Year C, 9^th Pentecost

     In our Episcopal tradition of preaching, week by week we look to the appointed lessons and open up God’s word to us. We study the Old Testament passages where God makes himself known to us, we examine the epistles to learn about church governance and correct Christian behavior and we look to the gospels to encounter the Son of God reconciling a broken world. Perhaps 5 times a year we preach on the meaning of the liturgical seasons and occasionally we speak to an event in the life of our specific parish. Today is such an occasion. At 9:50 last night, 18 youth and 4 adult advisors returned from a youth mission trip to Ocean Springs, MS. Now this may not seem particularly significant for our whole congregation because a youth mission trip usually congers up images of printed group t-shirts with matching bandannas and an opportunity to get self absorbed teens off their seats and out of the house to do some helpful outreach project. The initiative seems like an easy positive experience because the youth end up feeling good about doing something nice for someone other than themselves. They take a group photo, head to a water park and come home. Everyone feels warm and fuzzy about the venture, those who contributed by buying baked goods and making donations, the parents, youth leaders, the kids and the vestry who approved the budget expense. All is good!

     But a Youth Mission Trip is not a feel-good experience. Youth missionary work is Christian Formation at its hardest. Two weeks ago I mentioned in a sermon that
the Christian life is not for the faint of heart. It’s not for sissies. Living the way of Christ requires hard work, muscle, sweat, sacrifice, stretching our prejudices and pulling ourselves out of our comfort zones. Being a Christian requires endurance. All these qualities are tested in two clear directives from Jesus. Each of the four Gospels articulates the same two demands. Jesus says to those who would follow him, you must, first care for those in the world who need help. Look after the poor, the sick, the lonely and the forgotten. And second, you must create and participate in a community that will support you in your life as my follower. Become part of a church. Youth Mission Trips are structured to challenge young Christians on both of these commands. They are intense, focused endurance tests. Do not let the smiling faces in the pictures fool you. Hardships were endured this week.

     Responding to the charge, “Go into the world and care for those in need, our mission trip participants drove 12 hours squoozed together in 2 rented vans hauling 22 sleeping bags, 22 pillows, 22 book bags, 22 duffle bags filled with 2 sets of clothes for each of the 7 days, 1 set for work, 1 for play. We took 308 changes of clothes. At the end of their 12 hour car experience the 22 came to their accommodations for the next week. Behind a nondenominational Full Gospel Victory Church was a temporary camp of 6 mobile units with about 92 bunks, 2 bath units and outdoor tables and plastic chairs for a dining area. Quarters were very tight and very basic. Each morning church members cooked our breakfast, the same breakfast, for simplicity’s sake. We ate quickly and departed for the worksite.

     Our site was a 3 bedroom house in a working class neighborhood which from the road looked in pretty good shape but like many things in the Gulf Coast area, first appearances are deceiving. Flood waters surged into the house and then slowly seeped out destroying the interior and the roof. In the back and side of the house, weeds and grass was thigh high and rotten lumber and debris lay in mounds that could fill this chancel. For the next 4 days from 8:30 until 2:30 we labored under the unrelenting Mississippi summer sun. We dealt with weeds and grass, we hauled debris, we pulled out rotten insulation, removed the rotten roof, laid black roofing paper, laid shingles, finishing shingles, tarred and set vents, hammered in ridge poles, tore down the water soaked termite infested wood from the home’s added on den, reframed and resided that room, raised it’s roof 2 inches with sheer brute force, tore out overgrown garden beds, painted the exterior of the house.   Sigh.

     At the week’s end, one house in one neighborhood was in better shape. Some needs in the world got taken care of, but that’s not the whole story. It’s no longer making the news but people are truly suffering on our Gulf Coast. Two years after the storm they are demoralized. They have little energy. Their drive and ambition is sapped. Houses are attractive shells offering no shelter. Two years later, homes still have no electricity. Families are living in camping trailers, not RVs but little campers meant to encourage people to enjoy the outdoors only no one wants to go outdoors because it’s too depressing to go outside. So folks stay holed up inside the cramped stuffy quarters. On September 30^th this year all loans and extensions granted come due. These people don’t have the money to pay and don’t know where they’ll find the funds. Divorce rates have spiraled upward. Marriages of 16, 20, 30 years are ending. Men who’ve provided for their families are particularly hard hit. Their identity has been shaken. Suicide rates have jumped dramatically in the area. Forty-five minutes south of our site, St. Peter’s youth worked on a house where the week before a mother shot herself as her daughter played in the next room. 

     So when we came to “help,” we encountered such gratitude. The homeowner couldn’t speak he was so overwhelmed. When we took a bathroom break using the facilities at an elementary school, the teachers we incredibly happy to see us. A girl behind the cash register at Hardee’s lit up. Her entire affect changed when she heard our teens had come from so far to help. The people we met in Mississippi didn’t see 15 year old kids. They saw real help, real care. They saw saviors. There was not a certificate or contractor’ license among us. We had no building skills whatsoever and it didn’t matter. After 10 minutes of instruction, a home was made-not a home in pristine move in condition but a shelter so much improved. Our work created possibilities for the next step. We provided a dry, secured, safe beginning.

   Here’s a great story about how little expertise is required to make a huge impact for a family in trauma. A woman with four kids had a husband who became so discouraged, he left them. A contractor cheated the family and left her with an unfinished foundation. She asked a mission team, “Do you know how to lay a foundation?” They said “Sure!” They went to Lowe’s for supplies and the male advisor on site called the cell phone and said, “See if Lowe’s has a book on laying foundations.” They came back with a manual and every few minutes they’d sneak to the truck, flip open the book and prepare the next step. At day’s end the foundation was done and it settled evenly. The woman, asked, “So, do y’all know how to frame a room?” “Sure!” “Shhhh, go get a book from Lowe’s” See, to the people in need these mission teams were not kids. They were full blown complete powerful world changing Christians. These are the people on our planet who showed up! Two years later, it’s not the government or social agencies or the National Guard or professional disaster relief implementation responders who bring hope to the despairing. It’s St Mark’s 8^th-12^th graders and 3 soon to be college freshmen, it’s the teens from 1^st Methodist Church in Alpine Texas, it’s the Full Gospel Victory Church folk and 25 year olds like Mike and Noah and Michelle from TeamEffort giving up an entire summer and eating Subway Sandwiches for 40 straight days who arrive in neighborhoods and say, “Can we help you?”   “Do you need us?” These are the hands and the feet and heart of Christ working wondrously well up and down the Gulf Coast today.

     To answer Jesus’ 2^nd charge, all who would follow me, go become members of a faith community; we understand that in order to build up a community we must first get to know one another. To be a place where we grow deeper and deeper into our life in

Christ, we need each other’s care and care comes after acceptance and acceptance comes only after tolerance and tolerance follows understanding. Care and love for one another means celebrating each other’s best attributes and putting up with one another’s infuriating quirks! Sleeping 2 feet apart for 6 nights, seeing each other’s bed hair, spitting toothpaste in the same sink, stowing each other’s sweaty socks in a pretty good way to get to know your community. Working in the hot sun under the direction of a stranger or a criticizing “Christian” brother helps us to see that those who follow the way of Christ are not perfect. Sometimes they aren’t even likable. We aren’t always gracious or respectful. We don’t always sense when it’s time to stop the teasing. We don’t see that the joke’s stopped being funny. People in Christian communities, people in church families are just as flawed as those outside the church doors. It’s an unfortunate truth that the waters of baptism do not wash away our irritating habits. There’s nothing like living through a mission trip to drive that point home.

      Our 22 members saw the best and near worst of one another and they witnessed some

trying behavior in other Christina brothers and sisters. When we’re hot and tired and uncomfortable, out of our comfort zone, feeling ignored, unappreciated, and unsure it’s hard to be exceptionally kind and caring, but time after time in moments under pretty extreme conditions, our young people demonstrated exceeding grace. Where they could have walked away in anger or disgust, they showed uncommon spiritual maturity. They stayed the course. They acted exactly, exactly as Christ would want. These were not 13, 15, 18 year old kids off on an excursion. They were well-formed truly actualized, powerful Christians operating in the world. They were and are exemplary models worthy of our attention.

     But just like those of us who were not able to participate in this experience, these 22 people are not complete in or finished with their Christian identity. A very very good beginning has been made. So for this body, this family at St. Mark’s who nurtures and raises these members up, we say, “Well done! And thanks be to God.” Let us commit ourselves once again to their care. Let us make and keep our baptismal promise to support all our members in their life in Christ.

     The Christian life is not easy. It is a challenge but the rewards are phenomenal and obtainable when we draw strength from one another. We are and can continue to be such a place of strength. So to our charge and to one another, all say, “Amen, amen!”