Romans 15:1-7
“Look For the Helpers”
March 22, 2020
Mr. Rogers told the story about being a little boy and seeing scary things in the news, and his mother would tell him “Look for the helpers. You will always find helpers.” He, of course, was talking to young children, not adults and his perspective from his recollection was on natural disasters. We find ourselves in the midst of a pandemic and we are being told to stay home if at all possible and yet all around us there are those who are keeping us safe, caring for those who are ill, keeping our stores open and stocked, and burying our dead. This is a disaster like no other in human history. It is global in its reach and has enough power to have us cowering in fear or, just maybe, it might bring out our best. Maybe we will become the people we always admired and needed during our hardest time of life.
This passage from Romans, we must remember, comes toward the end of Paul’s letter to the church in Rome but at the time there were a great many things being written in Rome and yet this is the one most known and that has survived. Paul in a letter, distant from those he wants so desperately to reach, is able to use beautiful words and images, scripture, history, prayer and imagination just so these folks will experience the powerful impact of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. In this passage we hear of the critical importance of helping others – this is life as it is meant to be lived – in service to others.
While these hard times surround us, consider that we all have the capacity to help. We’re meeting right now because of a level of technology that would have been unimagined a generation ago and for all of the issues we might have with technology, this week I found so much of the hope that Paul speaks of on-line. It is in sharing patterns to make much-needed face masks, in those who are reading aloud to children on-line, those who are sharing their gifts of music or having lunch together when it can’t happen in person, those teachers who continue to help their students learn even when they are miles apart. It is in organizations connecting with the vulnerable via test or Twitter or Facebook or email. Words of hope come in many forms, especially when they can’t be offered face-to-face.
Of course, Paul was also a prolific letter writer and that is a way we can all be helpers. Consider a card or letter you received, on-line or in an envelope with a stamp on it that you still remember to this day. Imagine whose life, in these hard days you might change with words of your own – words that cost nothing in money but will lift up another. God is in those words of hope – the ones that could be a life-line or restore someone’s trust in humanity or repair a broken relationship.
Our ability to help – staying home, keeping our distance, reaching out to others – will speak in ways big and small of the boundless nature of God’s love. You may be the only Jesus some people see. There is also a group here in Arlington who are meeting on Tuesday and we will be developing plans to respond with help for our neighbors as we face the possibility that more will lose their jobs and some will get sick. I will keep you posted on ways you can help and that includes where you can refer folks for assistance.
“Years ago, anthropologist Margaret Mead was asked by a student what she considered to be the first sign of civilization in a culture. The student expected Mead to talk about fishhooks or clay pots or grinding stones.
But no. Mead said that the first sign of civilization in an ancient culture was a femur (thighbone) that had been broken and then healed. Mead explained that in the animal kingdom, if you break your leg, you die. You cannot run from danger, get to the river for a drink or hunt for food. You are meat for prowling beasts. No animal survives a broken leg long enough for the bone to heal.
‘A broken femur that has healed is evidence that someone has taken time to stay with the one who fell, has bound up the wound, has carried the person to safety and has tended the person through recovery. Helping someone else through difficulty is where civilization starts’, Mead said.
We are at our best when we serve others. Be civilized.”
(Ira Byock, The Best Care Possible: A Physician’s Quest to Transform Care through the End of Life (Avery, 2012)]
Let us help others, each as we are able.