First Presbyterian Church of Watertown

Micah 6 and 1John 3

“If He Says ‘Malawi’ One More Time. . . .”

The Rev. Dr. Fred G. Garry

May 28, 2006

            I put together a little PowerPoint presentation for my son’s kindergarten class.  Dave is at Sherman and I was happy talk to the five and six-year-olds about Africa.  I started with geography. For I thought when you’re five can you really conceive of continents and cultural divides?  Before I could say this, though, Heather White, one of Dave’s teachers, stood before a map of the world and said, "Who can find Africa?"

            This is a great question: who can find Africa?  The children struggled with it.  It was one of our children here, Kennedy, who was able to find the continent on the map.  At this moment Heather upped the ante, "Can anyone tell us where Rev. Garry went in Africa?"  There were some guesses, and then Dave, standing next to me, realized he knew.  Speaking like he was being awakened, he said, “Malawi, he went to Malawi.”

            With some help from the lesser gods of technology the pictures I took in Africa were then projected onto the classroom wall.  My thought was to put together three sets of photos: faces, because I wanted the children to see Africa as people not a place; the schools, because this seemed to be relevant; and, animals, because the children would have been sorely disappointed if I didn’t include the pictures of elephants and hippos.

            As went through the photos there were lots of questions.  This is my favorite age group to teach because their questions are so transparent: they ask about what they want to know.  A pair of questions though was a gift I will keep for quite a while.  One young girl put up her hand and said, “Why don’t any of the children have shoes on?”  Her peers all nodded as if to say, “Yeah, how come I have to wear shoes to school and the African children don’t?”  Taking a deep breath I said, “Well, they don’t have shoes on because they don’t have shoes, they are too expensive; the children don’t wear shoes because they don’t have shoes.”  When I said this there was a moment of pure reflection. 

            I got a feeling that some were pondering the idea of just not having shoes, trying to figure out what that would mean.  Others were trying to grasp the idea that shoes cost money, who would have thought?  And my gut told me that there were still others who were trying to imagine what it meant not to have money at all. 

            We talked for a moment longer about shoes and clothes.  I explained to the children that when their parents give away their clothes they go to Africa.  Again there was a moment where you could see their imaginations at work, watching their clothes travel to far away Africa.  I also explained how it was common to see a mom or a dad walking down the road carrying their shoes because they don’t want them to wear out.  And then another hand went up, “Okay so the children don’t have shoes, but do they have socks, I mean do they have to wear socks?”  Do they have socks?  “That is a good question,” I said, “You know I don’t believe I saw a child wearing socks in Malawi.”  Again, there was a kind of hushed reflection: no socks!

            It wouldn’t surprise me if the boys and girls in Dave’s class were given the chance, they would send all their socks to Africa.  I know I can speak for Dave and say he would much rather go barefoot than go through the terrible trouble of putting socks and shoes on. 

            It was my intent not to speak of Malawi or Africa or missions this Sunday.  My hope was to store up stories like Dave’s class for another day, another time.  Partly because I know there can be too much of a good thing and a pulpit can become a kind of “Johnny-one-note.”  I don’t want to hear people leaving the sanctuary saying, “If he says ‘Malawi’ one more time. . . .”  That would be a sad moment.

            Another reason is a bit more selfish.  For me preaching and being a pastor is about sharing a life together and with Africa and Malawi so often I feel like I am only able to relate this to you and to others.  I want to be in the midst of the kids trying to understand what it means not to own a pair of socks, not the one telling them.  So many of the things you see in Africa elude a description matching their impact and trying to explain them makes me far away.

            It was my intent this week to revel in John’s first letter as an esoteric, philosophical exercise.  The scripture passage for this morning was chosen months and months ago, and perhaps this is revealing too much, but I had been looking forward to this chapter as a kind of escape from the raw, earthy images I knew I would bring back from Africa.  And this was the case until I got to verse seventeen.

            Before verse seventeen I was caught up in John’s images of birth and sin and purity and revelation.  John works on a rather high level even though his words seem so simple.  Studying the Gospel of John and his letters often feel like intellectual gymnastics.  Many scholars believe John was a former Gnostic whose writings are a kind of tour de force of theological debate.  And this was the case up until verse seventeen.  I was with him when he talked about Cain and hatred, about Jesus and sacrifice, even the blood and birth images, but then he wrote, “How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother and sister in need and yet refuses to help?”

            Before this verse I had been planning on using a Flannery O’Connor story and trying weave her images with John’s and I had also considered talking about the Da Vinci Code movie as so much of it is a misinterpretation of the Gnostics of which John was most likely one.  All of this was fine, Malawi was what it is- far, far away; all of this was fine until the seventeenth verse, “How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother and sister in need and yet refuses to help?”

            When I read this during the week I literally groaned out loud and when I went home for lunch I tested my frustration on Kathy.  After describing the verse to her she laughed and said, “I think you have a 'kick me' sign on your back.”  That’s what it felt like.  The last thing, truly, I want to do right now is bring a passage like this to you.  For what else can a verse like this do? “How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother and sister in need and yet refuses to help?”  What else can something like this do but inspire guilt when you have seen the magnitude of need that is Malawi?

            I felt a bit on ledge this week.  This verse really got to me.  How do I preach this passage to you?  How can anyone read this or hear this and not feel deflated? 

            It was a yard sale that brought me back from the ledge.  John and Joann Stirling related to me a week or so ago how they had reached a decision.  John had protested and refused for decades now about having a yard sale.  Joann had always wanted one and he had always refused.  When he described his rationale for not having one I heartily concurred and could hear myself saying all of those things to my wife, only my words did not prevail as his did. 

            And then Joann broke in to say, but now I get to have one.  John has agreed to have a yard sale if all the money goes to Malawi and the malaria program. With a kind of triumphalism she said, “We’re having a yard sale.”

            In Joann’s jubilation was when I saw and heard the next verse, “Little children, let us love not in word or speech, but in truth and action.”  It was in the midst of the image of the yard sale that I got it.  Right now, we are not hearing John’s words; we are becoming John’s words.  Follow me for just a moment.  The intent of scripture and the image of the church John conveys is that we would become the body of Christ, the Word become flesh.  Sitting in my study I realized this verse wasn’t meant for us to hear; this verse was meant as a reflection.  We are becoming this question as a church not hearing it.

            How can the love of God abide in anyone who has the goods of the world and sees a brother or sister in need and refuses to help?  We are not hearing this question; we are becoming this question for others.  In a month’s time we will send 58 people to Mexico and they will be this question, young people will know this question for the rest of their life; in April we sent a group to Mississippi and they were this question for the rest of the churches in the Presbytery of Northern New York.  The dollar dinners, the summer interns we are sponsoring for neighborhood revitalization, the malaria overture, and most importantly for me the Stirling’s yard sale: we are becoming this question for others.

            Again, I didn’t want to speak of Malawi or mission today, but reading the passage that was chosen months ago as way of escaping these, I was trapped.  I literally said to God, out loud, after reading the seventeenth verse, “Aw, come on!”  I felt like someone had pushed me down from behind.  And then it was the question of the socks that picked me up and dusted me off.  When the child said, “Do they wear socks?” for some reason I knew at that moment, we are not being asked the question John poses, as a church we are becoming this question for others, so they may ask the question on their own terms, in their own way.

            This is a good thing.  To become the embodiment of Christ is a good thing.  To be fair I need to say, it is hard thing too.  There is a reason why Katie Kimball spoke for the group last year in Mexico by saying, “On Friday night we just need to cry.”  For those who went to Mississippi and wrote their names on the door frame, there is a weight you will carry from now on.  When I laid my hand on young Praise’s forehead and prayed that God would restore his malaria torn body, there is a piece of me I left behind. It’s good to be the question for the world, but it’s hard too.

            We are the body of Christ, broken for the world.  We are becoming the question of John.  The good news is it’s a great question: how does God’s love abide in anyone who has the goods of the world and sees a brother or sister in need and refuses to help?  It’s a great question; thanks be to God for letting us embody these words to the world.  Amen.