Acts 1:6-14
Psalm 68:1-10, 33-36
1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11
John 17:1-11
"When the apostles entered the city, they went to the room upstairs where they were staying, Peter, and John, and James, and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. All these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers."
On Friday night I saw a powerful play called Vacancy. It was about the 69 women - prostitutes - who went missing in Vancouver over the last 15 years - you know, the ones who police think were murdered by the Picton pig farmer. Well, towards the end of the play, there was this scene when we, the audience, had to say the refrain to a particular poem that one of the characters was reciting. The refrain was "What a shame, they didn't have a name." And when the character talked about these prostitutes - hookers - and the lives they lived, and how they were drug addicts and were abandoned on the streets, and how nobody wanted them in their neighbourhood, and how nobody cared that they had even gone missing, every so often, we had to say, "What a shame, they didn't have a name." By the end of the poem, you really got the sense that these missing people were one big group of nameless women - they all fit under the category of "Missing Sex-Trade Workers." They were just sort of there, all in one lump. Sure you felt sorry for them, but in a vague kind of way - after all, we didn't really know any of them, or know their names, or their stories, or where they came from, or even what they looked like. So it was easy to feel sorry for them in that generalized "isn't the world crummy" kind of way. And it was easy to not want to do anything about the situation - since it wasn't like we knew them or anything.
But then, just when the play was ending, and we were ready to leave, thinking "well, that was kind of depressing, but oh well, what can you do," the actors all came on stage and started reciting the names of the 69 missing women. And it was overwhelming. The names went on and on and it hit us all that these women weren't one big group of women, they were individuals - people like you and me. They all were once children, like you and me, they all had their likes and dislikes, the little things that they did when they first woke up, the particular way they liked their coffee. They had their friends and they had the co-workers they couldn't stand. They had jobs, and they liked and disliked their jobs the way you and I do. These women - this big group of "Missing Sex-Trade Workers" was not just one big homogenous group, they weren't just a group of statistics and numbers - they were sixty-nine individuals, sixty-nine human beings, who went missing and were murdered. And that made the whole thing very different. With the readings of the names of these women, the whole thing became very personal. And we - or at least, I - really started to care about what had happened to them. Of course, there really is nothing to be done now about that situation, but it made me wonder about all those other people in life whom we walk by and lump into one big homogenous group - all those other people whom we never see as individuals.
You see, it is all-too-easy in our society for us to depersonalize people. On a very regular basis, we lump people into categories as ways of making them easier to deal with, as ways to avoid having to think about them too much. When we walk by someone on the street who's asking for change, that's a bum, a beggar, a panhandler - that's not a person with a name, with a mother who loves him and wonders every day what happened to him. When we see a teenager on the bus with her toddler, that's a teenage mom, a kid who shouldn't have been having sex, an irresponsible youth- that's not a girl with a name, who worries about what the best food for her baby is. When somebody cuts in front of us on the road, that's a crazy driver, a jerk who shouldn't be on the road, a perpetrator of road-rage, that's not a person with a name, who worries about his parents and his children.
We lump people we don't agree with into categories - those soft-hearted liberals, those red-neck conservatives, those out-of-control kids, those out-of-it seniors, those bums on welfare, those fat-cat CEOs - we could create any number of categories to put people in, we could use any number of ways to avoid looking at people as individuals, as humans just like you and me. And I'm sure I don't need to tell you that this is not right. This is not the way we are meant to live in the world - this is definitely not loving our neighbour as ourselves. We know our names. We should know theirs, too.
"When the apostles entered the city, they went to the room upstairs where they were staying, Peter, and John, and James, and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. All these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers."
Jesus would certainly have known the names of the "certain women" who were gathered upstairs with Peter and John, and James, and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. And that's because Jesus saw people as individuals, as humans, as unique creations of God whom he was sent to love and heal and redeem. He knew the names of Mary Magdalene and of Joanna, the wife of Herod's steward, the first people to witness his resurrection. He knew the name of the woman he healed who had been crippled for eighteen years, although we don't. He knew the names of Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus, he knew the names of the twelve-year old girl he healed, and the woman who had been hemorrhaging for twelve years, even though we don't. He knew the name of the woman who knelt in front of him and washed his feet with her hair, and he knew the name of Susanna, one of the women who went with him on his journeys. He knew the name of Simon Peter's mother, whom he healed, although we don't. And he knew all the names of these "certain women" because his Father knew them.
You see, God knows the names of all God's children. God knows your name, and my name. God knows the name of the guy asking for money, the name of the teenage mom, the name of the aggressive driver. God knows the names of each one of the soft-hearted liberals, the red-necked conservatives, the out-of-control kids, the out-of-it seniors, the bums on welfare, and the fat-cat CEOs. God knows each person's name, and more. "O Lord, you have searched me and known me," say the words of Psalm 139. "You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, O Lord, you know it completely." God knows each one of you intimately - your likes and your dislikes, your strengths and your weaknesses, your moments of compassion and your moments of prejudice. And God loves you. To God, you are none of you just part of a group. To God, you along with those you love and those you hate are individuals with names, called and loved and saved.
"When the apostles entered the city, they went to the room upstairs where they were staying, Peter, and John, and James, and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. All these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers."
"What a shame, they didn't have a name." But they did have names, and we are called, as God's named children, and as followers of Christ, to learn their names and the names of others. What I mean is, we are called to see those around us as humans, just like us, as individuals with hopes and dreams, and disappointments and frustrations. It's not always easy, and we don't always want to, but we are called to stop depersonalizing people, we are called to live counter to a culture that would just reduce people to categories.
Fortunately, we can do that because God has done it for us. God doesn't categorize us, but knows and loves each person as an individual. To God, each person is infinitely special and unique, and just as a mother knows the names of each of her children, the same is true of God. God knows the names of all the disciples, God knows the names of the "certain women," God knows the names of the missing sex-trade workers, and God knows your name, too. Thanks be to God. Amen.
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