Listen now to this sermon by Pastor Brooks about the inherent goodness that comes from being made in the image of God.
Scripture reading–Genesis 1:26-31
The best-selling author and Jesuit priest Gregory Boyle has ministered for at least 26 years in a part of LA that has been known as the gang capital of the world. For much of this time, he has run a gang intervention program called Homeboy Industries. With the use of slang, Boyle affectionately refers to the youth and young adults he works with as “homies.” Frequently, homies will come to seeking a service like counseling, job placement, or tattoo removal. Boyle will do an intake with a homie and so often he will experience the following conversation: He will ask, “How old are you?” And the “homie” says, “Me?” An interesting response since no one else is in the room. Boyle responds, “Well, yes, you.” “Oh, I’m eighteen,” the homie might say. Then, Boyle will ask, “Do you have a driver’s license?” To which, the homie says, “Me?” Boyle thinks to himself, “No, I was wondering if your grandmother is still driving.”
What Boyle has realized in experiencing this conversation so many times is that the homies he interviews have been in such a toxic environment that it has obliterated the “me.” They cannot fathom that someone would actually be interested in them. It has been noted that frequently a deep cause of suffering among the poor is a sense of shame and disgrace. It can be easy to forget what our scripture reminds us of: that we are made in the image of God, that God declared us to be not only good, but very good. The poet Galway Kinnel once wrote, “Sometimes it’s necessary to reteach a thing its loveliness.” Sometimes we need to be reminded of that.
In addition to an economy that induces shame on a mass scale, there is also the shame that can be heaped upon a child by parents or lack of parents. One homie recalls his father walking out on his family on his sixth birthday. He refused to let anyone cut his birthday cake until his father came home. Night came, but his father never returned. Four years later when this same homie was ten years old, his father resurfaced. This ten-year old then walked in on his father while a drug needle was in the father’s arm. His father said, “Take a good look. This will be you one day.” Another homie recalls being physically abused if he didn’t massage his father’s feet the right way or bring him his wallet fast enough. Yet another homie wishes he never knew his father’s name or even saw his face. Boyle notes that nearly every male with which he works has a hole in his heart the shape of his dad. One of the primary aims of Homeboy Industries is to create what psychologists refer to as the sustenance of one’s first attachment, what is typically the bond with one’s parent. Sometimes we need to be reminded of our loveliness.
One time Boyle received a phone call from a twenty-five year old named Cesar who had just gotten out of prison. Cesar needed clothes, and Boyle agreed to help him. When he went to pick him up, he saw him on the sidewalk waiting for him. Cesar was not only muscular from lifting weights in prison, but as Boyle puts it, he exuded “menace.” When he sees Boyle, however, he becomes like a small child. He bounces up and down as he does this “yippy-skippy, happy-to-see-ya, hand-clapping gleeful jig.” He throws himself into Boyle’s car and wraps his arms around him. Cesar declares, “When I saw you right now, G, I got aaaalllll happy!” When they go shopping at J.C. Penney’s, all the customers stare at Cesar because he not only looks menacing but “he seems to have lost the volume knob” on his voice. At one point, he walks up to a young man and woman with a son and asks the man, “Hey, don’t I know you?” The woman grabs her son to hold him close as she shakes her head saying, “No, we don’t know you.” The man who is with her looks like he is going to have a heart attack and shakes his head as well saying, “No, I don’t know you.” Cesar realizes his mistake and apologizes. The couple becomes notably relaxed. Cesar then says to Boyle, “I mean, damn G…do I look that scary?” Boyle affirms that he does.
That night at 3 o’clock in the morning Boyle gets a call from Cesar. He asks, “Did I wake you?” Boyle thinks, “Why no, I was just waiting and hoping that you’d call.” There is an urgency in Cesar’s voice. He says, “I gotta ask you a question. You know how I’ve always seen you as my father—ever since I was a little kid? Well, I hafta ask you a question.” Cesar pauses and says, “Have I…been…your son?” “Oh, hell, yeah,” Boyle declares. Cesar is relieved. “Whew, I thought so,” he says. With the emotion of tears coming forth, Cesar adds, “Then…I will be…your son. And you…will be my father. And nothing will separate us, right?” Boyle responds, “That’s right.” Boyle later reflected that what Cesar learned that morning wasn’t that he had a father. It was that he was “a son worth having.” Sometimes we need to be reminded of our loveliness.
On one New Year’s Day, Boyle received a call from Miguel who worked on a graffiti removal crew for Homeboy Industries. Boyle had long been amazed by how nice and pleasant Miguel was despite having been abandoned by his family. Because Miguel didn’t have a family, Boyle asked him what he did for Christmas and whether he spent it alone. As it turns out, Miguel invited to his apartment five coworkers who were “all former enemies from rival gangs.” All of them were orphans without a family. Together, they cooked and ate their own turkey, a turkey Miguel was proud to cook, a turkey that all six of them sat staring at the oven waiting for it to be done. Not long after Miguel and Boyle talked on the phone, Boyle gave Miguel a ride home after work. Boyle said, “Can I ask you a question? How do you do it? I mean, given all that you’ve been through—all the pain and stuff you’ve suffered—how are you like the way you are?” To which Miguel responded, “You know, I always suspected that there was something of goodness in me, but I just couldn’t find it. Until one day”—then his voice got quiet—“one day, I discovered it here, in my heart. I found it…goodness. And ever since that day, I have always known who I was.” He paused and added, “And now, nothing can touch me.” Sometimes we need to be reminded of our loveliness.
One time Boyle remembers praising a homie over the phone, and the homie wouldn’t accept it. He said, “You know I still have my blemishes.” Boyle believes this view is ingrained in us by our culture. We view our blemishes as our shortcomings when really they are a reminder of our humanity. Boyle regards the disparaging view of our blemishes as being particularly strong with those whom he works. He compares it to the Stockholm syndrome whereby hostages begin to sympathize, identify, and even defend their captors. For the homies, their struggles, weaknesses, and burdens become their identity. They can’t see beyond them. They forget their own goodness. One of the spiritual guides at Homeboy Industries says, “We see in the homies what they don’t see in themselves, until they do.” Sometimes we need to be reminded of our loveliness.
One of the workers at Homeboy Industries was a young woman named Natalie. During her time there, she went in and out of prison, she abused drugs, and had been terminated more than once for fighting. At one point, Boyle could no longer meet with her in the office because she would pick fights with people while she was there. Boyle had to meet with her at a burger place across the street. Once when Boyle was on the road giving talks, he called her before giving a keynote address. The night before Boyle had a vivid dream about Natalie. Boyle tells her this, and she’s instantly worried it was a bad dream that might serve as a premonition of things to come, but Boyle assures her that it wasn’t. He then describes how in the dream he was at a nightclub with a bunch of small tables in front of a stage that had a microphone on it. The emcee goes up to the microphone and announces, “Ladies and gentlemen, to sing for you this evening, Ms. Natalie Urritia.” Boos explode forth from the audience. Members of the crowd turn to Boyle and say, “What the hell’s going on? You know she can’t sing…stop her.” Boyle shrugs them off, but he feels nervous for Natalie. Then, the spotlight shines upon Natalie. She is gorgeous and beautiful in a dress sparkling with jewels. Natalie, however, appears to have no confidence. The crowd heckles and howls at her. The music begins. Natalie starts singing, and it is the most beautiful singing any of them have ever heard. The crowd becomes silent and speechless. Their mouths drop open. Boyle is stunned, and it is at this point that he wakes up from his dream. Boyle relates all of this over the phone, and there is a hush on the other end of the line. Natalie is crying. Sometimes we need to be reminded of our loveliness.
I listened to all of these stories as I drove back and forth to California last week. While the gang capital of the world might seem a long distance from Vancouver, Washington, I found that the stories did more than humanize the homies of LA who are so often demonized. The stories also pointed to a spiritual antidote that I think is often needed elsewhere in our society. We live in a culture of achievement where we measure ourselves against whatever standards of success we create and then deem ourselves inadequate. We so easily come to believe we are not good enough.
The people in our lives are not always very helpful either. Think of how a performance evaluation that’s done poorly can squash the spirit of an employee, but what if every employer related to his or her employee in a way that affirmed the employee’s basic goodness? What if the evaluative process built on strengths rather than obsessing over weaknesses? Now, some of you might be thinking that such a business would probably do really bad because no one would ever be held accountable and workers who don’t do their job would never be fired, but I don’t think that’s the case. Even Boyle fires people at Homeboy Industries. He calls up the person and says, “The day won’t ever come when I will withdraw love and support from you. I am simply in your corner till the wheels fall off.” He then breaks the news that he has to let them go and almost always the person agrees with the decision.
Desmond Tutu has written a wonderful book entitled Made for Goodness: And Why This Makes All the Difference. The book sets out to answer many of the common questions Tutu receives. Questions such as “Why are you so joyful?” and “How do you keep your faith in people when you see so much injustice, oppression, and cruelty?” The first answer to these questions and the central message of the book is derived from our scripture for today. Tutu believes we are all designed for goodness. He even sees in this belief the antidote for burnout. He believes burnout is often caused by the “fear of not being good enough” or the “fear of not doing enough.” These fears drain the joy and energy out of one’s work. For some, a career path that once thrilled them becomes a thicket “of meaningless responsibilities, inane requirements, and mindless chores.” Tutu, however, believes that much of the mundane can be life-affirming rather than life-denying if done in a spirit of joyful love. Tutu sees this joy in the Dalai Lama despite the hardships he has endured, but Tutu knows that for too many their joy is robbed by perfectionism, the sense that they are not good enough, they are not deserving. Sometimes we need to be reminded of our own loveliness. As Tutu puts it, “We strive endlessly to ‘be good’ and to ‘do good’ instead of realizing that we are good.” Rather than feeling like we are falling short of the mark, let’s instead live out of the goodness that we already possess. From that goodness can come immeasurable beauty, joy, and love. From that goodness can come the very thing we need to make it through each day. We only need to remind ourselves of it. Amen.