Sermon 11 - Disaster administration and sin

Sermon 11 - Disaster administration and sin

We had an ESS exercise yesterday.

What's ESS, I hear you say?  Emergency Support Services.  Nowadays.  It used to be Emergency Social Services.  We are the people who, when there is a disaster, make sure everybody (well, as many as we can find) have food, and clothes, and a place to stay, for the immediate aftermath.  We do big disasters, like when four thousand people are displaced from their homes by a wildfire.  We also do small disasters, like when someone is burned out of their apartment.  There are a lot more small disasters, but a disaster is a disaster, for the person it affects.

We had an ESS exercise yesterday.  I'd forgotten how much fun they were.  We put up signs, put out tables, took down some of the signs because we weren't doing those parts, moved the tables around, took some tables away and set the chairs out for a waiting area, and generally made a bunch of mistakes.  Of course, that's the whole point of an exercise.  We make the mistakes during the exercise, so that we make fewer mistakes when we're doing it for real.

We don't want to make mistakes when we are doing it for real, because we are dealing with people who, as we frequently say, are going through the worst experience of their lives.  (And then there's my other volunteer work: for the hospice society.  I must be a really depressing person to talk to about volunteer opportunities.)  You are not going to get an awful lot of thanks out of the people that we are helping.  They are going to complain.  They are going to be impolite.  They are going to be inconsiderate.  That's because they are going through the worst experience of their lives.  They are not going to thank you for the help, they are going to complain that there isn't more help, or the right type of help, or something that they want, but don't actually need.  They're stressed, and they're not thinking clearly.  But you don't do this kind of work, this kind of *volunteer* work, if you are looking for gratitude, thanks, or recognition.

These are my people.  They are there to help.  That is the only reason they are there.  You're not getting paid, you're not getting much recognition, you are working long hours, you were working with people who are extremely stressed, you are not getting thanked.  The only reason anybody volunteers for ESS is because they want to help.

Which is the other reason, besides being able to make dumb mistakes, that it's so much fun to go through an ESS exercise.  These are my people.  They are only there because they want to help people.  When they ask how your week has been, and you say you've had a bad week, they want to know why.  They do actually want to know why you have had a bad week.  They want to know what the problem is.  They want to know how they can help, if they can help.

I am new here.  This is an existing crew.  They have worked together.  I have not worked with them, at least not yet.  We have had a couple of meetings that I've attended, but I am definitely the new one here.  I have less experience, but more training, than just about anybody else on the crew.  But nobody on the crew is jealous that I have more training.  Nobody on the crew is vain about the fact that they have more experience than I do.  They want to know what I have learned in my training that they can use the next time they get called out.  They are willing to share their direct experiences with me, and are even interested in hearing my second hand experiences from other exercises, and other meetings, with other groups.  They want to know, because they are here to help, and anything that can help them be more able to help others is of interest to them.

But I'm not here to talk about helping other people.  I'm here to talk about sin.

Besides putting up signs and moving furniture around, most of what we did in the exercise was filling out forms.  Actually, filling out one particular form.  The registration form.  For those of you, and that includes just about everybody listening to me, who aren't familiar with emergency management and emergency services, this is actually the most important aspect of it: doing the registration.  The registration lets the authorities identify who was affected by the disaster.  It lets the authorities determine how many people were affected by the disaster.  It lets the authorities know who has been recovered from the disaster: who is okay, and who is missing and unaccounted for.  It gives the authorities the ability to determine how much money is allocated to a given disaster, and therefore how much money should be budgeted for future disasters.  It allows the authorities to contact people who have been affected by the disaster and find out whether or not they have recovered at some point in the future.  It also allows families to reconnect and reunite when they may have been dispersed by the disaster.  Or, it allows families who have lost touch with family members, when those family members may have been in the area of a disaster, and find out whether or not they were affected, and whether or not they are safe.  All of this based on one particular registration form.

You begin to see how important this one form is?

The thing is, you can only do all of these things, and many, many more, if the form is filled out correctly.  Have you identified all the members of the family that has been affected?  Have you correctly identified the number of people who are affected?  The ages of the people who are affected, which affects what type of services they may need.  The special needs of any particular member of this party or household.  Is there a special medical condition that needs to be dealt with?  Do they have food?  Do they have clothing?  Do they have toothbrushes, and soap?  Do they have a place to stay?  Are they staying with family or friends?  Are they staying in lodging that is provided by the authorities?

But even before that, is the name spelled correctly?  If we're trying to do family reunification, is the name going to match when we search?  My name is fairly simple.  And yet, when I've given my name, in a restaurant, waiting for a table, and have looked, later on, to see where I am on the waiting list to determine how much longer we might have to wait for a table, the weird and wonderful ways that my name has been spelled would astound you.  Now on a waiting list for a table in a restaurant it doesn't matter very much.  When you're trying to do family reunification, it's absolutely, vitally important.  Particularly if it's not just one family that's been displaced, but hundreds, or even thousands.  So filling out this form, and filling it out properly, is of absolutely, crucially, vital importance.

So, learning how to fill out the registration form, which sounds boring, which sounds not terribly helpful, turns out to be vitally important.  And we practice it every opportunity we get.  We practice checking, and rechecking, to make sure that we have the name correct, we have spelled it correctly, we have the address written down correctly, we have the phone number correct.  And we check and we recheck.  And we even practice, and comment on, our handwriting.  (Mine, like my father's before me, is legendarily terrible.)  Being careful when you're writing down somebody's name.  Using all capital letters.  Using carefully *formed* letters, so that there is no possibility of mistake when someone reads it.

And, even so, we make mistakes.  Our forms are never perfect.

We need to have the information that's perfect as possible.  But as perfect as possible, by definition, isn't perfect

 

We need to; even if we are collating multiple sets of forms, on a sawhorse, in the freezing cold, with your hands cramping both because of the cold and because you are pressing hard enough to make four copies, for multiple clients, none of whom are particularly cooperative, since they are street people, and don't trust the authorities; we need to fill out the forms as accurately as possible, and as clearly as possible, and fill them out correctly, and, even if we don't have particularly good handwriting, we have to ensure that our forms are as legible as possible, so that the suppliers who have agreed to provide food, or clothing, or shelter, or transportation, will trust our forms, and know that they will be reimbursed for providing the supplies to our clients.

We need to know that we fill out the forms correctly, for all of these reasons.  There are consequences, if we don't fill out the forms correctly.  We need to know that everybody gets what they need.  We need to know that the clients get the supplies they need.  We need to know that the vendors get reimbursed.  We need to know that the government can correctly pay all the bills.  Our proper filling out of the forms, provides these services, and ensures that everybody trusts the system, and ensures that it all works properly.  And if we don't fill out the forms correctly, there are consequences to any of our mistakes.

If we make mistakes on the forms, there are consequences.  They are negative consequences.  People don't get paid, or families don't get reunited, or the system breaks down in a variety of ways and people don't trust the system.  And, therefore, people, when it really counts, don't get the help that they need.  So it's important that we fill in the forms correctly.  It's important that we know the correct way to fill in the forms, and it's important that we follow the procedures and filling out the forms, and it's also important that we write legibly, press hard enough to make multiple proper copies, and that everything, absolutely everything, is done properly, and consistently, and we follow the forms in the same way, and put the important information in the right boxes, and that we do that, consistently, the same way, every time we fill out every form, for multiple forms.  Okay, when you first come on to the team this seems silly.  We are there to help people.  Why is it that we concentrate so much on this stupid administrative task of filling out forms?  Well, it's because this is the central part of what we do.  Yes, when people join the team they think about the disasters.  They think about the fires, they think about the floods, they think about the landslides, they think about people being displaced from their homes and the fear and the uncertainty and everything that goes wrong in your life when this kind of a disaster happens.  But, the thing is, that in order to provide the help that we need to provide, and in order to ensure that people get the help that they need, we need to fill out the forms properly.  It seems silly, but it's a fact.  In order to help these people, who are having the worst day of their lives, we have to learn to fill out forms property.  And consistently.  And write legibly, while doing so.  And press hard enough on the forms to make multiple, clear copies.  It's just a fact of life in emergency management.

There are consequences if we don't do it properly.  So we try to do it perfectly.  And, of course, there are all kinds of reasons that we can't do it perfectly, time after time.  You are writing in a hurry, so of course your handwriting is not going to be at its best.  You are writing forms, on the hood of your car, and it's snowing.  So, of course, you're in a hurry and may miss a field on the form.  You are dealing with people who may not be terrifically cooperative because of social or even psychological problems of their own.  You're in a hurry, you're being hassled, you're in a bad environment, so it's unlikely that you will ever actually fill out a completely perfect form.  And yet if it's not perfect, there may be negative consequences.

So you say what does this have to do with sin?  Well, sin is anything less than the proper standard.  God's standard for us.  And the proper standard is perfection.  Be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.  So, sin is simply not being perfect.  And that has consequences.

Falling short of perfection in ESS, as we have seen, has consequences.  Falling short of perfection with regard to God, in terms of sin, also has consequences.  If we sin there are consequences that naturally follow.  When we sin against our neighbors, we damage relationships, and may even eliminate them.  When we sin against others, on larger scale, we may damage our entire society.  If we steal, we damage the wealth and security of everyone around us.  We also damage the trust that is necessary to the relationships that build this society, and the society becomes less trusting, and, likely, less trustworthy.  If we lie, we also betray those trusts, and damage those relationships, and our society.  There are all kinds of consequences to sin.  The most important, of course, is that we are separated from God.

Now, of course, that is the big one.  Separation from God.  And that is the one that God has, in his grace, provided for us, and provided forgiveness, and paid the penalty for our sin.  That is where salvation comes in.  And we are saved from an eternal death, an eternal separation from God.

But, what about those natural consequences?  Those, we still have to live with.  God has forgiven us.  But, if we have sinned against our neighbours, maybe they aren't quite so gracious, and quite so forgiving.  When we have sinned against our neighbours, and broken the relationship with them, and broken their trust, not only in us, but possibly in people in general, well, there are probably going to be consequences.  God forgives us, and removes our sin, utterly, but in the natural world?  Well, those consequences we may have to live with.

When we fall short of perfection in regard to ESS forms there are things that we can do.  People who are reading our forms can puzzle through the letters that we have written down, and think of alternatives that might indicate a different spelling when they are searching to reunite families.  If we make a mistake in writing down the postal code, there are other tools that we can use to look up the address and correct the postal code.  There are tools that we may be able to use to find the correct phone number if we have made a mistake in the phone number.  There are certain things that we can do to make up for our lack of perfection in ESS registration.

There are certain things that we can do when we have sinned.  We can go to our neighbor that we have sinned against and apologize, or possibly make restitution of some sort.  This may help to mend a broken relationship, but it will never be as trusting as it was before we sinned.  There are things that we can do to try and address our sin, our lack of imperfection.  But they will always fall short of perfection.

This is where my comparison of ESS registration, and sin, both is strengthened, and falls down.  In both cases, it's better if we were perfect in the first place.  Difficult, and perhaps impossible, but it would have been better if we were perfect in the first place.  But where it falls down is that while there are things that we can do about mistakes we have made in the ESS registration, there is nothing we can do to fully cover our sin.  Sin is falling short of the mark.  It is falling short of perfection.  And anything that is imperfect, well there is nothing we can do to make it perfect again.  We have sinned.  We have fallen short.  No amount of restitution, and no apologies, can make the sin not have happened.

And, of course, our sin is always, ultimately, against God.  And God cannot look upon sin.  Sin separates us from God.  And this is the biggest difference between ESS forms, and sin.  God cannot look upon our sin.  But God has taken care of that.  God has provided complete forgiveness for our sin.  God has paid the price for all of our mistakes.  All we have to do is accept that.  We cannot be perfect.  But we can accept it and has provided for a continual, and even eternal, relationship with him.  He has done all the work.  All we have to do is accept it.