As we were preparing for Peter’s first Valentine’s Day, I did the thing the parents everywhere do – I allowed my child to cry for a moment while I made beautiful art. I painted his little feet red and made them into a heart. I was writing the inside of his first little valentines when I realized something I should have known all along. Smack down in the middle of the word heart is ear. There is an ear in your heart. This truth resonated with me. How often do I find my heart moved by talking with someone, reading something, or even watching a television commercial? It the logical part of the brain the hushes and shushes the heart being moved and discounts the ear of the heart as unnecessary, irrational, maybe even off balance or hormonal. But perhaps, there is more to the ear of our heart as a barometer of need.
The passage from Ephesians prays boldly for the growing in faith of those who had been following Christ through Paul’s teachings at Ephesus. The prayer is for strength and blessing, for comprehension and love. Verse 17 asks: “and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love.” The prayer is that Christ will be in your heart, so that your heart might guide you out of our faith. Said differently, so that the ear of your heart might hear the needs of those around and act in compassion and justice. The God of the resurrection calls us and equips us to hear and know the needs of others so that we can be the hands and feet of Christ on the ground in our own towns.
However, it is sometimes hard to discern what Christ is calling us to do. Our Gospel lesson has us walking the path with disciples and Jesus unknown towards Emmaus. The two disciples walk along sad and dejected, confused and disappointed in the events of the death of Jesus. The joining of their journey by a stranger does not cheer them. Someone who does not even know that is Jesus, himself walking alongside the disciples. Jesus literally walks with them in their grief. Jesus literally joins them where they are and walks them towards health and wellbeing.
The Emmaus journey appears only in Luke and is sometimes called “the journey of every Christian.” It has all of the elements of the Christian life: discouragement, disappointment, doubt, risk, times of deep faith, the spirit of companionship, interpreting the scriptures, the presence of Christ in the sacraments, profound wonder and incomparable joy in telling others the good news of God made known in the risen Christ. The disciples find themselves asking, were not our hearts burning within? Did not Jesus show us and teach us just as we requested? With our hearts moved within us as Jesus opened the scriptures to us?
Have you ever had that experience when it became crystal clear what is was that you should do? When you land in a moment knowing that you are in the right place for such a time as this? Last year, there were 3.5 million homeless people in the nation. And in Chester County, there are about 650 homeless, according to the latest Point in Time poll. Not in our community and that can’t be. I don’t see pan handlers on the street. I do not see cardboard boxes on Evergreen Street. The average person who loses their home crashes on the couch of a friend or neighbor. Why do people find themselves temporarily homeless? Surprisingly, many, many people in southern Chester County are just one catastrophe away from becoming homeless. It happens when people living paycheck to paycheck lose a job, or get sick, or become divorced, get hours cut or even have hours changed. And often, those on medication must choose between the medication or paying the rent. Most often it is in direct response to a loss of a job or a medical crisis that they cannot afford. This becomes more difficult when you add your children to the mix.
This year, they have determined that there are 494 homeless students in 4 southern Chester county districts. These are children who are going to school each and every day, but are not sure where they will be spending the night. These are children who have no place to call home. These are children who instead of riding bikes and taking care of messy rooms – are trying to find comfortable ways to sleep in the back seat of a car or be alone while mom or dad try to work to stop the cycle of poverty and homelessness. These are our children – right here in southern Chester County – going to school with our children – being taught by our teachers – and remarkably disadvantaged, set up to continue the cycle of poverty without a place to call home.
In spring of 2014, an advocacy group initiated by United Way of Southern Chester County in partnership with Kennett Area Community Service began connecting with the national program, Family Promise. Nationally, Family Promise has 180 networks in 41 states. Family Promises depends on communities of faith within the community as the backbone of the program. With thirteen communities of faith, each church, mosque or synagogue hosts the families every thirteen weeks or once a quarter. Each church agrees to house a maximum of 14 people consisting of only parents and children (no single adults). During that week, four rooms within the church are transformed into bedrooms. The congregations agree to provide overnight accommodations, breakfast and dinner to the families four times a year for an entire week. All families are pre-interviewed by professional counselors to assure they meet acceptable criteria for entry into the program. Up to fourteen people who are screened to rule out those with addiction issues, criminal backgrounds, and to rule in those who seem like they would be most successful long term in being independent and sustainably housed and employed again. The average stay of a family in the program is 61 days!
During the day, school age children are bussed to their schools. Adults with employed work. For the remainder of people, they go to a day center. In our area, we have been blessed. Assumption BVM has given their former convent as the day resource center. This will be a place where participants can shower (no need for shower facilities from host congregations), learn job skills, search for employment, watch young children during the day.
Since this program was suggested in Southern Chester County, we as a church have been discerning and learning about the needs here in our community and thinking about our resources and gifts to serve others. We have been asking the questions of how will our space be used? Do we have enough volunteers to support a long term commitment to the program? Is this really what God is calling us to?
Some of you have heard me throw around the January 2016 start date. January 2016 was the original goal of Family Promise. However, the strong response and deep need, motivated Family Promise to see if they could open ahead of the cold weather and move families towards sustainable housing before winter. As of this week, the Family Promise of Southern Chester County has 8 committed congregations and multiple other churches considering and discerning either being host congregations or support congregations that can partner with a host congregation.
As we listen with the ear of our hearts, we are called to see how God is moving among to serve God’s people here in West Grove, Avondale, Landenberg, Oxford, Kennett Square, and all of Southern Chester County. The disciples walked with Jesus and did not know at first that it was him. The power of resurrection is power to plant seeds of transformation. When we listen with the ear of heart, it is not enough to just sigh. When we listen with the ear of heart, it is not enough to cluck and say that’s too bad. When we listen with the ear of our heart, someone has already been praying for our hearts to be moved with the very presence of Jesus and so we are moved to act like Jesus. When we listen with the ear of our heart, we must act with compassion and justice. When we listen with the ear of our heart, we must act with commitment and love.
When I worked with Family Promise in Montgomery County in a church I was serving there, one of the greatest surprises was not just the transformation of those going through the program moving into sustainable housing and employment situations, but those in the church who listened to God’s call on their lives to serve others. Let us listen with the ear of our hearts to the needs of our neighbors and see how God is using us to offer the compassion of Christ to others and transformation for us!
This is the Gospel of our Lord, Jesus Christ, thanks be to God, Amen.
New Testament Lesson: Ephesians 3: 14-19
Prayer for the Readers
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Gospel Lesson: Luke 24: 13-39
The Walk to Emmaus
Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, “What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?” They stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?” He asked them, “What things?” They replied, “The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place. Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but they did not see him.” Then he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.
As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. But they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.” So he went in to stay with them. When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. They were saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!” Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.
Jesus Appears to His Disciples
While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. He said to them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.”