Overcoming Barriers

Ninth Sunday After Pentecost A
The Rev. Eric LeBrocq
St. John’s, Sealy
August 14, 2011

Barriers are impediments we must overcome.  Sometimes others place the barriers in front of us and sometimes we create them for ourselves and for others.
 
My Grandmother LeBrocq “got off the boat” in New York Harbor in 1913, with my father and a governess, to live in the United States with my Grandfather, who was selling a breeding herd of milk cows to a gentleman farmer in Pennsylvania. She did not go through Ellis Island like so many other immigrants such as the Irish, Polish, Slovakians, Greek and Italians.

Yet, during those early days in Pennsylvania I can only imagine what was said behind their backs, “Who do they think they are”?; “Speaking like uppity-ups”; “Wearing clothes far above their status”; “They have no money”; “Fred only tends to cattle for rich Mr. Cooper, the gentleman farm owner”. And those that knew Grandmother saw her cut her large, formal, linen napkins into four pieces; and pack her eloquent silver because there were no longer formal dinners or any need for such luxuries in her new life. There were no luxuries for the remaining 53 years of her life. The LeBrocq’s were immigrants; and Anglicans. Not Americans, Lutherans or Congregationalist in the Dutch-German community.

Mike Prislosky was born in the United States of Slovakian parents who came here in approximately 1900. Mike’s parents were poor “dirt farmers” who lived in a little community called “Slovak”. They were Greek Orthodox Christians, and spoke little English. When Mike’s mother was dying, in Slovak, the Greek Orthodox Church had closed because the congregation could no longer afford a priest. Mike’s mother still did not speak English, and I assure you, Mike was difficult to understand. 

Several ministers and priests in the area were asked to dress in their “best clerical robes” and administer final rites to Mike’s mother. All but one refused, because Mike’s mother was a non-English speaking immigrant who was not Protestant or Roman Catholic. I am proud to tell you that the area Episcopal priest did exactly what Mike asked, went to the small home in Slovak, and in his best seminary Latin administered the Church’s Last Rites. Mrs. Prislosky did not understand a word of Latin, but Mike said she just smiled, held her cross close and died. The Prislosky’s were “dirt farmers” from Slovak who could not speak English.

And then there was a Canaanite Woman with a sick daughter. A woman, an outcast from the society of her day: A Gentile. A woman who begged Christ to heal her daughter. A woman considered lower than the dogs of the house. A woman who believed Christ was “Lord and Son of David”, meaning he was the Messiah. She was not even one of the “lost sheep of the house of Israel”; the strayed Jews Christ said he came to save.

Yet, the Canaanite Woman would not be deterred. She truly believed Christ was the Messiah, even if she was an unworthy Gentile. She was a woman of faith. Christ recognized her faith and said, “Woman, great is your faith”.

This week I was with a group of men going to lunch when we passed the Houston AID’s Headquarters where a long line of men were waiting to receive their medication and some assistance. Two in the car commented on these men and said “Look what my money is being used for. I wouldn’t vote to give them any assistance”.

A few blocks further a car, driven by a woman, cut us off, and again one of the men said, “Just what you can expect from a woman driver. They should be taken off the road”. Others laughed.

And yet a few blocks more, and a man was “panhandling” on the side of the road. One of the group said, “We should send them all back to Mexico or wherever they came from. I am tired of paying for these beggars”.

And, lastly, one of the men said he resented all the attention being given to the starvation and death in Africa. He saw no need in trying to help these people, “What did they ever do for us”.

All of the above occurred during a one mile trip in Houston.

Barriers and prejudice existed 2000 years ago, 100 years ago, and they still exist today. The story of the Canaanite Woman is as applicable to us today as it was to those 2000 years ago.

Prejudice comes in many forms. It can be racial, economic, physical, geographical, gender; and, yes, religious. Prejudice can cause us to ignore people who are not like us. Remember, some sit, some stand, some kneel and some shout out, “Praise the Lord”; but, all can love God.

Let’s remember that when the Kingdom truly comes all prejudices will be pushed aside.

We need to examine our faith if we are to overcome barriers and receive wholeness. We need to believe the word written in the Bible.

No human barrier can stand before God, or before those who call on his name in faith.

We are all immigrants to Christianity, for we were first something else, and then by faith believed in the Risen Christ.

Let us pray: Forgiving Father, we thank you for St. John’s Episcopal Church and its members, the Body of Jesus Christ, whose Mission is to be a loving community of faith and worship, showing the love of God to each other and the world.

Amen