A Love that Mends the World

An air of gloom and anxiety pervades the room as Jesus’ friends began to situate themselves around the table.  It was the Passover, the feast of liberation from slavery and oppression.  Yet something more was at stake.  They couldn’t quite grasp the backstory, couldn’t put their finger on the cause for dread.

It was not until Jesus said the liberating word when he explained the meaning.  He was their true freedom as he offered up his physical self for the necessary healing.  “This is my body.  This is the cup of my blood poured out for the redemption of the world.  As long as you break the bread and share this cup, remember.  Remember me.”  Remember what we are all about – tikkun olam, the mending of the world.

That sacrifice, that humility, opens the door to true liberation.  In John’s gospel, the story gathers additional significance as Jesus gathers a sponge and kneels at a basin to wash the feet of his disciples.  Of course, Peter will have none of it.  He considers himself unworthy.  Yet, Jesus insists, “Unless I wash you, you will have no share with me.”  Such humility, such love indeed opens the door to eternity.  To true liberation from all that enslaves.  Especially for pompous egos and notions of self-importance, for false humility.  “I am your liberation,” says the Master.  Jesus, in actions proclaims, “My example is your true freedom.” 

And so it is, as difficult, as impossible as it so often seems at the moment.

After the searing events that led to the Black Lives Matter in St. Louis, Missouri, the former rector of All Saints, Pasadena shares this story.

The Rev. Mike Kinman recalls entering the pain of St. Louis and being confronted by the anguish of Black Lives Matter movement.  He relates an experience of five years ago, yet still as vivid in his mind as if it had happened yesterday. 

“I feel you. Do you feel me?”  That was the raised voice of Pastor Traci Blackmon as she grasped the shoulders of VonDerrit Meyers, Sr., the father of a young black youth who had been shot six times in the back on the streets of St. Louis on October 8, 2014.  Mike continues the story:

I can still hear the Rev. Traci Blackmon’s voice ringing in my ears.

I can still see her face against his, hands on his shoulders, eyes piercing into his eyes.

It was near midnight on October 8, 2014, and a few hours before, 18-year old VonDerrit Myers, Jr. had been shot eight times – six in the back – and killed by an off-duty St. Louis City Police Officer.  A crowd gathers at the scene and when they begin to move, the clergy who are there split up. Some go with the crowd. Others – Traci and I – we go with Vonderrit Myers, Sr. to the city morgue to be with him as he identifies the body of his son.

We stand outside for what seems like an eternity until the father emerges, the nightmare he had lived with since the day his son was born slowly becoming real.  Head hanging to the ground, he almost whispers the words we already know:

“It’s him.”

And then… the pain begins to turn to rage.  I could see it happen. He begins to fume … and tremble. What begins as a cry becomes a wail.  What starts as a murmur grows into a shout as he says:

“It’s him.  It’s my son.  Somebody is going to pay for this. I’ve got a gun, and somebody is going to pay for him tonight!”

I am paralyzed.  I cannot imagine his rage and know he has every right to it.  I will not tell him to calm down. And… this is headed nowhere good.  Not only do I not know what to do, I know whatever it is, I’m not the one who can do it.

And then Traci steps up to him. Traci steps up to him and grabs him by his shoulders, and puts her face right up to his face … her eyes to his eyes.
He is trembling.  And she is trembling.  And she holds him.  And he looks at her and she says:

“I feel you. I feel you. I feel you. OK?”

He nods.

“Now I need you to feel me.”

His eyes are glued to hers.

“You have a job right now.  You have to be a husband tonight.  Your wife has lost her son, and she needs her husband.  No one can do that but you.  You have to go be with her.  That’s where you have to be tonight.  She needs you.”

“And tomorrow morning, I’m going to be at your house first thing.  I’m going to be there and I’m going to stay there with you for as long as it takes.”

Tears fill the father’s eyes.
Tears fill Traci’s eyes.
And she says again.

“I feel you.  Do you feel me?”

VonDerrit Myers, Sr. nods his head, and they embrace.  And they cry.  And then VonDerrit Myers, Sr. leaves the body of his son and goes to spend the longest night of his life at home with his wife.

And first thing the next morning, Traci is there. And she stays until they don’t need her to stay any more.[1]

To enter the anguish of St. Louis that night, to enter Gaza, to enter any Jerusalem on this planet is to enter into any of our distressed urban areas, and pray to God, pray, like Pastor Traci, to have the mind of Christ in you. 

Such humility is the true nourishment of the meal we share this day.  The liberating nourishment we share on any given Sunday.  Liberation in the midst of the most excruciating pain and loss.  He in us and we in him.  Présenté.

In city after city, in village and in township, Christ is crucified anew.  Crucified as an eighteen-year-old black kid gunned down on the streets of St. Louis, Missouri.  Crucified in the deadened hopes of the homeless man who used to sleep on the back porch of our office in Claremont – or the lost hopes of those who used to sleep down the block from our church at the Del Rosa and Date Street encampment. Crucified in our hospital emergency rooms as doctors and nurses struggle to save the life of yet another overdose victim.

Yet, in the midst of such crucifying pain, in this simple meal of bread and wine, in the remembrance of a foot-washing, we have the audacity to assert that the world is mended back together.  And in the participation, we also find our healing and true liberation.  We are mended, knitted together in an eternal love.  Amen.

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[1]Mike Kinman, “The Power of Extravagant Love”, Sermon preached at All Saints, Pasadena, April 7, 2019.

April 17, 2025
Maundy Thursday

Exodus 12:1-4, 11-14; Psalm 116:1, 10-17

1 Corinthians 11:23-26; John 13:1-17, 31b-35

“A Love that Mends the World”