Sermon for World AIDS Day 2019
Matthew 24:36-44
It wasn’t a typo or a mistake in the bulletin! At least one person saw my name and thought How did that happen? Well, I’m really the preacher today! Because as most of you know, I co-chair the AIDS Ministry, today is World AIDS Day, and Willie is really brave!
Now as I’ve said before and will again, no one consulted anyone who had the least bit of liturgical knowledge, about what date to pick for World AIDS day because the 1st of December always falls near the 1st Sunday of Advent and the two things have nothing in common. This makes it really hard to relate the scriptures for the day to the pandemic of HIV and AIDS. And here at St Stephen’s we usually complicate this with Bishop Eaton making his annual Episcopal visit on the first Sunday of Advent. But this year, he’s coming next week so, while it will be tenuous, we’ll see if I can pull this off.
A little bit of background as to how I might be qualified to talk about this. I’ve “WORKED” as a volunteer in the HIV and AIDS field for thirty-six years. I’ve served on the Board of Directors first of Health Crisis Network since it’s founding in nineteen eighty three and then, after it’s merger with Community Resource Initiative, the Board of Care Resource. I’m currently the Board Chair as well as a member of the Board of Food For Life Network with which Care Resource merged some years ago. We’ve gone from being a small, warm and fuzzy social service organization running support groups and substance abuse programs, with one employee in an office over the hall of a Lutheran church in Allapattah, to being a Federally Qualified Health Center with four medical centers in two counties that include dental services and our Midtown location houses Food For Life which provides prepared meals, food vouchers, and groceries to people affected by HIV & AIDS living below the poverty level in Dade County.
Our AIDS Ministry here at St Stephen’s has worked with Food For Life and Care Resource in a great many ways since before Christopher and I came here in 2001. In fact, the reason we’re here is due to the church’s connection to Care Resource. During the merger process the then executive Director of Community Research Initiative who’s now the CEO of Care Resource and I discovered that we were both Episcopalian and he and his husband, who worshiped here before moving to Ft Lauderdale, invited us here the first time. They were right. We found our home and stayed.
Then the AIDS Ministry found me. For the last several years, the AIDS Ministry, which is the longest, constantly functioning, possibly most active Ministry in the parish, has raised money by hosting events and applying for grants and then, literally, giving that money away. Working with Case Managers from a number of AIDS Service Organizations in both counties, we give the money to people affected by HIV and AIDS as emergency assistance. Working with these organizations, we know the need is genuine, we’re able to provide the assistance fairly anonymously, and I know, for a fact, that often this has made the difference between someone keeping their power on or having it disconnected, between getting or not getting eye glasses, between getting their meds for the month or not. We also put up the Angel Tree in the back of the church to collect toys for the children of low income families in treatment, who have little money to spend on Christmas. Not only at Food For Life, but when we get enough toys, we share the bounty with the other agencies with whom we work. These small things can make a huge difference in someone’s life. Everyone who serves with the AIDS Ministry, which includes people from several other churches, is very grateful to St Stephen’s, and to all of you, for the support we’ve received over the years.
Now, the part with the boring statistics: In twenty-seventeen, there were 26 thousand, six hundred thirty-two people living with HIV in Miami Dade and twenty thousand-forty one in Broward. Between the two counties, about sixty percent are male. They come from every racial and ethnic background. Broward is, if you’ll pardon the expression, more gay than Dade and Miami-Dade is more Hispanic than Broward. The affected people very closely reflect the populations of the counties except that it disproportionately affects lower income populations. In twenty-seventeen there were eleven hundred eighty-four new diagnoses in Dade which is a little lower than the year before but the number of deaths due to HIV and AIDS dropped from over two thousand to less than four hundred which is great news, however, the average age of newly infected and diagnosed people has dropped significantly. This is largely due to a generation of young people who’ve never known anyone who was really sick from this disease. People today, especially kids, see this as a treatable disease like diabetes and are no longer as terrified of it as my generation was.
Now, here’s the part where I’m going to try to tenuously tie today’s gospel to AIDS and the work of our AIDS Ministry. And it’s the first time we could say this to try and make the connection. Wish me luck!
Today is, as we know, the first day of the season of Advent. It’s a time of anticipation and waiting. In the gospel, I think Matthew is eluding more to the second coming of Christ with his two will be in the field and one will be gone, two women will be grinding and one will be gone. This is a passage many use to bolster the belief in the Rapture of the faithful, a doctrine we will avoid like the plague today. But all of it, those examples, no one listening to Noah and suddenly there’s a flood, the surprise thief in the night, are all letting us know that we need to pay attention, watch and wait. It doesn’t tell us to stop everything and just wait but, to be aware because Jesus is coming. Jesus who will heal the world.
In the world of HIV and AIDS treatment, we’re waiting too. And we’re working to be very aware. We’re waiting, finally, seriously, for a cure. And we are very aware that for the first time in almost four decades, we think that it might be on the horizon. Almost sixty percent of people in treatment in Dade and Broward, people who take their meds and follow their doctors treatment plan, have gotten to the point of having an undetectable viral load. This means they can’t transmit the virus to someone else! This is an amazing thing to achieve.
The president, in his state of the union address last January, announced that ending the HIV and AIDS pandemic would be a priority for the country going forward. We’re not yet sure exactly how we’ll get this done but we’re waiting, and being very aware.
I have been in a number of meetings at Care Resource lately. In August I met with The Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services, and in October with members of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV and AIDS. It looks like this is a real possibility. The plan is simple really, and it’s what we’ve been trying to do at Care Resource for decades. Three simple things.
ONE – test everyone at risk.
TWO – if they’re positive, get them into treatment and down to an undetectable viral load.
THREE – if they’re negative, educate them and get them on one of the drugs that will prevent transmission.
It’s that simple. Except it requires getting to most of four and a half million people in Dade and Broward counties alone.
There hasn’t been any decision yet about when this will roll out. Hopefully in the next year or two. Care Resource seems to be at the top of the list of places around the country to lead the way in implementing this program. The Feds seem to like the way we think outside the box, the way we’ve been able to change and adapt to the changes of the epidemic, the way we network with such a variety of community based organizations from Pride organizations, LGBTQ and Transgender organizations, Equality organizations, and Churches like St Stephens. This may well give our AIDS Ministry, who’ve been involved with Care Resource for so long, in so many ways, the opportunity to be involved in outreach and education in the community again. We’ve done that before in the early days, in the eighties.
This will be a lot more work for everyone in the HIV and AIDS field. And we’ll need a lot more people to do it. The government representatives are talking about getting this done in ten years. Of course, no one in the government has yet talked about funding and for many programs in HIV and AIDS care and treatment it is still being cut leading to reductions in services. The St Stephen’s AIDS Ministry will continue to do what we can with your help.
And if we can pull this off, all the work will be so worth it to bring this terrible, forty year nightmare to an end.
In the mean time, we wait, we stay aware. We, the church, wait for Jesus. The AIDS Ministry waits to see what more, with your help and support, we can do to help. We all stay aware of the needs of people our brothers and sisters in the community and try to figure out what we can do to help.
To be the hands of Jesus in a needy world.
Until the unknown day and time when Jesus comes to heal the world.
Amen.