First Presbyterian Church of Watertown

Mark 8 and Philippians 2

“Running on Empty”

The Rev. Dr. Fred G. Garry

September 3, 2006

Assemblyman Darrel Aubertine came and spoke at a Leadership Breakfast here on Wednesday. His message was as simple as it was humble. The theme of his talk was his personal evolution from ready critic to a reluctant politician. With each step he has taken, each elected office sought, it began with the goading of a friend to change what he didn’t like. You could hear in his voice the bravado we so often employ when finding fault, “it doesn’t take the sharpest tool in the shed to fix this.”

This was his sensibility going in. With each step he said, all the things that didn’t make sense, all the stuff he had thought foolish, all of sudden had a sensibility yet to fore unseen. All of sudden he said, the purchase of new highway trucks every few years actually made sense when you did the math and factored in the savings of warranties and consider the absence of mechanics to fix what was broken. With each different office there was an epiphany as such.

I can remember my own such moment. It was in a comprehensive planning meeting for a small town in Ohio. Being trained in theology, I was in way over my head when the conversation turned to different funding sources and persistent negotiations that must occur in order for the water and electricity to flow into a home and the trash trucks and sewer lines to follow in the necessary order. The discussion of the night was the request for a bus line, yet in order for this to be achieved another portion of the city and its representatives needed a street. Now there was no real connection between the street and the bus especially since the bus in question would never drive on the road to be repaved. Yet, when it all shook out, somebody got their bus because somebody else got their road. I remember thinking, the mysteries of Scripture and God’s transcendent glory are looking rather straightforward right now.

This moment and the moment Darrel Aubertine described was the rationale behind the internship we have supported the last three years. The program really began with a conversation I had with Hartley Bonisteel. As a rising junior, Hartley was interested in politics. As she spoke though, it became apparent that she was equating politics with people on television. So we expanded the conversation to include Shannon Kelly and some others and before we knew it there were six ready young folk who would help the city manager and Neighbors of Watertown for six weeks in the summer. For six weeks they would be immersed into local government, non-profits, neighborhoods, and the challenge of revitalization.

Three summers later the internship is now a program of the Urban Mission with yearlong staffing, seventeen young people being placed in eight different locations working with more and more agencies each year. While growth is good, the purpose of the program was not to grow big. The purpose was to create a moment where young people saw behind the curtain of government, where they glimpsed for just a moment that someone who endures the barbs, slings, and arrows of being an elected official has feet of clay and for the most part, day jobs. The intent of the program was to show how complex and layered is the challenge of making Watertown a nice place to live.

On the whole I believe this objective has been accomplished. If nothing else we now have a group of young people who are dedicated readers of the North Country section of the paper. For now it is not “some guy” or “some lady” it is people they’ve met, people they have heard, people they ate lunch with. They’ve sat with Carolyn Fitzpatrick and gained a glimpse of what it means to be the person who helps people no one else seems able to help. They have an image of a gentleman mayor and the love for a city in Tom Walker. Many of them have watched the endless stream of possibilities that land on Mary Corriveau’s desk.

Yet, sitting with my daughter Laura and listening to her describe her internship experience this year I was excited that the view has gone even deeper than politics and unto a community. The interns were charged this year with conducting 1,000 surveys meant to gather data on how empowered people feel in the city. All total, the interns spoke to the community more than 500 hours- that’s a lot of talking and a lot of information. It was a failed interview, though, that Laura was describing to me.

"I met a woman today," she said, "she was just so terribly lonely." Laura described a person who has lost her friends, out lived or out stayed them; family moved away; and too tired to go out and join a group or a church. She said it was hard when she started to cry as she spoke. Yet, Laura listened to the woman for about twenty minutes until her partner came to gather her. Before she left the lonely resident kissed her cheek and said goodbye. She didn’t get an interview, but what she saw was much more than the demographic information the woman would have provided. What Laura saw for a moment was a clear picture of the hurt in our community- someone living amidst thousands who felt terribly alone.

This was not the intent of the program. Yet, in some ways, it is the most exciting fruit so far. For in her story of the woman two things happened, are images we see in our scriptures today. The first was what Paul described of Jesus in the Philippians. He said, "Jesus emptied himself; he left glory aside and took on the life of a servant." In a sense laying aside the glory of a summer of doing nothing or the safety of retail job, Laura encountered where life can take you when you step into the fray, what life looks like outside the endless possibilities of adolescence. Yet truly, I believe, with the woman on her porch she encountered what it means to be the presence of the servant for others. At that moment the woman simply needed to know that someone cared enough to listen for a moment.

The second image that can be seen is in the story of Jesus healing the blind man at Bethsaida. Fortunately for Laura it was a kiss on the cheek and not spit in the eye which gave her a new way of seeing things, but the effect was the same. The blind man at Bethsaida was healed by Jesus in the earthiest, humblest of fashions. Most scholars take this as a parable of the disciples’ inability to see and that it takes Jesus two times to heal as a reference to how the disciples saw things before and after the resurrection. For me though the story is a great metaphor of what it means for the church to care, to help. It doesn’t always work the first time. It doesn’t always work like magic. And in the end it is all about seeing people as they are.

In Laura’s case, the community had a face that was a bit fuzzy, a bit more symbolic, and then it became clear. All the interns in the last three summers have described how differently they view the city after walking the streets for six weeks. This is one view, and this is a view most of us don’t even have. For truly how many of us have walked the streets, all the streets, of Watertown? This is like the first time Jesus applies the spit.

With the kiss on the cheek, though, we see the second. Now the people who looked like trees are clear. Such a moment of tenderness will forever mark the way she describes a neighborhood or community.

In the coming weeks and months the session will be asking the members of First Pres to live out the truths of Philippians and Mark’s healing story. We will be asking you to empty yourself of the glory of anonymity. It is a glorious thing to live in our own private world. We will hear a call to lay aside the safety of private religion, and invite people to come to church.

I know that this is scary thing and no easy task. For we are not merely inviting people to worship, we are inviting them to discipleship. We know that people believe, yet in making a way for them to be a part of First Pres we are truly clearing a path for a devotion to Christ. This is the truth Paul describes to the Philippians.

What Mark tells of Jesus with the blind man at Bethsaida is also just as keen. For we will have to be sure we see people for who they are. It will be easy to see people as symbols, as trees, or as a target. In our desire to give the church away, to open the doors for new people we need to sure we are taking the time to see them clearly, to listen, and realize what it means for them to come to church. For if they are just part of crowd, then they are not part of the church.

Building a crowd is not hard to do. We could do crazy things, make outlandish claims; I could preach on topics meant to enflame, and in the end we will have a crowd ready for more foolishness, not a church prayerfully considering what it is God is doing here and now.

We also need to take a lesson from the fact that the first time Jesus tried to heal the man it didn’t work. For if you take up the charge of the session and invite friends and neighbors you will find that it will most likely not work the first time. The first time you invite someone they may say, no. They might say, they will think about it. They may say yes and not come.

Now if this is the case please take the story of Jesus and the healing with spit as a metaphor to inspire not a literal direction to follow. If someone cannot see what it means to be a part of First Pres, to follow Christ, to grow in faith, open your heart don’t put spit in their eyes. You can never be too careful with instructions.

There is a big community out there. There are a lot of people living without a faith that inspires them and provides clarity in the midst of chaos, hope in the midst of despair. There are people who are disconnected from life. And there are people out there who simply haven’t found the hand of Christ reaching out to them. Be that hand.

There is so much God is ready to do with this church. Yet, we need to do more than open up the doors; we need to go out. We need to meet the people like Laura did where she lives and stop waiting for them to come to us. To do such is a daunting moment where we empty ourselves for others. Yet, in this moment we become the body of Christ. Amen.