The Lame Beggar

Week 1 of "becoming . . . " Series

Psalm 19

Acts 3:1-10

Several weeks ago I shared with Bob Eckles that I would be talking about strengths and weaknesses.  And he brought to my attention one of his favorite quotations, by educator and author Herbert Kohl: “The key to sustaining joy is perceiving and enjoying strength, rather than being overcome by powerlessness and failure.”

It reminds me of a line from a poem by Wendell Berry: “be joyful though you have considered all the facts.”

I want to talk today (and this Fall) about recognizing, identifying, and using our strengths; and about noticing and giving thanks for the strengths in others.  But I feel like I need to clear some brush from the path first.  For me, and perhaps for some of you, it is not easy to find joy in our strengths.  It is much easier to be overcome by powerlessness and failure.  Let me tell you what I mean.

Every year or two I take a trip with my best friends from high school.  Part of the fun is arguing about where we’re going next.  Several years back we settled on a trip to Seattle.  One of my friends was opening a coffee shop, so he wanted to visit all the great coffee shops in Seattle.  We only had a few days there, and each of us had a say in how we wanted to spend our time.  I put only one demand on the table: we are going to spend some time at the Seattle Public Library.

This did not strike my friends as a great idea.  But I stood firm.  I love architecture.  And I love libraries.  And one of my favorite architects - Rem Koolhaus, namesake of our youngest child – had just completed Seattle’s stunning new public library.  I will not take time now to describe that experience to you.  (You can google it.  OK, now I’ve lost a third of you for rest of sermon . . . )  I will only tell you that my friends agreed that touring the library was one of the highlights of the trip. 

But my love affair with great libraries caused a problem.  I couldn’t get over the paneling and green shag carpet in our public library here.  Our library seemed tired and resigned.  There seemed little evidence of any excitement about new technology and new possibilities.  The library seemed rather unconnected and uninterested in all the other things going on in town.  And so I sulked.  That’s right.  Our library put me in a bad mood.  I could only see it as a problem. 

After several conversations with our librarian – in which I’m sure I seemed like a pest - she asked and I agreed to join the library’s board.  It turns out the library did and does have a number of challenges.  But it also has a hardworking board and a committed staff.  I found out that everyone wanted more for our library, but there was a bit of fatigue and discouragement.  Once I got past my frustration with all the things we were doing wrong, I started listening for possibilities.  And I’m glad to report that our librarian is re-energized; we’ve hired a talented new children’s librarian.  We’ve added people with great ideas to the board.  And just this week we finalized the architectural drawings for a full-scale renovation.  I can get stuck focusing on the problems very easily.  It is harder to look for resources and strengths to build on.

Let me give you another example of this shift I’m trying to make.

Our family spent a week in NYC in August.  Stephanie and I love looking at art.  So do our kids, up to a point.  So the trick is to figure out how much time we can spend in museums before the kids revolt.  We spent the better part of one day at the newly opened Whitney Museum.  That was a highlight of the trip for me.  But when I shared with the family that there was one more arts center I wanted to visit, and that this art center would require a long walk to a distant little corner of Brooklyn, it was pretty obvious I was going to be making this trip alone.

We stayed with friends of ours who live in the Carroll Gardens neighborhood in  Brooklyn.  And if you walk out their door and around the corner, you find a pedestrian ramp across a tangle of highways.  This pedestrian bridge takes you into an isolated little neighborhood called Red Hook. 

I wound my way through blocks of government housing, auto body shops, warehouses stacked to the gills with forklifts humming about, and an enormous Catholic Church.  I stopped for coffee in a tiny little shop that was all black laquer inside.  Then I made my way across the street and down towards the East River and came to my destination – an old brick building that for years was Pioneer Metal Works.  Just a few years ago artist Dustin Yellin bought the building and converted it into a sprawling center for the arts. 

The first floor houses an enormous, open gallery space, filled with weird, wonderful, art.  The second and third floors are open studios where artists are working and the public is welcome to interact with them while they work.  I stopped and talked to a young woman who was building a dark room in her studio space.  She develops all her film using 19^th century techniques.  I stopped in another studio and talked to two young women from Paris who had built enormous shapes out of chicken wire and were covering them with paper machier.

I wanted to visit the Pioneer Center for Art and Innovation because we had just finished our summer arts experiment here.  I was surprised by the interest in art, and beauty, and making things.  And I wanted to try to imagine what was next for us and for our community.  But again, the background mood or posture for me was one of frustration.  There I was in Red Hook Brooklyn, sad that our community doesn’t celebrate art and artists with the same gusto.  Again, I was focused on problems, on weakness, and powerlessness.

When I got back to town I got a call from Anne Emerson.  She said, “Come to lunch at Papa Don’s at noon.  We’re planning an arts festival.”  And after a few weeks of work, that Festival is now planned for the weekend of March 6.  There are many more people committed to making art, learning and talking about art than I’d ever realized.

These two examples should alert you to my problem.  And maybe you suffer from some version of it.  I major in problems.  I focus on what’s wrong.  That’s my basic orientation to life.  And until I can escape into something better I will continue to miss out on finding joy in strength.  I do this in my marriage, in my relationship as a parent to my children, in my work as a pastor, and in my community development work.  And I’ve realized that this isn’t just me.  Lots of us approach life primarily in the mode of complaint and frustration.  We focus on what’s missing, what’s lacking, what needs to be changed. 

Acts 3

Now come to this wonderful story from Acts 3.  Peter and John were going to the 3pm prayer service at the Temple.  The other figure in the story is a man who was born with legs that didn’t work.  He was a person with disabilities.  He could not walk, which meant he couldn’t fully participate in the social life of his community.  He was blocked from economic productivity. Born without the use of his legs, he entered the world as a liability.  A problem.

Everyday, there were people who carried him to the Temple gates so that he could beg (but notice how passive he appears in this picture).  So he was not without the kindness and compassion of friends.  Those who carried him to his place every day obviously cared for him.  And those going to Temple prayers cared for his difficult situation by offering him charity.

Every day.  Every day of his life.  This is the rhythm.  Carried to the Temple.  Beg for change.  Carried back home.  There was a whole system built around his disability.  And in many ways it was a wonderful, caring system.  There was an assumed obligation to support by charity those unable to work.  And people did so.  Every day.

When you do something every day, it becomes routine.  You’re no longer thinking very hard about the situation.  It’s become habitual and unconscious and entirely taken for granted.  This man – with legs that didn’t work - and these generous prayer service attenders – they settled into grooves of charity that no one questioned.  A whole system of charity was manufactured that was caring but not very imaginative.  Everyone either gave him a little change or didn’t.  But very few stopped long to talk and find out more about him.

Now here comes Peter and John.  The man who was lame asks them for money, like he asks everyone else.  But here the story takes a surprising turn.  They “looked straight at him,” the text reads.  This implies that most people didn’t look straight at him.  Then Peter urges the man on the ground, “Look at us!”.  And the man “gave them his attention.”  This man had stopped really looking at other people too.  No one was really seeing anyone any more.

So they did something new.  They looked straight at him.  And he gave them his attention.  Now they are seeing one another.  And this simple practice of really looking at others, and really seeing, this is the beautiful power of the story.  Just look at others.  Wonder about them.  Be patient and diligent in being with others.  Dig a little and find out more than you currently know about them.  Really try to “see” other people.  See past their obvious shortcomings, weaknesses, and disabilities.  And if you can learn to do this with others, perhaps then you can learn to do it with yourself. 

Peter claims to have no silver or gold, but he admits to having something else.  And what happens next is that Peter issues a command, “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk” (3:6).

Those of us with disposable income can’t honestly claim to have no silver or gold.  We usually have at least a little.  And we could share it more generously.  But I still don’t think that gets us to the heart of this story.  The real drama in the story is this difficult truth: to give the man more money would have been to continue the same old cycle of not really seeing him.  This story presses us in a very painful and confusing direction.  We’re asked to imagine the possibility that our financial charity to others may be doing them harm if it functions to leave intact a whole system of assumptions that people are nothing but problems to be managed.

By looking at the man, Peter sees new possibilities.  Peter sees a new life for this man.  Peter can imagine this man overcoming his passivity and becoming a full and active participant in social life, in the economy, and in the ongoing witness of the early followers of Jesus.  Now let’s not get hung up on the fact that what took place was a powerful miracle.  Yes, the apostles were given wonder-working powers by the risen Christ in order to make a powerful case for the good news.  The risen Christ probably won’t work in us through powerful signs of exactly that sort.  But what if the risen Christ can help us begin to see people in new ways and recognize new possibilities – for them and for ourselves?

Perhaps the most powerful part of the story is that the man, raised up and healed, goes “with them” into the Temple courts, walking, and jumping, and praising God.  Had they given him money, like everyone else, they would have left him by the gate, by himself.  But they offered him healing and friendship.  They welcomed him into new rhythms of life, fellowship, and friendship. 

Goal for this series of sermons is simple.  We want everyone in the congregation to have a new awareness of their own and others’ gifts and strengths.  We want everyone to develop confidence in using their strengths, and to develop habits of using their strength areas more often.  But if you want to make progress, you’re going to have to do one thing that’s really hard.

Give up the idea of perfection.

Most people live their lives with the nagging feeling that they’re a failed version of perfection.  That is, most of us assume that there’s something called a perfect human life.  And then we belittle ourselves for being an extremely weak and pale version of that ideal.  So this myth of perfection leads to a kind of self-hatred.  But it does even more damage than that.  It poisons the way you view other people because they, too, fail to perfectly imitate your imagined perfect human life.  One of the best things you can do for yourself and those around you is to give up this idea of perfection.  That’s right, throw it away.  Get rid of it however you can.  People come in all shapes and sizes and colors.  They’re born in different places with different traditions.  They have different ranges of skills and abilities.  And they are all – we are all – different ways of imaging the inexhaustible goodness of the God who loves us all.

I’ll end by reminding you of the words of Herbert Kohl: “The key to sustaining joy is perceiving and enjoying strength, rather than being overcome by powerlessness and failure.”  Amen.