Choices
Mark 1:40-45
by Jim Westmoreland
Michael Wayne Hunter tells us part of his story, which made me think of who
the lepers in our day are, the people no one wants to touch our see. It also makes me
think about choices, choices that are good and bad, caring or demeaning, warm and caring
or, perhaps, distant and stoical. Hunter writes, "In the summer of 1987, I had just
finished my third year on San Quentin's death row. Warehoused on the old death row, or
"the shelf" as we call it.
On this particular day, I came onto the tier at 8:30 a.m. on my way to work out with my
friend Bobby Harris. After lifting weights for a while, I was off to my cell to change
into gym shorts to play basketball. As I sat on the tier, double-tying my shoes, the guard
on the fun rail came down and asked what I was doing.
"What does it look like?" I asked him. "I'm getting ready to go rock up on
the roof (where the shelf's exercise yard is located . . . right next to the gas chamber
exhaust stack -- nothing like a daily reality check, you know.). "That's what I do
every day after I lift weights," I added.
"You're going to miss Mother Teresa," the guard said. "She's coming today
to see you guys."
I looked at him with a cynical smile. "You cops will do anything to keep from running
us to the yard, won't you?" I said. "I'm not missing my sunshine. If she shows,
tell her to lace up some high tops and meet me on the roof. I can post her up to the hoop,
probably, and shoot over the top of her."
"Okay," the guard said. "But don't say I didn't warn you." Then he
turned and walked away.
Whereupon a couple of alarm bells went off in my head. The guard, I told myself, had given
up too easily. Maybe Mother Teresa was coming. Then I thought, "Get real,
Hunter." And I finished getting ready to rock, heading up to the roof with everyone
else.
But afterwards, walking down the stairs back inside, I heard the guard on the gun rail
call: "Don't go into your cells and lock up. Mother Teresa stayed to see you guys,
too."
So I jogged up to the front in gym shorts and a tattered basketball shirt with the arms
ripped out, and on the other side of the security screen was this tiny woman who looked
100 years old. Yes, it was Mother Teresa.
You have to understand that, basically, I'm a dead man. I don't have to observe any sort
of social convention; and as a result, I can break all the rules, say what I want.
But one look at this Nobel Prize winner, this woman so many people view as a living saint,
and I was speechless.
Incredible vitality and warmth came from her wizened, piercing eyes. She smiled at me,
blessed a religious medal, and handed it to me. I wouldn't have walked voluntarily to the
front of the tier to see the Warden, the Governor, the President, or the Pope. I could not
care less about them. But standing before this woman, all I could say was, "Thank
you, Mother Teresa."
Then I stepped back to let another dead man come forward to receive his medal. As I stood
there looking at the medal, I knew my wife was going to treasure it. After all, in her
youth, she seriously considered becoming a nun. It occurred to me that her sister was
going to be absolutely jealous. Perhaps, I thought, I should try to get a second medal.
Taking a chance, I walked the few steps back and asked Mother Teresa for a medal for my
sister-in-law. She smiled, blessed one, and handed it to me. Once again, the warmth of her
presence surrounded me. Then Mother Teresa turned and pointed her hand at the sergeant on
the shelf. "What you do to these men," she told him, "you do to God!"
Now I wear Mother Teresa's medal every day. . . . It continues to lend me strength in my
darkest moments." --by Michael Wayne Hunter, Published in: The
Catholic Digest and Prison Life.
Michael Wayne Hunter was a person who was a very needy person. He had made many bad
choices and had committed murder, for which he was sentenced to die. In out text we are
presented with a leper coming to Jesus. Lepers were outcasts of society. Not understanding
leprosy or how to treat it, people were cast out to protect everyone else. They had to
stay away from others and yell out "Unclean" if any one got near them. This
leper was a needy person. He had heard of Jesus healing and caring for people, and he was
faced with a choice, "What do I do? Shall I break the rules and go to Jesus?" He
chooses to go to Jesus and he says to Jesus, "If you choose, you can make me
clean."
Jesus is also faced with a choice. He knows that He as been sent to do the will of His
Father. In both obedience to the Father's will and out of His own care and compassion for
people, Jesus responds to this man by saying, "I do choose. Be made clean."
Jesus chose to be involved with an outcast. He chose to be involved with hurting people.
Like the leper, the world beyond our doorstep is saying, "I'm needy. I'm an outcast.
Nobody cares or is willing to choose to reach out to me. Where will I go?"
We need a community around us. We need people who care is we live or die, who care if we
hurt or cry. Years ago, when speaker of the house Sam Rayburn heard that he had terminal
cancer, he shocked everyone when he announced that he was going back to his small town in
Bonham, Texas.
Everyone said to him: They have got the finest facilities in Washington, D.C., why go back
to that little town?
Rayburn's words have been quoted so often that some of you have probably heard them. He
said: "Because in Bonham, Texas, they know if you're sick and they care when you die.
We need community."
When people think of me, when they think of you, when they think of us as a church, do
they see us as people who care whether they live or die? Would they want to be near us
because they know they'd be cared for?
There is a story about a New York City policeman investigating a case. Even before he
finished dialing, he somehow knew he'd made a mistake. The phone rang once, twice then
someone picked it up. "You've got the wrong number!" a husky male voice snapped
before the line went dead.
Mystified, the policeman dialed again. "I said you got the wrong number!" came
the voice. Once more the phone clicked down. "How could he possibly know I had the
wrong number?" the policeman asked himself. A cop is trained to be curious and
concerned. So he dialed a third time. "Hey, c'mon," the voice said. "Is
this you again?" "Yea, it's me. I was wondering how you knew I had the wrong
number before I even said anything." "You figure it out!" The phone slammed
down.
He sat there for a while, the receiver hanging loosely in his fingers. He called the man
back. "Did you figure it out yet?" the man asked. "The only thing I can
think of is nobody ever calls you." "You got it!" The phone went dead for
the fourth time.
Chuckling, the officer dialed the man back. "What do you want now?" asked the
man. "I thought I'd call just to say hello." "Hello? Why?"
"Well, if nobody ever calls you, I thought maybe I should." --Dr.
Gary Nicolosi, Sermon: "The Wideness of God's Mercy".
Choices are important. Our choices define us, both for ourselves and for those who know
us. Is there anyone that we should call? Is there anyone that we should reach out to just
because? When Christ was faced with the choice of whether to get involved with this leper
who had been discarded and written off by others, He said, "I do choose." Will
we?
April 25, 2004 Century Christian Church, by Jim
Westmoreland