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DiggThe Sermon of the Weak
By Nathan Brockman
Her vodka had been confiscated, but Barbara was already drunk. As the memorial service started, she began shouting epithets and curses, punctuated by wails of grief. Two priests, a team of caseworkers, and her fellow clients murmured in concern, slowly attempting a kind, communal censure. When that failed, in a gesture that spoke of support and resignation, Barbara was given the microphone.
This was the scene at John Heuss House’s remembrance of Christina Mercado, a woman people at Trinity’s center for the homeless of Lower Manhattan had known for years. A few days before, Christina had died on a nearby street while sleeping under scaffolding.
“No, she’s not dead. She’s not dead,” was Barbara’s refrain. What came before and after was as blue as it was fantastical — accusations of murder, professions of perfect love, racial judgment. “You black son of a bitch,” she said to a staff member. “You killed her.”
Then the torrent ended. Barbara said “Amen” and put the microphone down.
With Barbara’s last word, it became clear that she had delivered a sermon — one coarse with anguish — but a sermon nonetheless. Her accusations reflected her pain, but they were also symbolic of the gut-wrenching disgust and despair felt by many when a homeless woman dies a stone’s throw from the New York Stock Exchange.
There were other sermons that afternoon, too.
The Rev. Win Peacock, who directs John Heuss House, used the word “community” at least a dozen times during his brief remarks. “We are a community of the marginalized and at times we may think that society has forgotten us,” he said, “but as a community we can celebrate that we are here.”
During the service, some sounds of everyday life at John Heuss House refused to cooperate with solemnity. The telephone rang shrilly. The metal detector buzzed warnings as latecomers arrived. Behind closed doors, a man was shouting very angrily, as though he was about to hit someone or something.
People remembered Christina: she was a best friend, someone who “died in vain,” and who “healed my heart when I was down.” Tyrell Porter, Heuss House’s outreach director, said she was frequently intoxicated, “but had a sense of life about her.” Caseworkers weren’t sure where she was from. They had yet to track down her family.
The vicar of Trinity Church-St. Paul’s Chapel, the Rev. Canon Anne Mallonee, had last been at John Heuss House for karaoke (singing “Stop in the Name of Love”). Before the service, she had planned to speak about God’s love for everyone. Instead she found herself addressing Barbara directly. “With death,” said the vicar, “life is changed, not ended.”
“Bring her back, then, Reverend,” suggested Barbara. “Bring her back.”
Psalm 23 was read, and the Lord’s Prayer was sung. At the end of the service, William, Christina’s longtime companion, who woke up to find her dead, led the room in singing “Amazing Grace.”
The vicar got down on her knees to look into Barbara’s eyes, even as Barbara told her she was a bitch. William sang proudly, hoarsely, in honor of a woman he had loved. Father Peacock’s final blessing encouraged the community to go out to the streets of the world’s financial power center in peace. To go out and — among other things and of all things — serve the weak.
The sermon of the weak of John Heuss House turns the world on its head. Give the one who is acting out the microphone. The dead are not truly dead. The least are the greatest. We are blessed by amazing grace, though we will seek out a shelter of scaffolding on a winter’s night.
Nathan Brockman is the editor of Trinity Church Wall Street’s website and parish publications.
This article appears in the Transformation issue of Trinity News.
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