It was a pretty good haul.
All in all, they collected one truck tire and rim, two mattresses, one bed spring
(we never did find the bed frame), one electric drill, one car starter, several
credit cards and insurance cards, bundled together, each for a different person,
(they gave those to the State Police), and 28 bags of trash - all that from
just one side of the highway. They were out the fourth Sunday in April, along
196 between mile markers 48 and 51, the roadside of God’s creation Good
Shepherd picks up after.
Some of them have special tools: a mechanical gripper you might otherwise use
to reach a can off a high shelf, or part of a fishing rod sharpened at the end
to poke through paper. Most of them wear gloves, for picking up the occasional
discoveries you can’t mention in polite conversation. They all wear those
day-glow orange net vests, which are actually not as stylish as you might think
- probably because one size really does fit all. They’re out there in
the spring and fall, and for their trouble the church receives a certificate
of appreciation and a tiny sign on the highway; you have to look quick to read
the sign, but it’s there.
When I put aside those pretty pictures of Jesus you see in Christian bookstores
and remember instead the work of Christ, I think he was a lot like our highway
crew. Jesus didn’t wear gloves or an orange vest or use tools, but he
did spend a lot of time walking around, looking for garbage - collecting the
broken people others discarded, sorting through weeds and muck for lives trashed
by love or family or friends or their own sins. Yet there is one big difference
between us. When we see trash we beautify God’s creation by bagging up
garbage for others to haul away. Jesus saw beauty where others saw trash and
breathed into garbage new life.
Each year they pass a cross along the west side of the road; Kay Anne is the
name on it, a sign redeeming a terrible loss. We meet that same cross when we
gather every Sunday, the same cross we make upon our foreheads as we remember
our Baptism, the same cross Jesus carried to his death, the cross that redeems
our broken lives. When we pick up garbage we are in good company - of one who
reminds us that through his death and resurrection, God throws no one away.
Pastor Jim
Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you in good time. 1 Peter 5:6
From the Shepherd's Song Newsletter -- May 2008
Copyright 2008 by Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
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E-mail your comments and questions to Pastor Jim in care of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church at gslc@sirus.com.