Recovery Sunday: Amazing Grace - By Mr. Fred Faulkner, Program Director, The Open Hearth
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Recovery Sunday: Amazing Grace
A Sermon by Mr. Fred Faulkner
Trinity Episcopal Church, Hartford, Connecticut
Sunday ,January 28, 2018
I want to start out by expressing my sincere thanks to the staff and members of Trinity for the very warm welcome that you have extended Janice and I. Trinity has a strong and positive reputation in the church and secular communities. I have wanted to be a part of the Trinity community for a long while. You see I believe that the church, the parish, is the place where members of the Jesus movement come to organize, energize and revitalize in order to go out into the world and do the work of Jesus. The church is not the place where the work of Jesus is done. Unless, of course you invite the world into your church. Trinity is a model on both counts. The boundary between the world and the church that exists in many places is not here at Trinity. Trinity both goes out to the community of need and brings that community in. I want to be a part of that. I am so very happy to say that Janice and I are going to be a part of the Trinity Hartford branch of the Jesus movement.
Last week Father Don came to visit me at my house in the Coltsville section of Hartford. My house is called The Open Hearth. 110 men live in my house and 35 staff work there.
Most of the men in my house are alcoholics, drug addicts or chronically mentally ill. Their legal status includes legal incarceration, parole, probation, and jail diversion. Many of them have never committed a crime but most have. Their convictions range from petty larceny to murder but the vast majority of their crimes are drug and alcohol related. I am proud to say that the backgrounds of the staff reflect the backgrounds of the residents.
The Open Hearth is the last stop for many of the men in the programs. They have lived on the fringes of society their whole lives. You will find men at The Open Hearth who are 50 years old and have never had a real job. Men live at The Open Hearth who are 30 years old and have never completed a full year outside of a prison as an adult. I have brothers at the Open Hearth who went from foster care to mental hospitals to living under bridges. Men live at the Open Hearth that havw no recollection of clean and sober days until they arrived at the Open Hearth.
There is pain, guilt, remorse, anger and frustration at The Open Hearth. But there is something else at The Open Hearth. There is hope, there is joy, there is success, there is freedom, there is relief, there is a sense of caring and belonging.
I haven’t had a chance to talk with Father Don since his visit. I haven’t asked him to share with me his impressions. I don’t know what he walked away with. But I hope he saw a little of what I see on a daily basis. In the midst of the pain I hope he saw relief. In the midst of the anger I hope he got a sense of men taking responsibility for their actions. I hope he saw men asking for help and I hope he understands what a huge accomplishment that is.
People see or hear about what I do and often they are impressed. They congratulate me on doing such admirable and difficult work. But they don’t understand. I thank God on a daily basis for giving me the opportunity to serve him at The Open Hearth. There is no place on the planet that I would rather be on a daily basis than the Open Hearth. I spent my entire adult life preparing to serve God by serving his people who live on the edges. They are me and I am them.
So let me properly introduce myself to you.
My brothers and sisters in Christ I want to tell you that my name is Fred and I am an Alcoholic. My name is Fred and I am an alcoholic. It is important that you know that about me but it is even more important that I remember it about myself. You see I am also a husband, a father, a brother, a counselor but none of those things are as important as my declaration that I am an alcoholic. Because you see if I forget that I will not be able to function as any of those other things.
And as an alcoholic I know pain, I know depression, I know guilt. Many a night my prayer was that God take me that night, that I not wake up in the morning. That the pain of my death to my family would be less than the pain of my living. There were times that I thought that I wasn’t even good enough to end it all. I was guilty that my love of the bottle was greater than the love of my children.
And somebody within the sound of my voice understands what I am talking about. Whether it be alcoholism, drug addiction, or other forms of mental illness there are people in this room that know what I am talking about. They know what I am talking about because they have the disease or love somebody who does.
Somebody here knows about depression so deep, so pervasive that it actually physically hurts and you lack the energy to get out of bed for days at a time. Somebody here knows about addiction so strong that feeding your addiction is more important than feeding your hungry baby. Somebody here knows about fighting off the voices in your head that you know are not real and losing that fight and they become more real and more powerful than any voices outside of you. Somebody in this church knows somebody whose emotional pain was so deep, so intense that they cut themselves and inflicted physical pain on themselves to distract from the emotional pain.
And all of these illnesses make the victims unable to fulfill their basic responsibilities to their families and to society. And unlike other diseases the symptoms of these diseases engender rejection and anger in others rather than understanding and caring. When was the last time you sent a get well card to somebody in active addiction? And unlike other diseases victims of mental illness will blame themselves for having the disease. And because we blame ourselves we do not feel worthy of restoration. We do not come to God because we do not feel worthy of the love of god. Our sins are too great. There is a sense that we deserve to be punished. Our guilt and self-loathing is pervasive.
But Jesus said
“He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."
God sent his son here for us, for we who are captive to our addictions. We who are blinded by our diseases. We who are oppressed by a system that is too quick to treat mental illness as a crime.
But my brothers and sisters let me tell you something. Jesus came here because of our sins not in spite of them. Jesus came here for us who suffer. Jesus walked amongst the lepers and he cast out demons and at no time did he blame the victims for their disease. For Jesus it was the disease that was rejected not the victim of the disease. Jesus didn’t suffer on the cross for the righteous. Jesus spent his time engaging with the very people that many so called Christians try to avoid. Jesus spent his time with us, us who live on the edges of society. I heard Jesus say
Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."
The message is clear from Jesus . Come to me with your burdens, we will do this together. Coming to Jesus does not mean the work ends. Recovery work, particularly in the early days is probably the most difficult work you will ever do. But if you join us, if you join the people of Jesus who are in recovery you will find rest from your work. Your burden will be lighter because we will carry it together. Learn from us, be with us, the people of Jesus in recovery.
I stand before you today a grateful man. I am not grateful in spite of all the pain I endured. I am grateful for the pain I endured. Because it is because of that pain that I am the man I am today and I am happy with the man I am today. It is because of my suffering that I can serve my God through his people the way I do. It is because of the life that I lived that I can say to a homeless destitute mentally ill alcoholic that change is possible and have him believe me. It is because of my history that I can offer men the opportunity to change their lives. It is because of my experiences that I can talk about the love of Jesus the way I do.
One of the reasons our staff at the Open Hearth reflects the clients is because at The Open Hearth we not only teach that recovery is possible we show it. We live it. Because of my experiences I can model recovery -- I don’t just have to talk it. I thank God for that privilege, a privilege that comes only because of my experience.
I stand here and disclose to you my disease and my recovery because I want you to know that long term recovery is possible, it is doable. It is not to portray myself as exceptional because of what I have overcome. It is exactly the opposite. I want you to know that if this garden variety gutter alcoholic can stop using so can you. 16 years ago I was unemployed and unemployable. I stand before you today an employed man. 16 years ago my health was marginal at best. I stand before you today in the best health of my adult life. At 65 I am living and pursuing dreams that I never thought possible.
But let me be clear about something. While I consider it my right to disclose my recovery status I am very clear that I do not have the right to disclose others. There is clearly a movement in recovery to depart from the traditional guidelines regarding anonymity. I am part of that movement. But I strongly believe that each of us has the right to make that decision for ourselves. To my brothers and sisters out there that I know from the rooms do not be concerned. I will maintain the spirit of anonymity.
I’ll be done in just a few minutes but first I want to talk about something that at one point I wasn’t aware of, that I didn’t believe in, that I didn’t accept and to this day I don’t truly understand. I want to talk about grace.
Archbishop Justin Welby said, “Grace is the most beautiful word in the language of God. It means love given freely and without the expectation of return. “
Rick Warren said, “In God’s garden of grace even a broken tree can bear fruit. “
Tim Keller said, “The more you see your own flaws and sins, the more precious, electrifying and amazing God’s grace appears to you. “
But what then is grace? I think grace is a gift from God. I think grace is God giving us something that we have done nothing to deserve. The granting of grace is counterintuitive. Many of us who have suffered from mental illness have lived lives that we think are worthy of punishment. But grace grants us peace and rewards despite our sins and irresponsible life styles.
God is not a vengeful punishing God but a loving, caring and forgiving God. That is Jesus’ message to us and that is my message to you.
For a Christian to maintain a healthy recovery an acceptance of the pervasive existence of grace is essential. Without it we get caught up in a vicious cycle. You see we become consumed by guilt which translates into feeling not worthy of God’s love which leads us to desperation which leads us back to active addiction. Without an acceptance of grace we can’t get beyond the feelings of self-loathing.
I’m here to tell you the road to sustained recovery is not easy. It requires work, hard work and in many ways the work never ends. But take my yoke upon you and I’ll take yours. Together each of our loads will be lighter.
You see God understands that our conditions are diseases. We didn’t ask for them. No schizophrenic saw schizophrenia as their life’s goal. When as a child, I was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I never said I wanted to be an alcoholic. You should feel no more guilty for having depression than a diabetic feels guilty for having diabetes.
Trust me God loves you and understands you. Jesus came here for you. He suffered and died for you.
So today I am going to finish my first sermon at Trinity Church by telling you about something that I accept but don’t understand. But really there’s nothing new or different about that concept. I have no understanding of how electricity works but when I flip the light switch I expect and accept that the light will come on. I don’t understand the maternal instinct but you won’t see me getting in between a mother bear and her cub.
I can’t explain grace but I know what it is and I accept it. It is that phenomenon that tells us that God loves us no matter our sins. Grace is that sense that God has forgiven me so I can forgive myself. It is the knowledge that in the throes of my addiction I rejected God out of a sense of anger, defensiveness and shame but God never rejected me. Grace tells me that I am worthy to be called a child of God and treated that way. Grace tells me to learn from the past but not get stuck in it. Grace tells me that no matter what I have done, I am still a child of God and that as a child of God I deserve recovery, dignity, and respect. Grace tells me that it is not by works that I will be saved and inherit the kingdom, it is by faith. Faith in a loving, caring and forgiving God. Amen.