May these words be in the name of the One God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
On behalf of the National Episcopal AIDS Coalition, I want to thank Holy Trinity Church, your clergy and your HIV/AIDS Ministry, especially Terry Fleming, for inviting me to speak here during your commemoration of World AIDS Day. We want especially to thank this congregation for your HIV/AIDS Ministry. Unfortunately, in many places, congregational HIV/AIDS ministries have become almost extinct. So this ministry continues as a model and encouragement for other places throughout the Episcopal Church. Your HIV/AIDS ministry is a story we should tell.
I am glad to be here on Christ the King Sunday, a day when we think of endings—the end of the liturgical year, bringing us full-cycle through the story of Jesus birth, death, resurrection and ascension.
Our Gospel reading today is about the ending of Jesus’ life and it recounts mid-day on Golgotha. Three men, including Jesus, are being executed by Rome as enemies of the state, possibly as guerrilla terrorists. One mocks Jesus and defies him to save himself if he is truly God’s Son. The other, acknowledging Jesus’ innocence, pleads: “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
Jesus, remember me.
At the threshold of his own death, that criminal reveals a feeling that is almost universal: The hope that somehow, someplace we will not be forgotten but remembered. This is why grandparents set aside things—a set of china, an heirloom picture, a wedding dress—saying “I wanted you to have this as something to remember me by.”
Remembrance is not something that we take for granted in our culture. We like the term “move on” and for some persons it represents a core value. We move on from sets of friends to new sets of friends. We move on from our own family histories, barely remembering individuals whose DNA we share, even after a generation or two. We move from house to house, state to state, school to school, church to church, election to election, job to job in ways that would have astounded our ancestors. And maybe because of all this “moving on” we feel even more acutely the yearning to be remembered ourselves.
Sometimes when we move on quickly, we leave entire categories of people behind. In our forgetfulness, they end up erased, invisible, deleted. These are not the celebrities or the rich and powerful. More often, they are the losers, the poor, the marginalized, individuals living on the edge. I live on a street named “Tecumseh” in Indianapolis but I have yet to meet one single person after five years who is able to tell me who that great Shawnee chief was. The contemporary poet, Lucille Clifton, visited the Walnut Grove Plantation in South Carolina in 1989 and found that no one mentioned the slaves who did the manual labor there. She wrote: “Tell me your names foremothers, brothers, tell me your dishonored names.”
So, today I want to remember my friend Jesse Collins Jr. Jesse was born in 1943. He spent his entire life in Indianapolis where he was one of the few African American students in the Herron School of Art. He majored in visual arts and then went on to a master’s degree at the famous Pratt Institute in New York City. He taught but mainly he painted most of the time. When I visited his tiny apartment, the paintings were piled up all over the place. They were luminous portrayals with dreamy names like “Night Train to Georgia” sometimes in blues and silvers, purples and golds. Other times he experimented with kende cloth and created bold, Afro-centric pictures with geometric shapes and bright colors.
Jesse was HIV positive. He told me this when I first met him. He told me that his family did not want to know about his status. But even though he was a little too thin and sometimes seemed to lack energy, I never thought much about him as having the virus. He and his paintings pulsated with life.
In fall of 1998, Jesse started visiting Wishard Hospital in Indianapolis for overnights, then two nights and then full weeks. Even in those days he was in such good spirits. I would visit him and roll his wheel chair outside and into the sun. He closed his eyes and let the warmth soak in for a long time.
In November of 1998 Jesse was in the hospital again and I visited. Now he was connected to lots of tubes and machines. His eyes were wide open and they looked afraid. I rubbed his hands. I prayed. I sat silently. Now it was clear: Jesse had moved from HIV status to having full blown AIDS.
One Friday I visited Jesse and he was sitting up in his bed. He had a tray with a notepad and pencil on it. A couple of the many tubes had been pulled. He wrote: “ I want to tell you something . . . .” At that moment the nurses entered and told me that I had to leave because he would be bathing. I said goodbye as he just looked at me sadly leaving the room.
That weekend I traveled on business to Cleveland. When I got back, I called the hospital to get a status report on Jesse. The operator told me that there was not a patient in the hospital by that name. After an awkward pause, she put me on hold. “I’m sorry, sir, but Mr. Collins died here on Saturday.” By the time I got to the mortuary where he had been taken on Monday, he had already been buried. No funeral. No memorial service. For whatever reasons, Jesse’s family did not want to remember him and his virus. He died of AIDS by himself and was quickly put in the ground. I am haunted to this day by what Jesse wanted to tell me. Was it that he knew he was dying? Did he want me to express a word of comfort? Did he want to express fear?
How do we honor Jesse and the 35 million individuals worldwide who have died of AIDS since 1981? We honor them by remembering them. The wisdom of those working with HIV/AIDS has been to focus on the AIDS Quilt. And I am so thrilled that you have a panel of this quilt here today. With more than 40,000 panels this quilt—the largest quilt ever—honors persons who died of AIDS. Listen to what one of the persons who contributed a panel had to say: “I made this AIDS quilt patch for my aunt Gloria and my cousin Linnette. They needed to be remembered in a dignified way, not in somebodies whispers. For a long time I never heard of their names ever being mentioned in the household since their deaths. And it’s kind of hard ignoring the memories of one of your aunts and one of your cousins. They both were very special people and I thought somebody should show that their deaths meant something, that they did not die in vain. I wanted to show that there are people behind the numbers that were loved and cared about.”
Who is it that you remember on World AIDS Day?
What is it we do when we remember our friends or relatives , Aunt Gloria and cousin Linnette and my friend Jesse? We incorporate them again into the whole human community. We re-member them and welcome them back into our lives, even if they have died and are no longer amongst us. By remembering them we practice a kind of holy hospitality. Re-membered and named, they are part of the great community of saints, living and dead.
Today with drugs and new approaches to opportunistic infections, the number of deaths due to AIDS has declined, at least among some populations. Even though HIV status still cannot be reversed or cured, treatment means that many persons who are HIV can live well into old age. Yet, an HIV individual will think long and hard before sharing his or her status with family, neighbors or co-workers. There is still much ignorance and active stigma related to the virus out there. If others know, they can hurt you.
For those of us in the Christian community, re-membrance is a natural part of our life together. Throughout the liturgical year with its many seasons and feasts and commemorations, we are a community of remembrance. We gather at the table with Jesus who admonished that we “do this in re-membrance of me.” At that table we remember Jesus with thanksgiving and, yes, Jesus remembers us.
On this commemoration of World AIDS Day 2010 I am imagining a day—hopefully not so far into the future—when there will be a great global celebration. On that day, there will be an HIV preventive vaccine. The world’s 25 million HIV men, women, children and their families and friends will send up fireworks, balloons, prayers of thanksgiving. They will have parties. Joining them will be all those who were their friends during the long struggle to eradicate HIV/AIDS. Holy Trinity Church will be a part of this celebration. And people will say, “Thank you for remembering, for not forgetting.”
But since we do not have the cure yet, we remember.
Remember me, Jesus.
Amen.
Daniel Hoffman is a member of the board of directors for NEAC.
