Something New

March 13, 2016

By The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel 5th Sunday of Lent

StoryCorps on National Public Radio played an interview with Francois Clemons on Friday. Mr. Clemons played Officer Clemons on Mr. Rogers Neighborhood starting in 1968. With grateful tears in her eyes, my wife Alison told me to listen to it. I listened and heard a message we all need to hear, good news that connects deeply with portion of the Gospel of John we just heard. Fred Roger’s heard Francois Clemons sing in church one Sunday. Clemon’s had a beautiful tenor voice. Fred approached him after church and invited Clemons to play a Police Officer on his television program for children. He would be the first African American actor with a recurring role on an American television program for children. Francois Clemon’s picks up the story…. *When Fred Rogers offered me a role as a Police Officer…. That kind of stopped me in my tracks. I grew up in the ghetto and I did not have a positive opinion of police officers. This was 1968 and police were sicking dogs on people and using fire-hoses on them and I really had a hard time seeing myself in that role. So I was not excited about being Officer Clemons at all.

But there was one particular scene that Fred and I did. Fred had his feet resting in a small pool on a hot day. In his cheery voice Fred called me over to the pool and invited me to rest my feet in the water with him. The icon Fred Rogers was not only showing my brown skin next to his white skin as two friends sharing a foot bath but as I was getting out of that tub Fred helped me dry my feet. That scene touched me in a way I was not prepared. Fred says (in the scene) Sometimes just a moment like this will really make a difference. I think Fred was making a very strong statement. That was his way. (There is a picture of this scene on my Facebook page and I would not mind at all if you took a second to look at it as I continue to preach) Because there is more… Clemons goes on to say…. I was still not convinced that officer Clemons could make a positive difference in Mr. Rogers neighborhood or in any real neighborhood. I learned that I was wrong to believe that. I had discovered a fried for life. I will never forget one day I was watching Fred film a session. You know how at the end of the program he stakes his sneakers off and hangs up his sweater as he sings Its such a god feeling to know your alive, its such a happing feeling, you are growing inside

and then at the end of every show he says * You make everyday a special day just by being you and I like you just the way you are. I was standing off set and looking at Fred as he said that and he came over to me, to where I was standing and I said Fred, were you saying that to me? And Fred said, Yes, I have been talking to you for years but you heard me today. It was like telling me I am ok as a human being. It was one of the most meaningful experiences I ever had. I am about to do a new thing, now it springs forth, do you not perceive it. Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old I am about to do a new thing, now it springs forth, do you not perceive it. Francois Clemons perceived the new thing. Fred Rogers perceived the new thing. Mary perceived the new thing. Judas did not perceive, he was stuck in the worn out cycle of former things, things of old. Mary is responding to the new thing that God is doing when she lavishly, lavishly, exuberantly, prodigally, shamelessly, anoints the feet

of Jesus with $74,0000 worth of perfume – an absurd amount because she perceives Jesus as Gods new, life – alive among us. This new life in Jesus is not part of the old cycle of revenge, resentment, blame, scapegoating, fearmongering, and hatemongering. Jesus is here to break the old cycles of death and domination and make God’s new life available to us all as grace, freedom and love even – or especially - in the face of hate, fear, domination, anger, vengeance, rivalry. Sometimes I imagine a massive, rusty, thickly coiled spring passing through all of humanity. It looks a lot like those big springs in our car suspensions. Left to our own devices we humans just wind that spring tighter – adding the tension of our suspicions, our resentments, our vengeful impulses, our hatefulness, our dear, our blaming etc. And we wind it up tighter and tighter so when it finally snaps the spring lashes out with vicious violence scaring ourselves and our neighbors all around us. In his death and resurrection Jesus takes the full force of that rusty spring into his own body and exhausts its toxic energy, breaks it strength, absorbs its lashing out. After Jesus the spring has lost it tension and its force, it is s spent force. That is the new thing. Do we perceive it?

Do we perceive it like Mr. Rogers, like Francois Clemons, like Mary anointing the feet of Jesus? With Jesus our freedom is won. Left to our own devices we wind the spring tighter and give it power. In the grace of Christ we enter the world where the toxic energy is defeated and we are free to spread the new energy of grace. Our nation needs us to enter the freedom of grace we have in Christ, and only have in Christ and not in ourselves alone. Hate, blame, scape-goating, fearmongering are knocking at the door of our political house. It is up to us show the new way, find the new thing that God is doing and to join in. As Christians we are called to be a people of foot washing, anointing, healing in a time seething with ugly, hateful language and tight fists lashing out and adding to the cycle of violence, acting as if the toxic way of the rusty spring is still the way of victory in this world. As we open our selves up this lent to the new thing God is doing let us be loose and free and creative… let us look for the opportunities to share a foot bath, affirm the humanity of a brother and sister, reach out in love and obstruct hate with acts of love. Amen.