Fifth Sunday in Lent March 29, 2009 Lenten Voice of Transformation #5: “A Second Chance” Lynda Sloan, Certified Lay Speaker John 12: 20-26

It’s spring and all the flowers are budding. I love the springtime and the fact that Easter occurs in the spring. New life is evident everywhere: the trees that were bare all winter are now clothed in various shades of green. Pink and yellow and purple and red flowers sprout all around. The air seems fresh and clean-washed with the vernal rains. The earth teems with promise. It’s the right time for a second chance in life.

We all need a second chance now and then. Jesus gave his life teaching us about second chances and the fact that we celebrate Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection is proof that he knew what he was talking about. Today’s gospel lesson is a promise that we can start over if we choose to when our lives don’t go the way we planned.

“…I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” Jesus told us time and again that if we have faith, God will give us what we need. We become like the grain of wheat that dies if we turn inward and do not let God into our hearts. If we never reach out to others in love and caring, we become like the stone. But when we open ourselves to the possibility that we are the seed that will grow, we can be transformed into the rose or the tulip or the oak tree we want to be.

Jesus died with the expectation that his work could and would go on. He planted the seeds of faith that transform us from unbelievers into expectant followers. We willingly give of ourselves and reach out to others because Jesus taught us that is the way to live.

Walter Wangerin is the author of several novels and short story collections. He has been a university professor, radio announcer, and been pastor of an inner-city church. His first novel, The Book of the Dun Cow, won national awards. In his short story “Ragman”, the narrator describes a day of following a ragman around his city. The ragman is surprising: six-feet-four with arms like tree limbs, eyes flashing with intelligence. Not what you’d expect a ragman to look like.

As he makes his rounds the ragman encounters a woman sobbing into a handkerchief. She is surrounded by tin cans, dead toys and Pampers. He gently tells the woman to give him her rag and he will give her another. They make the trade and the ragman then puts the woman’s rag to his face and he begins to weep, while she is left without a tear.

At the next stop, the ragman comes upon a girl whose head is wrapped in a bloodied bandage, blood running down her cheek. The ragman offers her a yellow bonnet and takes the bloodied bandage, tying it to his own head, which then begins to bleed.

During two more stops the ragman gives a jacket to a one-armed man who has no job and takes the jacket the man was wearing. When the one-armed man puts on the jacket, he has two good arms, but the ragman now only has one. At the next stop the ragman leaves new clothes for a sleeping drunk and wraps the drunk’s dirty blanket around himself.

At the last stop the ragman comes to a landfill where he wearily climbs a hill and lies down and dies, still wearing the items he took in return for what he gave. The narrator, devastated by this turn of events, cries himself to sleep and sleeps through two days and nights. When he wakes it is Sunday. He sees the Ragman restored and whole, putting away the blanket. The narrator says he approaches the Ragman and, “I told him my name with shame, for I was a sorry figure next to him. Then I took off all my clothes in that place, and I said to him with dear yearning in my voice: ‘Dress me.’

“He dressed me. My Lord, he put new rags on me….”

Our Lord can put new rags on us too.

New rags arrive or blooming flowers sprout in surprising places. In the April issue of Toastmaster magazine, I read an article about how some homeless men in Atlanta, Georgia, are receiving a second chance. Clifton Sanctuary Ministries operates a homeless shelter out of a church. It provides year-round overnight and transitional housing, caring for 30 men a day. The Clifton Toastmasters meet at this shelter and several members of this Toastmasters club are residents of the shelter.

Toastmasters International is an organization that was founded in 1924 by a group of businessmen who wanted to improve their communication and leadership skills. From an initial group of about 10 or 15 men, this organization has bloomed to over 350,000 members worldwide by nurturing and mentoring other men, and since the 1970s, women who want to become more effective communicators and leaders.

The Clifton Toastmasters club was started by a Toastmaster who volunteered at the shelter and thought the club would be good for the residents’ self-esteem and help them in the world. In this article several of the residents related their success stories – second chances – they have achieved as a result of their Toastmasters experience.

Kevin is a photographer who was once a paralegal. He says he found himself homeless and seeking help at the Sanctuary. He had realized that after several years of living off the gratuity of others that “it was time to grow up and learn to take care of myself.” He had done a lot of soul-searching and Toastmasters was a vital part of his self-discovery. As a result, during a Table Topics session he “realized it was time to come clean and confess my sins.” When he did, he found that members acknowledged hearing him. He went on to win a club contest. My guess is that he will win a lot more than contests because of his reformation.

Part of the mission of Toastmasters is to mentor other members while they achieve their successes. Kevin must have been feeling that nurturing to feel comfortable enough to share what was on his mind.

Edward is another member of the Clifton Toastmasters who got a second chance. He grew up in the neighborhood where the Sanctuary is located and used to play basketball in the church’s parking lot. He battled addiction for 23 years and when he was separated from his wife, he went to Clifton Sanctuary where he started in Toastmasters a week later. He has been inspired to make a difference and is thinking of going into ministry. No doubt he will plant a few seeds to help others thrive and grow.

The places where seeds are planted and thrive may be surprising. Even a desert can bloom when the right amount of rain comes. The harvest from fertile land will be rich when the cultivation is done with careful attention and the crop is nourished with the right kind of food. Jesus has told us how to get that nutrition and what to do if we miss something.

We all make mistakes and sometimes have to start over from scratch. I had an opportunity recently to be the chief judge at a speech contest at the Oregon State Penitentiary Toastmasters club. Following the contest other Toastmasters from “the outside” and I had time to visit with some of the inmate members. Two of them are due to be released from prison this summer, and both expressed how grateful they were for their Toastmasters experience. They plan to use the skills they learned to build new lives when they get out. They have outside contacts that are helping them find jobs, housing and social supports that will enable them to be successful and not return to prison. Thank God for second chances – and third, fourth or fifth chances when we need them. God doesn’t see us as disasters if we are willing to keep the faith.

The psalmist was feeling the pain of his sins when he asked God to heal his pain. His soul was sin-sick and he knew he had committed many wrongs. He needed relief from the gnawing on his insides and asked to be re-made. We can feel physical pain when our souls are under-nourished and ill-tended. But Jesus promised that the living water and the bread of life would be given to us if we ask God for it.

In the “Hymn of Promise” we sing the words “…there’s a dawn in every darkness, bringing hope to you and me./From the past will come the future; what it holds, a mystery,/unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.” Sometimes out of mistakes, wounded souls, broken hearts, failed businesses or financial reverses can come the opportunity to find the true life we were meant to have.

Whether we are young or old, self-taught or highly educated, rich or poor, genius or average intelligence, we have gifts that can be employed to ensure that anyone who wants new life can get it. God gives us the tools we need if we ask for them, and God will be with us to keep us from failing if we trust that it will be so. The spring that waits to be revealed will be shown to us when we believe.

In springtime new life is forming and reforming. In Easter we have the promise of renewed life – a second chance. It only takes a spark to get a fire burning; it only takes a seed to grow an apple tree. It only takes asking to have renewed life. What are we waiting for? A second chance?