Dieu Est Avec Nous A sermon preached by James F. McIntire Copyright 2011 James F. McIntire All rights reserved. Text: Romans 5: 1-5 March 13, 2011 Lent 1 Hope United Methodist Church Eagle & Steel Roads, Havertown, PA Phone: 610-446-3351 Web: www.havhopeumc.org Office: HopeUMCHavertown@verizon.net Pastor: HopeUMCPastor@verizon.net 2
Romans 5:1-5 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom God has given us. the wealthiest countries in the world. The King of Prussia Mall is not a place to make re-entry from a trip like this any easier. My re-entry this week has been filled with moments of personal depression and anger, doubt and confusion, guilt and sadness. I ve been unfocused and scattered and I ve disappointed and angered friends and colleagues by my unresponsiveness and seeming disregard. I ve felt tired and disoriented, emotionally dizzy and literally dizzy due to some readjustment issues and medication and allergies. I ve been dragging this week and I have ignored phone calls, delayed answering Emails, been unable to do things that need to be done. I am wiped out. I ask for your understanding and your forgiveness. Re-entry is difficult. This past Tuesday evening I climbed into an American Airlines jetliner in Port au Prince, Haiti, to return home after a week-long mission trip. On Wednesday morning I arrived back in Havertown and discovered that my cell phone which I had intentionally left home had a dead battery and wouldn t recharge so I checked with the phone store in Springfield which didn t have one in stock so they sent me to King of Prussia. In a 24 hour period I was first in Port au Prince, the crumbled capital of the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and then in the King of Prussia Mall, the glowing capital of American individualistic consumerism in one of 3 Pastor Maude is the Superintendent of the Miragoane Circuit of Eglise Methodiste d Haiti. She is a demure, petite woman who limps due to the effects of typhoid on her hip she lives at and runs the Methodist Guest House in Petit Goave where we stayed for the week while we traveled back and forth to our work site about ½ hour away in more rural Fond Doux. Pastor Maude is a soft-spoken and serious woman who eventually told me that she had been on the second floor of the Guest House with her young nephew, Kevin, when the earthquake struck on January 12, 2010. 4
They were physically okay but the shaking caused a fire on the first floor which they had to get past to exit the fire completely demolished the kitchen. One of the most telling remnants of the earthquake s many tragedies is the post traumatic stress that it has caused the people of Haiti. I had no idea the extent of that part of the story until I was there. For this past year, Pastor Maude has lived in a tent set up on the grounds outside the Guest House she was afraid to sleep inside the building for an entire year despite the fact that the stability of the house s structure is not in doubt. I discovered as well that at the school just down the road, the Harry Brakeman School established many years ago by a United Methodist pastor from Michigan, the children continue to meet for classes in large tents supplied by the United Nations and UMCOR and other organizations as in most schools the children s parents insist that they not go back in the buildings despite their structural integrity. Last Sunday, Pastor Maude asked me to preach at a church on her circuit, in d Olivier in rural Haiti. What do you say about God to a people who have experienced such devastation and loss? What do you say to people who have seen death and disease as a result of a natural disaster of this magnitude? What do you say to a people who have known heartache and deprivation unlike anything that most of us will ever experience? We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God, Paul wrote to the Christian community in Rome, Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out [God s] love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom God has given us. How horrible it must be to live in constant fear of having the earth tremble under your feet even though it s been more than a year since any aftershocks and before that it had been 250 years since the last major quake. 5 6
Most of what you and I consider suffering is minor compared to the experiences of those to whom I read those words last Sunday. My waking up each morning stiff because the day before I was shoveling and sifting stone and sand to mix with concrete or because I had to lift a few buckets of cement or lug around baggage and tools having to sleep on thin mattresses on uncomfortable bunk beds or not having hot water for the week. These are not the sufferings that Paul was talking about. My being inconvenienced by having to drive to King of Prussia and my inability to get a parking spot close to the mall entrance these are not sufferings. I asked that congregation if waking up stiff all week from my labor was the kind of suffering that Paul was talking about. They said yes, it was. I told them it s not. The early Christians suffered ridicule and loss of property and arrest and death simply because of their beliefs. That is suffering. The reminders from Jesus in Matthew s Gospel about how we must reach out to those who are hungry and thirsty and without clothing or are oppressed and in prison those are the sufferings that God would have us pay attention to. Not the stiff muscles of a soft-bodied American. The people of Haiti to whom I spoke have suffered poverty is nearly immeasurable, more than 2/3 of the labor force doesn t have formal jobs, 48% adult illiteracy, children s enrollment in school is less than 50 % since most parents can t afford the $200 per year tuition, 49% of the population is undernourished, 54% of the population without access to a safe water source. They have experienced political violence for most of the history of the first independent nation resulting from a slave uprising 200 years ago. Every year Haiti experiences hurricanes. The mountains have been deforested since their primary fuel for cooking is charcoal created by charring the wood from cut trees. These Christians have experienced death and disfiguration and cholera and water contamination and collapsing infrastructure as a result of this earthquake. But suffering, Paul says, produces perseverance. Suffering is not brought on by God who loves us God doesn t cause earthquakes and death and cholera but God does give us the ability to get through our sufferings, to endure whatever it is that we encounter in the world in which we live. Suffering produces perseverance. God gives us the ability to survive, to withstand anything that tries to get us down, that tries to keep us down. Haiti suffers but Haiti perseveres. Haiti is alive. Haiti thrives. Haiti endures because God is in Haiti. That congregation heard that they know that fact they know that God is with them and that God is their refuge and strength they know and live what Paul tells us a little later in Romans, that nothing can separate them from the love of God. Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord, Paul wrote. (Romans 8: 8:35-39) The people of the Methodist Church in d Olivier know that. Do we? 7 8
Perseverance produces character. What I experienced in Haiti last week was character. Integrity, independence, dignity, determination, strength. As I read more of the history of Haiti I discover that more than anything else what keeps this people moving forward is their fierce independence and pride, their reliance on their faith and their knowledge that God is with them. The day we arrived in Haiti, we had some free time so we hired a driver to take us around Port au Prince. When I was there 16 years ago, standing in front of the National Palace with its fenced in green lawn and magnificent white mansion was an inspiring moment. But now it s flattened. And it all leads to hope. Suffering produces perseverance, perseverance produces character, and character produces hope. And hope does not disappoint because it is given to us by God. I told the Methodists of d Olivier about you about Hope here in Havertown about how often I speak of hope to this congregation called Hope, how we try to live out what scripture tells us, that faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:1) It s not easy to hope when you can t see the future. It s not easy to hope when you don t know tomorrow. It s not easy to let things not seen be the reason for your hope and the reassurance that your faith is sufficient. But that s what our faith is. We can never know the day or the hour, we cannot know tomorrow. We can only hope. 9 10
In 1995 I was there shortly after President Aristide was returned to power after having been in exile in the US and attitudes were positive, the future had potential, hopes were high. Across from the Palace was an open area with Haiti s most famous statue, the Neg Marron (Brown Man) depicting a slave, blowing a conch shell, while holding a machete in his other hand with a broken chain and hand shackle. It is the symbol of slavery and freedom, the conch was used to call escaped slaves to gather while in hiding; the machete was used to fight off the French, and was used to cut down sugar cane; and the broken chains symbolize slaves breaking from bondage and reclaiming their freedom. as she washed inside her tent and we had just breezed past the only privacy she had. There, in the middle of this urban tent camp, was Neg Marron. You can no longer see him from the street just the tip of his conch shell poking above the tent peaks electric wires stretched across the shell in an attempt to get at least some power into the lives of these earthquake refugees. We stood in stunned silence an occasional whisper should we be in here? Do we belong in the midst of this intimate setting where people only want shelter and privacy and life? I hesitatingly snapped a few photos of the statue the unfettered foot, the outstretched body, the uplifted conch call to freedom. We saw it nowhere as we drove around the Palace area so we asked what happened to it. It s still there, our driver reassured us, and he agreed to take us. We stopped beside a crowded scene of tents and wires and controlled chaos. Here it is he told us. It is now surrounded by a makeshift tent city and all the human debris that comes with such living arrangements. We walked our way into this small refugee camp real tents supplied by NGOs, makeshift tents from common blue tarps. Is this okay? We re stepping into people s lives as tourists. Bon jou, an older woman offered a friendly hello as we walked past an open slit in her tent. Bon jou, we replied. I later learned that she was topless 11 12
great symbol of independence and freedom and strength is surrounded by blue tarp and grey tin. God is with us. I was speechless; my eyes watered. God is with us? Earthquake, death, destruction, disease, devastation. God is with us? I realized how true that is. And it became my spiritual focus for the rest of the week. If those in the midst of this crisis can truly believe the God is with them, then I should be able to believe that as well. Look at what I have, look at how I live, look at what crises I don t have to face, look at the privileged life that I live simply because of where I was born. And then there it was it struck me like an earthquake. Can I believe that God is with us? Dieu est avec nous. A few scraps of wood painted red and green made up a doorway for one of the tents on it handwritten white lettering. A sentence. Dieu est avec nous. It s French Haitians speak Kreyole, a kind of French dialect so it s not unusual to find the more formal language here. Dieu est avec nous. Here, in the midst of this put-together life of a people who you might think would be scared or bitter or angry or defensive. Where you might think all hope is lost. Where you might think all dignity and pride is completely gone. In a place where Haiti s 13 Back to Sunday s sermon in d Olivier. Suffering produces perseverance, perseverance produces character, character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint. At the end of our trip, I shared with the team that I was wondering how I would preach that same message to this suburban Philadelphia congregation that has suffered nothing compared to the loss that I stood in the midst of this week. What do you get from Paul s message? 14
Here s what I can give you what I ended with last Sunday. I told the Methodist Church in d Olivier that my prayer is that we can all hope together. Despite the fact that we might live 1,500 miles apart we need to hope and pray for each other. If you hope and pray for me, I can hope and pray for you, I promised them. My prayer is that anyone who lives in Haiti and anyone who travels there to help with the recovery can learn to work together, build together, grow together, hope together. So I ask you here in Havertown to do the same. Pray and hope and work for the people of Haiti, for the people of Peiti Goave and Pastor Maude and her churches, for those in Fond Doux where we worked to rebuild the church and where we played tirelessly with the children, and please pray and hope for the congregation in d Olivier which now prays and hopes for you. Suffering. Perseverance. Character. Hope. Hope does not disappoint because it is poured into our hearts by God. Dieu est avec nous. God is with us. Amen. 15