Making a List, A Story Preached at Wollaston Congregational Church On October 26th, 2019 Scripture: Luke 18:9-14 Step 8 [That we had] made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. A Story … Scene 1 Sunday morning at the church: Early Sunday morning in a congregational church in somewhere USA, church elder, Tom, opens the sanctuary. He breathes in the atmosphere of the place, taking in the precious silence before the choir and the first worshipers arrive. His family has belonged in this place for many generations. As he begins the preparations for worship, he runs his hand along the surface of the communion table crafted by his great grandfather. He looks over the choir stalls, where he remembers his mother and aunts singing God’s praises. He turns to look up at the balcony, where his grandmother always insisted the family would be seated. His mind flits to the scene he saw as he drove by the church on Wednesday evening. The 12 step recovery group had been going in to the church basement. There had been more people there than would be here at the Sunday service, he guessed. This morning he had speedily swept up the cigarette butts some of them had left outside the basement door. As he turns to the altar and takes in the mighty stained glass window, he gives thanks. Thank you, God, that I am not in that same situation as those miserable addicts. Thank you that you have guided me my whole life in the ways of the church, you have given me productive work to do here in this place. Thank you for giving me the resources, from our family business, to pledge generously. Thank you that our family has worshiped here for generations and continues to do so now. For a moment a shadow nudges him in his holy place. His wife, Sarah, had been lying in bed as he left the house. She didn’t feel like coming to church this morning, pleading a headache. He didn’t know what was going on, but maybe it had something to do with what he said to her last night. And their son, Tristan, a typical moody 14 year old, had retreated into his room to play video games these past few months. What was going on there? Why didn’t the teenager step up and do his part, as Tom had done as a kid? The shadows nudge even more. An troubling memory surfaces of Tom’s mother weeping on Sunday morning, together with a vision of his father’s back as he stepped out of the house. He hears his father taunting “pull yourself together, woman, I expect to see you at church ready to rehearse with the choir. Don’t let us down. And there’ll be no talk of this with pastor either. Don’t think you can go running to him!” These memories are unwelcome, he pushes them down. “Gratitude, gratitude” becomes his mantra. He recites the list he has memorized: “God, country, church … thank you for everything God. Thank you for making me who I am, thank you for making this place what it is, through the strength you gave me and my forebears.” Now we travel back in time a few days for Scene 2, last Wednesday evening at the church: Jerry shuffles into the Wednesday AA meeting, dropping his cigarette butt after one last drag and rubbing his nose on his cuff. The group assembles on the chairs circled up in the brightly lit basement. Coffee is brewing and Styrofoam cups are stacked ready for the taking. Not everyone in this meeting looks alike. Some appear to be successful business men and women, others have no work and lay down at night at the local homeless shelter. Some are barely more than teenagers, with pink and blue hair. There are elderly, young and in-between. Some are white and working class, they’ve been in this neighborhood a couple of generations. Others are dark-skinned, and some speak with accents from other lands. They are all there for a common purpose. Sometimes the pastor of the church comes to the meeting. Pastor Mike tells them that he is in recovery too. He says he often enjoys their Wednesday evenings better than church. And he says the group reminds him of the “kingdom of God.” Jerry can’t figure that one out. Pastor Mike says he’s grateful for a place where the members speak the real and honest truth. Jerry doesn’t understand why this guy still works for the church, but Pastor Mike says that the religious folk need a message of hope and forgiveness too. Jerry didn’t have much time for religion or God before he came to AA. In his home he’d only learned of a vengeful, punishing God. His parents brought him to a church that looked a lot like the sanctuary upstairs. He can’t stand to go in there. It reminds him too much of those Sundays sitting uncomfortably in the pew. His dad’s arm around his shoulders. Anyone looking on saw affection, he felt is father squeeze his should so hard he left a bruise. His dad would threaten him and his mom: they must keep up appearances or God would punish them. One word from them to the pastor about what was going on at home and dad wouldn’t wait – he would deal out the punishment. A year ago, after his first AA meeting, Jerry had walked out with his sponsor. Jerry told the sponsor that he couldn’t do God. And so his sponsor had asked him, “can you imagine something greater than yourself?” Jerry had looked up at the star filled sky and replied, “yes, of course.” And so the sponsor had told him simply to think of that higher power, if God language didn’t work for him. Tonight they go around the room. When it comes to his turn he says “I am Jerry and I am an alcoholic.” “Hi Jerry” the group responds. Jerry weeps as he tells his story: an abusive father, also alcoholic, who beat his mother. Jerry tells the story of how, as a child, he sat on the stairs trembling in fear, when his father “worked late.” He’d wait, holding his breath until his dad would stagger home drunk and abusive. He told of his shame over landing in the exact same place as his father. Thank you Higher Power for Bill Wilson, AA and one-day-at-a-time. “I sunk so low I stole from my elderly mother,” he says. “I wasn’t there for my wife when she needed me. She went through a complicated pregnancy and birth without me. I don’t even know my own child. I can’t even count the people I have harmed, but I’m beginning to work on step 8. Oh God! I hope they can forgive me.” And so we shift back to Sunday morning at the church for scene 3: The choir sits down following the anthem and Pastor Mike stands up to face the congregation from the high pulpit. From the lay leader’s seat beside the lectern, Tom notices that Sarah did make it to church and is seated with the choir. As Pastor Mike begins his sermon, Tom gives an inward sigh. He’s heard the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector in the temple a hundred times. The message is “be humble” right? Why be so long-winded about it? Pastor Mike is doing a sermon series on the 12 steps of recovery this fall and Tom is not pleased. He’s tired of hearing about Pastor Mike’s 20 years sober. He’s tired of stories from the Alcoholic Anonymous meetings and their ways. What about the people who are not in recovery? What about the good Christians like himself? Is it too much to ask for a little encouragement from time to time? He mentally checks out of the sermon, until he notices Sarah in the choir stalls. She is writing something down on a paper. Ah, yes, Pastor Mike is talking about step 8 and telling the congregation to make a list of those we have harmed. What about making a list of those who have harmed us? Tom could think of a few of those folk right now. The service continues. Tom rises for the doxology, and delivers the prayer of dedication. “Thank you God for these gifts, we pray you use them for your work in the world.” He spies his own substantial check in the midst of a few small notes. What would this congregation do without him and his family? Pastor Mike pronounces the benediction, there is a rousing organ postlude and the sanctuary empties out. As usual Tom is left to tidy things up. He can hear the chatter of coffee hour downstairs and inwardly gives thanks for a few moments of peace. Working his way through the choir stall he notices a scrap of paper that has fallen to the ground. He’s surprised to see Sarah’s handwriting and reads: Pastor Mike, please help! I don’t think I can go on much longer. My family is falling apart and I don’t know which way to turn. Mariela invited me to her 12-step program but Tom will go into a rage if I tell him I want to go. He doesn’t want me airing our dirty laundry. I have been holding this in for so long. I feel so ashamed for the harm I have brought on Tom and Tristan. I feel as though I am falling into a downward spiral. I feel so alone and depressed, and then I drink. Then I feel ashamed that I drank so much, I get more depressed and I drink more. I am failing as a wife and a mother and I can’t stop. Oh God have mercy on me! And Tom sits down right there in the choir stall and holds his head in his hands. He weeps and cries out “Oh God, have mercy on me!” The End. Amen
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