May 11, 2008:  POWER TO THE PEOPLE
John 20:19-23, Psalm 104:24-34
Eileen Parfrey       Springwater Presbyterian

           
            Richard Rohr explains today’s story in this way:  “We meet the true Jesus, wounds and all, and we greet our true selves for perhaps the first time.  The two are almost the same.”   This is what explains his theology of forgiveness, “What is not received is not forgiven.”  Our branch of Christianity has the impression that the church has two tasks:  to win others to the Lord and to bring each other casseroles in time of need.  When Jesus gives the church the dual mission of retaining and forgiving sin, something seems out of whack to us.  But here’s a story that might explain it.
            At a time when women were entering the workforce in the first significant numbers since World War 2, Lisa became a grease monkey in an auto repair shop.  It was an unusual career path for a woman.  She’d started as cashier and moved out to the pumps when it was just “Chet’s Service Station.”  But when Wisconsin went self-serve, Chet abandoned the gas pumps to concentrate on repairs and service.  It was a good business decision, and soon meant that Chet’s Car Care could move to a bigger shop, about the time Lisa graduated from apprentice to journeyman mechanic.  As Chet’s Car Care grew to include a body shop, the neighbors began calling it Chetland, and Lisa brought in the first diagnostic computer and became shop foreman—foreperson—freeing up Chet to scout in surrounding towns for more shops to acquire.  Thus, Chetland became Chet’s Car Empire. 
            The dirty comments and jokes had always been bad, but they seemed to increase as Lisa moved up the ladder.  It might have been called sexual harassment, but Lisa decided not to let it get to her.  She knew the guys in the shop were trying to drive her out.  Eventually, no one noticed her gender anymore, and the harassment died down.  Ironically, as she was more accepted in the shop, acceptance at home decreased and harassment increased there.
             They had married young and, like many young people in the 1960s, were intent on bringing a revolution to American culture.  When the Foxfire Books and Whole Earth Catalog came out, they learned all the crafts, raised the small livestock, grew and preserved all their food.  A generation later it would be called “sustainability,” but at the time it was the “back-to-the-land” movement.  Only their marriage was not sustainable.  About the time Chet’s Empire collapsed, so did Lisa’s life. 
            Living in a rural community, when the children were babies, Lisa had joined a country church—more for the kids than anything.  But her natural abilities landed her a position as an elder.  She’d grown up with a mental picture of God in heaven pointing an accusatory finger at her saying, “No!  Bad girl!”  When she filed for divorce, her church made it be known that, any elder choosing divorce was not welcome to serve them.  Just about what you’d expect, with a God like that.
           Lisa lost her marriage, lost her job, and lost her church in one fell swoop.  She still had her tools, so she found work in another shop and moved to town while suffering through a colossally bitter and contentious divorce, which called into question everything about who she thought she was.  She didn’t know any other divorced women and, so isolated was she, she thought she was the only one in the world.  Tapping into her deep past, she remembered the practical advice of Dear Abby:  “Talk to your clergyman.” 
           That’s how Lisa went back to church.  It was in her new community.  Having just turned to summer, the church’s street signboard hadn’t yet caught up with the service time change, so she walked in half-way through the service—the story of her life.  That was probably just as well, because it was like the pastor’s sermon was about her life—broken dreams, disappointment, sense of failure.  The only part she could not comprehend was the part about God approving of her despite all that.  “When God created you,” the pastor said, “God said you were very good.”  That was news to her. Now he was saying that God’s reaction to our so-called sin was not, “No!  Bad girl!”  God’s reaction (lovingly said) is, “You can do better than that.”  You can do better than that.  Lisa wept through the rest of the service and made an appointment to talk with the pastor.
           Over the course of the ensuing months, Lisa got involved in the life of the church.  The adult Sunday School class she landed in had a Bible study during the week, which turned out to be the night her ex-husband had the kids, so she attended faithfully.  When there was a need for someone to deliver the sanctuary flowers after worship on Sunday, she volunteered, and became a Befriender, the weekly visitor for a shut-in.  Lisa discovered a sympathetic ear, and Bertha maintained a connection to the church.  Bertha was the one who encouraged Lisa to become a deacon, which is when Lisa got to serving supper once a month at the homeless shelter—because mission projects the deacons’ portfolio.  Lisa’s prayer group prayed her through her children’s teen rebellions, just as she prayed them through miscarriages and births, career changes, and graduations.
           Lisa had gone to church to have access to a clergyman, based on Dear Abby’s advice to her readers.  What Lisa found was a community—a community that accepted what she had to offer, lumps and all.  A community that reminded her, by their very acceptance of her wounds, that she was forgiven.  It didn’t matter to the people who received the Sunday sanctuary flowers that the person delivering them had been divorced.  That someone from the church remembered them is what mattered.  It didn’t matter to the hungry folks at the shelter that the person who helped cook and shared the meal with them had been rejected as a wife.  That this person built into her food budget something for them (and then showed up to share it) is what mattered.  It didn’t matter to Bertha that Lisa was one of the first female auto mechanics in the state and had heard every off-color joke in the English language.  That Lisa listened to her and remembered the stories is what mattered.
           What was sweeter than anything Lisa had ever experienced in her whole life was people accepting what little she had to offer.  That accepting is what redeemed her wounds, made them precious in God’s sight—and eventually her own.  That she was received was pure grace.  It was as if Jesus himself had breathed into her face with the words, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”  As indeed he had.  By finding a place where her self was received, Lisa had herself received the Holy Spirit.  And that’s how the Church was formed in Lisa.