To Trust in You With All Our Hearts, The Rev. David R. Williams, Pentecost XVI--Year A--Sept. 4, 2005

“Grant us, O Lord, to trust in you with all our hearts…” begins the collect, our prayer for this morning. Have we ever seen this kind of trust tested so vividly, so close to home as this week with the horror stories of victims and traumatized survivors of the Gulf Coast storm Hurricane Katrina?

We all have heard described and seen images of desperate people literally clinging for dear life to trees, to roofs, to debris in ravaging winds and waters.

Pamela Celias, middle-aged mother, ends up on the roof of her house during the early morning hours of Katrina’s blast. Her fourteen year-old son happens to be at a neighbor’s house. He, too, ends up on a roof—of a nearby home.

“All hell broke loose,” Pamela says later as she describes the water rushing into her house as she frantically climbs as high as possible to stay above from the rising torrents of water.

“I’m hungry and thirsty,” the teenage son yells to his Mom during the hours of waiting. They watch helplessly as neighboring homes break from foundations and float away.

“Hang in there, baby,” Pamela calls to her son. “Help is coming.”

rant us, O Lord, to trust in you with all our hearts…”

A week and a half ago, we are aware of a Category One storm wreaking havoc with South Florida. Many of us, even some of those in the path of this hurricane, think, “Another storm. It will be over soon. And life will go on.” And then, virtually before our eyes, this relatively small storm grows into an immense, unavoidable monster.

Feeling powerless, we pray. We watch in despair as Katrina devastates lands, people, commerce – as it wounds the very soul of a culture. A new geography ripples into our worldview: Lake Pontchartrain, Mississippi River, and Gulf of Mexico; the engineering wonders and limitations of levees; an entire city somehow surviving for centuries below sea level; a vast population underemployed, impoverished, destitute, predominately African American and Hispanic. People hidden along the bayous suddenly are homeless and jobless.

As the days go by, newspaper and television headlines are ever more shocking. “Masses of people left homeless.” “Looting, lawlessness and anarchy take over New Orleans.” “Refugees” are called “evacuees” before again being called “refugees.” Fires follow floods, oil coats flood waters, gasoline pumps run dry and, nationwide, gasoline prices skyrocket.

Imagine, as this news evolves, an American soldier in Iraq. In harm’s way, providing a service for his country, he catches news of a natural disaster in his homeland. And what if this soldier’s hometown is Gulfport? Biloxi? New Orleans?

Everything in that moment is skewed. Not sure of the fate of his loved ones at home, everything in his already-turned-upside-down world becomes even less certain. Prayers upon prayers, now. A natural disaster of mammoth proportion. The fog of a war with no clear opponent, no apparent end.

If we travel back in time to that period just before the Hebrews leave Egypt, my guess is that, with all the plagues and the events occurring between Moses and Pharaoh, our initial feelings would be similar confusion and fear. How bizarre and scary were those growing, out-of-control plagues, the suffering and death, the sense of crisis and powerlessness.

The Hebrew storytellers later put their history in a logical sequence, defining a more sensible chain of events to describe times of terror, chaos and pain--the power of a God and the suffering of a people who, like many people on this earth now ask, “Will we ever survive this? How shall we ever put our trust in God?”

The Passover ritual told in this morning’s Old Testament lesson evolved from this chaotic time in Egypt. This ritual meal served to remind the Hebrew people of the life-giving power of their God – our God--and has been carried close to the bosom of God’s “chosen people” to this very day. The ritual reassures and offers hope on a daily basis, annually, and in the midst of hard times.

Imagine the rituals of the people of God in New Orleans and the Mississippi coastland before the storm. These are the same as our own daily routines, those simple moments taken for granted but providing order and sense to our lives: getting up in the morning, going to work, taking kids to school, attending places of worship, gathering with families for annual reunions, holding birthday and anniversary celebrations.

What rituals create hope for our now-homeless brothers and sisters who await rescue from rooftops or convention center “shelters?” Do we hear the offering up of prayer? Pleas for help? Songs of trial and tribulation from passengers of the buses from New Orleans to Houston? Perhaps songs of old from those uncertain days of plantation slavery? Prayers of thanks to rescuing helicopters and boats?

Bread is broken in community as k-rations are handed out by National Guard soldiers. Blood is shed, a sign as a people await rescue. Communion is held as a thirsty and hungry people share the goods of looted bread and water.

“Grant us, O Lord, to trust in you, with all our hearts”

Louisiana, a state accounting for little more than one percent of the nation’s output, a state which is 24th in population and 42nd in per capita income, now has, in a flash of a mammoth storm, the attention of economies throughout the world. And world economies will be affected by the devastation of these port cities.

A survivor tells rescuers that her roommate chose to remain in their home rather than evacuate. “God will take care of me,” the roommate said. She has not been found.

A rescue boat nearly full with stranded people floats by Pamela Celias’ home.

“Oh God, thank you Jesus,” she cries as she is lifted into the small boat. But then she is told there is no room for her son. “I can’t leave without my baby, I need my son. I need him right now.”

The rescuers reassure her that another boat will pick up her son.

Their lives have been turned upside down. Nothing is as it should be. The entire New Orleans newspaper office has moved to a competing newspaper office in Baton Rouge. The New Orleans newspaper office floods when the levees are breached. The rival newspaper in Baton Rouge opens its doors. The New Orleans Associated Press office does the same. They move into the Baton Rouge newsroom. News staffers from the Washington Post, Detroit Free Press and Beaumont Texas Enterprise also find welcome space in the Baton Rouge newsroom.

“We even have a Paris radio reporter roaming around the newsroom, but I am not sure what he is doing,” one Baton Rouge newspaper reporter says. “We all are doing the best we can."

“Grant us, O Lord, to trust in you with all our hearts….”

Not only has the Baton Rouge newspaper opened its office, but the news reporters have opened their homes to these news reporter refugees from competing periodicals.

I have electricity, I have food, I have a roof,” a Baton Rouge editor says. “This is the South, we help do whatever.”

“This disaster is heartbreaking, Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco says, “I think people will have to draw on their inner strength.”

Jesus’ model for reconciliation, for healing the brokenness in a congregation of people is a model for the healing of any crisis or brokenness. This morning’s Gospel follows the parable of the lost sheep: Jesus emphasizes the importance of all sheep to a community of believers.

Many people in Mississippi and Louisiana are lost sheep. All are a part of our greater community. We gather for our worship ritual. We pray. We worship. We give thanks for our own blessings. We have the promise that where two or three are gathered, the glory of our Lord’s presences will be in the midst of us.

Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold, as well as our own Bishop Michael Curry, asks the people of the Church for two things: prayer, corporate and personal, and tangible donation of funds. Episcopal Relief and Development, Red Cross and Salvation Army – these and many other agencies are professional caregivers needing our attention.

The small boatful of refugees arrives at the unloading station. By now, thousands of people-- men, woman, children, old and young-- have gathered for transportation from a living hell to the Houston Superdome. Pamela Celia sees her 14-year-old son. They embrace. “Now,” she says, “how do we get our life together?”
“Grant us, O Lord, to trust in you with all our hearts.”

Let us close with a prayer offered to us by Presiding Bishop Griswold in the context of our ritual of hope and saving Grace:

“God of mercy and compassion, be in our midst and bind us together in your Spirit as a community of love and service to bear one another’s burdens in these days as we face the ravages of storm and sea. This we pray through Jesus Christ our Lord from Whom alone comes our hope.”

Amen.