When It Don't Come Easy

There are a few phrases we all know.  If I say the first lines, let’s see if you can finish them for me.  Here we go:  It’s always darkest before the _____ (dawn).  No pain, no _____ (gain).

Every dark cloud has a _____ (silver lining).  When life gives you lemons, make _____   (lemonade).  Each of these well known sayings tells us that suffering and struggle can lead to something better.  These sentiments are so common and so hopeful that most people like to get to the lemonade without having to taste the lemons. 

I was on a plane last week and in the In-Flight magazine there was an ad for a new process I think they were calling lipo-sculpting.  Get this, apparently they can now extract fat from your belly and buttocks and put it into your chest and biceps and calves.  What a deal!  Today, it seems that you can get thin without dieting and gain muscles and shape without exercise.  People want the gain without the pain.  Or, here’s another famous phrase for you, we want to have our cake and _____ (eat it too).  Or we might say: we want to have our cake and turn it into muscle.

We also want to celebrate Easter without having to deal with Good Friday.  But despite all our technological progress, no one has invented lipo-spirituality.  There are no quick fixes to enlightenment.  And no short-cuts to redemption.  Redemption, of course, is the theme in our church this month.  It is a central theme in every religion.

The main difference between religions is how they answer the questions of what is redeemed and how it happens.  Generally, redemption is about restoring or getting back something that’s been lost.  For most Christians, it’s about being redeemed from original sin that they believe all people are born with.  For Buddhists and Hindus, it’s about being redeemed from a perpetual cycle of death and rebirth.

As I wrote about in my article in our Simple Gifts journal this month, I like to think of redemption sometimes like a store coupon.  A coupon, of course, has no real value until we bring it into a store and use it.  In other words, a coupon is worthless if it remains unclipped and unused.  A coupon that sits in our dustbin has no value.  In this church we teach that every person has value and worth.  Each of us is born with unique gifts.  And one of our chief religious tasks is to discover our gifts and share them.  Just as a store coupon needs to be used in order to be redeemed for its value, our gifts need to be used and shared in order for our lives to claim their full value.  If we hoard our gifts, or let them atrophy, or fail to realize them, their value is wasted.

In this way, our life’s value is redeemed when we give away the gifts we’ve been given.  Those with the gifts of a good teacher – must teach.  Healers are meant to heal.  Writers – to write. 

But it’s not just about using our gifts; it’s also about using them for a worthy purpose.  If a person has the gift of leadership, it’s about leading with integrity and virtue.  Hitler was one of the most gifted speakers and leaders of the past century, but he used his immense gifts to sow destruction and hatred.  Who knows what he could’ve accomplished had his gifts been aimed differently.  After the devastation of the Holocaust there were many Jews who wanted to give up their faith in God and Judaism.  Some argued that God must not exist if Hitler was allowed to brutally kill 6 million Jewish men, women and children.

Others argued that if Jews gave up their religion and faith in the aftermath of Hitler, then Hitler won, because he would have successfully destroyed the Jewish faith.  So, Jewish leaders went about the work of redeeming God and redeeming faith in the eyes of their fellow Jews.  It wasn’t easy to redeem God, after millions of people who were doing everything they were supposed to do to be faithful ended up meeting such a terrible end.  But, redemption doesn’t always come easily.  Not for God, and certainly not for us.

One of my hopes this month is that I’ll be able to redeem the idea of redemption.  Some people who have rejected the classical Christian idea of redemption can no longer find the baby for the bathwater.  So today I’ve compiled a few stories of redemption.  A couple come from popular culture and one from a person right here in this sanctuary.

If you watched the SuperBowl last month, you probably saw the 28 year old wide-receiver David Tyree make what is now known as the legendary “helmet catch” to score a touchdown.  He was instrumental in the New York Giants winning this years SuperBowl.  He has since been pictured on magazine covers and seen on national talk shows.  What you might not know about David is that a couple of years ago he was at the lowest point in his life.  Soon after he was drafted by the Giants in 2004 he was drinking hard, dealing drugs and facing criminal charges.

In his rookie year he was fined $10,000 for being late to practice.  He figured he’d pay his fine by selling drugs.  That stunt got him arrested.  And the next day, he found out that his girlfriend was pregnant and threatening to leave him.  David Tyree hit his bottom and it caused him to pick up a Bible and to turn to God in prayer.  Fortunately for him, his faith helped him to turn his life around.  His story is just one recent example of someone who turned to God and a spiritual life to get his life back on course.

Ordinary people, as well as famous ones, make mistakes – big mistakes – and sometimes, with faith and hard work we’re able to redeem what we’ve lost.  Even our current President, George W. Bush has a similar story of redemption from drinking and drugs.  I won’t ask for a show of hands, but I know that there are numerous people in these pews this morning who could tell a similar story about themselves.  These are powerful stories – stories of redemption. 

Another story I read recently involves Denise Brown.  She’s the sister of Nicole Brown Simpson, the former wife of O.J. Simpson, who you’ll remember was murdered violently in cold blood in her home in 1994.  For over a decade, Denise Brown has been outspoken in her anger and animosity toward O.J. Simpson, who was accused of killing her sister.  A year ago, a friend of Denise’s told her that her anger and obsession with Simpson was consuming her life.  And this friend asked Denise if she could help her take some steps to reclaim her peace of mind.  The friend, who is a professional counselor, took Denise through a process of rethinking her perception of O.J. Simpson.  She describes the steps like this:

“[V]isualize the person who is doing you harm as a baby.  You don’t know hate or evil then.  Then visualize that person at 2, at 3, 5 and keep going through the ages.  And you sit there and you think, at what point does one change?”

The power of this type of meditation exercise is that it can help us see the other person as an evolving human being rather than as an abstract evil.  It certainly doesn’t happen as quickly as in this simple description.  But according to Denise Brown, it began to help her start letting go of her intense anger and start reclaiming her life.  All of her resentment has not disappeared, but she says, “It is not that ugly anger and hate anymore” [that was ruining her life].  Brown is not only redeeming the gifts that she once had, but she’s also discovering new gifts that are being born out of what has happened.  Gifts like the ability to overcome enormous loss and to deal with intense anger toward another person after an extreme act of violence.

When I think of letting go of feelings of anger, I always remember the interview with the Dalai Lama when he was asked how he could be so joyous when the Chinese had taken his country and forced him and his people to flee into exile.  The Dalai Lama said, “They’ve already taken my country, I’m not going to let them take my peace of mind too.”  But the Dalai Lama is the first to admit that it doesn’t come easy.  Even for the Dalai Lama it takes practice and attention.

While we are speaking of finding redemption in the aftermath of loss, my next story is about an incredible woman who’s visiting our church this morning from Botswana.  Her name is Cindy Bigamoyo Kelemi and I asked her if I could share her story with you.  In 2001 Cindy tested HIV positive.  The reason she got tested was because she was pregnant.  It was the most difficult time of her entire life.  She lived with this secret for 6 years without telling her family.  Only her husband (who was her boyfriend then) knew about her status.  She explains that some days she felt depressed and even suicidal.  She cried all the time because she didn’t know how being HIV positive was going to impact her life; all she knew was that she was going to die soon.

One day, when she was on the verge of taking her own life, Cindy heard an inner voice tell her, “You need counseling.”  She took the step to visit the Botswana Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS and sought help.  It was there that she met a wonderful woman who told her that she too was HIV positive and that it was not a death sentence.  For the first time since testing positive, Cindy felt like she was talking to someone who really understood what she was going through.

They visited for several weeks as the woman helped Cindy understand some scientific facts about HIV/AIDS and helped her acquire the skills to cope with her condition.  In one of their counseling sessions, they came up with the idea that they should form a network of women living with HIV/AIDS in Botswana.  They knew that there were probably several other women who were going through the same emotions and difficulty in expressing themselves as Cindy had.  So they formed The Bomme Isago Association, which today has a membership of more than 150 HIV positive women country wide.  And beyond that number there are many other well-wishers and friends of Bomme Isago.

Cindy served on the board of the organization as chairperson from its conception in 2002 until late last year.  The organization’s mission is advocacy, influencing policy change on several issues that affect the rights of women living with HIV, in particular reproductive health rights.  In 2007 she joined Botswana Network on Ethics Law and HIV/AIDS (BONELA) as their treatment literacy and advocacy coordinator.  In her current work she helps thousands of people living with HIV/AIDS and its related issues including Tuberculosis.  Today, TB is the number one cause of death among people living HIV/AIDS.

Cindy pays special attention to hard-to-reach, under-serviced rural areas in Botswana.  She writes a weekly column for a local newspaper and has a monthly feature on the local national radio station.  Cindy is using her immense gifts to save lives.  Many of her gifts have emerged out of the struggle she faced.  A struggle that took her to the brink of self-destruction.  But at that moment when she was about to die, she found new life. 

It’s worth noting that Cindy credits the action of advocates in the US, who lobbied for more funding to stop AIDS in Africa, for saving her son’s life.  Before he was born, she was able to receive medication that stops the transmission of HIV/AIDS from a mother to her child.  So for those of you who have supported organizations like RESULTS, or have done other lobbying here in the US to increase funding to end AIDS oversees, you probably played a small part in helping Cindy and her son.

From 4 to 6 pm today, church members Jane and Pat Newman are hosting Cindy in their home, and you are invited to come if you’d like to meet her and hear more about her story and the work she’s doing.  On Monday night she will speak at TU at 7pm in the Student Union.  Her impact has become global.

The point today is that redemption is not just possible, it’s happening all the time.  It’s not some cosmic righting of a mythological wrong.  It’s a reality we live.  As author Joan Chittister writes:

“No one comes out of a struggle, or out of suffering, the same kind of person they were when they went in.  It’s possible to come out worse than we were when we went into the throes of pain.  Struggle can turn sour in us, of course.” [i]

But she reminds us that:

“…it is equally possible, if we choose to reflect on it, to come out stronger and wiser than we were when it began.  What is not possible, is to stay the same.  Struggle is the great crossover moment in life.  It never leaves us neutral.” [ii]

In many ways, the rituals of Lent and Good Friday and Easter are a kind of a dress rehearsal to remind us of the power of rebirth and renewal.  It’s a power that can be realized even in the hardest of circumstances.  As Easter approaches, I hope you’ll conjure up your own stories of redemption.  We need each other more often than we probably realize. 

May this church help all souls realize their gifts.  Therefore, may you honor the spirit of redemption by living more fully, more compassionately and more lovingly, in whatever number of days ahead are still yours to claim.  May you go and be blessed, and _____ (be a blessing).

Amen.