Loosed & Bound & Chatty Benches

 St. Philip's Episcopal Church

Laurel, Delaware
Pentecost XV - September 10,2023

When I worked as a Hospice Chaplain in New York, my office was located in Herald Square, Manhattan. A Transit Pass was part of my compensation so I could take a subway or a bus anywhere in New York City. Even so, as long as my schedule made it feasible, I much preferred to walk the streets.

There was one woman I ran into often. She was known by the locals as “The Blue Lady” because she was frequently dressed in some shade of blue, but it was more than that. She wore her sadness and loneliness around her shoulders like an old, tattered sweater.  

Just looking at her, pushing her grocery cart which was alternately filled with food she was bringing home or laundry she was taking to the laundromat made you feel sad and lonely, too.

Some said that she was once beautiful and used to be part of the dance ensemble on Broadway. Word was, she was pretty good. Not enough to be a star but she was pretty and she was good and so she almost always made the auditions to be part of the ensemble.

 

The word was also that she fell madly in love with a male star who, once the run of show had ended, moved on, leaving her behind with a broken heart that never really mended. There followed many years of abuse of alcohol which, for the first time in her adult life, earned her the label of “unreliable”. She made fewer and fewer auditions. Gradually, she stopped trying.

 

Mostly, she was ignored. Worse was when people – tourists, mostly – went out of their way to ignore her, making a big show of stepping out of her way, as if she had leprosy or that her body odor was much worse than it actually was.

There were a few of us who either worked or lived in the neighborhood who went out of our way to say hello to her – which was no easy task. You had to catch her when she was standing still to look over some fresh fruit or admire a bouquet of flowers and lingered to remember the time when her lover brought her beautiful bouquets. Then, you hand to stoop down and look up under her hat in order to catch her eye and say, “Good morning!” or “Hello in there!”

Sometimes, not often, but sometimes, she would look up and study your face. And sometimes, if you were really lucky, she accepted both your greeting and your smile and say, softly, humbly, “Thank you,” as if you were paying her this wonderful kindness which she had neither earned nor deserved.

 

Something always felt more balanced in the world when I got that kind of response from her, or I saw her response to the kindness of another. Her gratefulness was palpable and real, and seemed to set off a minor vibration that just ever so slightly shifted the energy around her and changed the world for the good.

In this morning’s Gospel lesson, we hear Jesus teaching his disciples about how he wants them to behave as leaders in the new order of the world which his ministry is to bring into being.
It's important to remember that Jesus lived in what scholars call am “honor/shame” society where people were quick to take offense. So, Jesus is giving those who will be the leaders of the new community a simple formula to resolve conflict.

We are wise to take note of that process. As a country and a people, we seem to have returned to that ancient, primitive way of being. Many of us seem to be made of tinder and live in fear that the next person may be carrying a lit match. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a time in our common lives – in homes, at work, in families, and neighbors and friends – when tempers fly faster than fireflies in the darkened woods.

The information superhighway has never been smoother and faster, bringing information from millions of miles away in the seeming blink of an eye. Problem is, social scientists tell us that a lie can circle the globe three times before the truth can be told. (Hear that again)

This has led to what social scientists are calling “An Epidemic of Loneliness”. How ironic, right? We have the best, fastest communication in the world and yet there is an epidemic – a widespread, worldwide epidemic – of loneliness due to social isolation.

We’re also learning that loneliness is deadly. It is linked to strokes, heart disease, dementia, inflammation and suicide. The surgeon general of the United States warns that loneliness is as deadly as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, and more dangerous than obesity.

I’ve recently learned that England has installed what they call “chatty benches,” where people are encouraged to sit down and start a conversation with anyone else sitting there. There are also “talking cafes,” where you’re encouraged to speak with other coffee drinkers.

Imagine such a thing! Well, I can. This, my friends, may be a terrible time to be a citizen of the world, but it is the best time to be a follower of Jesus. Those of us who know Jesus and follow his teachings know that the very heart of our faith is about community.

Jesus has called us together to live together in some kind of harmony. Jesus gave us a lot of teaching but only one commandment: Love one another. Thankfully and mercifully, he never said, Like one another. That’s ever so much more difficult.

To love one another means doing no harm. It means adjusting our default settings so that our first impulse is toward kindness and generosity of spirit. To love one another means that even though you don’t like someone, you look for the good in them. Anyway. At least, for the potential to do good. And, to love one another sometimes means speaking a hard word of truth: You hurt me. When you did that, I felt betrayed. You said one thing – promised one thing – but did another. You promised you wouldn’t do that ever again and then you turned right around and did that exact same thing again.

Life would be ever so much better – families could be so much stronger – workplaces could be so much safer – churches could follow Jesus more nearly if we loved one another enough to do exactly what Jesus says and do the hard work of loving one another enough to speak the truth in love FIRST to the person who made the offense.

That’s the wisdom of Jesus. This is how he wants us to be with each other.  Speaking the truth in love takes courage. It’s so much easier to be passive aggressive and let our anger or hurt come out sideways. In my business, in pastoral care and counseling, we have a saying, “Hurt people hurt people.”  It’s a hard truth but nonetheless true: Hurt people who have never attempted to find healing and reconciliation will, ironically, inflict pain on others. And, sometimes, like The Blue Lady of Midtown, Manhattan, they will try to numb the pain with alcohol or drugs.

Jesus tells his disciples, “Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” So, you know, the stakes are high. Nothing happens in secret. It's Newton's Third Law of Motion: To every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Or, as my Grandmother used to say, "Live your life as if everyone will know everything you've done because eventually, everyone will."

Or, as the Beatles once sang:   "There's nothin' you can know that isn't known. /Nothin' you can see that isn't shown. There's nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be. It's easy" And then, of course, they famously sang, "All you need is love."

Well, love takes some work, doesn’t it? It takes intention. It takes an adjustment of attitude from asking “What’s good for me?” to “What good can I do?” God knows, there’s enough bad stuff happening in the world. It’s the people who do small acts of kindness that help to balance things out. Newton’s Third Law of Motion – the equal and opposite reaction which balances out the hate with love.

Small acts of kindness, like: The people I’ve seen who see liter on the side of the road, pull over and stop their cars to pick it up.

Or, the adults who are coaching and cheering kids who are learning a sport while they are learning important lessons in life as they learn how to be part of a team.

It’s the 'volunteers' who bring a meal and a smile and a bit of conversation to someone whose health is fragile and body frail but their heart and soul just need a bit of attention from another human being in order to flourish.

It’s the folks who take the time to read to kids in the library. It’s even someone who holds open a door or lets a car pass or looks into the lonely eyes of someone and says, "Hello in there.” By which they are saying, hello, I see you. I care.

When those things happen, balance is restored and maintained in a world that is teetering on the brink of imbalance.

 

There is an ancient teaching among the Rabbis – perhaps one even Jesus learned – which is this: Before every human being go 10,000 angels who call out, “Make way! Make way for the image of God!”

What if we behaved as if that were true? What if we listened for the angels and saw in every person the image of God? How might that change the way we treated them?

Perhaps it would mean that the next time we saw a lonely person we might invite them to the nearest “chatty bench” and had a conversation. We might just be able to find an end to the epidemic of loneliness, one smile, one greeting, one lonely person at a time.

I’m going to leave you with this thought: Now that this church is brilliantly providing a space where people can be alone with their thoughts and in prayers with God over at Old Christ Church, what if this church considered doing an equal and opposite action? What if we came together and collected the funds to donate a “chatty bench”?

What if we placed it somewhere in Laurel? It could be in front of the church, but perhaps it might be near the library or town hall? What if the bench had the name and number of the church on it with the inscription that said something like, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” Matthew 18:20.

I wonder what would happen. I wonder if people just might put down their cell phones for 10 red hot seconds, look each other in the eye and say, “Well, hello.” And maybe, follow that with, “How are you?” And, actually mean it.

And, suddenly, they might be still enough to hear 10,000 angels call out, “Behold, the image of God.” And, before you know it, they might actually have a bit of a chat. You know. Just like people used to do, back when we had clothes lines and had an after dinner walk and got cards and letters and newspapers in our mail boxes, and greeted each other on the street and in the aisle in the supermarket and had things to talk about other than the latest gripe or gossip.

You might actually get a smile in return. And, you might perceive a minor vibration that just ever so slightly shifted the energy around you both which changed the world for the good. Or, at least, your perception of the world might change. Which just might be enough.

I wonder . . . . . .

Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

Amen.