Ubuntu: Lessons from the hospital bedside

Twenty-fourth Sunday After Pentecost ● November 12, 2023

Readings: Psalm 78:1-7, Matthew 25:1-13 

Riot Mueller, Guest Preacher © 2023

You can view the full worship video recording at:
https://youtu.be/lSuTiaQ9W6M

“We are made to be stewards of the Earth, not to destroy it.” These are the words coming out a man’s mouth. I am standing on the window side of his hospital bed because he can only hear out of his left ear. He has a long beard and stringy white and grey hair. He served in Vietnam and now has prostate cancer because of Agent Orange —a herbicide spread all over the crops by the U.S. military as a part of its herbicidal warfare program—spread all over crops and people and meant to destroy the land of Vietnam completely. One week ago he found out he can not move his legs from the waist down. He most likely will never walk again. 

“Methodist, oh you are a Methodist. I was raised Methodist and I loved my pastor.” I ask him what he loved about the pastor, “He was a Billy Graham type—he could really move the words. And he made the service feel like a big warm cocoon. So all you had to do was step in, take a seat, and make yourself open to receiving something. That is what I used to love about Church—a group of people sitting there, open, ready to receive.” This patient, who I will call Georgie—which is not his real name—is also an avid lover of animals, a PETA activist, 20 years sober, a Facebook enthusiast, a self described “hippy type” intellectual, and an old radio jockey. He describes himself as a loner. He has no living family, no friends — except for his 900 facebook friends he is proud to have—friendships that can be based off of intellectual stimulation rather than as he says, “what it looks like out here.” (Gesture to my face and body).

Church, will you take a moment, close your eyes, bow your heads, take a deep breath and pray with me? Dear Loving, Gracious God, creator of all things seen and unseen. Please make yourself be known in this space and in our hearts. Allow us to drop whatever we need to at the door and enter into a cocoon of openness to hear your Word. Amen.

Since October 10th I have been serving as a hospital chaplain in Brooklyn at the VA. I spend my days entering 10-15 patients stories. Entering their hospital rooms with the following goals: 

1. Do no harm

2. Help the patient say what is true for them

3. Walk a little with them in their suffering

4. Offer custom made prayer and give it if they want it

The goals are one of those things in life that is simple but not easy. Simple but not easy. 

Kind of like “Thou shall not kill” from the commandments or “forgive others who have wronged you” from Lord’s Prayer or “Stop collecting treasures for your benefit on earth” from the sermon on the mount Or “When we go to the wedding tonight, make sure your torch has enough oil to light the way for the wedding procession once it starts” from the parable we heard today in Matthew’s gospel. Simple but, as we see in the stories, not easy. 

First, I want to clear something up before we enter into this parable. The hardest interpretation for me to get behind is this text being used in the preaching of judgment. There are the foolish and the wise. Pick one. My question, Is it appropriate that we drive outsiders and the indifferent to action with this kind of either or threat? I don’t know what kind of kids you were but threats never worked so well for me. 

I urge us to remember that Matthew gives this parable for a church that knew about grace. The freely given and unmerited favor and love of God. 

The psalmist today says that God will speak to us in parables. And from this knowing of God—praiseworthy, powerful, wonderful—we get to teach the children. All future generations. Even those not yet born. So listen up! 

From this place we enter into the hearing of this parable. The love of God will be like this—there will be two groups of 5 people each—people from the same church, the same community, of equal financial status—all able to purchase oil. 

They have been assigned the job of lighting the way for the joyous community celebration of a marriage and they both brought their torches with them to light the way. Half will have come prepared with oil to last the night and half will have come with the torches and not enough oil to last the night. When they get to the house to light the way, the party will be late to start so all will take a rest. 

When the party starts—they hop up, ready to get to work, but the 5 who only have torches will need more oil. They will ask to borrow some, but there isn’t enough to both share and have the oil last all night, as needed so the prepared suggest to the unprepared to go buy some more. 

But while they are gone—the bridegroom comes back and party begins. The 5 come back with their oil but the door has been locked and they can’t get in. Stay ready, you never know when it is go time. 

I am one month in to a twelve month long chaplain residency and I am bringing every piece of readiness I have in my life into this experience. And I am learning new things about readiness and how to respond to what God is calling us to do in the world. 

And we are learning about boundaries. About how to walk with people. How to keep the care focused on the patient. 

I am taught: You are the tool. You matter. A fellow student says, “my job is offering spiritual care for myself and others.” I am told to follow what energizes me—because otherwise we will get burnt out quick. And I have been. I follow the palliative team of women, an interdisciplinary team that cares about the whole body of the patient—spirit, body, mind. I lead the palliative team through a weekly meditation of remembering the patients who have died that week in the style of tonglen meditation. 

Self preservation is a theme in Chaplaincy. My teacher says this is the first law of nature. Relationships are about meeting a need. The most valuable person to work on and with—is you. The harder I work on me—the better it is for you. Feel into yourself. What is helping me get to the next mile. Scripture says you also must be ready. You do not want to wait to take your vitamins when you are sick. Otherwise—you are walking into CVS, joints aching, head pounding, stumbling around looking for a bottle of zinc. Better to have a bottle of vitamins in the bathroom cabinet ready to go. I am learning life and chaplaincy are best if we work in the here and now but the here and now loves preparation. I literally could not be in this moment without all of the experience, prayer, life that I am bringing to the here and now.

The goal of this parable is a good ole fashion seminary word — parenesis for the church. Instruction for the church. It is not being called that is important but being tested, not the lamp but the oil, not membership in the church but deeds. Preparation. 

The parable’s imagery— 10 women are waiting for the bridegroom—does not let readers project negative figures of the story onto people outside the church. This is about us, how are we doing? What model of life do we have to pass onto our children? And hey, let’s take the pressure off here. Don’t even worry about ten generations down the line. What model of life do you want to give the inner child inside of you. This is about us. 

We are the 10 women waiting—the church community—we are what Augustine called a corpus permixtum—a mixed body of believers, saints and sinners intermingling. The time of the judgment day is not known—and this urges this lesson on the readers: at any moment it may be too late! 

However, it does not prove the lesson. For Matthew, “watching” does not mean that one lives in constant fear of missing the time. Instead, “watching” means following the command of Christ in such constant, complete, and undivided obedience that it is all right to sleep until the time that Christ comes again, because one is always ready and need not change at the last minute. The uncertain time of the returning of Christ becomes unimportant for those who always do the will of God. What kind of world are we preparing for the next generation?

And…Always do the will of God. Always do the word of God. That one is maybe simple and it is definitely not easy.

Now, remember that this parable is being taught to a church that knows something about God’s grace. That we can receive God’s grace not only through following God’s laws found in the Hebrew Bible but also through prayer, worship, Bible study, Holy Communion. These are done in community with one another. I am because you are. I said earlier that relationships are about need.  But what is it that we need? Care. Connection. Energy goes to where you are appreciated, valued, cared for. THIS is what church is. This is what we have to offer at COTV. We learn how to listen and listen beyond the words that we are saying. To get to know one another. In the same way Christ has gotten to know us. I believe in a God that knows EVERYTHING about me—all the good and all the bad. Knows all of that. And knowing all of that called me. A God that strengthens me to ask more, dig deeper when a fellow church goer says they are doing “just meh” after service. A God that allows us joy—a longing for joy—to spread the circle wide at the end of each service. 

And in this, perhaps we can meet Christ every single day. As we yearn and long for the kingdom of God, for a better world to come —we stay constantly ready—in the here and the now. Making the world we want for future generations, for ourselves, now. We get to live in this moment, not frozen by death or missing the moment but living in it. 

Every moment can be an opportunity to follow the most important commandment of all—to love our neighbors as ourselves. And we do not do this alone. We can not do it alone. We get ready, stay ready, and learn how to see Christ at all times—together. Pope Francis said this morning, 

“Every human being, of any people or religion, every human being is sacred, is precious in the eyes of God and has the right to live in peace. Let us not lose hope: let us pray and work tirelessly so that a sense of humanity may prevail over hardness of heart.”

With this teaching we can re write the ending to this parable. Rather than the emphasis on uncertainty—on the threat of being excluded—we can imagine a disciple being present. Maybe it is you. You may still not be entirely clear of what to do—one moment you think to send them away. The door is closed. Those are the rules. But the next moment you felt love for them and thought to let them in…You tell Jesus, “I would have opened the window door.” 

“Congratulations, friend,” Jesus says happily, and he stretches forth his hand as though blessing you. “This moment, though you are still alive, you enter paradise. The bridegroom did exactly as you said: he called to his servants to open the door. ‘This is a wedding,’ he cried. ‘Let everyone eat, drink and be merry. Open the door for the 5 who went to buy oil and wash and refresh their feet, for the have run much.’”

I too like this version of the story better than the one Matthew tells. The church is made of saints and sinners intermingling. Each of us has saintlike qualities and sinner like qualities. My patients tells me lessons from their hospital beds. Take care of yourself when you are healthy and feeling good—don’t wait for something bad to happen. Success loves preparation. 

I ask Georgie, standing next to his hospital bed, leaning in so he can hear me, if he has been thinking about death and dying. “Oh yeah he says. Oh yeah. 

“Yeah, and you know you can’t really see the stars anymore. I would like, when I am dying (my heart breaks because he is dying)…when i am dying I would like to be put outside under the stars, next to a tree. Maybe I would take a shot of whiskey. And just lay there looking at the stars until I die.”

Simple, but not easy. 

A few days later I go to check on Georgie. On this visit he  tells me he wishes he could be alive just a little while longer. I ask him what he would do with that time. He replies, “I wish I could help correct a few more of the injustices in the world.” My heart breaks as Georgie tells me this. It breaks in a way that opens me up. I am because of who we all are. I vow to re commit to the way of Jesus in this moment. To not be afraid of being the most loving disciple I can be, to love God and justice, to recognize the importance of the people who touch me and whom I touch, to love, to create, to connect with others. 

No mention of war or genocide. No one on their death bed longs for war. We are longing for a holy place. A sanctuary. A joyful wedding celebration in which the oil in our lamps is overflowing, the bountiful table is set and we can be together. 

John Wesley’s 3 rules mirror the chaplain goals and state: “do no harm, by avoiding evil in every kind, especially that which is most generally practiced. By doing good—good of every possible sort—as far as possible to all persons and loving God.”

Simple but not easy. Church of the Village, on this day, let us try to get our oil ready for the torches and if we aren’t ready, remember the grace of God can and will open the door for us and let us try over and over again to bring God’s kingdom of heaven alive on earth here today. With peace, love, connection and joy for all human beings everywhere. Ceasefire now. Amen.

Copyright (c) 2023 - Riot Mueller
All rights reserved.