healing

What Are We Begging For?

June 24, 2019 No Comments

1 Kings 19:1-4, (5-7), 8-15a | Psalm 42 and 43 | Galatians 3:23-29 | Luke 8:26-39

Leave it to the gospel to alert us when things are not okay, when there’s something we’re called to notice and maybe even wrestle with. Surely your ears perked up when we’re told a man with demons met Jesus, a naked man at that, one who lives in the tombs. As if that weren’t “interesting” enough, the demon(s) speak to Jesus, naming him as “Jesus, Son of the Most High God” and begging not to be tormented, which results in Jesus casting out Legion into a herd of swine that then rushes off to drown in a lake. This is our Holy Scripture. This is one of many stories that can give us pause as we wonder, “But what does it mean? What is God saying to God’s people?” As we reaffirm nearly every time we engage in scriptural study, the Word of God can mean many things to different people in various contexts. An important question to ask–and faithfully discern–is where does this holy story intersect with our lives? Before we can match anything up, we have to look closely at what we’re given from as many angles as possible. I’m not going to get to all of them, but there are three in particular that offer a greater depth of understanding.

The spiritual aspect of this story takes main stage, for the focus here is on an exorcism. We don’t talk a lot about exorcisms in The Episcopal Church, but we, too, have exorcists, and the bishops know who their diocesan go-to person is. (It’s not me!) Even though the disciples grapple with understanding who Jesus is, this man possessed by Legion knows right away who Jesus is. (A Roman legion was about 5,000-6,000 men.) The demon knows the command Jesus has over the realm of spirit, which exceeds any physical power as neither chains nor shackles could contain the man before. The demons must also know something of the compassion Jesus has, appealing to the Son of God not to torment them, leaving the demons to their inherent destruction even to the point of self-destruction, for even though they begged not to be ordered to go back into the abyss, when the swine drowned, the demons ended up in the abyss anyway.

The personal or individual aspect of this story is inherently spiritual, too, but in a different way. Focus for a moment on one man possessed but then exorcised and healed by Jesus. We’re told that he sits “at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind.” This man, in his right mind, speaking for himself and not for the demons, begs of Jesus to let him go with him basically to become another one of his disciples following him on his way. But Jesus sends him away, to return to his home. In his home he is to “declare how much God has done for (him).” Jesus will give the demons what they want but not the man who’s been restored? Yes. It’s not hard to imagine his disappointment, as we’ve all had prayers that were, at least to us, unanswered (we didn’t get what we said we wanted). And yet. . . The man went to his home and proclaimed what Jesus had done for him and became, along with the disciples, a prominent voice for the Gospel among the Gentiles. This man was himself a Gentile. This man had been transformed by his encounter with Jesus, and what is more powerful than hearing about the transformation of someone who is like you? Transformation is a powerful thing.

Which brings me to the third aspect of understanding this story: the corporate or collective level. What happen with the masses? The swineherds saw what happened and ran off and told everyone in the city and the country. All the people who could came to see for themselves and saw one of their own–whom they had cast out, remember, whom they had chained and shackled and left naked and in the tombs–healed (in his right mind), clothed, and sitting at the feet of Jesus. Did they rejoice in the man’s healing? Did they now beg of Jesus as the demons and then the man had? They did not rejoice; in fact, we’re told they were afraid. They didn’t beg, but we are told they asked Jesus to leave “for they were seized with great fear.” It’s actually after the people ask Jesus to leave that the healed man begs to go with Jesus, and I don’t blame him one bit. The man knows what these people are capable of, and now he sees them afraid. When people are scared, it generally doesn’t make them act any better. I overheard one son ask the other what he would do first in the case of a zombie apocalypse, and after his brother’s response he said that the first thing he would do is try to calm down because he would be freaking out and would need to calm down to think clearly. Our former demoniac is thinking clearly; he’s in his right mind. And he wants to go with Jesus and his crew, not stay with these people who are afraid of staying in the presence of the power and mystery of Jesus, Son of the Most High God.

As I see it, it is just as scary now as it was then to live within the realm of Jesus Christ. It’s a place where power as we understand it can be overturned, where life as we know it can be changed forever, and where resistance in the form of fear battles forces of supreme love. If we’ve been in that battle ground and emerged transformed, with greater understanding, we want to stay in that place. Yet so often that’s not where we’re called to be. God may send us back to the battleground to proclaim how much God has done for us, to share our transformation story with others. We may, like Elijah, be sent back to the wilderness, to carry on until our work is truly done. We may, like Paul, be sent ever outward, travelling as far and wide as we can to proclaim the Good News that through faith in Jesus Christ we are children of God, wholly and inclusively.

It may be hard, but the healing we know from our deepest wounds reveals the power of God in ways that only wisdom of experience can convey. It’s why outreach workers in the Oxford Houses are supposed to be people who have been through the Oxford House model themselves. It’s why the best counselors have done the personal work themselves. It’s why the voices of those living in poverty are the most powerful testimonies to why we need to advocate for change. It’s why those who have immigrated and those who have fled their countries of origin as refugees are the only ones who can help people in power understand how to fix what is fundamentally missing or broken in our current systems and institutions.

Faced with Truth, we understand real, liberated, restored power, and for those of us functioning with temporal, materialistic power, we realize our weakness, our lack of understanding, and some of the depths of what is unknown. Only when we’ve swam in those depths and came ashore with a tale to tale do we have any idea of te power at play, the grandeur and greatness of God. Evan Garner, the rector at St. Paul’s in Fayetteville contributed to the “Reflections on the Lectionary” in Christian Century on this passage from Luke (June 5, 2019, p. 21). He very astutely writes,

“Sometimes the terror we know is more tolerable than the peace we cannot imagine.”

Our demons are still legion. Addiction of all kinds, mental health issues, poverty, racism, fear, and hatred . . . there are many. And when we get closer to knowing the peace, love, and liberation through Christ, it can seem like if not be that we are confronted with our own demonic cocktail, made specifically for us to chain and shackle us in the tombs. But I don’t think this is where we’re left in our understanding of this story.

The question becomes, “What are we begging for?” What are we asking for that will truly satiate us? What are we asking God of that no matter how it gets answered, when we hear the voice of God in the silence, we’re willing to go where God leads? Most often the spiritual journey doesn’t take us any farther than our own home but takes us to great depths in spiritual maturity.

Vulnerable, shackled by all the societal norms that surround us, with the freedom from the tombs of death promised by our faith in Jesus Christ, what is it that we beg for to experience true liberation? In our Noon Bible Study, we’re reading Rachel Held Evans’ Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again. She writes about Jacob wrestling with the angel until he gets what he asks for, even if his encounter leaves him with a limp. In the reading guide provide on the website, we’re invited to consider what we would be willing to wrestle God about through the Bible. What is it that we long for? What would we be willing to beg of God, or are we too afraid of what God can do? Eternal life in God through Christ or destruction empowered by our limited self? The life lived in Christ is not an easy one, but our joy and gladness are inextricably tied to the light and truth of God. Therein lies our ultimate liberation, something worth begging for.

Sermons

What Do You Want?

May 28, 2019 No Comments

Acts 16:9-15 | Psalm 67 | Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5 | John 5:1-9

As the weather beckons us outdoors, it is not lost on me that many are fueled in their connection to the divine by being outside. It is crucial that we maintain a relationship with Creation, remembering that we, after all, are the stewards of this fragile earth. Amidst storms, tornadoes, and raging waters, we realize our fragility, too, our vulnerability with forces greater than ourselves. We do the best we can at any given moment, and truly only God knows what the effects will be generations down the road. But like the brand Seventh Generation, who attributes their guiding principle to the ancient philosophy of the Iriquois, we need to think about the actions we take now and how they will affect the sustainability of the future even to seven generations (that’s our great5-grandchildren).

This line of thought about decision-making comes to mind when I hear Jesus asking the ill man at the waters near the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem and after taking the last of the family systems classes I’ve been taking this past year. The man at the pool was asked a question about his personal well-being, and in family systems thinking, we think about ourselves as individuals but also in the context of a larger whole, the collective, a family (however big or small).

Every moment we’re making decisions like how we use our time, which route we take to get where we want to go to dodge traffic, and what we’ll eat. We know these have consequences, hopefully helping us lead safe and healthy lives. We are fortunate to have a baseline of privilege, ability, and a certain level of affluence. It’s hard for me to imagine being in a place like the man lying by the pool in Jerusalem who for 38 years is sick, lame or partially paralyzed, apparently unable to go into the pool by himself where he might at least be cleaned. Surely this man was an untouchable, someone no one would risk their own well-being to help. What does Jesus do? What did the Good Samaritan do? He sees the unwell man. Over 38 years, don’t you imagine that the man had become invisible? How long do you have to live in a city where you no longer notice the homeless sleeping on benches or sidewalks? Hopefully we would never be blind to the suffering of our neighbors, but that homelessness, dire poverty exist, we have let it not be our problem to solve.

Jesus sees the man lying there, knows he had been there a long time, and asks him, “Do you want to be made well?”

I could stop there with this passage and bask in the grace and mercy waiting in the wings. “Jesus, ask us today, ask EACH of us today: Do you want to be made well?” Wouldn’t we fall at his feet and wash him in our tears? “Yes, Lord, make me well. Heal all of us.” Isn’t that what you would imagine us saying?

But that’s not what the sick man says, the one who has been lying in sickness and filth for 38 years, 13,870 days and nights. He says, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool . . ., and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.” Do you hear this the way that I do? Jesus asked if he wanted to be made well, and the man replies that he has no one to help him or others get in his way. He places the blame outside of himself, but it presupposes that the way to be well is that he has to get into that pool.

Jesus knows the man has been there a long time. Jesus knows the man wants to be well. Jesus knows that man needs to be shown another way. When Jesus says to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk,” he is doing just that. Listen to my voice, follow my command, and you shall be made well. The man heard these words and believed Jesus spoke what is true. His believing and following made him well, but for those looking on, they saw Jesus heal a man on the sabbath, doing work on a day of rest. We know this is another of Jesus’s signs in the gospel and that it’s also something his adversaries will use as fuel against him. I think it’s also important that we know Jesus isn’t telling the man to pull himself up by his bootstraps. Not only is the man not wearing boots, but everything about his situation puts him at a handicap so great that he cannot overcome it alone. He needed an intervention. He needed help. He needed to be shown another way, yet it still remains within his agency whether or not he heeded the way revealed to him.

Unfortunately we don’t often have power of the Almighty to speak the Word and make restoration complete. When we see a problem, we might think we know how to fix it, make it better. We may give a few dollars away or hand out bags of sustenance and hygiene to the homeless on the roadside, and this is good, helpful for a moment. This Friday I got off the interstate and realized no one was in the left turning lane. I looked at the corner and noticed a man standing there with a sign, as is often the case. The other turning lane had at least six cars in it, and honestly it crossed my mind to get in line behind them so as not to have to interact with the person on the side of the road. I didn’t have any money or food within my reach. I had nothing to give him. I recalled, however, that visibility means something. I had a card with our church number. This happens all in seconds, right, this decision-making. I rolled down my window as I approached the man, who turned his weary eyes my way. “I don’t have any money or food to give, but what do you need?” I asked him, hoping that I might at least be able to point him in the right direction. “If you could give me a prayer,” he said. I stuck my arm out the window, extending my hand to him, and he gave me his hand to hold as I prayed that the Lord would bless him and show him the way, provide for him and guide his path, and whatever else I said, hoping that the Holy Spirit was giving him the words he needed to hear. I realized as I drove away that I forgot to remove my sunglasses so that he could see clearly that I saw him. I had remembered to ask his name. Gregory.

“Do you want to be made well?” Jesus asked.

We don’t always know what we need for ourselves, and we certainly seldom know what another person needs. We do know that our individual well-being benefits us all, and we have to want to be well ourselves before we can take next steps. But just because we want to be well doesn’t necessarily mean we want the whole system to be well.

I can make full recovery and then return to the activities or exploits that made me sick or ill or dis-eased to begin with. I can make my way up out of the valley and once on higher ground contribute to keeping others in the valley. How many people who have truly experienced the pitfalls in the welfare, medical, incarceration, housing, immigration, and all other systems are actually in positions to make the changes that need to be made to heal what is broken or flat out isn’t working?

This is where the family systems class struck me. At the end of the class, we were posed with a powerful question. (That’s often the case that some of the most intense questions or would-be conversation comes when time is up, isn’t it?) The question was

How many people would it take, doing even one of the following:

Connecting with their generations, eradicating all their personal cutoffs

Educating themselves as to the facts in our society

Becoming clear on their guiding principles, being guided by them instead of the anxiety of the moment or groupthink (mob mentality)

Taking a stand, after careful consideration

Defining a self in their families

Becoming principle-guided parents, rather than projecting a worried focus

to bring the regression to an end?

The regression speaks to the place we are in our society that is incredibly polarized, emotional to the point of triggering fight/flight responses, and reactive rather than proactive for the benefit of the common good (my lay summary). From a family systems perspective, the regression indicates that we are not well. We really need only look at the increased violence, depression, anxiety, addiction, and everything else that contributes to our dis-ease to affirm that we’re not in an overall good place, not to mention the groaning of the earth itself with the weight of our population and exploitation of natural resources.

Family systems say that there are leadership principles that can influence the system or society in a positive way. Those principles are to

Learn the facts,
Learn to “think systems” (or to think relationally),
Get clear on one’s guiding principles, and
Take a stand.

“Do you want to be made well?”

I want to be well. I want our society to be well. I want our earth to be well. Is my guiding principle for everything to be well? I am fond of repeating Julian of Norwich’s mantra, “All shall be well.” Or is my guiding principle that God’s will be done. My love and obedience to God will guide me and others toward what is good and best for the whole. Come what may, my love of God is steadfast. The Lamb of God is my Light in the darkness; by night I do not need the brightness of the moon. I am open to hear the Word of God; like Lydia I am willing to open my heart and home that the Way of Christ may fluorish. May God use my heart, my mind, my feet, my hands to move us all toward God’s will. Love of God is love for us all.

“Do you want to be made well?”

God’s will be done, now and for generations to come.

Sermons

You Are Called . . . Take Heart

October 29, 2018 No Comments

Job 42:1-6, 10-17 | Psalm 34:1-8 | Hebrews 7:23-28 | Mark 10:46-52

If thinking about the suffering of Job these past weeks has you feeling more anxious than normal, you can take a deep breath as we conclude his suffering and see his trial over and his fortune restored. Rather than feeling anxious, I find myself more aware of how often I allude to the suffering of Job when I encounter someone with what seems like rotten luck, someone who can’t seem to catch a break. God’s man Job triumphs, remaining blameless and upright, but while we get this lavish description of all that is restored to him–double what he had before in some cases, including his lifetime–we aren’t told–and I don’t see–Job standing triumphant on a pedestal.

Job encountered God in the whirlwind last week and received God’s voice as God described the cosmos and all creation as God created it to be. This wasn’t a divine knockdown; this was God stating what is, revealing creation as seen from God’s perspective. In today’s lesson we hear Job’s response and hopefully can sympathize with him as he realizes that he had spoken without understanding. Now . . . now that he has heard the voice of God with his ears, he has a direct knowledge of God. Now his eyes “see” God as God has been revealed to him, and his new understanding leads him not to “despise himself” as it’s translated or even to “repent,” but to “recant and relent” being but dust and ashes. Job, as blameless and upright as he is, is humbled before God. All that he had said prior to his new understanding of God, he recants: he no longer holds onto his old beliefs. His whole worldview has changed as he relents, giving way to God and accepting his mortality and feeble understanding of the world. For all the riches and extended lifetime he receives, the true beauty of this story is not only Job’s faithfulness to God but also God’s faithfulness to those who believe.

Job’s faithfulness seemed to come easy for him, but we’ve seen in the past weeks that that’s not the case for everyone. The rich man, remember, wanted eternal life and asked Jesus how he could obtain it. When Jesus told him, he balked and turned away. Even the disciples, James and John in particular, said they wanted the best seats in glory, but they were speaking without understanding and knew not what they were asking. Bartimaeus, on the other hand, is a different story.

A blind beggar on the roadside isn’t hard for us to imagine. I can picture the flat, dusty road in Jericho with mountains in the distance, and I can also see in my mind’s eye the crowd surrounding Jesus making their way out of town, heading back toward Jerusalem. The poor, blind man of course heard the approaching crowd and caught the name of Jesus, and he knew him. At least, he knew stories of him, enough to call him out as the Son of David. He had heard of all that Jesus had been doing, and that recognition couldn’t be contained. From his position at the side of the road, “he began to shout and say, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!’”

In typical fashion, those in a more favorable position suppressed the voice from the margin. “Many sternly ordered him to be quiet,” and it’s quite possible that those who didn’t say anything that the man could hear were probably casting him disdainful looks or ignoring him altogether, as was their custom. But the man persisted, crying “out even more loudly” for Jesus’s mercy.

We don’t get a whirlwind here. Jesus stands still, and then he turns the tables when he says, “Call him here.” Notice that? Jesus involves those who are keeping the blind man at bay. You want to follow me? You’re going to do what I say? Practice.

And they do! Maybe with a grimace, maybe a little embarrassed, maybe with a fake smile they say to Bartimaeus, “Take heart; get up, he is calling you.” Jesus has a way of helping us see one another on a level field. Just as the disciples have been called, so now is Jesus calling Bartimaeus. Whether they’re telling Bartimaeus to take heart or reminding themselves, I see the phrase as one reminding them all to be courageous. Those come-to-Jesus moments take courage, do they not?

Bartimaeus throws off his cloak and springs up to come to Jesus. I’m not exaggerating; this is what it says! He’s excited and doesn’t take a moment to hesitate. When Jesus asks Bartimaeus, “What do you want me to do for you?” Bartimaeus replied, “My teacher, let me see again.” And Jesus tells him his faith has made him well. Immediately Bartimaeus regains sight and follows Jesus on the way.

I’m reminded of the hemorrhaging woman who had nothing to lose and works her way through the crowd to touch the fringe Jesus’s garment. I’m reminded of the Syrophoenician woman with a possessed daughter who also asked the Son of David for mercy and persisted until she got it. These women, like Bartimaeus, knew where society placed them, how it devalued them, yet in their humility, they were persistent and were healed by their faith. But Bartimaeus asked for sight and is the one who is healed and goes on to follow Jesus on the way. He doesn’t look back. He doesn’t even go back to get his cloak, probably one of the few possessions he had. With his new sight, he sees the way forward through Jesus, even if he doesn’t know for certain where that leads. He probably had no idea he was following Jesus and the crowd toward Jerusalem and toward the Passion. Like Job, he has vision revealed through God, which gives insight that exceeds our human understanding.

Does this kind of revelation or restoration still happen today? Of course. It’s why we read the Bible, why we pray, why we gather in community. Because this doesn’t just happen on its own. There has to be intentional effort to give way to this kind of transformation.

Anne Lamott shares a bit of her journey and struggle in a recent Facebook post. She says she often thinks about writing a book called All The People I Still Hate: A Christian Perspective. She hasn’t written it yet, mind you, and in this post she shares why. Anne speaks from her experience in recovery quite openly–recovery from drugs, alcohol, eating disorders, and I think also codependency. She was reminded of her friends who talk about Step Zero, the step before the 12 Steps, the step when you realize “this s*** has GOT to stop.” She realized that since the election she had let herself go into rage mode and be angry until she was reaching a level of toxicity that was bordering on explosive. Focusing on her self-care, she asked herself about her mortality. If she only had one year left, is this the way she’d want to live? No, she’d want to be a “Love bug,” she says, and “if you want to have loving feelings, you have to do loving things.” A huge part of being a loving person is realizing that everyone, even the person you think you despise the most, is a precious child of God.

So she thinks she’s ruined her chances of writing a book about all the people she hates because her whole perspective, her worldview has changed. Taking wisdom from 8-year olds, she’s okay with leaning into the 80% that believes God is there and is good and is within us all the time. Except she flips it to give herself 20% of that goodness, which she thinks is a miracle. The lens through which she views the world has changed; she has new insight, new vision. Like Job and Bartimaeus, she has been restored in a way that only Love can make happen.

And we need that kind of restoration and transformation happening today. When the news is full of two innocent African American people shot and killed in Kroger by a white supremacist, yet another bomb mailed to critics of the president, and a place of worship becoming a scene of terror, cutting short the lives of 11 faithful Jewish people. A CNN story came across my phone this morning: 72 hours in America: Three hate-filled crimes. Three hate-filled suspects. I’ve heard all these stories, and they’re like background music to our lives these days.

This has got to stop. Step Zero.

We can call out for Jesus to have mercy on us, and he already has. It’s up to us to open our eyes, hearts, and minds to see clearly what is happening and follow Jesus on the way of love–a love that doesn’t make peace with injustice and is greater than hate, fear, and even death, if we have eyes to see.

Sermons

Encounters

July 1, 2018 1 Comment

2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27 | Psalm 130 | 2 Corinthians 8:7-15 | Mark 5:21-43

The scene from this week’s gospel reading lingers in my mind and replays as if there’s still more I have to learn, more to do.

It might have something to do with the fact that I just visited the site where this likely took place. Magdala, near the modern day Migdal, is on the coast of the Sea of Galilee. Currently they’re building a guest house (hotel), have built a beautiful church, and are excavating a first-century synagogue and marketplace. The sun burns hot and bright. From the pathways, one can tell that if there were many people, it would indeed be crowded and smell of warm bodies, fish, dirt, and hot stone.

When Jesus arrives back on this side of the sea, Jairus seeks him quickly, desperate for Jesus to heal his 12-year-old daughter. We know he’s desperate because this is a leader of the synagogue, an important and powerful man (with a name), and what he’s doing is unorthodox (in more ways than one). Jairus tells Jesus what needs to be done, and without a word, Jesus follows him.

On their way, among the great crowd, another person seeks a miracle. While the crowd walks along en masse, we get the background of an unnamed woman. She’s been bleeding for 12 years. Maybe for the first few weeks, months, she thought it would pass, but as the months became years, she spent everything she had to find a cure. No physician had been able to help her, but she had heard about Jesus. Even though she was closed off from society in her constant state of uncleanness, word had reached her about this man who healed many; maybe he could heal her, too.

To seek Jesus would be a great risk for this woman. For 12 years, she stayed out of crowded situations, lest she contaminate someone with her impurity. Surely everyone knows about her, her family. It would be a shame upon her family to be seen or called out, recognized by someone–anyone. But what did she have to lose? She was cut off already from whatever life she had before. She had no money. Her condition was worsening. She wasn’t afraid to die; death was already a certainty.

“If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well,” she thinks in her familiar voice, with an unfamiliar hope.

She approaches Jesus from behind in the crowd and touches his cloak. One simple, light touch.

Immediately her hemorrhage stopped, and she felt in her body that she was healed, something she hadn’t felt for 12 long years.

In that same instant, Jesus, too, knew power had gone out from him, and he stopped. I like to imagine him closing his eyes and with a faint yet knowing smile that passes quickly, pausing before he turns to seek the one who touched his clothes.

The one he calls out is afraid. Jesus was on his way to heal the daughter of a powerful man. She is a nobody, an unclean woman who has not only contaminated everyone she’s touched in this shoulder-to-shoulder crowd but has also brought shame to Jesus and her family by touching a man whom she has no right to touch. She knows her humility and shows it to all by falling down before him. She unburdens her heart and woes to him and everyone listening. Maybe they’ll understand, maybe they won’t. Maybe they’ll be merciful, but it doesn’t change the fact that she knows she’s been healed. But she couldn’t just take it from him without him knowing how desperate she was.

“Daughter,” Jesus says, claiming her as family, “your faith has made you well. Go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”

She has no need of shame, and she has not taken anything that hasn’t been given to her.

While we may want to marvel in this moment of grace and mercy, we’re reminded that Jairus’ daughter is also waiting for a miracle, yet we hear that she’s already died.

“Do not fear, only believe,” Jesus says even in the face of mortality.

Perhaps the crowd didn’t believe Jesus could help the little girl because she was already dead. Perhaps the crowd didn’t believe the hemorrhaging woman was healed because they couldn’t see it. They needed to see a healing for themselves, and it was all the more significant because this was the daughter of a prominent family, with so many people at hand (whom Jesus sent outside).

Yet Jesus tells them not to spread news of these miracles. The significance of these events isn’t to spread Jesus’ fame any more than it is to add to the drama of the narrative itself, though they do both. As we encounter the good news of these stories, we find that rich or poor, young or old, alone or accompanied, Jesus is who he is for all: God incarnate to save the world.

Today, does that mean that if we pray hard enough, we’ll be healed and cured or brought back to life? Not necessarily, and not as we understand it. It was important for the people of the time of Jesus to see him for who he was. For us, we realize who he is for us as the Risen Lord, one who brings health and life to all in spirit, which in turn affects our mind and body.

As many have been and are preparing for General Convention (#GC79), one of the questions I saw recently said:

“What do you seek?”

In light of the gospel today, I wonder if we only seek Jesus when we are desperate? As beautiful as it is, it can also be devastating if we don’t get the results we want or expect. Pulling from the Presiding Bishop’s theme of love, life, and liberation, we want these things for ourselves especially when we don’t have them.

But what if we seek first the kingdom of God? And its righteousness? (See Hymn 711.) What if even when things are good for us, we seek God’s will to be done in our thoughts, words, and deeds? What if we seek an encounter with Jesus? Even more, what if we seek to be that holy temple that others might encounter Jesus, the presence of God, through us?

The most beautiful thing I saw at Magdala was the mural behind the altar in the Encounter Chapel at Duc in Altum (which means “launch into the deep”). Painted by Daniel Cariola, the mural captures that moment when the woman touches the hem of his garment (pulling more from the Matthew and Luke accounts). There’s a point of light there that illuminates what we know couldn’t be seen by the eyes alone, but it is so luminous in that chapel, amidst the feet and hand that are larger than life. As we gazed upon this mural, our feet rested upon floor that we’re told was from the first century, stones from pathways that would have been there at the time of Jesus, the disciples, Jairus, and this woman. In her outstretched hand, there’s such hope amidst her desperation. Jesus’ feet are set in a forward direction. Others are all around. It is a crowded scene.

But there’s this point of light.

When have I reached out to Jesus and been healed?

When have others reached out to me in their search for the presence of God?

That point of light, to me, is what we all seek, but we have to be clear about what and why we seek it. If we’re just looking for a thrill in the moment, personal glory, or a fulfillment of a personal agenda, we must tread carefully. This is especially important at General Convention, when what we decide affects the polity and liturgy of our church. Whose will is being done? Whose kingdom is being magnified?

There’s nothing more noble than seeking an encounter with the Light and Love of Christ, because in that moment, we get a glimpse, a taste, of the kingdom of heaven. Whether we’re the hand or the feet in that moment, we pray that God’s will be done and to God be the glory. This work never ends.

Sermons

February 5, 2018 No Comments

Isaiah 40:21-31 | Psalm 147:1-12, 21c | 1 Corinthians 9:16-23 | Mark 1:29-39

When Cathy Luck was here last week, sharing her work with Oasis NWA, she asked how many people were familiar with Becca Stevens. I was surprised to see not everyone knew who she is. If you already know this, bear with me, but there are some things in Episcopal culture everyone needs to be aware of. Becca Stevens founded Magdalene House in 1997, a house of refuge and healing for women who have been trafficked or addicted. Now it’s called Thistle Farms, which started out as the social enterprise side of things, selling oils, cards, and body products made by the women themselves. Now it’s over a million dollar industry and has expanded to include many other products from other countries, focusing on fair trade goods and teas made by women so that they can support themselves, their families, and their communities, too. Meanwhile, the model of the original Magdalene House has been replicated throughout the country, including Oasis here in NWA, Serenity House in Fayetteville, and Coming Home in Little Rock (which is still in development). The unaffiliated religiously and non-governmental model focuses on assuring that the environment is safe, non-judgmental, and holistic. A woman can stay up to two years, spending the first getting the health treatment she needs and the second to continue to heal and to build up her self-confidence and job skills.

A sexual assault survivor herself, Becca knows that healing is a monumental effort, and she said that reading the Gospel, she couldn’t help but hear over and over again how it was God’s love that brought about healing. So when she started selling oils, it was with the intent to heal not magically but with the intention of love and care, with the practice of unction in mind, with anointing those whom we love. How better to put into practice God’s message of love and healing? The motto and the title of her most recent book is “Love Heals”–plain and simple.

The gospel stories affirm the simplicity of God’s power to heal. In fact, there’s a pattern to the healing stories, just like there’s a pattern to a prophet’s call in the Old Testament. As we hear in Mark’s narrative today,

1) there’s the description of illness: Simon Peter’s mother-in-law has a fever, apparently a pretty bad one.

2)Then there’s a request for healing. Simon, Andrew, James, and John hurry back to Jesus to tell him about it. (Like when I tell my kids their room is a mess, I’m really telling them to pick it up.)

3)Following the request, there’s action done by the healer. Jesus takes the woman by the hand and lifts her up.

4)As means of affirmation, the fourth step in the pattern provides evidence of restored health. After the fever’s gone, she’s healthy enough to begin to serve.

So if we take this pattern and apply it to our lives, I agree with steps one and two. We identify our illnesses and make our requests, our intercessions, praying for health to be restored. But at step three, when in the Bible every time Jesus intervenes, health is restored (even if it takes a second try), what do I do with the times healing doesn’t come, when prayers aren’t answered? Because our model is that God has the ability to make all things new, to intervene on our behalf. When the good results come or good things happen to us, don’t we say, “Thanks be to God”? I know I do.

But true healing isn’t as simple as that. Just as true love isn’t as simple as it sounds. God’s love for us is abiding and unconditional. God’s love affords us–all of us–free will. God’s love, God’s healing participates with us, in relationship. And always, when we are in full relationship with God, we are moving toward our fullest restoration into God’s image. If that can happen in a miraculous recovery or if that can happen in death, I imagine that one is not greater than the other, if we have the fullness of understanding that God has. We hurt and anger and fight and doubt and turn away because sickness and death are not what we want. We don’t want the suffering and pain. The words of Julian of Norwich sound trite when she says, “All shall be well,” just as when someone tells us everything will be alright when our whole world is crashing in on us: everything is not well and alright. We may even scream it in rage at the well-intentioned speaker. But Julian’s “All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well” comes from a deep well of wisdom, prayer, contemplation, and practice. She knew it. She knew what being healed meant in body and spirit, and it was well with her soul. Times of tribulation truly try the sagest of souls, for when we are wounded or in danger, our defenses are up, our ego on watch though completely vulnerable. It’s painful to watch a wounded animal. Humans aren’t that different when we’re deeply hurt. What we need to be fully restored isn’t always diagnosable or treatable, if there even is a cure. But the peace of mind, body, and spirit that Julian speaks of connects to the healing love of God that guides us through the times we wonder if we’ll make it through. And all the while, whether we realize it or not, God is ever present, loving us, guiding us, healing us in ways we can’t even comprehend, let alone name.

When we are healed in a manner that allows for evidence of our restoration, what is it that we do with our lives? The mother-in-law gets up and gets to work, serving her guests. As a feminist, this might make you cringe a little bit. Shouldn’t she be getting rest? But so full and complete is her recovery that she is able to fully live into her honor as the head woman of the household. A servant or Peter’s wife could have done the work, but this was an important event, Jesus and all the disciples gathered in her home. It would be like me as a young woman offering to make my grandmother’s chicken dressing at Thanksgiving. She wouldn’t have dreamed of it as long as she was well enough to do it.

Today, a 30-years sober alcoholic might faithfully facilitate a meeting, carry a coin, and mentor someone new in recovery. A cancer survivor might lead support groups. The bereaved share in grief groups. Former sex slaves share their story to prevent others from being kidnapped and trafficked. Parents who lose a child advocate for legislation regarding gun violence, car seat safety, bullying . . . the list goes on and on.

However complicated and individual the story, it does appear that the pattern is simple: love heals. But it’s mighty hard.

It’s hard to say what’s hurt, sick, or broken.

It’s hard to ask for help.

It’s hard to be at peace when the action we’re asking for isn’t visible or visibly doesn’t happen, to trust that God is at work loving and healing us.

It’s hard to live into the fullness of health when things still seem hurt, sick, and broken.

It didn’t seem to be incredibly easy for Jesus, either. He retreats to a lonely place and prays, knowing full well the weight of everyone hunting and searching for him with all their dis-ease. But he had shown them hope, brought his message of peace, and proclaimed the gospel message: that the kingdom of heaven had come near. He offered them words but also showed evidence in his healings.

In our own ways, may we be so empowered, so loved, so healed.

Sermons

The #blessed, the righteous, the thankful

November 23, 2017 1 Comment

Deuteronomy 8:7-18 | Psalm 65 | 2 Corinthians 9:6-15 | Luke 17:11-19

The last time I stood in this pulpit to preach, Lowell spied my iPad at the ready and asked me just before the sermon if it received text messages. I wanted to say “no,” but I knew it could. Lucky for me, it wasn’t connected to the wi-fi, and I got his message that I was doing a good job after the service.

Cultivating a sense of humor, being able to take–or even play–a prank every now and then, and learning how to juggle many things at once are just some of the things I’m grateful to St. Paul’s for teaching me along my path of discernment and formation for ministry. When Suzanne asked if I would be willing and able to celebrate on Thanksgiving Day, my first thought was “of course!” What better way to express my gratitude for all St. Paul’s has been for me than to celebrate the Great Thanksgiving in this place at this time? Whether we’re familiar to one another or not, I’m sure we could agree on many things for which we are grateful to St. Paul’s and The Episcopal Church.

Like Psalm 65 offering thanksgiving for the earth’s bounty, we could count our many blessings, creating a beautiful, bountiful list. Many of us today will do this, likely go around our tables, sharing what we’re thankful for, and I heartily encourage you to do so. Share with family and friends your gratitude, your hopes. Perhaps we could also share our awareness of those less fortunate and what it looks like to take action on their behalf. Perhaps we could also consider our responsibility for the abundance we have and what we do as good stewards of our bounty. I make these suggestions because the Gospel never really tells us to sit around and linger in our comfort.

We could be tempted, of course, to count our blessings and marvel at how #blessed we are. All of us here this morning are definitely blessed. We don’t have work today (well, most of us, anyway; thanks, Jack!). We’re safe. Preparations for our feasts are made. If I could gaze into your hearts, I’m sure I would hear the sound of love coursing through your being: love of God, love of others, and hopefully love of yourself. We’re here offering thanks to God for the ultimate sacrifice. We are praying for those who are less fortunate. We’re living the good life.

When we’re feeling so grateful, why do we get the story of the ten lepers today? Leprosy, a disease that eats away at the flesh, is a most unappetizing sort of image. Could it be that we in blessed comfort, if we’re truly honest, have our own dis-ease eating away at us?

If the greatest self-help guru came to the Town Center, imagine the crowd that would gather. He might call to the crowd for ten volunteers, choosing from the multitude those waving their arms most frantically, desperately: “Pick me!” He calls to the stage those whom he chooses:
~A corporate woman always wanting the next bigger, better thing,
~A warehouse worker who just never has enough,
~A waitress who can’t get ahead and hoards every little thing she has,
~A struggling musician who just can’t get a break,
~A minister who knows he’s struggling to practice what he preaches,
~A stay-at-home mom wrestling with the super-mom syndrome,
~A doctor with a god-complex,
~An entrepreneur who just lost his savings,
~A teacher whose voice is never heard,
~An undocumented day laborer who sends most of his money to his family out of country.

To this group he tells them simply to go somewhere safe, to someone they trust, and to tell that person the truth of their discomfort, their dis-ease. “Go! Go now!” he says. So they run off stage, rushing on their way. He smiles after them, knowingly.

The one most used to being pushed aside and left behind, the one used to waiting for the chance to do a bit of work for a bit of cash, finally makes it to the doors at the back but pauses. He feels it. What has ailed him has left him. The burden he has been carrying has been lifted. Instead of dis-ease, he feels a tingling of . . . Light? Joy? Love? With tears in his eyes, he returns to the guru, falling at his feet, making a complete scene and everyone else incredibly uncomfortable, but he can’t stop thanking this person.

Everyone else is looking on, confused.

“Better already?” the guru asks the laborer. He showingly spans the crowd. “Is this the only person made well? Where’s everyone else?” He helps the laborer to his feet and looks into the questioning eyes with all wisdom and love. “Faith,” he says. “Carry on and keep the faith.” He sends him on his way.

All ten came to the guru believing something could be done to make them well.

But only one had the presence, the awareness to realize that the healing wasn’t necessarily a result of an action he himself had to do.

How beautiful it is to me that seeking healing with an honest, humble, helpless heart puts us in a unique position to be most fully restored to wholeness by “the surpassing grace of God,” “an indescribable gift” (2 Cor 9:15).

Even as we are counting our blessings, giving thanks for our blessedness, what eats away at our joy? What prevents us from living into the fullness of love of Christ? What blinds us to the truth of reality that we are in community with one another, no matter how different we think we are from everyone else?

What is our dis-ease?

Our current and present hardships are real. I affirm and validate your struggles because I know each and every one of us has more than one we’re dealing with. And I hope you can go to a safe place, a trusted person–and maybe that’s a paid professional–to help you figure out what your next steps are. But spiritually, from a place of faith, you bear God’s favor. The very image of you from your DNA to the reflection you see in the mirror bears God’s blessing.

Because God made a covenant. God promised to see the people to the Promised Land. God promised abundance upon abundance, plenty of everything, wealth and health, and all things delicious. There seems to be this condition, though, that our being #blessed is conditional upon our giving thanks to God, not forgetting that all things come from God, remembering to uphold God’s commandments, ordinances, and statutes. Putting God first above myself and all else

That’s where righteousness comes in. Ps. 112 describes the blessings of the righteous, those who are gracious, merciful, and just. Generous. Steady of heart. Unafraid of evil. They rise like light in the darkness. Yes, they, too, have a rich and wealthy house, are blessed and honored, but their homes might look more like a one-bedroom apartment than a mansion complex. Just because people are struggling doesn’t mean we aren’t blessed. Just because we’re going through hardships doesn’t mean we aren’t righteous. Like the ten bridesmaids from last Sunday where the only reason we know five were wise and five were foolish is because we’re told, we know that all the lepers are healed because we’re told. If we were only going by what we saw, we’d only think that one was healed. But only one was aware enough to turn back to the one who showed mercy and healed fully then and there. The rest thought they had to go someplace and do something special. We can go seeking grace and find it in unexpected places, but the most astonishing discovery of all is when we realize it’s right where we are. Because God made a new covenant, one of unconditional love and mercy and grace, through Jesus Christ.

Right here where we are, we practice remembering all gifts come from God. Right here where we are, we bring our dis-ease before God, allowing grace to fill our spirit with renewed seeds faith and hope and especially love, that we might sow them bountifully wherever we go from here. We do go from here, to love and serve the Lord, but first we acknowledge our faith, pray for all, confess our sins, make peace with one another, and, of course, give thanks to God.

Sermons

From Our Deepest Hurt to Our Greatest Love

October 13, 2016 No Comments

Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7 | Psalm 66:1-11 | 2 Timothy 2:8-15 | Luke 17:11-19

The first experience for first year seminarians in Sewanee is to make a pilgrimage to Hayneville, Alabama, in honor of Jonathan Myrick Daniels, a young white Episcopal seminarian from New Hampshire. Daniels saw the inequality in the South and believed so strongly in advocating for civil rights that he left the comfort of his home and school and went to join the movement in 1965. After being released from jail and going to get a soda, Daniels was shot in Hayneville in front of a convenience store, shot because he took the bullet aimed at a 17-year-old black girl named Ruby Sales, whom he had pushed out of harm’s way. Daniels became one of our modern day martyrs, and Ruby Sales has since continued advocating for civil rights and has become a public theologian, perhaps living into some of the roles Daniels would have, had his life not been cut short.

In reflecting on her youth, Ruby Sales says* she grew up with black folk religion “that said that people who were considered property and disposable were essential in the eyes of God and even essential in a democracy, although (they) were enslaved. And it was a religion where the language and the symbols were accessible, that the God talk was accessible, to even 7-year-olds.” She describes her parents as “spiritual geniuses who created a world and a language where the notion that (she) was inadequate or inferior or less than never touched (her) consciousness” and a world where “hate was not anything in (their) vocabulary.” This “black folk religion” was her foundation and was ingrained in her so much that later when she thought she had left the church, she realized that even though she had left God, God had never left her.

Ruby reached this moment of realization, she says, “When I was getting my locks washed, and my locker’s daughter came in one morning, and she had been hustling all night. And she had sores on her body, and she was just in a state, drugs.

“So something said to me, ‘Ask her, “Where does it hurt?”

“And I said, ‘Shelly, where does it hurt?’ And just that simple question unleashed territory in her that she had never shared with her mother.”

Such an honest, open question given to her by “something” that we might call Spirit, opened Ruby to the reality of the person before her, this equally essential child of God. As Shelly shared the source of her pain, a relationship was forged, not only between Ruby and Shelly but also between Ruby and God. Ruby was reminded of her foundation in God and guided to pursue a way to do her work not as a Marxist but as a public theologian. In a moment of intimate relationship, Ruby went back and gave thanks to God maybe not in so many words, but her life work became about fighting to maintain this intimacy in relations, being able to look at matters straight on and ask, “Where does it hurt?” In the midst of this relationship-forging and soul-sharing, God shows up, and despite the pain, healing begins.

In nearly every conversation I’ve had in the past week, whether it’s been asked directly or offered willingly, people are sharing where they hurt. The images we see, the rhetoric we hear, the experiences we are having are chipping away at our resolve to be people of faith, people in relationship with one another and with God. It is so much easier to close our eyes to that which offends us, close our ears to that which assault us, close our minds to that which challenges us, and close our hearts to that which pains us. Perhaps like me you get caught in those moments where your heart physically hurts. Even as an enduring people who remember Jesus Christ, we are tired, and we are hurting. We may not have leprosy, but we know that we are sick, that we need Jesus’s mercy now more than ever, that we have no part of the kingdom of God without God’s grace, our only hope of salvation.

Getting to the kingdom looks like it’s a long way from here, looks pretty impossible, actually, but Jesus has shown us that it doesn’t matter who we are–black, white, or brown, native or foreigner–our faith makes us well.

Our faith saves us. Our faith makes us whole.

Our faith that says when we are baptized and die to ourselves, we live life in Christ; that when we endure all manner of suffering, we reign with Christ; that no matter how faithless we are, God remains faithful to us because God cannot deny God’s self. Our being in relationship with God depends on us, on our faith.

I tell my kids when they don’t want me to go somewhere or when they were younger and didn’t want me to leave them alone at night, that I am never separated from them because our heartstrings are connected. I would place one hand over my heart and my other hand over their chest, and they would almost always lay their hands over mine, holding me close. So when my heart hurts over images I see, over the discourse I hear, over the suffering of family, friends, and neighbors near and far, I imagine my heartstring to God being pulled, being strained. Even in the pain, I’m grateful that I still feel this connection to God in my care and love of others. I know that I can invite God into this pain to give me strength, to strengthen my hope and faith. But perhaps our heartstrings can be pulled so much and so often that they become numbed, that we forget we are connected to God from the beginning. Perhaps we can lose our foundation or close ourselves off in isolation, being turned away from God.

When we ask, “Where does it hurt?” we are asking so many things.

Where are our relationships strained or broken with ourselves, with others, and with God? When were we told that we aren’t essential? When was the accessibility of God taken away from us? When were we told that we aren’t valuable, that we aren’t beloved? These are incredibly powerful questions, and answering them honestly makes us vulnerable and weak . . . and yet creates space for God to restore us to wholeness, to restore and strengthen our heartstrings–our relationship–because God is reminding us that God’s still here, has always been here: won’t we just turn toward God, perceive God’s power at work in our lives, offer our thanks and praise, and get on with the work God needs us to do?

God already knows our hurt, feels our pain, and has already laid out the path to our health and salvation. As we are restored to wholeness and affirm the great power of God, we testify to others how our salvation is already accomplished. It’s not cheap grace or easy love. Jonathan Daniels saw what was hurting in our society and was determined to show up in a place that needed a witness of God’s love. Two months before his death, Daniels wrote, “I lost fear … when I began to know in my bones and sinews that I have truly been baptized into the Lord’s death and resurrection, that in the only sense that really matters I am already dead, and my life is hid with Christ in God.” Such is the union of a saint with God and the life of one burning fiercely with compassion for others. Ruby Sales took for granted her foundation in God’s love but witnessed the power of that Love when extending it to others. In asking and answering a simple question that touches on our pain, we open ourselves to receive God’s mercy in our weakness. No matter how undeserving we think we are or how unessential society has marked us to be, salvation in Christ is offered to all who endure with Him and glorify God.

We may not have grown up in black folk religion, The Episcopal Church, or any religion or church at all. But if we are here today, we are plunging into relationship with Christ, because if there’s something we are good at in this place, it is in remembering Jesus Christ and giving thanks and praise to God. We open our ears to hear God’s Word, we open our hearts to forgiveness, we open our mouths to proclaim, and we open our hands to receive. In all this we affirm our lives rooted in God, centered in Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit, and we give our thanks. We have the security of our relationships with one another in Christ to share where we hurt and to see the way forward with hope through God’s grace, through Love, our heartstrings firmly connected.

* Krista Tippett’s interviews with folks have a way of speaking to what is true in so many aspects of our lives. I am grateful for this podcast that captures not only Sales’ experience but also the questions of other public theologians. http://www.onbeing.org/program/ruby-sales-where-does-it-hurt/8931