St. Mary's Episcopal Church

Pentecost 24 (Isaiah 53: 4-12, Mark 10:35-45)
New Orleans: Suffering Servant

Before last weekend I had never been to New Orleans. Even after living in Texas most of my life, I never made it over to the Big Easy. My college friends made a few Mardi Gras trips, but somehow I never was available for those trips. But last weekend I loaded up into one of the vans leaving from Palmer Episcopal Church to go to the City of New Orleans, a place my college friends didn't see, the Post-Katrina New Orleans.

We were staying at a salvation army shelter, but all our work was organized by the diocese of Louisiana, and an Episcopal outreach called the Beacon of Hope. Like most mission trip experiences I was ready to get to work. The temptation on any mission trip is to be over focused on the task at hand. It is one thing to do the task. It is another thing to reflect on what the task is all about.

Our first task was "mucking out" homes. We started on a house that had already been cleared of possessions. This was intentional. We went in, removed all the trim, then the dry wall, then the ceiling, all the while loading up wheel barrows with the scraps and piling them by the curb. We worked hard, we worked as a team, we got a lot done. We accomplished our task. Then after lunch we headed to another home. This one was not as far along as the first. We joined a church group working there from Washington DC. This house had not been cleared of possessions. The floors were covered with clothing, cooking utensils, vhs tapes, trophies, pictures, toys, mud, cans, carpet. And under the deep piles it was still wet. That's when it really hit me. This was not a task we could just complete. This was participating in a great healing that would take years to complete. With my dust/mold mask, and goggles, I picked up my shovel and carefully as I could, began shoveling the articles of someone's life into a wheel barrow, and hauling it out to the large curbside pile.

As we left from that first day's work, we were tired physically, and emotionally. As we drove, we quietly, privately reflected on our work form the day. We all looked out the window, and watched as we passed home after home, street after street, block after block, neighborhood after neighborhood of more shattered lives, empty shells of houses, all needing mucking out. Just so residents could go and look at the condition of their house. To check and see if the studs were as damaged as the rest of the house after sitting untouched for 14 months. We were giving the homeowners the power to make a decision, after a year of not being able to make many decisions for themselves.

There are a variety of jobs to be done there. From mucking out to counseling and prayer. One group was building a church fence, while another rode on a medical van. The next day I tried out a different aspect of the rebuilding effort. I was working outside, cleaning up an underpass that hadn't had any attention for 14 months since Katrina. As we worked to cut and bag the thicket of weeds that had grown up there, I noticed the folks passing by were smiling. They saw people caring for the city. They saw us was out there making a difference. We were bringing a little hope into their lives. In the afternoon of that second day, I volunteered to head out to put up street signs. A woman had made the signs herself. Painted boards white, and stenciled the street names on the signs. She seemed to be a little irrational. I understood that she must have been excited, but she was operating in this frantic mode. As I rode away with her, I wondered what I had gotten myself into. We drove to her street first. She dropped me off with a post hole digger, and went to set out the other street signs we would be putting up. I worked with the post-hole digger, remembering the last time I had done so, I was 16 putting up a fence with my dad. The ground was hard, and it was slow going. Soon this woman I had just met returned. As I dug she offered suggestions, walked around me to see what I was doing, and actually stuck her hand out as I was about to dig in to pull some dirt out herself. She really was behaving irrationally. Then she backed up and watched as I tested to see if the hole was deep enough. She smiled, and said. "It will be so good to have street signs again." "It is strange to be lost, not knowing the names of the streets in your own town, in your own neighborhood." "I grew up here, in the house I was living in. It was where my grandma was born." "These boards I made the signs out of, they were part of the old ceiling, these are boards from my grandparent's ceiling."

Oh…That's when the task, the trip, and my relationship with this woman were transformed. I was working with an irrational woman. She was operating out of a spiritual place. I wasn't just putting up street signs. I was helping her to stake a claim in her city. I was helping bridge the link between her whole history, and her whole future. I was, as part of the church, helping her to find her way in her city, to help her begin to be found after she had been feeling lost for so long.

I will be reflecting on that initial trip to New Orleans for a long time, but I walked away knowing two things: there is more suffering in New Orleans than I have ever seen in one place, and the I had to return, that we as the church had to return, we have a lot of work to do. I left having experienced the darkness of suffering, but also the shining light of hope in the midst of that suffering.

I went on that trip for a variety of reasons. I went because I know it is something the church should be doing, I went because our baptismal theology calls us to go do these sorts of things. I went because it seems like a deacon thing to do. I went because I had never seen New Orleans. I went because I understood that there were some tasks to do. Some of my reasons were more important than others, but the reasons I went were transformed while I was there.

In today's Gospel reading, the disciples have a similar experience. They approach Jesus, sort of understanding what was going on with him. They had seen the miracles he performed, they knew he was a great teacher and would come to glory. As his disciples, trying to follow and learn from him, they come to him with an honest, and seemingly reasonable question: "Grant us to sit, one at your right hand, and one at your left, in your glory." They even have a solid theology. They know it will be Jesus' glory and not their own. They come to him with mixed reasons, some spiritual, probably some political. But, they come to Jesus, which is always the first step, no matter what our initial motivation. From there he engages them. "Can you drink, the cup I am to drink? Or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?" He is talking about his suffering and death that is to come. Everyone agrees that they can and will. The glory he is to face, that they will indeed participate in, is not political glory, but the glory of conquering death, facing suffering. It is the Way of Jesus, and it is the way of his disciples.

When the other disciples heard about James and John's questioning they are angry, the other disciples don't understand what is going on. So Jesus explains to them that his way is not like the way of the world. The ordering in the Kingdom of Heaven is not to establish ourselves in a place of power, and hold that power over others. Our way is the way of servanthood. Not to seek status and be master over others, but to become like a slave to others. He is speaking to us. You and I are called to live as servants to others. Jesus taught his disciples that his way is their way. His way is our way. We far too often seek to avoid personal suffering at all costs. But Jesus invites us into a way of servanthood that does involve suffering. Personal suffering that is redemptive within the Body of Christ; participating in the suffering of others, standing with those who suffer; taking on some of that suffering for ourselves, just as Jesus takes on suffering for us.

We often read Isaiah to understand Jesus, and we should. The book of Isaiah helps us to understand Jesus' own suffering, and how we are related to that suffering. That his suffering and his punishment was for our own salvation. But we must remember that Isaiah was speaking in his own context. It is good for us to use this Scripture to understand Jesus, but he was looking at his own time, and seeking a suffering servant in his own day and age. In my own day and age, I can't help but thing of the suffering of New Orleans when I read this text, and the transformation I have experience as I went there and worked with the Body of Christ, to serve the Body of Christ. When I read the text of Isaiah, this is what I read:

Surely New Orleans has borne our infirmities
and carried our diseases;
yet we accounted the city as stricken,
struck down by God, and afflicted.
But New Orleans was wounded for our transgressions,
crushed for our iniquities;
upon New Orleans was the punishment that made us whole,
and by the City's bruises we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have all turned to our own way,
and the LORD has laid on New Orleans
the iniquity of us all.
New Orleans was oppressed, and was afflicted,
yet did not open it's mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so New Orleans did not open its mouth.
By a perversion of justice it was taken away.
Who could have imagined Its future?
For it was cut off from the land of the living,
stricken for the transgression of my people.
They made the City's grave with the wicked
And its tomb with the rich,
Although New Orleans had done no violence,
and there was no deceit in its mouth.
Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush it with pain.
When you make The City's life an offering for sin,
It shall see its offspring, and shall prolong its days;
Through it the will of the LORD shall prosper.
Out of New Orleans anguish it shall see light;
New Orleans shall find satisfaction through its knowledge.
The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous,
and shall bear their iniquities.
Therefore I will allot The City a portion with the great,
and it shall divide the spoil with the strong;
because this City poured itself out to death,
and was numbered with the transgressors;
yet New Orleans bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.

In New Orleans I saw glimpses of the suffering of a few of our Brothers and Sisters there. There are so many more. Some have been able to return, some have not. As children of God, our salvation is in this community of the Church. Just as our Lord Suffered, and served, we are called not to avoid personal suffering, but to stand with those who suffer, and to serve. Many people are suffering in the world, New Orleans is just one example, that is close to home for us. While there is suffering in the world, church's mission should be clear. Our work should be apparent.

We may approach Jesus for a variety of reasons, we may take on the task of serving others with only a half-knowledge of why we do it, but that is enough, and Jesus will transform our relationship.

I experienced that transformation. In the midst of that suffering I saw strong leaders in the community finding hope in the church, and carrying that hope out into the community. I saw people who had lost their homes, but were helping their neighbors rebuild their homes. I saw young adults who had moved to New Orleans to be full time volunteers and help coordinate the church groups that came to help the city. They held fast to the Hope of Christ, the hope that shines brighter than any darkness of suffering, because Christ has been through that suffering. Christ leads the way through, so that we need not fear, but can walk boldly into any situation and serve others, and find, with the disciples and the people of New Orleans, our place next to Jesus in his Glory.