I normally don't openly steal sermons from myself, but given what's been going on in the church lately with clergy scandals and declining numbers and changing life patterns – and given what's going on it our civic life, with such intolerance, injustice, and wickedness, I wanted to take this opportunity to say to you here and now why I think we are so desperately needed. . . now more than ever. Some of you may have heard this sermon before, but I think it stands up to time. Fr. Brooks even named it. It's called, “The Ballad of Little Jimmy.” And it goes like this:
On hot summer day in Little Rock, I found myself sitting on the patio with Fr. Brooks, in front of a smoker, awaiting brisket and sausage and other awesome food, petting the dogs, and doing as little as possible.
As we sat there we started talking about the future of the church. Specifically, we talked about and imagined what the church would look like in a few decades.
So many experts think that the era of the church as a stained-glassed, stand-alone building will soon to be a thing of the past. They say that people don't want them anymore, that these places don't mean as much as they did, and that asking for parishioners to give of their treasure to keep them going was not going to work.
I just sat there, petting Cotton the Dog, and thought, “That's a crock.” And I thought back on my memories of Little Jimmy.
Our reading from James exhorts us: If a rich person in fine clothes comes in, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, and if you notice the rich one and not the poor one, is this not against the teaching of Christ?
I first met Little Jimmy in downtown Knoxville while I was doing the healing service at church. I had noticed him before during that service. I was hard not to notice Little Jimmy. He would come in late, sit in the back pew and mutter to himself. Sometime during the service, he would close his eyes and slowly, slowly slide sideways in the pew until he was stretched out there. When the service was over, he would leave, headed back down the street.
But one day, I stopped him and struck up a conversation. I found out that he was homeless (of course), and could smell that he was boozed up. But we talked for a long time. I found out that he liked to come to church because it was the only place he could fall asleep without having to worry about being robbed for what little cash he had scrounged up. I invited him to come early, while we were setting up, so he could could get a good solid hour of rest. He smiled, and he took me up on the offer.
Little Jimmy had some college, but he let the drugs get ahold of him. And his family kicked him out, and he had nowhere to turn. So he started with prostitution, but after a while, the drugs and the alcohol took their toll, and he couldn't even earn a living doing that, so he turned to stealing. But even stealing required some sobriety, and now he was just a panhandler. That was the Little Jimmy who slept in the pews because church was safe.
Little Jimmy became a fixture at the Wednesday dinners. He tried eating at the nearby homeless shelter, but it was hard on him. There was a sort of hierarchy among the homeless, and Little Jimmy was on the bottom rung. More likely than not other guys would take his food because he was too messed up to defend himself. So when he found out that we had Wednesday dinners, he started showing up.
Watching Little Jimmy around food was an amazingly sad sight to behold. He would always go first and pile up his plate and sit by himself and eat. He didn't want to sit with other people, he just wanted a place to be left alone. He would eat plate after plate. Then sometimes Little Jimmy would go into the bathroom. . . and throw it all up. I asked him, one night, why he did that. And he said, “Man, the food is so good, and I can have all I want. I'm sorry about the bathroom. I'll go away, if you want me to.”
As a reaction, the men of the church formed a Little Jimmy watch, called “Team Jimmy.” They didn't want him to have to leave. So, every Wednesday, one of the guys was always in charge of watching Little Jimmy get up and go into the bathroom. When he left, that parishioner would, silently, with no complaint, go in behind him and clean up if it was necessary. Little Jimmy never knew that.
James goes on to ask: Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him?
Once, Little Jimmy showed up during the day to see me. He needed money. He was going to the bus station, he said, to go home down in Georgia. He just needed eleven more dollars and he could get the ticket. I told him that I could drive him to the station and buy his ticket, but we didn't give out cash. He got agitated. I told him I didn't understand...after all, he was still getting a ticket. He started yelling, and then he stopped and whispered, “Man, you know I'm lying, don't you?” I said, “Yeah, Jimmy, I do.” And he said, “Dude, I just need something to make it all go away.”
I gave Little Jimmy the eleven dollars. He walked off, then he came back and shook my hand. He said, “I love this place. God keeps us safe here.” I told that story to a women's Bible study group. After that, they made a Little Jimmy change bucket. So, if he ever needed cash, he didn't have to justify himself – he could just get what was in the bucket, no questions asked.
Finally James lays it on the line: If a brother needs clothing or food, and you don't step in, what is the good of faith?
The last time I saw Little Jimmy was in an ambulance on the way to St. Mary's hospital. It was a dark January morning. I was the first one into work, and it was dark and had been snowing a little, so when I got up to the church garth, I noticed footprints leading over to the church building. I went over there, and Little Jimmy was huddled up against the door with no jacket. He was covered in blood and had been beaten up. He had somehow managed to make it to the church before he collapsed.
I called 9-1-1 and covered him in my coat and sat there, holding him, waiting for the ambulance. Little Jimmy was shivering and chattering, whispering, “Oh, God. Oh, God” over and over. The medics finally showed up and got him in the ambulance. I asked if I could go, so they made room.
On the ride to the hospital, Little Jimmy looked around and recognized me. He rasped out, “Can I come back?” “Yeah, Jimmy, of course,” I said. And I meant it. We were there for Little Jimmy. But Little Jimmy was also there for us. Because, you see, to love, there has to be someone to receive love. To reach out, there has to be someone to touch.
And that's what church is about.
And that's why we need this place.
That's why we need this place. In this darkening world, we are a refuge. We provide sacred beauty to people out in an ugly profane world. We provide a loving touch for people who flinch from the fists of others. We are a light in that darkness, refusing to give up on the idea that the Kingdom of God is a doable thing, here and now. We are sanctuary. Church is sanctuary.
We can't give that up. We can't abandon that responsibility.
Little Jimmy died on that trip to the hospital. The medics just couldn't revive him this time. Before he died, he looked at us in that ambulance and said, “I sorry for being so much trouble.” I walked the three miles back to the church that day as the flurries danced around reminding me of manna, of God's presence on that cold street. Waiting on me was a woman who needed money to get her car fixed. She said she had most of it, but only needed twenty more dollars. She was lying to me, of course. I knew it, and she knew I knew it. But, I invited her into the church to get warm and talk, and I listened to her story.