Chasms great and small...Do you see them?

Peter is as faithful a participant in the congregation I serve as anyone else...More faithful than many.

Peter is a non-medicated 50 year-old schizophrenic.

Oh...and he's Jewish.

 

I inherited Peter.

 

He found St. Luke's many years ago, as a guest in our Drop In Center (a ministry in which we open our doors one Saturday/month to the mentally ill in the area. They come and spend the day and eat and have bible study and get some take-home food from Loaves & Fishes and clothes from the clothes closet and play games and are - if only for a few hours - not defined by their diagnosis). It is a remarkable ministry and a huge reason why I accepted the call here.

 

Anyhow, Peter came to us through the Drop In Center...and he just stayed. He comes to use our phone, to worship, to bible study, and he even receives communion (I haven't told the bishop this yet...but I think he'd be okay with it. He's pretty cool. And besides, you will look in vain to find anyone in scripture with whom Jesus refused to eat!).

 

Over the past several weeks, Peter has been in a more agitated state than normal.

Because he is also a hoarder (and did not get his place cleaned up within the agreed upon time frame), Peter was going to be evicted from his second apartment in as many years (He lives independently...not enough group homes or mental health facilities - Thanks NC Legislature!!).

 

If he were able to "process" in any "normal" way, I would resort to "tough love" and just make him deal with it. (Also, thanks to the NC Legislature, our already desperately overworked social workers and case managers cannot care adequately for the most vulnerable in our community, who are literally unable to care for themselves)!

 

Eviction, with all of his personal belongings "raked up" and thrown in the trash, would kill Peter (probably literally).

 

I prayed and sought counsel and asked for guidance from wise people and faithful friends (breaking every confidentiality rule, I'm sure)...

What is my faithful response to Peter?

Do I let him store his things here at the church (meaning an apartment full of furniture and all of the "highly valuable" trash), so he can go to a shelter (A shelter would kill him, too. But that is not really a concern, as there are far too few shelters in Charlotte for homeless people, and a non-medicated schizophrenic would never be aloud to enter one)?

Do I just let him sleep on the sofa in my office?

Do I rent a storage unit for him from my discretionary fund?

If I do that for Peter, who else will ask me to do it for them. (Even though he is the only non-medicated mentally ill person in the congregation - to my knowledge - he is not the only person on the verge of eviction.).

 

A week ago tonight, Peter came to the church for dinner and worship.

Afterwards, he was waiting for me to give him a blessing (He will take buses and lite-rail trains just to get here, just so that I can give him a blessing...after which he will "cross" himself! which I find doubly endearing, since he's Jewish.). I got caught in the "gauntlet" of conversations that follows me and every pastor I know. By the time I got back to where Peter was, my husband (Cliff) had his arm around him saying, "I don't know...but we'll figure something out." I left again for a moment. When I returned the next time, Cliff was holding Peter in a big bear hug and Peter was crying.

 

He had gone back to his apartment earlier that day, and found his door padlocked...His time was up.

 

Peter slept on the couch in my office that night.

And my friend Mike (who is a police captain), and who had been part of this conversation from the beginning, rented him a storage unit for one month. The next day, Ethan (our youth & family minister - neither of which Peter is!) and Mike moved Peter out of his apartment. Put all of his furniture into the storage unit and moved Peter and his "traveling bags" (the half-dozen bags that Peter carries with him EVERYWHERE) into a "boarding house" that his case manager found for him.

 

The only reason I tell this long story, is because this coming Sunday's gospel lesson talks about a "Great Chasm" that separates people (Luke 16:19-31).

What it implies is that we never even see (truly see) the chasms in our lives until it is too late.

Peter (at least this past week) has helped me see chasms more clearly between people I notice and those I overlook...or by whom I am inconvenienced, and so choose not to notice.

The encounter has changed my life.

 

Chasms are everywhere...Chasms between rich and poor; educated and non-educated; staff and faculty; janitor and CEO; mentally ill and mentally healthy; grieving and rejoicing; black and white; gay and straight; mine and yours; what I project and how I really am.

 

The gospel lesson ends by referencing "someone rising from the dead," and suggests that if someone were to rise from the dead, then MAYBE we may notice the chasm(s) and bridge it (them) and maybe walk across it.

 

Well, as Christians, we claim to follow someone who has defeated death and been raised from the dead (which would be considered the ultimate chasm).

 

I am asking for your help this week (you who look with "resurrection-eyes")...

Share with me (either in comments at the bottom of this blog or on Facebook) where it is that you see chasms in your own life, in the community, in the congregation, in the world.

 

THEN, share with me when it is that you have seen someone "bridge" a chasm...Or when you have "bridged it" yourself. Make sense?

 

Thanks for your help!