You Will Not Always Have Me

Message for worship at West Richmond Friends Meeting, 4th of Fifth Month.

Speaker: Nathan Sheets

John 12:1-8

Mary Magdalene ~ He Qi

Good Morning.

I’m Nathan Sheets, and first I want to thank you all for the spirit of welcome you have presented to me and my family.

And, I especially want to thank you for your prayers, notes, and ongoing support in lieu of and after the passing of my dad last month.

Our family has now been attending West Richmond Friends since December of last year, and as I’ve told some of you: there is a special sense of welcome here. I say this having experienced several denominational settings, and countless Catholic parishes including the one I will reference later.

So again. Thank You.

A little about me: I grew up in Richmond about 7 blocks that way, but spent the better part of 13 years in Los Angeles where Rebecca (my spouse and partner) and I met, and where our two children (Johanna and Nico) were born.

We moved to Richmond in December of 2023, and I’ve been working at Earlham in the office of institutional advancement – if you’re an Earlhamite you know me in as much as you open our emails; you know…the ones asking you to give back to the College.

This work is new for me, but as with West Richmond, what has been significant has the sense of support and genuine welcome I have felt at Earlham since starting there about a year ago. And what a wonderful community to support.

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My previous work was much different. For more than 10 years I worked in Los Angeles at an organization called ‘The Center in Hollywood’. The role, and mission, of The Center is to “end isolation and end homelessness” for people who not only happened to be unhoused but specifically for people who have experienced immense trauma, health challenges, and Chronic Isolation.

My discovery of The Center, and more importantly the discovery of a passion to be in relationship with unhoused people on the streets of Hollywood began with an epiphany one sun-soaked day in the early times of me living there..

As I was walking on Sunset or maybe it was Hollywood Boulevard ( I can’t remember which ) I recall passing a person sitting on the sidewalk, holding a sign with something like “ANYTHING Helps”

And I recall feeling such discomfort at interacting with this person, as if to ignore them was a better option in the moment…to avoid the feelings of dread, shame, among other complicated feelings created by witnessing someone at possibly their lowest.

When suddenly the epiphany came (I thought” “If I, someone who had been volunteering at meal service site in downtown, and as someone who genuinely enjoys conversations I’d been having with unhoused people throughout the city…If I am ignoring this person, then I know others most-likely also ignore them…

what does that do to the soul, I wondered, to go constantly unacknowledged by person after person, day after day…what does that do to someone?

The Center, I would discover, was the answer to that question.

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When I was originally to give the message, April 6th, I had picked (from the lectionary for that Sunday) today’s Gospel reading from John.

In the Gospel as Mary Magdalene anoints Jesus’ feet, an interaction ensues wherein Judas contends that the materials Mary is using should have been sold and the resources given to the poor.

At this moment in the Gospel – a perplexing and seemingly conflicting one, and one for me in particular having spent all those years working with some of the poorest people in Los Angeles.

… Jesus rebuffs Judas and says: you will always have the poor but you will not always have me.”

“you will not always have me”

Jesus’ words ECHO, for me, of a great many layers with vast interpretations AND A CALL all directed at, paradoxically, action and stillness simultaneously.

“YOU WILL NOT ALWAYS HAVE ME” suggests, to me the urgency of Jesus’ desire for us, and of the truth in being fully present with each other.

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As I mentioned, I felt inspired to use this Gospel reading on April 6th. However, in lieu of me preparing the message for that week my dad passed on April 3rd.

Echoes of these words: “you will not always have me” rang in my body and being over the last months and weeks with my dad.

In fact, and to steal some words from the eulogy I gave at his memorial:

When my dad started feeling unwell in the summer of 2023, and when my parents Facetimed me to tell me of the diagnosis; the shock, turned to disbelief, to devastating sadness but yielded to the reminder in this very truth Jesus describes in the Gospel, but also to serve as reminder to each of us, toward each other.

“You will not always have me”

“WE WILL NOT ALWAYS HAVE EACH OTHER” – in an age where it harder and harder to be present with each other, my wish and hope is we recognize of the too-short time we have together.

Jesus’ words served also as a reminder of my time with my dad, AND for the purposes of my message today; of our time with each other.

“You will not always have me” is a good reminder of our daily opportunity to adore Jesus the Christ in any variety of worship, prayer, action OR in our interactions as a community.

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Speaking of Community;

In a turn of events that I feel could have only been divinely inspired, I was introduced to The Center by a friend after having had what I have come to see as an epiphany

…witnessing the person asking for help on the street and recognizing what felt like A CALL to disrupt with action the isolation (I am sure) many people experience by being on the margins of our communities.

The Center’s guiding mission is directed NOT at transactional services, or the distribution of meals or socks…it was toward counteracting the very isolation I was certain many unhoused people were experiencing.

Every day we would open a chain link gate, and welcome 40-50 unhoused people into what was once a convent of the Immaculate Heart Community on the campus of Blessed Sacrament parish. Some of you may know the work of the late pop-artist and justice advocate Sister Corita Kent, who was a member of this community.

Our job was to acknowledge, engage, and provide a safe alternative to the streets of Hollywood for the people who came to us each day. Many of the people we got to know had been on the streets for decades; victims of broken foster care systems, incarceration, family neglect or rejection OR in recent years, victims of an-increasingly expensive rental market.

Using whatever creative talents we had, we would facilitate discussions, do communal art projects, or (as Rebecca did during her time there), listen to old-time radio shows before discussing them.

All to facilitate conversation, build community and trust, and (ultimately) to disrupt chronic loneliness and isolation.

In a way, you could say, we were acknowledging and recognizing not only the equal dignity we shared but also the truth (again) of Jesus’ message, and of what the great liberation theologians and our dear Pope Francis’ preached of the “preferential option for the poor and marginalized” and of the importance of relationship

We acknowledged this truth of God’s closeness to the poor by being in community, and stewarding relationships with people who had little to no support.

We were doing the opposite of taking each other for granted.

“You will not always have me”

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After moving back to Richmond my perspectives are different than when I left all those years ago

I gave many tours of The Center especially after I was tapped to the be the organization’s second executive director in late 2015.

On the tours to describe the significance of our goals I would note on the topic of “The community we take for granted”

We all have family, friends, fellow members of our congregation and countless contacts for whom we could most-likely rely on when things might take a turn.

So much so, we likely take for granted these relationships.

The people who came to The Center, I would say…do NOT have the privilege to take for granted people upon whom they can rely.

We worked to provide as a substitute that community support, knowing of the transformational power of relationship.

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As I’ve been re-introduced to Richmond, I realize the growing and desperate need that exists here as well.

Our economy, and downright cruel public policy have led to brutal conditions for the city’s poorest children and families.

As I’ve joined community conversations, I’ve been witness to learning of not only the cold dwellings heated by stoves in the dead of winter on the city’s North and Southsides, but also to the marginalization and exploitation of Richmond’s poorest people by cruel landlords and neglectful public officials.

Children and families bounce from one poorly maintained dwelling to another, while nearly 40 percent of our neighbors live at or below the poverty line – even more living unacknowledged, isolated and pushed to the margins in our own city of Richmond.

What is our call in this as a community as we consider Jesus’ words for us today?

What can we, as a collective do to respond and do so knowing of the gift we have in each other, and of the people in our community who may need us?

I pray we take a little extra time to consider our neighbors; housed and unhoused, seeking also NOT to take our relationships for granted, but to acknowledge Jesus in each other and (as I said) of the

Too-short time we have together.

“You WILL NOT ALWAYS HAVE ME.”

Amen.