I’m breaking one of the rules. For nearly twenty years, the Rev. Dr. Gennifer Brooks, my preaching professor, has lived rent-free in my head. Those of us who took some of Dr. Brooks’s earliest preaching classes share this experience. I wouldn’t call it a support group. But maybe it is.
Dr. Brooks had rules for preaching. Lots of rules and I still follow most of them. They have served me remarkably well.
One was this: Let the sermon go. After preaching on Sunday, reflect for a little while. Learn from what worked or what didn’t. Then kick your feet up, watch a game or take a nap, and let it go. After all Sunday is always coming again. Except this week, I couldn’t.
Last Sunday we began our commUNITY series with the affirmation that every human being is created in the image of God. I told the story of Jennifer Keelan-Chaffins, a young girl with cerebral palsy who crawled up the steps of the U.S. Capitol in 1990 as disability-rights activists pushed for passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act. It is a powerful story. I felt good about the sermon.
But Monday morning, the sermon came back and I kept thinking: Why didn’t you talk about Billy?
Many of you know our friend Bill. Billy is tall, lanky, loud, and almost constantly talking. His life has included traumatic brain injury, Tourette syndrome, paranoia, homelessness, and encounters with just about every system created to help people: mental health, public aid, housing, and the justice system. None has really found a solution for Billy or, perhaps more accurately, a solution Billy himself can live with.
When I first met Billy over a decade ago, I confess that I wanted my encounters with him to go quickly. Billy can be hard to be around. I wanted to help him with whatever he needed and get him on his way. Eventually Jesus helped me recognize that much of the problem wasn’t Billy. It was my anxiety. After all, Billy bears the image of God, too.
So, over the years I have learned to sit with him. To listen through the stream of consciousness for what he is really trying to tell me. To manage my own discomfort instead of making it his problem. It still isn’t always easy. But Billy has taught me something about what we talked about Sunday: affirming human dignity sounds wonderful in a sermon. Practicing it requires something from us.
Billy has spent much of this summer in the Kane County Jail for the combination of things like trespassing, using the bathroom outside when nowhere was open, losing his temper with public officials. A collection of relatively small things eventually caught up with him, and without money for bail, there he remains.
There is a terrible irony in that. Jail gives Billy three meals a day, shelter, and access to medications that help stabilize him –basic things our community has struggled to provide consistently outside of jail. From what Billy has told me, the people there treat him well.
Because once you manage your own discomfort long enough to actually know Billy, you discover something. He’s a nice guy. He’s had a really hard life. And I think that is part of why Billy keeps coming back to our church.
A few years ago, after another long absence, Billy appeared in Fellowship Hall. Someone spotted him, made a beeline across the room, and said with complete sincerity, “Billy! How are you? I’ve missed you so much.” Billy physically stepped backward. Being seen like that almost knocked him over.
I remember watching that moment and realizing that Billy isn’t the only one who has been formed by this community. I have been, too. Over the years I have watched people in this church do something I initially struggled to do: see past the things about Billy that can make us uncomfortable and see Billy as a bearer of the Divine Image.
Sometimes Billy comes because he needs food or a little help. But I suspect he also comes because this is one of the places where people know his name. Where people miss him. Where, when we are at our best, manage our own anxiety long enough to see a beloved child of God standing in front of us. That is where commUNITY begins.
Not with agreeing about everything. Not with finding people easy to love. Not even with fixing everything that is broken. It begins by looking at another human being and refusing to forget: You bear the image of God. Your life has dignity. You are worthy of being seen, known, and loved.
Maybe that’s why Jesus wouldn’t let me follow Dr. Brooks’s rule this week. The sermon wasn’t finished. And, apparently, neither am I.
Maybe while Billy waits for his next hearing, I need to clear some space on my calendar and go visit him. After all, image-bearers deserve visitors, too.
Yours in Christ,
