I
begin this final piece with a prayer, a story, and an observation.
First, let’s pray together. May the words of my mouth and the
meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, for you are
our rock and redeemer. Amen. The story comes out of a 1970 Time Magazine
article which dealt with the life of Katherine Power. Katherine was
at that time a student at one of the smaller Universities in Boston.
Katherine was the leader of the radical “National Student Strike
Force.” Part of their purpose was to raise money to buy arms
for the Black Panthers. The first part of the plan was to rob a bank.
Kathy’s role was to drive the getaway car. As carefully planned
as everything may have been, the plan went awry. A silent alarm was
sent and quickly answered by patrolman Walter Schroeder. Shots were
fired by one of Kathy’s accomplices. Patrolman Schroeder was
killed. He was the father of nine young children. That night Kathy,
then twenty-one, began twenty-three years on the lam and a place on
the FBI’s most-wanted list. In the late seventies, Kathy Power
secretly moved to Oregon. There she assumed the name of Alice Metzinger,
settled down, started a new life in the restaurant business, bought
a house, gave birth to a son, and married. She was a very active and
very positive part of the community. She seemingly had every reason
to be at peace, with one obvious and major exception.
Finally
in May of 1992, now at age forty-four, Alice Metzinger found herself
in a class at Albany General Hospital. It was a night class on depression.
The teacher was therapist Linda Carroll. Carroll related in an article
that she had never laid eyes on anyone in such psychological pain.
Carroll invited Metzinger to her office. They began to meet and, over
time the truth came out. Alice Metzinger began to diminish, and Kathy
Ann Power began to reemerge – no longer as the violent criminal,
but as one who realized her mistake and what was needed. She knew
it meant prison. So here’s where I want to stop for a moment
and ask you, what would your response be if the person you knew as
Alice Metzinger – a person who was a member of the PTA, sat
in the same pew with you in church, the person who shared play dates
with your child – suddenly turned into Kathy Ann Power. How
would you respond? How might God or God’s Order help us as we
try and answer that question?
Now
the observation…I realized as I was trying to prepare this that
in the three years we’ve lived here, we’ve never had a
quiet day. Every day construction has been taking place within one
block of us. Four small houses have been torn down and have been or
are being replaced by houses that literally take up the whole lot.
So, like I do, I researched what may lay beneath all of this. What
I found was that for some reason we live in an area steeped in fear.
People are afraid. They are afraid that the negative parts of living
here will rub off, afraid to be in relationships with their neighbors,
afraid of the homeless persons or those who go through our bins, afraid
of being robbed, afraid of being accosted or abducted, and even afraid
of people finding out who they really are. Therefore, a house is not
enough protection. They need a fortress. A yard is less of a priority
than thick walls. But thick walls are not enough. The house itself
is then surrounded by high hedges, or wood or stucco fences that are
often eight, even ten feet in height – sometimes higher. But
why? And how do you feel about it? What might this tell us about God’s
order or our role in it? Please think about the questions. How would
you respond to the Alice Metzinger you thought you knew? And, how
do you respond to mansionization? Let’s see what any of this
might have to do with this Psalm and God’s Order.
As
we’ve done each of the last three weeks, let’s look at
the psalm again. I’d like you to look at the first two verses
and notice a couple of things. Notice where this writer takes refuge,
and notice why. In you, O Lord, I take refuge AND let me never be
put to shame. Why take refuge in God and why this whole issue of shame?
Let’s deal with the shame first.
Shame
was a very real and very important part of the Old Testament order.
For the population who would be hearing this psalm, it was through
shame, even shaming, that people came to terms with their failures.
Guilt came first. Followers felt guilty for either causing harm or
breaking a law. Shame came as they came to turns with facing the community
in which they lived. Shame would overwhelm them and that shame would
then cause the law to be implemented. Actions of restoration often
involving the community followed shame. Once the actions were taken,
a right relationship was reestablished – with the community,
and ultimately with God. Once done, order was restored. The writer
of this psalm knew the order and sought to live accordingly. Notice
what brings deliverance in verse two. It is not about how he chooses
to live his life that will bring deliverance. It is living in and
with God’s order that will bring the good things to light and
appropriate actions to bear. So, there is an order to living in community
and the hope, desire and process to fully restore God’s order
– this time focused on an individual.
There are, however, dangers here if we are to bring this forward into
today. What we’ve now found is that shame doesn’t work.
It’s not healthy. It never really has been. Instead of bringing
ongoing health and healing, studies now tell us that shame causes
deeper pain. Shame never goes away. So if not shame, then what as
we seek to restore God’s order in our lives? The psalm can help
us here. First, we re-center or take refuge in God. Secondly we realize
the power community can play in bringing healing, protection, wholeness
and health particularly if we are to live lives in God’s Order.
When God is at the center of our lives, meaning that for us as Christians,
we seek to be like Jesus, see the world through His eyes, do the things
that he would do, create a loving, accepting and caring community,
we have a tendency to make better decisions about everything else
in our lives. Our relationships, our roles, and the needs that surround
us take on new meaning. We also recognize, like our earlier Christian
predecessors, our innate need for community, particularly a community
of grace.
Let’s
go back to Alice Metzinger for just a minute. After her time of realization
and admission, what surprised her most was the responses by her husband,
her neighbors, and her friends. The fear of telling the truth had
convinced her that the result would be total rejection. It was not.
On September 12, just before she would leave to face the charges,
her Oregon family and friends gathered with Alice Metzinger –
Alice was going away on so many levels. Instead of judging her, they
showered her with grace, some in the forms of gifts: good luck charms,
a stone and feather representative of both Christian and Native American
roots, even a map of the night sky so that, according to one friend,
“she could experience the outside while being on the inside.”
Even Power’s husband was not going to let her go without grace.
He told Time Magazine that he knew something was not right with her
past. He also knew that she wanted her life back, wanted her truth
back, and wanted to be whole. He wasn’t sure she’d ever
felt whole – until the night of this gathering. Kathy was convicted
of armed robbery and manslaughter, when given the opportunity, apologized
to the family of the slain officer, wishing that she could do more.
Her family has surrounded and supported her. She knows that nothing
she can do can bring Officer Schroeder back. She needs to pay for
the crime. But like two weeks ago, I ask you, what would you do with
her? How would we respond? How would we know?
I
think I can safely say that most of us have things we’re struggling
with. And many if not most have very few places to take them. That
is one very significant element under the mansionization phenomenon.
We have few places outside of our homes where we feel safe or can
take refuge, so few places of trust and support, we move into modes
of self-protection, even isolation. All in spite of the fact that
it’s a natural need to be in a community. We need places and
people to surround us with love and trust, relationships where we
are able to be who we are, struggle with stuff, search our hearts,
share joy and pain, and have support – no matter what anyone
may find out about us. We need places of grace. We need the church.
That is a part of God’s Order. But it is exceedingly difficult
if not impossible to have this when gathered in a sanctuary filled
with hundreds of people. Might there be another option, one worth
exploring?
An
additional area of study over these past few weeks has been on what
is at the root of most active, healthy, even growing churches. I’m
not simply talking about mega-churches. They are now in decline. I’m
talking about churches of any size. Alice Metzinger’s church
was one. Maybe you’ve noticed the changes taking place in our
church, particularly the face of our church. We are no longer filled
with those who have been here for years. There are continually new
faces, who stay for differing lengths of time. Some stay for a few
months, others for a few years. It is not as common for most to stay
for more than five years in any one church. So how do we establish
the kinds of trusted relationships with folks who no longer stay a
lifetime in one place? We develop groups, small groups where people
with like interests, similar challenges, and similar family make ups
come together and share. We develop a ministry of small groups.
These are the kinds of gatherings we find described in places like
Colossians and even Hebrews. Paul saw it clearly. In his letter to
the Colossians, Paul writes, “As God’s chosen ones, holy
and beloved, bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint
against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven
you. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything
together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your
hearts, to which you were called in the one body (the church). Let
the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another
in all wisdom and with gratitude in your hearts – and worship
by singing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs to God.” Notice
the intimacy of that setting. That is one description. Here is another.
The writer of Hebrews writes, “And let us consider how to stir
one another up, provoke, or spur one another on to love and good deeds,
not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging
one another, and all the more as we see the day approaching.”
Again, notice the significance of the intimate relationships found
in these scriptures. And it would not be a stretch at all to say that
this was at the root of Wesley’s desire for small groups (cells
he called them) that were intended to deepen relationships among church
communities. It’s what produced the question we hear so often,
“how is it with your soul?” From the ancient days of the
gathered Jewish communities, to the house churches of Paul, through
the times of persecution, through Wesley’s time, even into the
lives of the Alice Metzingers and us, God’s Order has small
groups of disciples gathering for trust and accountability, for help
and support, for fun and for fellowship – places where instead
of mansionizing or isolating our souls or our lives, we are set free
to take refuge in each other.
I
close with these questions. Where do you find your strength, strength
to get through the daily grind, strength to get through the times
of struggle, deeper hurts, even shame? With whom do you share the
good times, even the great times? Who do trust? God’s order
has us finding this and more in the community here – the church.
My prayer is that we can more fully become like the community that
surrounded Alice Metzinger as she moved back to becoming a healthy
Kathy Power – and a community praying for the family that lost
their husband and father. My hope is that we can help this community
of mansionizing trust in one another and trust God. My hope and prayer
is to continue to establish places and processes to build trust here,
in this church, as we grow together in faith. A place where we can
say, “In you, my sister or brother and in God, I can take refuge.
I know that I will never be put to shame for we are centered in God
and God’s Order and from there we find and offer deliverance.”
That’s my dream. That’s part of my vision for this church.
That’s my hope for this community. That’s my prayer for
you. Amen? Amen!
©Brad
Beeman, 2007. Permission is given for brief quotation with attribution.
All other rights reserved.
Psalm
71: God’s Order Part III: Standing Together or Falling Apart:
The Power of Shame and Love