⚫ 25 years ago, I was beginning a new ministry at a church that had a parsonage. On the day I arrived with my family to move in to our new home, we found a casserole in the fridge, with a note on it that said, “from Iris.”
I hadn’t met Iris yet, but I was thankful for her kindness. We heated that casserole up and ate it as we unpacked, and what a blessing it was, to have that food, and to not have to worry about finding or preparing something to eat on our first day.
When Sunday came, I met Iris for the first time. She had just placed a vase of beautifully arranged flowers on the communion table in the sanctuary. I thanked Iris for the meal, and also mentioned the beautiful flowers.
Turns out that Iris regularly blessed that worship space by creating beautiful flower arrangements for the sanctuary. The flowers used, and their arrangement in the vase, all had a special, symbolic significance. It was a special art form, called “Ikebana”, a traditional Japanese art, reflecting Iris’ Japanese ancestry.
Iris was old, and within a few years, her health began to decline. Age, and diabetes, were taking their toll. Iris had one of her feet amputated, and moved into a nursing home.
In the nursing home, Iris liked to make flowers out of paper, and hang them in her window. She couldn’t make casseroles anymore, and she didn’t always have access to real flowers, but origami was something that she could easily do while sitting in her wheelchair.
On one of my visits with Iris, I told her that I had just spent a week directing church camp, and that one of the counselors at church camp that week taught us how to make paper cranes.
As soon as I said that, Iris reached from her wheelchair and grabbed a book from a nearby shelf. It was an origami instruction book.
And she said: “I’ve folded everything in this book, except for the crane. I haven’t been able to figure that out.”
I asked her if she wanted me to show her, and she said, “Yes, please.”
So for the next 45 minutes or so, we made paper cranes.
Her old hands displayed remarkable agility. Some of the folds were difficult, and a few of the cranes were askew, but others were nearly perfect.
As we worked on the cranes, Iris told me about her life, some of which I already knew, but some details I was hearing for the first time.
⚫ Iris told me about how, when she was a teenager, her family was forced to leave their home and go live at a place called Manzanar, one of the internment camps built to house Japanese-Americans during World War II.
World War II was thirty years before I was born, and the stories I’d heard about the internment camps made it seem even further back than that. To me, it seemed like ancient history, because I couldn’t imagine that in these modern times, my country would force citizens to leave their homes, their businesses, and most of their belongings; strip them of their constitutional rights; and force them to live in these camps. I didn’t think it was possible that we could treat any group of people so badly, not in my lifetime anyway.
But it did happen in Iris’ lifetime. The lifetime of this person who was right there in front of me. Which made me realize that it really wasn’t that long ago.
Some years later, after Iris passed away, I visited Manzanar. It’s now a National Historic Site, run by the National Park Service.
I hadn’t gone sooner because it’s a long way from anything. The National Park Service warns visitors that Manzanar is far from major cities and conveniences that we often take for granted, and that visitors should plan accordingly.
Manzanar is surrounded by desert wilderness, and is situated at an elevation of 4000 feet on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada. It’s a place where, in summer, the average temperature is 100 degrees, while in winter, the average lows are below freezing, and often accompanied by strong winds.
There is a museum there now, inside a building that used to serve as a gym and meeting hall. I walked through the museum. There was a lot there. One thing that stood out to me was a large wall that had listed on it the names of all those who were sent to live at Manzanar. Over 11,000 names in all.
Some of those names are also printed on paper tags, and visitors to the museum are invited to take one of the tags. These are replicas of the tags those who were sent to Manzanar were required to carry. My tag had the name “Hiro Tanaka” on it, along with Hiro’s ID number.
Those who were sent to the internment camps were only allowed to bring with them what they could carry. That’s it. Everything else they had to leave behind. Their homes. Their businesses. Their family heirlooms.
For most of those forced to live at Manzanar, it would all be gone—all their property and belongings—by the time they returned after the end of the war.
The actor George Takei’s family was sent to live in one of the other internment camps. After the war ended, his family lived on L.A.’s skid row, because everything that had been theirs, including their home and property, had been confiscated or taken while they were at the camp. Most of those sent to the camps had to start their lives over from scratch, with no money or belongings, once the war ended.
There were other challenges, too. Iris told me about the discrimination many Japanese-Americans faced after the war. She told me about one time when she and her husband went to a restaurant, and sat down, and waited to be served… and waited… and waited..
No one would serve them.
After World War II, Japanese Americans were hated, excluded, reviled and defamed.
Even though I was learning that it wasn’t really that long ago that these things took place, I still thought of it as another time, separated from my own time, when Americans hadn’t yet learned to not hate one another because of things like skin color, or nationality. Surely, I thought, we’ve come a long way since then, and have progressed so much, that such things would never happen again.
I don’t know whether that was naivete on my part, or wishful thinking. I still wish it were true, that we have progressed into a more enlightened, loving, affirming society, but more and more I realize that we still have a long way to go.
I’ve been thinking about Iris a lot lately. I’ve been thinking about all those who have had their rights unjustly taken from them. I’ve been thinking about those who have suffered from the prejudices of American society, and who still suffer because of those prejudices. Immigrants. Black Americans. Transgender and nonbinary individuals. And others.
People who are condemned in multiple ways by society.
And I’ve been thinking about how Jesus, repeatedly, refers to them, and people like them, as “blessed.”
Blessed are the poor. Blessed are the hungry. Blessed are those who are hated, excluded, reviled, and defamed.
How do you make sense of that? What does Jesus mean?
The way most people use that word blessed, the ones who are blessed would be the ones who don’t have to face such struggles. You get a raise at work: “Oh, I’m so blessed!” You get to go on vacation to a beautiful place: “Oh, I’m so blessed!” You get recognized with an award and you say, “Oh, I’m so blessed!”
Last week, I saw the coach of the Philadelphia Eagles talk about how blessed he was, because his team won the Super Bowl.
I didn’t hear anyone from Kansas City talk about how they were blessed following the Super Bowl.
No one, unable to pay their bills, says that. No one who stares at their empty pantry while their stomach grumbles thinks to themself: “Oh, I’m blessed!” And no one, who has their rights taken away, or who is forced to leave their home, or who gets taken to an internment camp or detention center, or whose very existence is threatened, by the prejudices and hatred of society, thinks to themself: “Yes, I am so blessed.”
Yet Jesus calls those who face such hardships “blessed.” So what is Jesus talking about?
I’m not even sure I have an answer to that. But I am thinking about it, and have been thinking about it for a long time.
⚫ One commentator I read described Jesus’ pronouncements—both the blessings and the woes—as bombs, or bolts of lightning. They are shocks meant to wake us up from our complacency. So, the bewilderment and confusion I’m feeling are what Jesus intended. Because his blessings are the exact opposite of what I would expect. It forces me to reconsider so much.
I don’t really like comparing anything Jesus said or did to a bomb; perhaps a better analogy would be the shock of an AED, an automatic external defibrillator. That’s the machine that is used in conjunction with CPR; it can analyze the signals from a person’s heart and body, and, if necessary, administer a jolt of electricity meant to get the heart started.
Maybe that’s what Jesus’ words are meant to be: a defibrillator for the heart; not so much the body organ that pumps blood, but the heart that is the center of our thought and emotion. That heart needs a sort of spiritual shock from a spiritual defibrillator…
A defibrillator that shocks us into caring for the least of these. A defibrillator that shocks us into showing mercy to the most vulnerable, rather than scapegoating them and blaming them for the sins of society. A defibrillator that shocks us into actually following the way of Jesus, the way of compassion.
A defibrillator that shocks us out of bearing false witness against Jesus, turning Jesus into a puppet, a marionette, with us controlling the strings, making Jesus say and do whatever we want; making him say and do whatever we need to justify our way of living.
A defibrillator that shocks us out of the idea that some people are more worthy or closer to God, that certain groups of people are somehow created at a higher level than other groups of people.
A defibrillator that blasts away the idea that wealth and power are the signs of God’s blessings.
The truth is that wealth and power often stand in the way of God’s blessings. The true blessings of God are love, compassion, mercy.
We saw a video earlier about families being broken up, separated, because of the war in Ukraine.
Any war is a failure on the part of people to recognize our oneness, our unity, as children of God. And God’s compassion is especially for those who suffer, including those who suffer because of war.
Our church is at work in Ukraine, through Week of Compassion; And Week of Compassion is also at work closer to home. Week of Compassion has been working with Chicago Christian Church, a Korean-speaking Disciples congregation in Des Plaines, to help resettle two refugee families, helping them secure apartments as well as necessary furnishings and supplies.
And although we as a church work to provide these blessings to those who are in need, we find that we ourselves are blessed by doing this work. By caring for the least of these, we are blessed.
I’m still experiencing the blessing of my visits with Iris, many years ago. It’s one of the best blessings of my life, to be honest.
Some of you volunteer at the Helping Shelf, and you’ve said that it is a blessing to you, that you are blessed by the act of serving those in need.
And we discover, to our surprise, that that is, indeed, where God’s blessings are…..
The rulers of the world don’t get this, but anytime you try to “improve” society by getting rid of the people you think are the problem, you actually end up sending away the blessings. Anytime you divide people or make life harder for those who are already vulnerable, you are distancing yourself from the very people through whom God’s blessings flow.
But when you stand with those who are being hated, excluded, reviled, defamed, and when you show compassion to them, and when you open up your heart to them, you discover, much to your surprise, that your life is more richly blessed because of it.
I don’t completely understand why it works this way—why The Spirit works this way—but it does. God’s blessings percolate up from the poor, the hungry, and the persecuted far more often than they trickle down from those at the top.
When we count ourselves among the poor, and when we invite those who are hungry to eat with us, and when we stand with those whose rights are being taken away, and when we show love to those who are experiencing the world’s hate,
Then we experience God’s blessings in abundance.
I am so thankful for the ministry of First Christian Church. I am so thankful for all of you who are a part of this church. We’re still learning and still growing, but in so many ways we are just what this world needs today. The love and the compassion that flows through this church are just what this world needs today.
And as we seek to serve the least of these, and defend the rights of those whose rights are threatened, and build bridges of unity rather than walls of division,
Then we discover that, even as we become a blessing to others, that we ourselves are blessed.
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