Day 43
Are You Threatening Me?
The only time I’ve been threatened by a Porpoise was when one popped up next to me while I was floating on my boogey board in the ocean, waiting for a wave to ride into shore. It startled me. God startles people too. We should expect to be startled by God.
One day we were at a gathering with friends. The only thing out of place with the setting was the presence of a middle aged black man, hunched over and disheveled, sitting in a corner of the gathering. My friend Brian introduced me to “Jerald.” This guy STUNK!…I mean STANK! I shared a few surface niceties with Jerald and then quickly meandered off into the crowd, delighted to escape the stench.
As the gathering was about to break up, my friend Brian asked me to do him a favor. Brian said he was going on vacation for 2 weeks and that he had been giving Jerald a ride everyday from a convalescent center to his doctor each day. Brian asked me if I would do so for the next two weeks while he was away. I looked over at this guy Jerald and said to Brian, “Sorry, you’ve got the wrong guy.” Brian took me to the side and looked directly in my eyes and said “it’s about time you did something for somebody else without expecting anything in return. If you refuse to help this man, our friendship is over.” I looked at Brian speechless thinking, “Are you threatening me?”
That evening, I drove Jerald back home to the convalescent center. I was “ticked” as I was really cooperating with all this against my will. Jerald said “thank you” as he shuffled to get out of the car. He looked down at the ground and muttered “you gonna pick me up tomorrow?” I said, “yes I will.” I picked him up the next day and took him to the doctor. I drove him back to the convalescent center afterward. This went on for two weeks.
Something amazing happened to me during those two weeks. The “hardness” that inhabited my heart began to melt. The time I knew I didn’t have to give to this man seemed to appear out of thin air. Jerald and I called each other by name. I made him laugh. He made me smile. We didn’t go directly home from the doctor, we stopped for meals and chatted with each other. I began to introduce him to my other friends. I started to develop a deep affection for this guy. I began to schedule my worldly affairs around the needs of Jerald.
Brian returned from vacation and asked me, “How’d it go with Jerald?” I replied, “If you don’t mind, I’ll continue to assist him.” Jerald and I were on our own. I introduced him to my wife Jacki, our children Liz and Andrew and our black Lab Seymour. He loved my family and was very much a gentleman around them. Jerald adored Seymour and it was reciprocal.
We learned that Jerald had become warehoused in a white, upper class convalescent center through a special grant available through the Department of Social and Health Services in the State of Washington. Jerald required medical attention and daily medication as he had seizures quite regularly and couldn’t drive. He wobbled when he “walked.” He had been hit by a Metro bus in the skid road district of Seattle a year earlier. The accident had left him with head, leg and back injuries from which he would never recover. He had no living relatives, friends or family that he could recall. We incorporated Jerald into all the activities of our family. He couldn’t even read. I helped him try to get better at it.
One day, I picked up Jerald and he was very sad. He said his residency was about to be up at the convalescent center and he would be moved to another facility “somewhere.” Jacki and I spent the next several weeks obtaining the authorization for the state to release him into our care. Although the State said this was “impossible,” within three weeks, Jerald was living with us.
Jerald became a member of our family. The seizures he would have, arriving home to find him unconscious, sprawled out on the floor of our living room, having lost control of his bowels and vomited on himself, just became part of living with Jerald.
We live in a world filled with threats. We’ve even got them color-coded now for the entire country. Jesus Christ is the single greatest threat to ever walk the face of this planet. As a newborn, Jesus’ mere existence threatened King Herod. Heck, Herod never even saw Jesus. Herod simply heard of his birth and wanted Jesus found and brought to him to be killed.[i]
My initial reaction to Jerald was the same one I had one day while paddling my boogey board, when I observed a Porpoise fin above the water line about twenty yards from me in the ocean. I was threatened. I was desperate to get away from it as quickly as humanly possible. Unfortunately, today many people react to the image of Jesus and/or Christianity in the same way. They move away at the sight of the fin and never take the opportunity to become familiar with the wonder of the blessing. I like what theologian Brian McLaren says about this: “When the fervent furnace of religion kindles sparks of fear in people’s hearts, a dangerous wildfire can rage out of control, and a lot of people can get hurt-especially the people who have been characterized as threats.[ii]
Jesus and Jerald have a lot in common. Jerald was “not our idea.” We didn’t choose him. As I said above, I really met Jerald against my will. If it were my choice, I would never have picked this fellow to come into our lives. Let’s face it; Jesus was not your idea anymore than he matched up with the expectations of a Messiah by the first century Jews.
Jerald taught us the value of doing something for somebody else without expecting anything in return. This man was developmentally disabled, helpless and homeless. We did what we did for Jerald because we learned to love him, just as people in our lives learned to love us. I think that’s what Christianity really boils down to anyway; a group of people doing something for somebody else without expecting anything in return, simply because God loves us with a love that must be shared with the people we encounter on our journey in life.
Just like Jesus, Jerald taught us that the Lord sends His miracles and messengers in forms and in circumstances that we cannot anticipate. He doesn’t ask our advice when delivering His blessings to our lives. They seem to pop up above the surface of life, just like the Porpoise.
Jerald changed the lives of far more people than just my family and me. I think we can all agree that Jesus has always and continues to do just that. God has an uncanny knack for using the powerless, the vulnerable and those most deeply wounded for His most powerful displays of life changing power. These displays of power and blessing are not always convenient and on-demand.
Today, we find it interesting to be able to tell you truthfully that Jerald is one of the most powerful, life changing human beings that we have ever had the privilege of interacting with in our lives. We hope you think about this the next time you see somebody socially, economically, developmentally, psychologically, medically and/or physically disabled. Somebody who wobbles when they walk, slurs when they talk, looks different than the rest of us, might smell distinctly different as well, spills coffee as they attempt to lift the cup to their mouth, is unable to drive because of a medical condition or read because nobody took the time to teach them. We hope you think about this if you call yourself a Christian and have yet to meet your Jerald. It’s not likely that you will meet people like Jerald within the safe harbor of your present, daily routine. You will meet them out on the open waters of life; those uncharted waters where you have been reluctant to explore. As one author puts it, “Hope prevents us from clinging to what we have and frees us to move away from the safe place and enter unknown and fearful territory.”[iii]
In American society, Christianity has become moored to the dock, the physical building of the church where we go to worship God. Christianity was never intended to be tied up to a pier. There’s no Porpoise in these places. Another author writes, “If our theology is to be an authentic reflection and witness to God who is revealed in Jesus Christ as the God of the excluded, then we need to embark on the often painful journey to meet with Jesus the Christ outside the camp, among the excluded. Such a journey will leave us uncomfortable and displaced in the carnivalesque, post-modem world.” [iv]
Christianity in American society has suffered because of the lack of people like my friend Brian. People who are willing to confront you when you’ve become satisfied with your lot in life (moored to the dock), and are courageous enough to point out that you must embrace change. People like Brian are rare, but can be found if you pray that God will put them in your life. This may mean that you have to get off the couch and seek them as well. People like Brian are folks who are willing to tell you the truth even if it hurts your feelings or risks your friendship.
In the Christian life, there is a supernatural beauty hidden behind many of the perceived threats we have come to define in this world. We’ve got news for you; if you move beyond the notion of being threatened and get close enough to befriend people like Jerald, you’ll find some very powerful messengers of God disguised just like him. I promise you, God will change your life through them.
If you get to heaven, look up Jerald. You can’t miss him. He will be the strange looking, middle-aged black guy seated on the ground with Joseph and Brian, laughing his fanny off, while rolling a ball back and forth to a giggling infant named Suzie Marie Pena. There will be a black Lab barking at all this, wagging his tail next to Jerald. His name is Seymour. He won’t bite. Don’t be threatened by these folks. Join them. On the other hand, why wait to get to heaven?
NOTES
[i] Matthew 2: 1-12
[ii] McLaren, Brian A Generous Orthodoxy, Zondervan Publishing, Grand Rapids, MI © Copyright 2004 by Youth Specialties p. 246
[iii] Nouwen, Henri J.M. The Wounded Healer- Ministry in Contemporary Society, IMAGE BOOKS DOUBLEDAY, NYCopyright 1972 by Henri J.M. Nouwen p. 77
[iv] Rieger, Joerg Opting For The Margins – Postmodernity and Liberation in Christian Theology, Oxford University Press, NY, NY © 2003 by The American Academy of Religion p. 59
