This past Sunday I heard, rather than preached, a sermon. One of Open Table's own, Melody MacDuffee, shared movingly about the kind of simple, deep joy she has experienced among the people in Ghana. Melody is the founder of Soul of Somanya, a nonprofit which provides fair wages to artisans in Ghana, West Africa, who create beautiful jewelry from traditional bead work. www.soulofsomanya.org. Our scriptures for Sunday included Mary's Magnificat, reminding us of the profound rejoicing of a peasant woman whose God lifts up the lowly.
So I am not posting my own sermon today. But as often happens in the meaning-making community we call "church," members of Open Table reflect on our lives together and we end up composing communal sermons in the process. Since yesterday we've been emailing one another about a particular event that has elicited our prayers, concerns, questions, and compassion. We've been listening for God in the midst of all this. I have permission to share an email I sent to our congregation yesterday--with most of the names withheld. E-mails are continuing among our congregation, so this raw "sermon" is still in progress as I post.
Friends,
In this message I am passing along a concern Jenni would like to share with our church family. She and her students deserve our prayers and compassion and wisdom. Perhaps there is some action we can take to bring some peace to our violent culture. I’m using mainly Jenni’s own words. Although this is the week in Advent in which we celebrate joy, that does not mean we turn a blind eye to the world’s hurts.
As most of you know, Jenni teaches at __ High School [a poor inner-city school]. Despite very challenging circumstances, she maintains a caring, supportive relationship with students many other teachers would label as difficult or even incorrigible. A few years ago Jenni was selected to be a Freedom Writers Teacher through Erin Gruwell’s Freedom Writers Institute and received training from that foundation. An inspiring story Jenni wrote about a particular student is included in the Freedom Writers' book Teaching Hope. “Teaching hope” is, in fact, a large part of what Jenni does so well each and every day.
But there are times when even the teacher of hope can feel overwhelmed and need the prayers and love of her church family. She gives me permission to share with you some excerpts from her email to me. We bear in mind these crimes have been alleged. Jenni and we assume innocence until guilt is proven. She is responding with raw emotion but hoping their innocence will be proved:
“Three students, within two weeks, have either been murdered or been arrested for murdering someone. Each of these boys has been a part of my life at __ High School, a part of my story for the last several years. B, the one picked up for murdering __ in __ over Thanksgiving, has probably hurt me the deepest. I trusted B. I never feared him. In fact, I really found him to be quite pleasant. I had him in my home room for several years, in my sociology class, and in Credit Recovery 3 different times. Because I had grown to know him so well through all of these classes, I started giving him rides to school. He sat in my car. We laughed together. He always, ALWAYS thanked me. He NEVER disrespected me. I never feared him. I liked him. Now he has been arrested for killing a person simply for money. KILLED him?
“Then, there is D. D, who was pretty much a little jerk. D, who was always in trouble for something. He was suspended often more than he was in school. He had a smart mouth and a quick fist. He was always one who pushed the buttons of teachers and administrators and he was very well skilled in this task. But who would ever think he might be a killer? He [allegedly] stole an elderly lady’s car keys, took her car, and ran over her in her yard. KILLED her?
“K was a statistic. He might show up for school every now and then but never did anything when he was in there (seems to be a sort of pattern with so many). He was never a behavior problem in class. He was quiet and often simply ignored anything said by the teachers.” [A friend of Jenni’s, one of the original Freedom Writer students in Erin Gruwell's class on which the movie Freedom Writers was based, had sent K a letter encouraging him to stay in school and K carried that prized letter with him every day.] “Now K is dead. He was KILLED. Shot in the head.
“And what about J, my student in Twilight School who brought a gun into class?” [A couple of weeks ago Jenni realized a student in her classroom had a gun in his pocket. Calmly, inconspicuously, Jenni wrote a note on her attendance record to notify the office without the student being aware. He was arrested in her classroom without incident, perhaps thanks to Jenni’s cool thinking.] “Yep, I had to turn him in and the police came, handcuffed him, and carted him off to Metro. Last I heard, he is still there. Yeah, pat myself on the back....I caught him, I turned him in, and there he sits.”
Jenni has been reflecting on her many emotions: betrayal and hurt, worry that she misjudges others' character, concern that she’ll lose her ability to trust others, love of her students, grief over the waste of human life and human potential, guilt for turning in the student with the gun, anger at the students who’ve taken others’ lives and thrown away their own. She says fear is not really one of those emotions, though I think many of us might feel fear. She truly delights in her work with students and feels she’s her “best self” when she is in her classroom, but the emotional toll on Jenni must be great. She laments, “I feel like a small part of me died with K and that D and B killed a tiny bit of my spirit along with the real victims.” She asks for our support. She asked me to share her story. And the story of these boys.
Friends, as a former high school teacher, I'm brokenhearted to recognize the brokenness of our school systems and communities and homes. This series of tragedies is beyond what any teacher is trained to address. Teachers like Jenni deserve combat pay. Schools should be providing counseling to teachers and students living in war zones. Our communities should be teaching peace and raising children in love and hope.
Let’s put our arms around Jenni and the other teachers in our faith community. Let’s prayerfully consider what we can do to support teachers and students. May we pray in the words attributed to St. Francis, “Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.”
In Christ's hope and with love for each of you,
Ellen
The congregation's response of eloquent emails to me and to one another shows appreciation for the complexity of the problem and sorrowful concern for what one member, a former high school teacher herself, called "our nation's most squandered resource: inner-city youth." This sermon-in-process is one we must live out. Maybe this is not the season to address the meanness of the world as we aim for Christmas joy. We certainly want to be part of Christ's hopeful way of peace-making and love. But in this season that moves us closer to the Christmas reality, we recognize that disposing of inconsequential and inconvenient children did not end with King Herod.
O come, O come Emmanuel to those who mourn. Turn our mourning into rejoicing.
Amen
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