heard Eucharistic Prayer C for the first time.  This particular Eucharistic Prayer includes the line “this fragile earth, our island home”.  At the time, as a kid on the island of Maui, I found it amazing that the prayer book was referring to my home--Maui, where the tradewinds blew, the roosters crowed, the waves crashed and the ash from burning sugar cane drifted like some sort of bizarre tropical snow flake.  

The metaphorical meaning didn’t occur to me at the time--all I knew was a small island and the prayers recited from the upper room where I gathered with the dozen or so people who comprised the worshipping community of St. Paul’s Episcopal Mission.  

The Olverson family, Mary who drove all the way from the other side of the island to play the keyboard, Reverend Kate and the Nelsons...

If the Olverson family was late we would wait to process in...partially because we could see them driving towards the chapel and knew they’d be there in a minute, and partially because they were a fourth of the congregation.  Everyone knew everyone, and we were a small community on a relatively small island--it was relatively easy to understand how we were connected whether it was a sixth cousin on my mother’s side or an old school classmate of my father or a friend of my grandfather, or, or...well you see

When I left Maui for college in 1996, I missed that interconnectedness...and the resulting clarity of knowing who I was and to whom I belonged that emerged from understanding my place in the network of lives with which my own life intertwined.  And, thus, as an adult I have found myself drawn to exploration of how communities are formed and what makes a community a community.  

  

As an undergrad I took a class called, “Primary Epic and Early National Legend” and I was struck by many of the cross cultural commonalities the texts held--most strikingly to me the commonality of “rules” or laws set down in the text.  What became clear to me was the centrality of “law” to group identity.  That laws shape our understanding of who we are and to whom we belong.  

I would imagine that most of you have heard the phrase “in our family...”  It’s pretty much the same thing, the rules we live by help us to understand which family we belong to.  

The Ten Commandments demonstrate this aptly.  The commandments begin with a clear statement of identity “I am the God that brought you out of Egypt” and move into explication of what God expects from God’s people--You shall have no other gods beside me...”.  The identity of the community hinges on the centrality and singularity of their relationship with God.  

Who we are, the people of God, to whom we belong, God.  Sounds simple enough.  But, we’re not going to stop there.

Because the commandments don’t stop there.  The litany continues with directives of how we are to be in relationship with each other.  Because, we no longer live for self alone...but for each other.  Interconnectedness and accountability to one’s neighbor is foundational to our life of faith.   Perhaps we must expand on our understanding of “to whom we belong” because, it becomes increasingly clear to me that we belong to each other.  Or, as my friend Katy Piazza, a priest in the Diocese of Connecticut, succinctly put it “We belong to each other, WHETHER WE LIKE IT OR NOT”.

The ground rules for right relationship with God move into the ground rules for right relationship with each other.  There is no getting around it.  I adamantly hold that how we engage with each other matters as much as how we engage with God.  We belong to each other, whether we like it or not.  

If the rules help us to understand who we are and to whom we belong...than it is clear that these rules, these Ten Commandments, point to a truth that we are children of God who belong to God and to each other.  

Take a moment and look around...we belong to each other.  NOT because we worship together here at St. Clement’s.  Not because we participate in the liturgy of the Episcopal church.  Not because we know the rules of deportment, or share a fondness for the reporting in the Huffington Post or the New York Times.  

We belong to each other because we are human beings called to relationship, called to see in each other our brother Christ, called to act in the world to bring the mercy and love of God to all the broken places.  

And, not only do we belong to each other, we belong to those we think of as “other” and they belong to us.  If we can understand that the stranger is our neighbor, are we better able to treat them with the love which God makes clear is their due?  

I began today with a reference to Eucharistic Prayer C’s phrase “this fragile earth, our island home” because the metaphor reminds us of how very close to each other we all must live--with shared resources, shared water, shared disease, shared suffering, shared rejoicing, shared devastation, shared hope, shared fear.  

James Irwin, an astronaut on Apollo 15, wrote 

“The Earth reminded us of a Christmas tree ornament hanging in the blackness of space. As we got farther and farther away it diminished in size. Finally it shrank to the size of a marble, the most beautiful marble you can imagine. That beautiful, warm, living object looked so fragile, so delicate, that if you touched it with a finger it would crumble and fall apart. Seeing this has to change a man, has to make a man appreciate the creation of God and the love of God.” (quote drawn from the meditation resources on http://www.edgeofenclosure.org/ )

What a view from space this perspective of the “fragile earth”.  

How are we to tend it?  How will we tend each other?  

This question brings me to the vineyard we hear of in the Gospel today.  

What if the tenants and landowner in the parable we heard today understood their shared reliance on the vineyard?  What if they had known that they belonged to each other?   What if they’d adhered to the Commandments?  Do not covet, do not murder, do not steal?

Would have been a much shorter parable...

But, this parable is told in a community that seems to have forgotten who they are and to whom they belong. 

The original listeners of this story would have found themselves nodding along to the answer supplied by the Pharisees "He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time."  That of course, was the answer that made sense.  Of course the landowner would destroy those who destroyed his son.  That’s how justice works--or is it?

Jesus turns the story on its head, by making it clear that this is not the answer given by God. The people to whom Jesus is speaking are the one’s who tell us that the landowner will “put those wretches to a miserable death”--NOT Jesus.    Jesus holds out a different ending 'The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone...”  

The cornerstone, that anchors the building; the cornerstone that orients the direction at which the building shall rise; the cornerstone that carries the weight...  

They had forgotten who they were and to whom they belonged.  Will we remember?  

An Ohi'a tree on the Island of Maui, near where we scattered the ashes of both of my parents.  Roots.

How can you sings as the works of my hand are drowning: Empathic Imagination in Scripture

Proper 19A, St. Clement’s 

The traditional Haggadah, the service booklet for the celebration of the Passover, lists the ten plagues.  In college, when I attended the Passover Seder, I was struck by the solemnity that marked the recitation of the plagues, a solemnity that edged on mourning for the suffering of an ancient enemy. To quote from a contemporary haggadah

“Our rabbis taught: When the Egyptian armies were drowning in the sea, the Heavenly Hosts broke out in songs of jubilation. God silenced them and said, "My creatures are perishing, and you sing praises?"

Though we descend from those redeemed from brutal Egypt, and have ourselves rejoiced to see oppressors overcome, yet our triumph is diminished by the slaughter of the foe.

Our rabbis taught: "The sword comes into the world because of justice delayed and justice denied."

To remember upheaval that follows oppression, we pour ten drops for the plagues upon Egypt.

A full cup is the symbol of complete joy. Though we celebrate the triumph of our sacred cause, our happiness cannot be complete so long as others had to be sacrificed for its sake. We shall, therefore, diminish the wine in our cups as we recall the plagues visited upon the Egyptians, to give expression to our sorrow over the losses, which each plague exacted. We now recite the list of the ten ancient plagues, pouring off wine as each one is mentioned.

Dam, Blood
Tzfardeah, Frogs
Kinim, Lice
Arov, Swarms
Dever, Blight
Sh'chin, Boils
Barad, Hail
Arbeh, Locusts
Choshech, Darkness
Makat B'chorot, Death of the Firstborn”

What a remarkable act, to mourn over the death of an ancient enemy and, in that mourning, recognize the dignity and sanctity of all lives.  

Moving the conversation from a place of vengeance and into a place of compassion.  One drop of wine spilled for each plague and a double portion spilled for the death of the firstborn.  

What if all suffering, was met with such sorrow?  Do we spill a double portion, do we weep, over the suffering of our enemies?  If we are to pay any attention to the news, it is the rare event that calls this empathy out--as words like retribution are tied to words like justice and making amends becomes coded language for punishment.  

In the Jewish tradition’s frank acknowledgment that the Israelites freedom came at the great cost of another’s suffering we see a longing for reconciliation and making sense of tragedy.  We see a longing for those caught in the throes of violence to find a way out--a way out that does not destroy others, a way out unmarred by destruction.  We see a community that marks, in ritual, the importance of being able to imagine and recognize the sufferings of others, friend or foe.    

Being able to imagine the feelings, the emotions, the suffering of another human being is a critical skill in this violence marred world of ours.  Some refer to this skill as having “empathic imagination” 

Yann Martel, author of “The Life of Pi” is emphatic that what we call empathic imagination is critical to the cause of peace.  In an interview he suggests that, “if you are an Israeli you should imagine yourself a Palestinian.  Then you will understand why the Palestinians are angry.  If you’re a Palestinian, you should make the effort of imagining yourself an Israeli, and then you will understand why the Israelis are afraid.  If you’re a man and you become a woman, you understand.  If you’re white and you imagine yourself black, etc. Such an approach will not only make the universe more peaceful.  It’s also very enriching.” (Interview, Canadian Literature 177/Summer 2003, p25)

In the Talmud the rabbis are doing this work--this work of imagining, “if you are an Israelite, imagine you are an Egyptian”.  And, in turn, we are invited to do the same--imaging ourselves as the individual or group with which we are in conflict...

This act of imagining ourselves as the other, this empathic imagination, allows us to feel an “an essential connection not only to our closest family, friends and community, but to humanity as a whole, and to other sentient creatures . . .”

And out of that connection, we are able to act with compassion, and work towards reconciliation and forgiveness.  Out of empathic imagination we can see our calling to work towards equity and the general welfare of all people.  

If we can imagine ourselves impoverished we work toward ending poverty; if we imagine ourselves oppressed we then find ourselves working to end oppression; if we can imagine ourselves as a parent of one lost to gun violence, we then work to end gun violence.  

Our baptismal covenant of seeking and serving Christ in all persons and honoring the dignity of every human being requires empathic imagination--we can only see Christ in another when we can imagine Christ within them.  And, if we can do so, we can see that advocating for another is advocating for Christ in the world.  Our faith asks us to make a stand against injustice and work towards the general welfare of all people BECAUSE of God’s own saving work in the world.  

And, arguably, this is what the slave has failed at in in the Gospel today...he fails to see that his own freedom demands that he do the work of freeing others.  Rather than freeing others, he uses his freedom to destroy another, and in destroying another, he destroys himself.

When the slave is unable to express compassion rooted in empathy, he finds himself imprisoned within the cycle of violence, revenge and hatred.  If you are free, imagine that you are enslaved...and then act accordingly.

Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh writes that, “ if you look deeply into your anger, you will see that the person you call your enemy is also suffering.  As soon as you see that, the capacity of accepting and having compassion for him is there. Jesus calls this “loving your enemy.”  When you are able to love your enemy, he or she is no longer your enemy.  The idea of “enemy” vanishes and is replaced by the notion of someone who is suffering and needs your compassion.”  

If we fail to recognize our shared identity, we imprison ourselves within the torture of anger, enmity and isolation which results from our own perversion of God’s grace. 

When we can replace anger with empathy, we are able to act with the compassion which emerges when we can see that the one who suffers is one of God’s creatures too.  

In the talmud (Megillah 10b), the earliest rabbinic interpretation of Hebrew Scriptures, God’s reaction to the drowning of Pharaoh’s army is stated as follows

“How can you sing as the works of my hand are drowning?”

How indeed...

Amen.

For references:

http://michaeldorf.com/seder/23.html  (a contemporary Haggadah)

http://www.overcominghateportal.org/empathic-imagination.html (an introduction to empathic imagination)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZ_ZjORYeeY Ted talk by Dr. Robin Meyers - "The Empathic Imagination: Escaping the Prison of Self"

http://www.parallax.org/living-buddha-living-christ/ Living Buddha, Living Christ by Thich Nhat Hanh

Holy Dunderheads

Proper 18A, 2014

A few weeks ago, Mary Fred referenced the Greek word Ecclesia in her sermon.  The word Ecclesia occurs in only two places in the Gospel of Matthew--Ecclesia means “gathering” and the use of this particular word gives us some insight into the context in which the Gospel of Matthew emerged...

One in which small groups of followers of the way, of Christ, gathered together as a community---and as in any community, there emerged norms for how members of the community are to treat each other.  

Recently, a colleague referred to the dynamic of “belonging, believing and behaving” that marks community life.  And in Matthew, a Gospel whose authorship occurred during a time of regularizing the fledgling Christian community, we see woven through the text instruction as to both belief and behavior for those who participate in the Ecclesia or gathering of early Christians.  

When people claim belonging to community, it can follow then that people ascribe to roughly the same sets of belief and have norms of behavior that are meant to govern life  together.

In this case, we hear instruction for how to handle conflict within community--a process of confrontation, negotiation and adjudication.  

All with the same goal in mind--the restoration of the offender to the community.  Much of the scripture we adhere to shares this goal of reconciliation--and many of my sermons have touched on the idea that central to who we are as Christians is an identity as a reconciling people.  We are called to unity and called to reconciliation of the broken relationships amongst us and the world we live in.  

The trajectory of our liturgy EVERY SINGLE WEEK points in this direction.  We begin by reminding ourselves what we gather for--the blessing of God.  Then, we hear the story of God’s work in scripture.  We then reflect upon how the work of God continues in our own lives. Following these actions of hearing and reflecting on the story we are given the opportunity to reflect on the brokenness in our lives and then reconcile with those in our community with whom we may have broken relationship.  The peace isn’t intended as a “stretch” break or chance to catch up with friends--but as a time of saying that regardless of what has happened before we are at peace with each other.  

Then having made the point that we’ve worked towards reconciliation of broken relationships, we have the opportunity to participate in another essential symbol of our unity--the broken body of Christ manifest as bread and united again through the one body of the church.

As hymn #305 puts it, “One Body we, one Body who partake, one Church united in Communion blest; one Name we bear, one Bread of life we break, with all thy saints on earth and saints at rest.”  

Given that what we do and say, what we pray and believe, points us towards reconciliation--given this, how is it that we so often struggle with this central act of our faith?

I have heard people, often folks who have been wounded or alienated by conflict within the Christian community, point to the Church’s brokenness as a sign of the hypocrisy of Christians...that our conflicts and the manner in which we treat each other gives every indication that, those things we claim to hold sacred have no authority or bearing in the world.  

I wouldn’t necessarily suggest googling “conflict in the church” or “Christian hypocrites”, but if you were to do so you would see a search engine litany of woundedness.  

And, I wonder if part of our trouble is that we are really lousy at conflict.  We avoid it, we ignore it, we let things fester...until some crisis, some straw on the camel’s back, serves as the catalyst for explosion.  And, at that point, people walk away--disengaging completely from relationship (regardless of who was in the wrong) and the body of Christ becomes further fractured.

Or, blame is placed on one person or group...and in the scapegoating of an individual or discrete group, no one else in the community has to own their part in the conflict.  And, since the conflict doesn’t actually get dealt with through scapegoating it’s only a matter of time before conflict bubbles up again.  

Now being lousy at conflict is not new to the modern church.  And, it does not surprise me in the least that in some of these earliest texts of our tradition we see the community--the gathered people, the ecclesia--being instructed in how to deal with conflict.  It seems right and fitting that as the community wrestled with what it meant to actually be in community, we see emerging rules of life for community.  The ordering and structuring of the ecclesia intended to perpetuate the community as a place where Christ is made manifest in the actions of Christ’s body on earth. And, because we are people making manifest God’s will in the world--well, we aren’t going to get it right all the time.  I mean, really, if you want to see a bunch of dunderheads messing things up, take a look at the disciples.  Scripture doesn’t hold up the disciples as perfect--it holds them up as people.  This is critical to me, because in their imperfection we can see that God calls each and every one of us--not just the best, not just the perfect (as if there were such a person!).  And out of our imperfection comes the potential for transformation and affecting change in the world we live in.  

In our brokenness, we as Christian community are given the opportunity to model how God calls us to be in relationship.  We are given the chance to teach the world what peaceful reconciliation can look like.  If we can shine light on our conflicts, we are then able to shine light on what we do about them--or as those who’ve made their work that of teaching parenting would put it, kids who see the beginning of an argument ought to see the end of the argument as well.  Because, in seeing how grown-ups in healthy relationships handle conflict, they will learn how to handle conflict.  

Times of transition can be times when the uncertainty and anxiety of change lead to conflict.  As you know, the transition team is currently requesting that members of this community participate in the online survey they are conduction as well as attend one of the various listening sessions being offered.

  

And, as this process of discernment continues, I would encourage us to consider how we are called to be in relationship a reconciled and reconciling people.  I would encourage patience and an intentional focus on the work we are called to do in the world--because if we remember that we share a goal to make God’s love manifest to the world, perhaps we can be more forgiving when our attempts fall short.  

   

Proper 17A, 2014 St. Clement's "The Name"

If they ask me what is his name, what shall I say to them?

In so many ways, this sentence sums up the preacher’s dilemma.  If they ask me what his name is, what shall I say to them?

It can be so hard to name God in this world we live in.  

Searching and stumbling over language and rite...seeing God everywhere and nowhere, in everything and nothing.  Filling the God shaped hole in our lives and our world with version after version.   

The rendition with graying beard and booming voice--John Huston and Charleton Heston.  The countercultural version--Alanis Morrisette in Dogma.  Genial and buddy like, Morgan Freeman in Bruce the Almighty.  Crabby and fed up with all of us, George Burns.  British and therefore droll--making an appearance in all of the Monty Python films.  

If they ask me what is his name?  What shall I say to them?

Each week, trying to paint another picture, tell another story, sing another song, evoke another memory.

Using the tools we have of art, and scripture, of music and verse, of architecture and words, or prayer and presence.  

Countering in some cases, and perhaps affirming in others, the variations on the names we give God.  

Names we learned in childhood, new names given as our lives have changed.

As we gain new metaphors for the I AM WHO I AM.

Pronouns, descriptors, adjectives and expletives.  

If they ask me what is his name?  What shall I say to them?

God the sender.

I AM has sent me to you.

God the foundation.

I AM.

Before and after the beginning and the end.  All time and unbound by time.  

I will be with you.

A companion on the journey, constant and encompassing.  Leading the people on the journey of liberation.  I know their sufferings.

God the sympathizer and the liberator.  The One who prepares a place for us.

The God of your ancestors.

God who reminds us and calls us to acts of remembering.  God who tells stories in a litany of names.  Abraham, Isaac, Jacob.  And, in those stories, a people are reminded who they are and the promises they’ve inherited.  

God made manifest in unique encounters, each to each.  

There is a Jewish story which teaches that when God gave the Torah to Israel it was like a mirror.  And, like a mirror, anyone looking into the Torah finds his or her own image reflected back.  

When we read scripture, we see ourselves.  We see ourselves because our only frame of reference is our lives and the context in which our lives can be found. 

What a notion, that we might name God out of our own experiences and places.  Our own understanding of who we are and what we yearn for.  In Rabbi Sandy Eisenberg Sasso’s boo “In God’s Name” the soldier yearning for peace calls God the maker of peace; the lonely child calls God friend. 

And, what an interesting way to approach scripture--understanding it as a mirror of our yearnings and our identities.

Did Moses yearn to be seen by the Israelites as one of them?  Did this man, raised with privilege within the Egyptian court long to be known as a Jew?  When God refers to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, does Moses understand that these are HIS ancestors too?

Did Paul’s litany of how to live as a follower of Christ emerge from his past as a persecutor?  Did he cling so tightly to what is good because he had clung so tightly to what was not?  

Did Peter’s desperation to save his friend from the pain and suffering to come, emerge out of his own fear of pain and suffering?  When Peter pins all his hopes on Christ, does he see only his hope and not his friend and the truth Christ brings?  

Peter had been taught that the messiah would come in triumph and Jesus’ insistence that this will not be the case does not reflect Peter’s understanding of who God is as a triumphant liberator--that the messiah comes in triumph masks his ability to understand that this Messiah will die to rise again.  

Moses, Peter and Paul--serving the I AM WHO I AM.  

In Sandy Sasso’s book The Name of God, the people begin to argue over whose name for God is the right name.  

But, if the name we give God is reflected out of our own life--wouldn’t such an argument over the image of God be an argument that only a certain person can lay claim to being made in God’s image.  

Wouldn’t that then be a repudiation of creation--of the idea that humankind is made in the Image of God?  All humanity made in the image, all names carrying the validity of the creator...

Sophistry perhaps.

But, I wonder...  

If that is perhaps the power of the website “Humans of New York” in which a photographer, Brandon Stanton, takes informal portraits of anyone who allows it--and asks a simple question.  “What was your proudest moment?”, “What’s the saddest thing that ever happened to you?”.  The folks who fill his frame aren’t “anybody” in particular--no fame, no notoriety--but, their honest answers strike chords and people comment by the thousands on these photos.  In the photographer’s most recent work, he’s taken his camera to places such as Iraq, Uganda and Kenya.

And, as he gives voice to those we’d otherwise never know or notice, the replies roll in...

“Tell me where to send money so that she can go to school; I have connections there, I would like to help him find a job; God bless you friend; I am a father too; my mother, she worked three jobs, I know what that is like”

People share their stories.

Some of the stories are of rejoicing and others of brokenness.

But, the stories are shared.  

In the work of Humans of New York I can see that burdens that are revealed are lightened for the telling, the weight lifted by a willing shoulder, the valley of the shadow of death reveals companions on the journey and there are constant offers to share out of abundance to those in need.

If they ask me what is his name, what shall I say?

Father, mother, friend, daughter, son, creator, redeemer, forgiver, divine, human...

Seeking and serving Christ in all persons--seeing God’s image in each face.  I would argue that what those who comment on the photographer’s work are so often responding too the Christ they’ve glimpsed in another’s face.  And, in that glimpse of the divine we see our shared humanity, shared brokenness, shared resilience. 

Take up your cross and follow me.

Moses, Paul, Peter...they were sent in order to follow.  They picked up burdens and proclaimed new truths.

All in obedience

To a name.  I AM WHO I AM

And, now I wonder,

If they ask you what his name is, What shall you say to them?