Doing hard things with the Holy Spirit’s help, by Bishop Caryle Hughes

Download this printable PDF with highlights from The VOICE Online to share with visitors, and with parishioners who are not online.
This Pentecost season, Bishop Hughes reflects on the Holy Spirit’s power to help us do hard things – including standing alongside neighbors whose humanity is too often denied. (Time: 6:17.)

Video Transcript

This is Bishop Hughes in the Diocese of Newark, and I want to talk with you about doing hard things. In part, what’s on my mind is the fact that we just celebrated the feast of the Pentecost, and I think it had to have been a very hard thing to be the disciples, to have Jesus leave, him telling you to go out into all the world, telling this great new lesson, sharing the good news of who God is all over the world, and saying that the Holy Spirit is going to come and help you make that happen. That that had to feel really hard to be left with all of that, and yet the Holy Spirit came and empowered them, and they were able to go out and do those things.
And friends, I want to say to all of us that the Holy Spirit comes right now and empowers us and fills us and sends us out to do hard things, and I think one of the hardest things that we have to deal with right now is the dehumanization of so many people, all represented in that one little word, “illegal.” It’s a dehumanizing word, and it’s used to dehumanize. When you hear it used, you hear people using it in such a way as it seems that it’s almost like it’s a person’s name. That that person doesn’t have a name anymore, they didn’t have a family, they don’t have hopes, they don’t have dreams, they don’t have needs, that they’re no longer human, they’re simply illegal.
When we hear that, what we should hear is the full intention of dehumanization. It’s not the first word that’s been used to dehumanize in this country, and the United States is not the only place that has used language to dehumanize people. First, you dehumanize someone by using that language and using it so completely that people stop thinking of those folks as people, and so it’s okay to do whatever you want with them or to them. And it can feel, as you resist that behavior, it can feel like you’re on your own and you’re the only one. And how do you argue against that when it seems that the most powerful have taken up all the airspace using that language, and then also taking the actions that are dehumanizing.
So, to say that a whole group is illegal, and to then start detaining people, whether they’re documented or not, to call them illegal, whether they’re documented or not, to remove their legal rights, whether they’re documented or not, which in our country it’s been one of the kind of the pride and joys of our country is that we treat all people with dignity and with a rule of law and with an orderliness that whether they’ve broken the law or not, we don’t change. That we continue to treat them with that level of respect.
So, what do we do? One of the things that we do in our diocese that is simple and hard is we get ourselves to the detention center, Delaney Hall in Newark. We are a regular presence there on the first and fourth Sundays of the month, go in the afternoon, people from all sorts of churches. Not always the same people, there’s a core group that’s there, but different people come as they have the time and the ability to come and ours is a pastoral prayerful presence there. We pray with people, we listen to what’s happening in their lives. We recognize that often it is the breadwinner, whether they are documented or undocumented, it’s the breadwinner who’s detained, and if they have the right to be in this country, they may have lost their job by the time they’re finally released, because sometimes detention goes on and on and on.
So, we’re there to help people get food, to get diapers, I mean, simple basic things. We’re not the only ones there, and it’s not just faith traditions that are there. There are people who believe in no god at all, but who believe that people should be treated humanely, who are there to support folks. And for us, from our perspective as Episcopalians, who hold that Baptismal Covenant in a central place, because at its very heart is the greatest commandment. That every promise in the Baptismal Covenant reflects back to Jesus saying, “Love God with all your heart, mind, and soul, and then love your neighbor as you love yourself.”
At the heart of resisting dehumanization for us, what makes us able to go to such a hard place and stand with people in such a hard time is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit who propels us forward, who gives us the willingness, who gives us the ability, who gives us the right words, who protects us while we’re there. The Holy Spirit that helps us to do hard things.
This is just one example of hard things, and it’s one example of dehumanization, because here is the thing with dehumanization: it may start with one group, but it continues to spread. It moves along, and it grows, more and more people will be treated inhumanely and without dignity. But, all along the way, there will be people who hear the sound of the spirit’s voice, who feel the hope that God has put within them, who know that Jesus is leading them to something different. There will be people who go forward propelled by the power of the Spirit to love God’s people, especially those who have been dehumanized.
Now go and do what you’re called to do.