Domes - Our Monthly Newsletter
Dunbar UCC
Ash Wednesday
February 6, 2008
Romans 7:14-34
Luke 18:9-13
The House of the Rising Sun
- When the prophet Isaiah had his vision in the Jerusalem temple, he saw God sitting on a throne -- high and lifted up. He said, “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”
- Last week, I also had a vision of God. But I wasn’t sitting in any temple
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I wasn’t sitting in here. When I saw God, I was sitting in a place that had a sign over the door that said: The House of the Rising Sun. It was filled with men and women, and there were children in there, boys and girls, even infants. I saw my daughters, Maria and Annie. Some people were dressed in fancy clothing, and some just had rags and were dirty. People were selling drugs, and taking them. There was heroine, cocaine, crack. Old men smoked opium, and their wives and mistresses filed their nails and ate painkillers like they were m&m’s: oxycontin, valium, perkaset. Some people had others tied up and they were doing terrible things to them -- so the tied-up people were screaming. But even though the agony was happening right there -- everyone else just walked by like nothing was happening. People were deaf and blind to everything except whatever it was they were doing. - And I looked around this place -- this House of the Rising Sun -- and I realized -- it was my home. And I turned to God, who was standing next to me, wearing jeans and a t-shirt. And I said to him, “Jesus, I am blind and deaf to the pain of other people. And I live in a world with others who are also blind and deaf to the pain of other people. And we are all here living together in the house of the rising sun. Please forgive me; please have mercy on us.”
- Jesus said, “I forgive you.” Then he spit on my eyes and put his hands over my ears, and removed them, and said: “Now I will let you see how other people are suffering. You will see their pain, and you will hear their cries. It’s going to cut your heart to shreds, and you won’t sleep well any more. Go now -- you are healed.”
- I said, “But wait -- what should I do about all this suffering. I don’t want to see this. I don’t want to hear all this pain. I can’t even stand to see it now in my enemies. What do you want me to do about this?” But Jesus just put his hand on my face, and looked at me. And then he was gone.