sermon by Carrie Eikler
Mark 9:38-50
The time of canning in our household has come to an end. We have stocked our larder full of tomatoes, tomato sauce, tomato juice, jam (sometime tomato jam)…This year we ventured into pickling. We grew a few rows of Boston pickling cucumbers. What the weeds didn’t kill off left us a nice “mess” of cukes to turn into dill pickles. We also tried sauerkraut from our cabbages. Who knows how they’ll turn out? We haven’t been brave enough to try it yet.
Until we started pickling, I didn’t know there was such a difference in salt, or so many types of salt. Do you know how many types of salt there are? Ordinary table salt, sea salt, rock salt, pickling and Kosher salt (the best salts for pickling, mind you). Then I went into Mountain People’s Co-op the other day and discovered black lava salt, red alaea salt, Himalayan pink salt, and smoked sea salt.
I guess I’m destined to love pickling because I love the taste of salt. And since “dark chocolate” is not a taste, but balances on the fence between sweet and bitter, I’d have to say that salty is probably my favorite taste. I guess that’s why this part of the scripture stood out to me.
Of course, the entire reading isn’t about salt. There are three distinct parts. The other two are a bit more difficult to deal with. The first talks about demons and exorcism, and brings to us the politically volatile cliché of “are you with us or against us?” This seems to overshadow the nicer image that follows—an image of bringing a cup of cold water to drink. The second part of the scripture seems to prescribe amputation for sinfulness, and suggests cutting off hands and feet, plucking out eyes. It leaves us with a disturbing teaching that it is better to enter heaven maimed rather than leading others astray.
What happened to the little child that Jesus was embracing in the verses that are just before, the child we looked at last week? I certainly hope Jesus covered the little one’s ears, or sent him back to his mother before he began in with all of this…. Demons, self-mutilation, salt… Pass the salt, please. I’ll leave the rest for another time.
But unfortunately, Jesus’ teachings are hard to pick apart that way. They are more like a big gumbo rather than a child’s carefully picked over plate of food: don’t touch the carrots with the pasta or the macaroni and cheese with the peas. No, sometimes it seems Jesus’ teachings are more like throwing in all different ingredients in a pot and letting them stew. You can still recognize the vegetables, the meats, the grains, but they also have a flavor of everything else. You just can’t easily separate them. Demons and self-mutilation, seemingly extreme in word and tone, are thrown together into a big gumbo, finished off with a dash of salt. But to pick apart the pieces briefly might help make it a more palatable option.
The disciples again are fighting over place and rank. Should just anyone who is doing good deeds in Jesus name be allowed to? To which Jesus says, don’t be so conceited. Just because you don’t know this person, because they are not part of our crowd, doesn’t mean they can’t do what I’m preaching about. Maybe it is this in crowd/out crowd distinction he sees the disciples beginning to draw that moves him to a warning about their own agenda, the whole cutting off bits of your body saying. Think about what you’re doing. What are the consequences? Once you have deceived, or misjudged, or caused another to sin, can you live with the costs? This extreme hyperbole invokes Jesus’ intensity: essentially, the stakes are high when it comes to your behavior.
Instead of doing these things, he encourages, be salt... salt, refined by fire. Being salty may just be the anecdote for the temptations Jesus laid bare.
If you were starting a new kitchen and could only have one spice, what would it be? I’m sure there are the few exotic cooks among you, that if you just had cumin, or cardamom, or ginger you could make the tastiest dishes in the world. But I think if we only had one choice, most of us would probably choose salt. Salt is, and has been, a staple throughout time and cultures. It doesn’t just make food taste salty, it makes food taste better…it brings out the flavor.
It’s true that we Americans have too much salt in our diet, but no one would dispute the essential presence of salt in our everyday lives. Which is likely why Jesus used this as a metaphor. Salt had importance in religious life, often used in rites of purification and ritual offerings. Jesus says salt is good, have salt in yourself, don’t loose your saltiness. When Jesus uses metaphors such as this, he invites us to think creatively--deliciously--about how we can move from bland living into tasty discipleship.
Last month my mother and mother-in-law and I had a women’s afternoon out and excitedly went to see the new movie Julie and Julia. This movie follows two separate, but true, story lines. The first follows the world famous cook Julia Child as she begins to uncover her passion and talent for cooking. Beginning to dabble in cuisine in her mid-30s when she and her husband lived in France, Julia found her life’s calling, which included cookbook writing, the first of which was the mammoth, 752 page book Mastering the Art of French Cooking.
The second story line follows Julie, a contemporary thirty-something who is feeling lost, and decides to give herself a challenge to spice up her life. In the span of one calendar year she attempts to cook all 500 plus recipes in Mastering the Art of French Cooking – a feat, even for Julia Child.
What happened was that Julie started blogging about her experience, writing about it and publishing it on the web. She gathered a large following, wondering what little Julie would take on each night, wondering when she might collapse from the enormity of cooking outlandish French cuisine in her tiny Queens, New York apartment. But when Julia Child’s editor, the editor of the Mastering the Art of French Cooking cookbook, arranges a dinner date with Julie, she can hardly believe it.
Julie frets over making the perfect meal: boeuf bourginon, a tasty beef stew. She even skipped work in order to get it just perfect. But when mealtime arrives, she receives a call that her coveted guest had to cancel due to the weather. So what to do with such a meal? Well, eat it of course. And as Julie’s supportive husband attempts to buoy his wife’s dashed spirits, he digs into the wonderful, the time consuming…boeuf bourginon. As he continues talking and eating, he stands up, gets some salt, and begins dumping it on…
Julie is indignant and with disgust she spats, “I’m sorry. Is it bland?” Her husband tries to backpedal, but all Julie can focus on is that he would let her serve bland boeuf bourginon to the editor of Julia Child’s cookbook. All that time, all that energy, worry and sweat…and it still needed salt. It was, at least in her husband’s taste, a bit bland.
I like thinking about what salt actually does and seeing where it can translate into our lives, especially when we are feeling a bit spiritually bland. Aside from adding salty taste, salt draws out moisture from food, allowing it to absorb more flavors. When Torin makes his wonderful eggplant parmesean, he always sprinkles the eggplant slices with salt to draw out the water. He then smothers it in sauce which can more easily seep into the cracks and crevices of the eggplant, into the places that were once filled with tasteless water.
Being salty disciples can be a process of pulling out of ourselves the stuff that takes up space, the watered-down aspects of our life that are dull and tasteless. Being salty disciples means we can open ourselves up to new flavors of life, new ways of experiencing God. Maybe we recognize that new flavors, new people, new ways of thinking needn’t be feared. The disciples were fearful of someone doing acts in the name of Jesus, but Jesus said there was no need to fear this new flavor.
Salt also acts as a preservative, an important function of salt in Jesus’ context. Before refrigeration, people would use salt to preserve meat and vegetables. It kept things. It helped them “live” longer, so to speak. Maybe being salty means we know what keeps us. We know what gives us life. Being salty means we know the difference between what really sustains us and what just fills the void.
And how many of you put salt in your sweet desserts? Nicole Kaplan, a pastry chef in New York City, says that they are putting a lot more salt in sweet things these days. Apparently salt helps bring out the sweetness, rounding it out while not being overwhelming.[1] I like this metaphor for Christian discipleship. If we are salty we round out the flavors in our world, enhancing those which need enhancing, tempering those which need tempering. All in all, salt brings out the essence of the food and enhances the flavor.
In a world where we are tempted to draw the line of who is in and who is out, like the disciples did, Jesus calls us to be salt, inviting us to bring new flavors into our lives. When we are tempted to fall into patterns that separate us from the Body of Christ causing ourselves and others to stumble, Jesus calls us to the table again. When our living feels bland, he invites us to be salt for the world. Absorb the flavors of God’s creation, know what it is that sustains us, and enhance the good in the world.
What salt do you have in your life that enhances the beautiful world God has created? What salt would you like to add to your life to more fully absorb God’s goodness? In this time of waiting worship, I invite you to reflect on how you can receive salt from God and give salt to the world.
[1] The Rise of the Salt Tooth, www.chow.com
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Hands of Death, or Arms of Love?
sermon by Carrie Eikler
Mark 9:30-37
20 September 2009
This Monday we went to the Pittsburgh Zoo for the first time. It was a wonderful family outing and for the first time since Alistair was born, we had a pretty good ride home. Usually around Waynesburg he has completely lost it and begins sobbing close to hyperventilation. Probably why it went so well is that Sebastian actually played with Alistair in the back, something that is only beginning to happen…something we are extremely grateful for. But a couple times Sebastian’s play got a little rowdy and we had to threaten that there would be bedtime immediately when we got home, no bath, no story. Once I almost resorted to the response we have likely all been victim to as children: “Stop right now or I’m going to stop this car. I’m not joking, I’ll do it!”
I like to picture the disciples as children in the traveling caravan with Jesus, meandering through Galilee. The topic, however, is not one that many children need to deal with—the fact that Jesus says, for the second time in their journey together, that he will be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again. And they didn’t understand. It says they didn’t ask anymore and were scared. I don’t really fault them…it’s a pretty unusual prediction for anyone, especially the one that they believed would be an earthly king, the messiah.
But as they approached Capernaum, it appears there may have been whispers, bickers, taunts. Jesus doesn’t quite say “Stop right now or I’m going to sit you all under that olive tree there until you stop! I’m not joking! I will do it” He waits until they are at their destination and asks “Now, what was all that about?” The disciples know that what they were arguing about was petty—at least they knew it would probably upset Jesus: it says “they were silent, for they argued with one another who was the greatest.”
Can’t you just see Jesus rolling his eyes and sighing. He let’s them in on this big secret and all they care about is who is better than the other, maybe trying to establish who would be in charge when Jesus does die. “Kids” he might say.
But “kids” is essentially what he does say. Instead of rolling his eyes, he calls a child to him, opens his arms, and embraces this unknown little one to himself. “This is greatness” he implies—“to do this. To open your arms and welcome a child, in my name. This is greatness because you are embracing me, and not only me, but embracing God.”
He embraces a child…. We have often romanticized this image, thinking who wouldn’t welcome a child into our lives, or even into our church, or even into our worship (as long as they are quiet enough and mind us when we “shush” them and don’t draw out the children’s story too long so we can get to the sermon and finish up on time). Really, who wouldn’t welcome a child??
But that’s not how the disciples would have seen it. In fact, in antiquity, children weren’t seen or treated as we see and treat them today at all. To even say they should be seen and not heard doesn’t even begin to describe the place of children during Jesus’ time. According to social research, children in antiquity were seen as “non-persons.”
Pheme Perkins reflects, “Children should have been with the women, not hanging around the teacher and his students. To say that those who receive Jesus receive God does not constitute a problem….But to insist that receiving a child might have some value for male disciples is almost inconceivable….This example treats the child, who was socially invisible, as the stand-in for Jesus.”[1]
This wasn’t Jesus exhorting the disciples to look at a child’s innocence or reverence for mystery or wonder or abandon, as we celebrated in our recent Children’s Sunday. This is not Elspeth, or Sebastian, or Lily, or Axel running around the sanctuary with glee. The child was a non-person.
In the midst of dwelling in the knowledge that he will be delivered into the hands of death, Jesus reaches out his arms to embrace a “non-person,” saying this is what the kingdom of God is about.
Maybe because children are treated differently these days, maybe because many children can expect to live through childhood into adulthood…for whatever reason, it is hard for us to recognize the radical comparison Jesus is making. It’s hard for us to imagine children as non-persons. This doesn’t mean that parents didn’t love their children, but in the eyes of society they had no worth. We can’t imagine Jesus using a child today as an example of someone without worth in society. We don’t feel uncomfortable with Jesus using a child like this, but the disciples were very likely uncomfortable with Jesus using a child like this.
So what might we feel uncomfortable with? Who do we feel is without value in our society? We might we consider one not worth redeeming?
“ Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all." Then he took a meth-addict and put it among them…then he took spouse abuser and put it among them…then he took, not a child, but a child molester and put it among them…and taking it in his arms he said to them, "Whoever welcomes one such “non-person”-one without value in the eyes of society-whoever welcomes them in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”
There are non-persons in our society, those who we believe have so little value that there is nothing embraceable about them. Jesus didn’t just embrace innocent, but powerless children. He also embraced sex-workers, murders, adulterers, and executioners--even his own. Who might you consider the least of these--and I'm not just talking about who you think society considers the least of these. I'm talking about the people you yourself find it difficult to believe that Jesus could embrace, that you yourself couldn't imagine embracing?
When I re-read the scripture and thought of him embracing, say, a child-molester, who in my eyes constitutes the lowest of the low, I have to stop. No way. No way. There is no comparison between embracing a child, and one who hurts a child. But I guess when I think “no way” I am getting a little nudge from those disciples sitting around, like they are whispering in my ear “see, who feels so great now. That’s exactly how we reacted.”
But it doesn’t feel quite the same does it? The small, the powerless, the innocent children, versus the grown, exploitative, and guilty offender? I found it even feels different for me than welcoming, say, the poor, the prostitute, or needy. They all feel pretty benign and easily fit my framework of the “least of these.”
In 2002, Ambler Mennonite Church in Pennsylvania faced this question when a man named Joe began attending worship. Joe was a convicted child sex offender under court supervision. When his status became known, the church leaders met, as well as the congregation. They met to discern how, or if, Joe could be incorporated into the church life, at least, in worship. The leadership believed that with discussion and supervision, Joe could safely worship with them. But some in the church didn’t see it that way. And they weren’t to be blamed, really. Some were survivors of sexual abuse. Even the parents of one of Joe’s victims attended the church. And some were parents who wanted to welcome the least of these, but felt that this went too far.
A special support group was formed for Joe. A separate evening adult worship began specifically for those who wanted to support Joe in a worshiping environment. A listening and support group for those who were victims of sexual abuse began in order to make sure the feelings of those who have faced the crime Joe perpetrated were taken into consideration. A sexual abuse task group formed, and people from all perspectives were represented. As part of this process, some survivors even met with Joe to hear his story as a child victim of sexual abuse, and later as a perpetrator.
But some left the church, both because Joe continued worshipping with them. On the other side, some left because Joe wasn’t allowed to more fully be a part of the community. Everyone grew tired of the long process of trying to faithfully incorporate Joe in the church. After five years, Joe decided to withdrawal his participation. The pastor, Scott Eldredge, wrote that “[eventually] another survivor, initially opposed to Joe’s attendance, expressed her readiness for Joe to attend our worship service. I see God at work as others continue to heal." Scott reflects, "Healing may not mean for everyone an acceptance of Joe in our worship, but I trust God for his work of healing individually and among us. I know some still hurt from this experience in our church, and we all mourn for those who have left.” He ends his reflection: “We did not find any easy answers. What would your church do?”[2]
The disciples show us that we can understand to an extent what Jesus was talking about; of course we should visit the imprisoned, forgive the adulterer, even forgive our enemy. But welcoming them in our worship? Getting to know them? But until we can wrap our minds that the least of our society, the lowest of the low, the unforgivable…even those who may seem as unredeemable is welcomed by God--until we can understand that to the point of enacting it ourselves, then we too are like the disciples…we don’t get it.
And I’ll admit, I’m there. I don’t get it. I guess can’t imagine Jesus embracing the lowest of the low. I take that back, I can imagine him doing it. But I can’t see myself doing it. And when I can confess that, I hope that Christ isn't dissapointed with me. I hope he'd forgive me for joining the disciples in “not getting it,” and remind me that there is still a lot of work I have to do on myself. And that can be the hardest part of answering the call to discipleship there is.
Helen Prejean, a Catholic nun who began ministering to inmates on death row, has walked with six men as they have been delivered into the hands of death. The movie Dead Man Walking shows the beginning of this ministry. Sr Helen later wrote that on death row, “I encountered the enemy--those considered so irredeemable by our society that even our Supreme Court has made it legal to kill them. For 20 years now, I’ve been visiting people on death row, and I have accompanied six human beings to their deaths. As each has been killed, I have told them to look at me. I want them to see a loving face when they die. I want my face to carry the love that tells them that they and every one of us are worth more than our most terrible acts.”
She has reached out to perpetrators and victims families, visiting those families who want to be visited, and has started a victims support group in New Orleans. She reflected “It was a big stretch for me, loving both perpetrators and victims’ families, and most of the time I fail because so often a victim’s family interpret my care for perpetrators as choosing sides—the wrong side. I understand that, “ she says, “but I don’t stop reaching out.” (3)
Each time I start getting on my high horse, proclaiming that others just need to start welcoming those people I think are excluded or unjustly treated-single mothers, homosexuals, the homeless-- Jesus asks me, but can you welcome the one that you think is without worth? Will you deliver this person into the hands of death—into isolation and suspicion --or will you open your arms to embrace them? And like the disciples, I fall silent.
Do you fall silent? In this time of meditation, I invite you into a brief guided visualization and confession. Let’s begin by closing our eyes and taking three deep breaths:
The Sufi poet Rumi wrote this poem:
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoingand rightdoing there is a field.I'll meet you there.
In your mind, what type of person is the least of these—the lowest of the low—the irredeemable--the non-person. Visualize a body that represents that type of person? It doesn’t need to have a face, or a gender, although it may...
Now, visualize yourself standing in a field.
Recall to mind the non-person. Imagine you are meeting that person in the field, face-to-face.
Visualize yourself opening your arms wide. Ask yourself honestly and without judgment: “Can I embrace this person?” If so, visualize yourself doing so, and let your mind rest on that image, giving thanks to God for moving you into a place of embrace. Pray for that person you are embracing.
If you honestly feel you cannot embrace them, feel Jesus standing beside you in this field. With your arms held stretched out, imagine Jesus beside you, embracing the non-person. Dwell in the power and knowledge that while you cannot yet embrace this person, Jesus is embracing them for you.
[pause]
God who stretches out your arms,
we confess that there are some we cannot welcome.
When our best intentions for justice, and our political correctness are challenged,
We confess that we, like the disciples don’t get it.
Help us see what lies in our way.
We know it is not enough that you embraced the lowest,
you call us to do
and you know it’s hard.
We pray that in this work of faith we can embrace those you embraced.
Forgive us when we fail.
Encourage us when we take small steps.
Guide us into the field, beyond right and wrong
And meet us in a place where there are no non-persons,
but only full spirits, loved by you.
may it be so, AMEN
[1] “Commentary on Mark.” New Interpreter’s Bible (Nashville, Abingdon Press) 1995.
[2] Eldredge, Scott. “What would your congregation do?” The Mennonite (vol 12, No. 8, April 21, 2009)
3. Sr. Helen Prejean, "This I Believe" NPR, January 6, 2008.
Mark 9:30-37
20 September 2009
This Monday we went to the Pittsburgh Zoo for the first time. It was a wonderful family outing and for the first time since Alistair was born, we had a pretty good ride home. Usually around Waynesburg he has completely lost it and begins sobbing close to hyperventilation. Probably why it went so well is that Sebastian actually played with Alistair in the back, something that is only beginning to happen…something we are extremely grateful for. But a couple times Sebastian’s play got a little rowdy and we had to threaten that there would be bedtime immediately when we got home, no bath, no story. Once I almost resorted to the response we have likely all been victim to as children: “Stop right now or I’m going to stop this car. I’m not joking, I’ll do it!”
I like to picture the disciples as children in the traveling caravan with Jesus, meandering through Galilee. The topic, however, is not one that many children need to deal with—the fact that Jesus says, for the second time in their journey together, that he will be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again. And they didn’t understand. It says they didn’t ask anymore and were scared. I don’t really fault them…it’s a pretty unusual prediction for anyone, especially the one that they believed would be an earthly king, the messiah.
But as they approached Capernaum, it appears there may have been whispers, bickers, taunts. Jesus doesn’t quite say “Stop right now or I’m going to sit you all under that olive tree there until you stop! I’m not joking! I will do it” He waits until they are at their destination and asks “Now, what was all that about?” The disciples know that what they were arguing about was petty—at least they knew it would probably upset Jesus: it says “they were silent, for they argued with one another who was the greatest.”
Can’t you just see Jesus rolling his eyes and sighing. He let’s them in on this big secret and all they care about is who is better than the other, maybe trying to establish who would be in charge when Jesus does die. “Kids” he might say.
But “kids” is essentially what he does say. Instead of rolling his eyes, he calls a child to him, opens his arms, and embraces this unknown little one to himself. “This is greatness” he implies—“to do this. To open your arms and welcome a child, in my name. This is greatness because you are embracing me, and not only me, but embracing God.”
He embraces a child…. We have often romanticized this image, thinking who wouldn’t welcome a child into our lives, or even into our church, or even into our worship (as long as they are quiet enough and mind us when we “shush” them and don’t draw out the children’s story too long so we can get to the sermon and finish up on time). Really, who wouldn’t welcome a child??
But that’s not how the disciples would have seen it. In fact, in antiquity, children weren’t seen or treated as we see and treat them today at all. To even say they should be seen and not heard doesn’t even begin to describe the place of children during Jesus’ time. According to social research, children in antiquity were seen as “non-persons.”
Pheme Perkins reflects, “Children should have been with the women, not hanging around the teacher and his students. To say that those who receive Jesus receive God does not constitute a problem….But to insist that receiving a child might have some value for male disciples is almost inconceivable….This example treats the child, who was socially invisible, as the stand-in for Jesus.”[1]
This wasn’t Jesus exhorting the disciples to look at a child’s innocence or reverence for mystery or wonder or abandon, as we celebrated in our recent Children’s Sunday. This is not Elspeth, or Sebastian, or Lily, or Axel running around the sanctuary with glee. The child was a non-person.
In the midst of dwelling in the knowledge that he will be delivered into the hands of death, Jesus reaches out his arms to embrace a “non-person,” saying this is what the kingdom of God is about.
Maybe because children are treated differently these days, maybe because many children can expect to live through childhood into adulthood…for whatever reason, it is hard for us to recognize the radical comparison Jesus is making. It’s hard for us to imagine children as non-persons. This doesn’t mean that parents didn’t love their children, but in the eyes of society they had no worth. We can’t imagine Jesus using a child today as an example of someone without worth in society. We don’t feel uncomfortable with Jesus using a child like this, but the disciples were very likely uncomfortable with Jesus using a child like this.
So what might we feel uncomfortable with? Who do we feel is without value in our society? We might we consider one not worth redeeming?
“ Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all." Then he took a meth-addict and put it among them…then he took spouse abuser and put it among them…then he took, not a child, but a child molester and put it among them…and taking it in his arms he said to them, "Whoever welcomes one such “non-person”-one without value in the eyes of society-whoever welcomes them in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”
There are non-persons in our society, those who we believe have so little value that there is nothing embraceable about them. Jesus didn’t just embrace innocent, but powerless children. He also embraced sex-workers, murders, adulterers, and executioners--even his own. Who might you consider the least of these--and I'm not just talking about who you think society considers the least of these. I'm talking about the people you yourself find it difficult to believe that Jesus could embrace, that you yourself couldn't imagine embracing?
When I re-read the scripture and thought of him embracing, say, a child-molester, who in my eyes constitutes the lowest of the low, I have to stop. No way. No way. There is no comparison between embracing a child, and one who hurts a child. But I guess when I think “no way” I am getting a little nudge from those disciples sitting around, like they are whispering in my ear “see, who feels so great now. That’s exactly how we reacted.”
But it doesn’t feel quite the same does it? The small, the powerless, the innocent children, versus the grown, exploitative, and guilty offender? I found it even feels different for me than welcoming, say, the poor, the prostitute, or needy. They all feel pretty benign and easily fit my framework of the “least of these.”
In 2002, Ambler Mennonite Church in Pennsylvania faced this question when a man named Joe began attending worship. Joe was a convicted child sex offender under court supervision. When his status became known, the church leaders met, as well as the congregation. They met to discern how, or if, Joe could be incorporated into the church life, at least, in worship. The leadership believed that with discussion and supervision, Joe could safely worship with them. But some in the church didn’t see it that way. And they weren’t to be blamed, really. Some were survivors of sexual abuse. Even the parents of one of Joe’s victims attended the church. And some were parents who wanted to welcome the least of these, but felt that this went too far.
A special support group was formed for Joe. A separate evening adult worship began specifically for those who wanted to support Joe in a worshiping environment. A listening and support group for those who were victims of sexual abuse began in order to make sure the feelings of those who have faced the crime Joe perpetrated were taken into consideration. A sexual abuse task group formed, and people from all perspectives were represented. As part of this process, some survivors even met with Joe to hear his story as a child victim of sexual abuse, and later as a perpetrator.
But some left the church, both because Joe continued worshipping with them. On the other side, some left because Joe wasn’t allowed to more fully be a part of the community. Everyone grew tired of the long process of trying to faithfully incorporate Joe in the church. After five years, Joe decided to withdrawal his participation. The pastor, Scott Eldredge, wrote that “[eventually] another survivor, initially opposed to Joe’s attendance, expressed her readiness for Joe to attend our worship service. I see God at work as others continue to heal." Scott reflects, "Healing may not mean for everyone an acceptance of Joe in our worship, but I trust God for his work of healing individually and among us. I know some still hurt from this experience in our church, and we all mourn for those who have left.” He ends his reflection: “We did not find any easy answers. What would your church do?”[2]
The disciples show us that we can understand to an extent what Jesus was talking about; of course we should visit the imprisoned, forgive the adulterer, even forgive our enemy. But welcoming them in our worship? Getting to know them? But until we can wrap our minds that the least of our society, the lowest of the low, the unforgivable…even those who may seem as unredeemable is welcomed by God--until we can understand that to the point of enacting it ourselves, then we too are like the disciples…we don’t get it.
And I’ll admit, I’m there. I don’t get it. I guess can’t imagine Jesus embracing the lowest of the low. I take that back, I can imagine him doing it. But I can’t see myself doing it. And when I can confess that, I hope that Christ isn't dissapointed with me. I hope he'd forgive me for joining the disciples in “not getting it,” and remind me that there is still a lot of work I have to do on myself. And that can be the hardest part of answering the call to discipleship there is.
Helen Prejean, a Catholic nun who began ministering to inmates on death row, has walked with six men as they have been delivered into the hands of death. The movie Dead Man Walking shows the beginning of this ministry. Sr Helen later wrote that on death row, “I encountered the enemy--those considered so irredeemable by our society that even our Supreme Court has made it legal to kill them. For 20 years now, I’ve been visiting people on death row, and I have accompanied six human beings to their deaths. As each has been killed, I have told them to look at me. I want them to see a loving face when they die. I want my face to carry the love that tells them that they and every one of us are worth more than our most terrible acts.”
She has reached out to perpetrators and victims families, visiting those families who want to be visited, and has started a victims support group in New Orleans. She reflected “It was a big stretch for me, loving both perpetrators and victims’ families, and most of the time I fail because so often a victim’s family interpret my care for perpetrators as choosing sides—the wrong side. I understand that, “ she says, “but I don’t stop reaching out.” (3)
Each time I start getting on my high horse, proclaiming that others just need to start welcoming those people I think are excluded or unjustly treated-single mothers, homosexuals, the homeless-- Jesus asks me, but can you welcome the one that you think is without worth? Will you deliver this person into the hands of death—into isolation and suspicion --or will you open your arms to embrace them? And like the disciples, I fall silent.
Do you fall silent? In this time of meditation, I invite you into a brief guided visualization and confession. Let’s begin by closing our eyes and taking three deep breaths:
The Sufi poet Rumi wrote this poem:
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoingand rightdoing there is a field.I'll meet you there.
In your mind, what type of person is the least of these—the lowest of the low—the irredeemable--the non-person. Visualize a body that represents that type of person? It doesn’t need to have a face, or a gender, although it may...
Now, visualize yourself standing in a field.
Recall to mind the non-person. Imagine you are meeting that person in the field, face-to-face.
Visualize yourself opening your arms wide. Ask yourself honestly and without judgment: “Can I embrace this person?” If so, visualize yourself doing so, and let your mind rest on that image, giving thanks to God for moving you into a place of embrace. Pray for that person you are embracing.
If you honestly feel you cannot embrace them, feel Jesus standing beside you in this field. With your arms held stretched out, imagine Jesus beside you, embracing the non-person. Dwell in the power and knowledge that while you cannot yet embrace this person, Jesus is embracing them for you.
[pause]
God who stretches out your arms,
we confess that there are some we cannot welcome.
When our best intentions for justice, and our political correctness are challenged,
We confess that we, like the disciples don’t get it.
Help us see what lies in our way.
We know it is not enough that you embraced the lowest,
you call us to do
and you know it’s hard.
We pray that in this work of faith we can embrace those you embraced.
Forgive us when we fail.
Encourage us when we take small steps.
Guide us into the field, beyond right and wrong
And meet us in a place where there are no non-persons,
but only full spirits, loved by you.
may it be so, AMEN
[1] “Commentary on Mark.” New Interpreter’s Bible (Nashville, Abingdon Press) 1995.
[2] Eldredge, Scott. “What would your congregation do?” The Mennonite (vol 12, No. 8, April 21, 2009)
3. Sr. Helen Prejean, "This I Believe" NPR, January 6, 2008.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Embracing the Call
sermon by Torin Eikler
Final Sunday in Passionate Spirituality Series
Matthew 5:13-16 Psalm 42
For nine weeks now, we have been talking about passionate spirituality and some of the practices that can help revive our relationship with the author of our faith when we find ourselves feeling stagnate or cut off from God. In the process, we have explored discernment, healing, living and dying well, saying yes and saying no, prayer, child-likeness, forgiveness, and hospitality in keeping with the interests you all shared with Carrie and me in June. And, while I know from the comments that we have received that many of you have found some aspect or another of our tour helpful or maybe even inspiring for your own spiritual journeys. But, I wonder if we have left something important unsaid. I wonder if, for all the time we have spent with particulars, we have missed the bigger picture. What, after all, is passionate spirituality? And, why should we worry about pursuing it?
If we hear those questions and feel like we don’t even know where to begin the answers (which may be the case from the looks on some of your faces), I have to admit that I’m not really surprised. Passionate Spirituality is a vague, amorphous term that can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. And, when I began our journey together two months ago, I chose not to delve into what it might mean because I wanted you all to be able to discover it for yourselves, and I hope that you have. Yet, it may be good for us to step back and look at the bigger picture. And, though we may not be able to define passionate spirituality, we all know it when we see it – or at least the fruits of it because the lives of those who have found it are marked by power and an unmistakable sense of connection with God that stands our self-satisfied lives on end.
If you take a moment to think about it, I’m sure you can identity a few people who embody this life. Some are so well known that they have become a part of our communal identity: Martin Luther King, Jr., Dorothy Day, Gandhi, Mother Teresa, and any number of others. Yet, as easy as it is to name those famous figures as examples, they have become almost unreal – clichés that have lost a good deal of their meaning in the process of becoming short-hand references dropped in passing. There are others in our traditions whose stories are fresher and can offer us more illumination.
One of these is Sister Anna Mow. Now, don’t let the name throw you. Sister Anna was not a nun. She was a plain woman of the Church of the Brethren in an age when we still called each other brother and sister as recognition that we are all adopted into the family of Christ.
Sister Anna was, as I said, a plain woman. She wore the plain dress of the old Brethren, and she sought to follow the example of Christ by opening her heart to all that she met. She had little for herself because she chose to give most (if not all) of what she could spare to those in need, and she spent much of her time working with young people in the church.
She was dedicated in her devotion to God and ardent in her prayers for the church as a whole and the individual people she knew. Those whose lives she touched found her to be inspirational. They honored and loved her with all her quirks because she was an example of the faith and selfless-ness they felt was at the heart of Christianity. And she, in turn, accepted them for who they were and pushed them to become all that they could be. Yet, no one resented her because it was clear to everyone that her love was not conditional and her guidance came from the dreams she had for others. As one folk song said it, “[she] had a hole in her stocking and a pocket full of dreams…. And a heart so big, that it could cure your soul.”
If you want to know more about Sister Anna, you can just ask Sue Overman. She knows a lot of the stories about her and I bet she would happy to share them with you.
Another example from the history of the Church of the Brethren is that of Sarah Rider Major. Sister Sarah was born in the early part of the twentieth century and lived most of her life on the farmland of Ohio. One day, during her prayer time, she felt the call of the Spirit to preach the good news of Christ. That might not seem like such a big deal to us now, but at that time, women were not allowed to be in leadership of the church – let alone preach the gospel.
Sister Sarah did not let that stop her. After a time of more prayer and discernment (on her own and with others), she decided that she had to obey God’s call. So, during the time in worship when the ministers shared the message, she rose to speak. Though the leaders of her congregation responded by asking her to stop, she continued to obey the calling she felt every time she went to prayer by traveling to other congregations.
As news of the woman preacher spread, many people expressed concern about this breach of the Church’s teaching. Eventually, it came up as a part of the business at Annual Conference where the elder body of the church directed her to stop. Once again, Sarah spent time in prayer and reflection and found that she simply could not go against the will of the Spirit in whose presence she sought to dwell. And, though the annual meeting sent a delegation of elders to discipline her, after listening to her preach they found that they could not bring themselves to silence a voice that spoke the gospel with such power. So, Sister Sarah continued to preach, paving the way for other women to become preachers and leaders in the church.
Two women of extraordinary conviction and vibrant faith …. Both of them longed for a closer, deeper relationship with the God. Both of them thirsted for the presence of the Spirit filling them with the water of life, bringing dreams of what could be, and opening their eyes to the activity of the divine all around them at all times. And, both of them found themselves propelled into the world to follow Christ in lives of discipleship that were rich and juicy with the fruits of their passionate spirituality … whatever it led them and whatever the cost.
In the end, there is really no way that I can tell you what passionate spirituality is because each person experiences it differently and is uniquely affected by the touch of the Spirit. What I can say, is that the remarkable thing about people who have found it is that they live vibrant lives that call to us, resonating with that part of each of us that longs to know God more deeply. What each person’s response to that calling is cannot be known in advance. But, if we can say anything with certainty, we can say that passionate spirituality is marked by deep faith and a commitment to feed that hunger for God which gives it birth and which it, in turn, feeds and nurtures. And we can go one step further and say that passionate spirituality is evidenced by vibrant discipleship, by lives committed to seeking out the will of God and doing what needs to be done in order bring the Realm of God more fully into being here and now.
When you find the key that unlocks that kind of spirituality within your own soul, you will know it. It will come over you with a power and a sweetness that you never thought possible. Or, it will sneak up on you, growing stronger and stronger, reshaping your heart and your life until, one day, you will get a glimpse of yourself and wonder who, exactly, you are. And, a little voice inside you will tell you that you are a chosen one, a beloved child of God who has answered the call to walk closely with the One who is at the heart of all life.
As we come to the end of this series, I pray that at least one of the practices we have explored has inspired you – has helped you find your way closer to your own passionate spirituality. Whether it is a new type of prayer, the reawakening of the child-like nature within you, a recognition of the freeing power of forgiveness, the pursuit of healing and wholeness, a sense of being drawn to welcome others with Christian hospitality, or a commitment to discerning the Spirit’s guidance for how you say yes and no as you seek to live and, ultimately, to die well, or some combination of all of these, I hope that it has awakened for you a thirst for a deeper relationship with God. And that, as we leave this time of worship together, you will not simply leave behind all that has been said or the possibilities for a deeper, more vibrant faith. But, that you will take something with you, putting at least one of these practices in your spiritual backpack to carry with you as you continue walking with Christ on your journey of discipleship.
Final Sunday in Passionate Spirituality Series
Matthew 5:13-16 Psalm 42
For nine weeks now, we have been talking about passionate spirituality and some of the practices that can help revive our relationship with the author of our faith when we find ourselves feeling stagnate or cut off from God. In the process, we have explored discernment, healing, living and dying well, saying yes and saying no, prayer, child-likeness, forgiveness, and hospitality in keeping with the interests you all shared with Carrie and me in June. And, while I know from the comments that we have received that many of you have found some aspect or another of our tour helpful or maybe even inspiring for your own spiritual journeys. But, I wonder if we have left something important unsaid. I wonder if, for all the time we have spent with particulars, we have missed the bigger picture. What, after all, is passionate spirituality? And, why should we worry about pursuing it?
If we hear those questions and feel like we don’t even know where to begin the answers (which may be the case from the looks on some of your faces), I have to admit that I’m not really surprised. Passionate Spirituality is a vague, amorphous term that can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. And, when I began our journey together two months ago, I chose not to delve into what it might mean because I wanted you all to be able to discover it for yourselves, and I hope that you have. Yet, it may be good for us to step back and look at the bigger picture. And, though we may not be able to define passionate spirituality, we all know it when we see it – or at least the fruits of it because the lives of those who have found it are marked by power and an unmistakable sense of connection with God that stands our self-satisfied lives on end.
If you take a moment to think about it, I’m sure you can identity a few people who embody this life. Some are so well known that they have become a part of our communal identity: Martin Luther King, Jr., Dorothy Day, Gandhi, Mother Teresa, and any number of others. Yet, as easy as it is to name those famous figures as examples, they have become almost unreal – clichés that have lost a good deal of their meaning in the process of becoming short-hand references dropped in passing. There are others in our traditions whose stories are fresher and can offer us more illumination.
One of these is Sister Anna Mow. Now, don’t let the name throw you. Sister Anna was not a nun. She was a plain woman of the Church of the Brethren in an age when we still called each other brother and sister as recognition that we are all adopted into the family of Christ.
Sister Anna was, as I said, a plain woman. She wore the plain dress of the old Brethren, and she sought to follow the example of Christ by opening her heart to all that she met. She had little for herself because she chose to give most (if not all) of what she could spare to those in need, and she spent much of her time working with young people in the church.
She was dedicated in her devotion to God and ardent in her prayers for the church as a whole and the individual people she knew. Those whose lives she touched found her to be inspirational. They honored and loved her with all her quirks because she was an example of the faith and selfless-ness they felt was at the heart of Christianity. And she, in turn, accepted them for who they were and pushed them to become all that they could be. Yet, no one resented her because it was clear to everyone that her love was not conditional and her guidance came from the dreams she had for others. As one folk song said it, “[she] had a hole in her stocking and a pocket full of dreams…. And a heart so big, that it could cure your soul.”
If you want to know more about Sister Anna, you can just ask Sue Overman. She knows a lot of the stories about her and I bet she would happy to share them with you.
Another example from the history of the Church of the Brethren is that of Sarah Rider Major. Sister Sarah was born in the early part of the twentieth century and lived most of her life on the farmland of Ohio. One day, during her prayer time, she felt the call of the Spirit to preach the good news of Christ. That might not seem like such a big deal to us now, but at that time, women were not allowed to be in leadership of the church – let alone preach the gospel.
Sister Sarah did not let that stop her. After a time of more prayer and discernment (on her own and with others), she decided that she had to obey God’s call. So, during the time in worship when the ministers shared the message, she rose to speak. Though the leaders of her congregation responded by asking her to stop, she continued to obey the calling she felt every time she went to prayer by traveling to other congregations.
As news of the woman preacher spread, many people expressed concern about this breach of the Church’s teaching. Eventually, it came up as a part of the business at Annual Conference where the elder body of the church directed her to stop. Once again, Sarah spent time in prayer and reflection and found that she simply could not go against the will of the Spirit in whose presence she sought to dwell. And, though the annual meeting sent a delegation of elders to discipline her, after listening to her preach they found that they could not bring themselves to silence a voice that spoke the gospel with such power. So, Sister Sarah continued to preach, paving the way for other women to become preachers and leaders in the church.
Two women of extraordinary conviction and vibrant faith …. Both of them longed for a closer, deeper relationship with the God. Both of them thirsted for the presence of the Spirit filling them with the water of life, bringing dreams of what could be, and opening their eyes to the activity of the divine all around them at all times. And, both of them found themselves propelled into the world to follow Christ in lives of discipleship that were rich and juicy with the fruits of their passionate spirituality … whatever it led them and whatever the cost.
In the end, there is really no way that I can tell you what passionate spirituality is because each person experiences it differently and is uniquely affected by the touch of the Spirit. What I can say, is that the remarkable thing about people who have found it is that they live vibrant lives that call to us, resonating with that part of each of us that longs to know God more deeply. What each person’s response to that calling is cannot be known in advance. But, if we can say anything with certainty, we can say that passionate spirituality is marked by deep faith and a commitment to feed that hunger for God which gives it birth and which it, in turn, feeds and nurtures. And we can go one step further and say that passionate spirituality is evidenced by vibrant discipleship, by lives committed to seeking out the will of God and doing what needs to be done in order bring the Realm of God more fully into being here and now.
When you find the key that unlocks that kind of spirituality within your own soul, you will know it. It will come over you with a power and a sweetness that you never thought possible. Or, it will sneak up on you, growing stronger and stronger, reshaping your heart and your life until, one day, you will get a glimpse of yourself and wonder who, exactly, you are. And, a little voice inside you will tell you that you are a chosen one, a beloved child of God who has answered the call to walk closely with the One who is at the heart of all life.
As we come to the end of this series, I pray that at least one of the practices we have explored has inspired you – has helped you find your way closer to your own passionate spirituality. Whether it is a new type of prayer, the reawakening of the child-like nature within you, a recognition of the freeing power of forgiveness, the pursuit of healing and wholeness, a sense of being drawn to welcome others with Christian hospitality, or a commitment to discerning the Spirit’s guidance for how you say yes and no as you seek to live and, ultimately, to die well, or some combination of all of these, I hope that it has awakened for you a thirst for a deeper relationship with God. And that, as we leave this time of worship together, you will not simply leave behind all that has been said or the possibilities for a deeper, more vibrant faith. But, that you will take something with you, putting at least one of these practices in your spiritual backpack to carry with you as you continue walking with Christ on your journey of discipleship.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Prayer – the Passionate Heart of Spirituality
sermon by Torin Eikler
9th Sunday in Passionate Spirituality Series
Deuteronomy 6:4-9 Matthew 6:1-18
I want to begin today’s meditation by asking a question (and I am going to ask you raise your hands, so be ready)…. What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of “the spiritual discipline of prayer?”
Alright … how many of you thought of kneeling in a prayer closet or at your bedside with your hands folded and speaking to God (out loud or in your head)? How many of you thought of some similar form of private prayer? Anybody think of singing hymns? How about knitting or sewing blankets? Walking through the woods? Writing poetry or journaling? Growing food? Does anybody have a different image of prayer? (Would you like to share it with us?)
Okay, you get the point. The practice of prayer is difficult to nail down because it is a different experience for everyone. Yet, prayer is essential to the exploration we have been doing in this series because it is right at the heart of passionate spirituality. It is the steadily flowing river that quenches our thirst for God, refreshes our spirits, and restores us to a holier frame of mind.
In essence, prayer can be any activity that serves to focus our hearts, minds, spirits, and lives on God and draw us into a closer relationship with the source of the river of life. And, with so much freedom in the form of prayer, it should be easy for us to follow the scriptures’ guidance to pray without ceasing, but I think many of us find it is actually more difficult when the parameters are so loose. I often find myself committing to make my life a prayer and then going days without really sitting down to pray. What I have found helpful in my own journey is to look at eddies and currents of prayer that have been mapped out, sounded for depth, and ridden by believers in our tradition across the centuries.
Robert Benson, one of my new favorite authors has written a book called Living Prayer in which he tells the story of his experience with one of these traditional types of prayer – a practice that has come to be known as “praying the hours.” If you’ve never heard of that form of prayer, its refers to the centuries-old practice of cloistered monks and nuns who put down their work several times each day in order to re-center themselves in a time of prayer. Usually, the schedule of prayer is the same each day and the monks or nuns gather together at dawn and dusk as well as at the hours of 7, 9, noon, and 3 o’clock (hence the name) to hear scripture read, chant a psalm or two and repeat the prayers that their orders have said generation after generation.
In his book, Benson, has this to say about his experience with the hours at a monastery in Kentucky.
"I never saw a more ordinary group of men in my entire life. No one’s face glowed, no grand current of electricity ran through the place, no thunder crashed, no angels sang…. The community simply stopped its work, gathered to pray, and dispersed, going on to the next part of the day, letting the act and the art of their prayer speak for itself…. When it was over, and it was over too soon for me, it was time to go back to work…. I stood on the steps outside the chapel … [and tried] to think contemplative thoughts, [tried] to savor the sense and spirit of the moment when a monk went past me and knelt down to pull weeds from a flower bed.
[And I realized that] the lives of the monks of Gethsemani are very different from mine. But the difference has less to do with celibacy and fashion and location, and everything to do with what happens when the bell rings. When the bell rings, they pray. Everything is different because of that one thing…."
This “Praying of the hours,” though, is not solely the purview of “the religious.” And though it sounds daunting – maybe even impossible – for modern Americans with our overly scheduled days, the practice of the millions of Muslims who pause for prayer seven times a day shows that it is reasonable if we but commit ourselves to mark our days by the ebb and flow of the tide of prayer.
Another branch of prayer that has been around for quite some time (and seems to be enjoying renewed interest on the part of western Christians) is meditation. Again, this practice is probably more associated with Buddhism or new-age religion in many of our minds, but it has been quite common among Christians at times in the past. In fact, it was the bread and butter of the desert mothers and fathers – 3rd and 4th century desert hermits revered for their wisdom and spiritual authority – and it was very popular among the pilgrims who practiced it as they walked between shrines day after day.
Though there are many forms of meditation as well, one of my favorites is walking the labyrinth. Now a labyrinth and a maze are two different things. A maze is a complex construction designed to confuse people in their search for the way through by offering many possible paths as distraction. A labyrinth, by contrast, has only one path leading to a central space and is designed to be easy to follow. Rather than presenting a puzzle to be solved, it encourages people to walk, skip, or maybe even summersault their way forward, progressively leaving behind the cares and concerns of the world and approaching their spiritual center. Arriving at the central space of the labyrinth, the pilgrim spends time in meditative prayer focused on opening to the presence and guidance of God. The challenging part is holding onto the sense of focus and peace as you walk back into the world and pick up your worries and responsibilities again.
Now, most of us are probably not going to rearrange our lives to follow the rhythm of the hours, nor do we commonly have regular access to a labyrinth (though Carrie and I have planted a garden in that shape if you ever want to come by and try it). But other traditional forms of prayer are an option for everyone no matter their location or their schedule. One of those is intercessory prayer or prayer on behalf of another. Every one of our churches (or at least most) have people who are gifted in this type of prayer that carries us outside of ourselves and our concerns as we hold the sufferings and trials of brothers, sisters, and total strangers before our God (- a deeper and truer prayer than those offered before WV football games, I might add).
When I was young, we called them “prayer warriors,” and I generally avoided them because I didn’t understand the sense of awe they inspired. As I have grown older, though, I have come to realize that the gift they offered to the rest of us is actually something we are all called to do – it’s something that we do each Sunday when we pray together for the concerns brought by our sisters and brothers. I also realized that the “prayer warriors” of my youth were mostly people who had committed themselves to praying for others at least once each and every day and had become more comfortable and more skilled at the practice than the rest of us.
But, there is no reason that all of us should not be able to include this practice in our lives. There is no reason that we can’t find a moment or two each day to ride an eddy of the river of prayer into stillness and lift up another for the blessing and grace of God. Even just those few moments serve to break our self-centered habits and refocus us, to some degree, on God’s perspective and the service to which we are called.
Throughout this service of worship, we have already been praying in many different ways. We have sung our praise, petition, and gratitude. We have shared in the call and response of prayer litanies. We have called forth a special blessing on one of our brothers through the laying on of hands. We have opened our hearts to our community of faith and the one who brings us back to wholeness. And, some of us may even have prayed for the relief from heat and hunger promised by our picnic together at the park.
What I would like to invite you to now is a special time of intercessory prayer with two or three of those around you. There are some simple instructions on the insert that will help you do this, and though I know praying for one another in person sometimes makes us feel uncomfortable, this is an important part of life together in a faith community.
But, before we move into that time of prayer, I want to share with you one more quote from Robert Benson.
"Our work has become almost everything to us. Our lives are built around it and the fruits of it. Productivity, success, efficiency have become the watchwords of the day. It is no wonder that our days seem very often to be devoid of meaning. At best, they are built around about a fourth of who we are. It is not necessarily the work itself that is killing us, it is the way we give it such meaning and power and control over our lives.
Our lives hang in the balance, on might say. And if there is no balance, then they are indeed hanging by a thread."
Sisters and brothers in Christ, whatever form of prayer you choose – be it folding your hands as you kneel by the bedside or meditation as you wash dishes or even repeating a phrase from the psalms as you walk from place to place – I encourage you to seek that beautiful stream, to launch yourselves into the refreshing waters of prayer regularly. It is the only way to keep yourself close to the God we claim to serve – the God who loves us, and it is the first step to building a life on and around the passionate faith that saves us.
9th Sunday in Passionate Spirituality Series
Deuteronomy 6:4-9 Matthew 6:1-18
I want to begin today’s meditation by asking a question (and I am going to ask you raise your hands, so be ready)…. What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of “the spiritual discipline of prayer?”
Alright … how many of you thought of kneeling in a prayer closet or at your bedside with your hands folded and speaking to God (out loud or in your head)? How many of you thought of some similar form of private prayer? Anybody think of singing hymns? How about knitting or sewing blankets? Walking through the woods? Writing poetry or journaling? Growing food? Does anybody have a different image of prayer? (Would you like to share it with us?)
Okay, you get the point. The practice of prayer is difficult to nail down because it is a different experience for everyone. Yet, prayer is essential to the exploration we have been doing in this series because it is right at the heart of passionate spirituality. It is the steadily flowing river that quenches our thirst for God, refreshes our spirits, and restores us to a holier frame of mind.
In essence, prayer can be any activity that serves to focus our hearts, minds, spirits, and lives on God and draw us into a closer relationship with the source of the river of life. And, with so much freedom in the form of prayer, it should be easy for us to follow the scriptures’ guidance to pray without ceasing, but I think many of us find it is actually more difficult when the parameters are so loose. I often find myself committing to make my life a prayer and then going days without really sitting down to pray. What I have found helpful in my own journey is to look at eddies and currents of prayer that have been mapped out, sounded for depth, and ridden by believers in our tradition across the centuries.
Robert Benson, one of my new favorite authors has written a book called Living Prayer in which he tells the story of his experience with one of these traditional types of prayer – a practice that has come to be known as “praying the hours.” If you’ve never heard of that form of prayer, its refers to the centuries-old practice of cloistered monks and nuns who put down their work several times each day in order to re-center themselves in a time of prayer. Usually, the schedule of prayer is the same each day and the monks or nuns gather together at dawn and dusk as well as at the hours of 7, 9, noon, and 3 o’clock (hence the name) to hear scripture read, chant a psalm or two and repeat the prayers that their orders have said generation after generation.
In his book, Benson, has this to say about his experience with the hours at a monastery in Kentucky.
"I never saw a more ordinary group of men in my entire life. No one’s face glowed, no grand current of electricity ran through the place, no thunder crashed, no angels sang…. The community simply stopped its work, gathered to pray, and dispersed, going on to the next part of the day, letting the act and the art of their prayer speak for itself…. When it was over, and it was over too soon for me, it was time to go back to work…. I stood on the steps outside the chapel … [and tried] to think contemplative thoughts, [tried] to savor the sense and spirit of the moment when a monk went past me and knelt down to pull weeds from a flower bed.
[And I realized that] the lives of the monks of Gethsemani are very different from mine. But the difference has less to do with celibacy and fashion and location, and everything to do with what happens when the bell rings. When the bell rings, they pray. Everything is different because of that one thing…."
This “Praying of the hours,” though, is not solely the purview of “the religious.” And though it sounds daunting – maybe even impossible – for modern Americans with our overly scheduled days, the practice of the millions of Muslims who pause for prayer seven times a day shows that it is reasonable if we but commit ourselves to mark our days by the ebb and flow of the tide of prayer.
Another branch of prayer that has been around for quite some time (and seems to be enjoying renewed interest on the part of western Christians) is meditation. Again, this practice is probably more associated with Buddhism or new-age religion in many of our minds, but it has been quite common among Christians at times in the past. In fact, it was the bread and butter of the desert mothers and fathers – 3rd and 4th century desert hermits revered for their wisdom and spiritual authority – and it was very popular among the pilgrims who practiced it as they walked between shrines day after day.
Though there are many forms of meditation as well, one of my favorites is walking the labyrinth. Now a labyrinth and a maze are two different things. A maze is a complex construction designed to confuse people in their search for the way through by offering many possible paths as distraction. A labyrinth, by contrast, has only one path leading to a central space and is designed to be easy to follow. Rather than presenting a puzzle to be solved, it encourages people to walk, skip, or maybe even summersault their way forward, progressively leaving behind the cares and concerns of the world and approaching their spiritual center. Arriving at the central space of the labyrinth, the pilgrim spends time in meditative prayer focused on opening to the presence and guidance of God. The challenging part is holding onto the sense of focus and peace as you walk back into the world and pick up your worries and responsibilities again.
Now, most of us are probably not going to rearrange our lives to follow the rhythm of the hours, nor do we commonly have regular access to a labyrinth (though Carrie and I have planted a garden in that shape if you ever want to come by and try it). But other traditional forms of prayer are an option for everyone no matter their location or their schedule. One of those is intercessory prayer or prayer on behalf of another. Every one of our churches (or at least most) have people who are gifted in this type of prayer that carries us outside of ourselves and our concerns as we hold the sufferings and trials of brothers, sisters, and total strangers before our God (- a deeper and truer prayer than those offered before WV football games, I might add).
When I was young, we called them “prayer warriors,” and I generally avoided them because I didn’t understand the sense of awe they inspired. As I have grown older, though, I have come to realize that the gift they offered to the rest of us is actually something we are all called to do – it’s something that we do each Sunday when we pray together for the concerns brought by our sisters and brothers. I also realized that the “prayer warriors” of my youth were mostly people who had committed themselves to praying for others at least once each and every day and had become more comfortable and more skilled at the practice than the rest of us.
But, there is no reason that all of us should not be able to include this practice in our lives. There is no reason that we can’t find a moment or two each day to ride an eddy of the river of prayer into stillness and lift up another for the blessing and grace of God. Even just those few moments serve to break our self-centered habits and refocus us, to some degree, on God’s perspective and the service to which we are called.
Throughout this service of worship, we have already been praying in many different ways. We have sung our praise, petition, and gratitude. We have shared in the call and response of prayer litanies. We have called forth a special blessing on one of our brothers through the laying on of hands. We have opened our hearts to our community of faith and the one who brings us back to wholeness. And, some of us may even have prayed for the relief from heat and hunger promised by our picnic together at the park.
What I would like to invite you to now is a special time of intercessory prayer with two or three of those around you. There are some simple instructions on the insert that will help you do this, and though I know praying for one another in person sometimes makes us feel uncomfortable, this is an important part of life together in a faith community.
But, before we move into that time of prayer, I want to share with you one more quote from Robert Benson.
"Our work has become almost everything to us. Our lives are built around it and the fruits of it. Productivity, success, efficiency have become the watchwords of the day. It is no wonder that our days seem very often to be devoid of meaning. At best, they are built around about a fourth of who we are. It is not necessarily the work itself that is killing us, it is the way we give it such meaning and power and control over our lives.
Our lives hang in the balance, on might say. And if there is no balance, then they are indeed hanging by a thread."
Sisters and brothers in Christ, whatever form of prayer you choose – be it folding your hands as you kneel by the bedside or meditation as you wash dishes or even repeating a phrase from the psalms as you walk from place to place – I encourage you to seek that beautiful stream, to launch yourselves into the refreshing waters of prayer regularly. It is the only way to keep yourself close to the God we claim to serve – the God who loves us, and it is the first step to building a life on and around the passionate faith that saves us.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Dying Well
sermon by Carrie Eikler
Passionate Spirituality series #8
Psalm 23 Romans 8:36-39; 14:7-9
It may not surprise you, but I found myself wanting to do anything else this week, except write a meditation on dying well. There was that phone call to make, the email to send, the next cup of coffee to warm up. It was harder than even writing a eulogy for a funeral, because at a funeral I can spend time reflecting on the person’s life, and not simply on the reality that we all will die. But today we are not focusing on that inevitability of death. We are focusing on the possibility of living a full life.
Through Paul’s letter to the Romans, we are reminded that nothing separates us from love. Eugene Peterson’s bible translation The Message speaks of it this way: “I'm absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God's love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.”
It is likely we each know someone who has faced death, or we know someone who is facing death, with courage and grace. They knew that what would happen would not separate them from God or God’s love. But somehow, and this is where I struggle in my own reconciling with death, they knew or know that it does not separate them from the love of those around them: their children, their spouses and lovers, their parents, their friends. They knew that it would not separate them from their love of beauty, of poetry, of the smell of fresh bread baking. They know that it will not separate them from the songs that they love to sing in church, the love of a good belly laugh, the love of cuddling with a small child, or the love of a passionate kiss with the one they spent much of their lives with.
Mahatma Gandhi said, “Live as if you will die tomorrow. Learn as if you will live forever.” You have to admit, Gandhi was a spunky guy. There is also a spunky person out there among you. When we did the survey asking which spiritual practices you’d like us to address during this series, one of you, and I don’t know who, checked “dying well,” but also added at the bottom of the page, “living well.”
I like being in an a spunky congregation where we can begin to understand that death is not all there is to life, it’s not a period at the end of a sentence. It is a semi-colon, separating two different yet similar thoughts. The theologian among us who rightly encouraged living well as part of dying well encourages us, as Gandhi did, to continue learning into death, and loving into the next world.
Amy Plantingo Pauw reflects that “dying well grows out of the Christian community’s attempt to live well before God in the present.” We have all heard stories or known people preparing for death, who feel the urgent need to get things in order, and not just their finances. They want to see the things they never saw, say the things they never said, forgive the person they never forgave. When death is imminent, not just some vague inevitability, we are somehow forced to live passionate lives.
If we were to live as if we will die tomorrow we might seek reconciliation, welcome others into our lives, make decisions based on what our heart tells us, pray to God for our families and the world we will leave behind…we might see God in the world around us, we might cherish children and revel in awe, we might be bowled over with gratitude and rise into the beauty of simplicity. That sounds like a passionate life to me.
Soon after Torin and I arrived here to be pastors, we recognized there were two large “spirits” that we felt powerfully present. One was of your previous pastor Cameron, who now lives with his family in Canada. And the other, as you may guess, was the spirit of Dennis Overman. For those of you who are new our congregation, Dennis and Sue were married for 33 years. He died in 2000 from complications with a heart valve replacement. Dennis’ death came quite quickly, and Sue and this congregation were given little time to prepare. Sue has written a wonderful book on her experience, a compilation of her email correspondence with friends and family up to Dennis’ death and in the year following.
Many of you had the blessed experience of loving Dennis into the next life, and walking with Sue as she grieved, and lived, and learned to love once more. And what is apparent to me, even not knowing him but in Sue’s reflections and through your memories, is that Dennis didn’t just die. Dennis died well. Dennis died a death that can guide our living. Here is Sue’s entry on Saturday December 4, about a month before he died.
Dear Everyone, I had a really great night’s sleep—seven hours. I awoke a little before six and called ICU. They said Dennis was doing great and asked if he always talks my ear off. He had been talking all night long. I got up there soon after seven, and was amazed when I discovered I had been there over two hours. He told me marvelous things. He told me that the fact he was still here was a miracle… He said it is a turning point in our lives and life is going to change. He said … “Will I be saying when I die, ‘I wish I had sat at my desk more and taught more anatomy’ or will I say, I wish I had taken that cruise?’ I won’t be saying that because we will take that cruise.” To be honest, [continued Sue] I had no idea we wanted to take a cruise, but I am happy to go along…I couldn’t believe some of the things he was saying.
I’m sure that even before Dennis was facing the real possibility of death, in many ways he was living a life, as Gandhi said, as if he would die tomorrow. But we know he never took that cruise, they never taught in Finland or Sweden. But he did die well. You all helped him die well. Part of dying well is getting outside of ourselves and realizing death isn’t all about us. It isn’t about separating us. It’s about helping others die in love, and being God’s love for them.
“Those who face death experience the living presence of God through the living presence of the community that cherishes and mourns them,” says Amy Plantingo Pauw. Shortly before Christmas, about two weeks before Dennis died, Sue wrote: “This is just a quick note to tell you we were on the other side this evening. When the church group went caroling they came here first. It is such a beautiful evening that Dennis went outside and sang with them. Then he sent them off to the “old and sick people.”
Dying well means living well. Dying well means loving deeply in this life, loving deeply in our souls this gift of life that God gave us so that however our souls live on, that love with be there…the voice, the poetry, the scent of bread, the tingle of a kiss, the exhaustion from laughter. That love is in our souls, and not separated from us, from God, from God’s love for us, for our love for each other.
Sometimes I struggle, because I don’t know if I would rather have God’s love for the rest of eternity, or the love of Torin, Sebastian, and Alistair; to know more fully Jesus’ love for me or to be able to love the things that I love right now, in the way that I love them right now. I don’t want to be without those things. Can God’s love give me those things in death? Can God assure me that the love that helps me get out of bed every day will be waiting for me after I die? Can God assure me that what helps me love God as I live in this earthly realm won’t be taken away from me in death? This may sound all jumbled up to you, but I bet you understand.
Passionate Spirituality series #8
Psalm 23 Romans 8:36-39; 14:7-9
It may not surprise you, but I found myself wanting to do anything else this week, except write a meditation on dying well. There was that phone call to make, the email to send, the next cup of coffee to warm up. It was harder than even writing a eulogy for a funeral, because at a funeral I can spend time reflecting on the person’s life, and not simply on the reality that we all will die. But today we are not focusing on that inevitability of death. We are focusing on the possibility of living a full life.
Through Paul’s letter to the Romans, we are reminded that nothing separates us from love. Eugene Peterson’s bible translation The Message speaks of it this way: “I'm absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God's love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.”
It is likely we each know someone who has faced death, or we know someone who is facing death, with courage and grace. They knew that what would happen would not separate them from God or God’s love. But somehow, and this is where I struggle in my own reconciling with death, they knew or know that it does not separate them from the love of those around them: their children, their spouses and lovers, their parents, their friends. They knew that it would not separate them from their love of beauty, of poetry, of the smell of fresh bread baking. They know that it will not separate them from the songs that they love to sing in church, the love of a good belly laugh, the love of cuddling with a small child, or the love of a passionate kiss with the one they spent much of their lives with.
Mahatma Gandhi said, “Live as if you will die tomorrow. Learn as if you will live forever.” You have to admit, Gandhi was a spunky guy. There is also a spunky person out there among you. When we did the survey asking which spiritual practices you’d like us to address during this series, one of you, and I don’t know who, checked “dying well,” but also added at the bottom of the page, “living well.”
I like being in an a spunky congregation where we can begin to understand that death is not all there is to life, it’s not a period at the end of a sentence. It is a semi-colon, separating two different yet similar thoughts. The theologian among us who rightly encouraged living well as part of dying well encourages us, as Gandhi did, to continue learning into death, and loving into the next world.
Amy Plantingo Pauw reflects that “dying well grows out of the Christian community’s attempt to live well before God in the present.” We have all heard stories or known people preparing for death, who feel the urgent need to get things in order, and not just their finances. They want to see the things they never saw, say the things they never said, forgive the person they never forgave. When death is imminent, not just some vague inevitability, we are somehow forced to live passionate lives.
If we were to live as if we will die tomorrow we might seek reconciliation, welcome others into our lives, make decisions based on what our heart tells us, pray to God for our families and the world we will leave behind…we might see God in the world around us, we might cherish children and revel in awe, we might be bowled over with gratitude and rise into the beauty of simplicity. That sounds like a passionate life to me.
Soon after Torin and I arrived here to be pastors, we recognized there were two large “spirits” that we felt powerfully present. One was of your previous pastor Cameron, who now lives with his family in Canada. And the other, as you may guess, was the spirit of Dennis Overman. For those of you who are new our congregation, Dennis and Sue were married for 33 years. He died in 2000 from complications with a heart valve replacement. Dennis’ death came quite quickly, and Sue and this congregation were given little time to prepare. Sue has written a wonderful book on her experience, a compilation of her email correspondence with friends and family up to Dennis’ death and in the year following.
Many of you had the blessed experience of loving Dennis into the next life, and walking with Sue as she grieved, and lived, and learned to love once more. And what is apparent to me, even not knowing him but in Sue’s reflections and through your memories, is that Dennis didn’t just die. Dennis died well. Dennis died a death that can guide our living. Here is Sue’s entry on Saturday December 4, about a month before he died.
Dear Everyone, I had a really great night’s sleep—seven hours. I awoke a little before six and called ICU. They said Dennis was doing great and asked if he always talks my ear off. He had been talking all night long. I got up there soon after seven, and was amazed when I discovered I had been there over two hours. He told me marvelous things. He told me that the fact he was still here was a miracle… He said it is a turning point in our lives and life is going to change. He said … “Will I be saying when I die, ‘I wish I had sat at my desk more and taught more anatomy’ or will I say, I wish I had taken that cruise?’ I won’t be saying that because we will take that cruise.” To be honest, [continued Sue] I had no idea we wanted to take a cruise, but I am happy to go along…I couldn’t believe some of the things he was saying.
I’m sure that even before Dennis was facing the real possibility of death, in many ways he was living a life, as Gandhi said, as if he would die tomorrow. But we know he never took that cruise, they never taught in Finland or Sweden. But he did die well. You all helped him die well. Part of dying well is getting outside of ourselves and realizing death isn’t all about us. It isn’t about separating us. It’s about helping others die in love, and being God’s love for them.
“Those who face death experience the living presence of God through the living presence of the community that cherishes and mourns them,” says Amy Plantingo Pauw. Shortly before Christmas, about two weeks before Dennis died, Sue wrote: “This is just a quick note to tell you we were on the other side this evening. When the church group went caroling they came here first. It is such a beautiful evening that Dennis went outside and sang with them. Then he sent them off to the “old and sick people.”
Dying well means living well. Dying well means loving deeply in this life, loving deeply in our souls this gift of life that God gave us so that however our souls live on, that love with be there…the voice, the poetry, the scent of bread, the tingle of a kiss, the exhaustion from laughter. That love is in our souls, and not separated from us, from God, from God’s love for us, for our love for each other.
Sometimes I struggle, because I don’t know if I would rather have God’s love for the rest of eternity, or the love of Torin, Sebastian, and Alistair; to know more fully Jesus’ love for me or to be able to love the things that I love right now, in the way that I love them right now. I don’t want to be without those things. Can God’s love give me those things in death? Can God assure me that the love that helps me get out of bed every day will be waiting for me after I die? Can God assure me that what helps me love God as I live in this earthly realm won’t be taken away from me in death? This may sound all jumbled up to you, but I bet you understand.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Spirituality of Healing
sermon by Torin Eikler
7th Sunday in Passionate Spirituality Series
James 5:13-16 Mark 6:6b-13
For the past six weeks, we have been exploring the power of Christian Spiritual Practices in our search for a fuller, more passionate spirituality as individuals and as a faith community. Each week, we have tried to share time-honored guidance that help us all engage these practices, or we have tried to provide the opportunity to actually experience them during worship. Sometimes, we have been able to do both. And today is no different.
Earlier in the service, we shared in a time of anointing. The service has remained essentially unchanged since the time of the early church, and as simple as it is, it displays all the wisdom of the Christian community about the spiritual practice of healing. Over the millennia, believers have accepted the power of prayer, anointing, and the laying on of hands as the soul of that practic. And yet, in modern history, we have come to see this ancient form of healing as more than a little questionable given our current understanding of medicine and the body.
There is a congregation in Connecticut that has dealt with this struggle in its own quest to embrace the ministry of healing. In the 1960s, they decided to begin holding healing services in response to the increasing despair they felt was surrounding their church. For forty years now, they have gathered every Wednesday to share in the Eucharist, intercessory prayer, anointing, and the laying on of hands. Though the results of their services are generally characterized by slow improvements in general health, over the years there have been “dramatic instances of physical or psychological recuperation.” And, the congregation has had its assumptions about spiritual healing questioned by what they have seen.
Member Avery Brook, a founder of the healing services program, talks about it in this way. “At the beginning, none of us wanted to admit that God was performing the healings which occurred in our prayer and study sessions. As sophisticated people, we preferred more secular explanations: psychosomatic mending (in other words, the power of people’s minds directing their bodies to get better), relaxation from stress, that sort of thing. [But, after awhile we realized that] when we pray for healing something always happens, even if it isn’t what we asked, [and] it is not the individual praying who is doing the healing, but God’s power working through us. We [just] needed to learn to get ourselves and our concern for results out of the way and just let God act through us.”
Brook’s last comment get at the heart of one of my own struggles with practice of healing – letting go of my concern for results. Growing up as the son of a doctor, I was steeped in the philosophy of the medical profession. And even though my father has repeatedly commented that “the science of medicine” is less a science and more an application of the gathered wisdom of the ages – wisdom gathered by trial and error (his favorite example being that even after years of study, no one really knows why aspirin works)… even with all that, I still have the expectation that a treatment should match a symptom and provide a cure. When I have an infection, I take antibiotics, and I expect the infection to go away. When I have a headache, I still take aspirin, and I expect that the headache will go away.
But the Christian tradition of healing doesn’t seem to work that way. Headache, infection, cancer, or whatever the ailment, we apply the same formula – prayer, anointing, and laying on of hands – and we can never be sure of exactly what will happen. Letting go of my desire for specific results is not only difficult, it tends to make me less eager to go through the process. When I am sick or in pain, I just want it to go away – and a quickly as possible.
I might call that a pretty straight-forward example of my desire for instant gratification, but I think there is something deeper at work. And, I am drawn back to Brook’s assurance that whenever they prayed for healing, “something always happened.” I’m not sure what that meant, but it seems like he was saying that letting go and letting God do the work, doesn’t always mean that we receive healing in the sense that we usually mean. And, I think that’s another hang-up for me.
I think of healing – for the most part – as having to do with curing the physical body. That’s the way our medical system sees it, and that’s what all of the stories of miraculous healings in the Bible describe. And yet, as we see in the account from Mark and many other scriptures, healing is often linked with casting out demons or restoring the social position of outcasts. So, the disciples were sent out to cast out demons and (almost as an afterthought) to heal the sick. Time and again, Jesus is said to have traveled throughout the country healing the sick and casting out demons. The woman with the constant flow of blood that made her unclean and untouchable received healing that allowed her to reenter society. And, the Gerasene demoniac was not only freed from Legion but also from the chains of custom and society that kept him on the edge, living in a graveyard.
Biblically – and throughout Christian history – healing is concerned with much more than the physical body. The central image is not a cure but a return to wholeness and peace. It’s the concept that’s all together in the Hebrew word “שאלמ” – which theologian and priest John Koenig describes as “a right relationship with God and our neighbors which gives birth to an all-embracing peace that spells the end of meaningless suffering.”[i] According to that definition, the goal of the Christian practice of healing is a return to Shalom and only secondarily the cure of physical ailments. That doesn’t mean that physical healing never happens. To the contrary, the experience of that Connecticut congregation along with many others across the centuries speaks to the continued gift of miraculous cures. But, it does mean that I – and most of us, I expect – need to enlarge our perspective when it comes to healing.
At its root, salvation means healing – healing in that holistic sense that Koenig describes, and the promise we have is that salvation is not just a hope for the future, it is a reality for believers in the here and now. When we look at things from that perspective, it is easier to see that healing events – physical, psychological, emotional, and spiritual – happen daily and are, in some sense, a gift of reassurance that the promise of salvation is real.
The practice of healing that we have received – passed down to us across the years – is a powerful way we can enter into that promise. When we act with God to bring about healing – for ourselves or for others – we become a part of the divine plan to bring about the restoration of all creation. That is not only a beautiful prospect placed in front of us as an invitation, it is a part of our baptismal promise to live, with the Spirit’s help, according to the example and teachings of Jesus. We have been given the tools of prayer, anointing, and the laying on of hands to help us, but most of us still need to work on getting out of the way – on letting go of our fears, our doubts, and our desire to control the outcome – so that the power of God is free to work through us making something happen – something that will bring each of us … all of us closer to the restoration of shalom that God desires for all creation.
Since it’s one thing to say all of that and quite another to come to terms with it in our minds and in our lives, I would like to invite you all to spend the next several minutes with a pencil and your journal. Explore in the privacy of those pages your own thoughts, your own fears and skepticism, and the hopes that rise up within you when you think about the practice of healing. There are, as usual, some questions in your bulletins if you need them to help you get started. We’ll come back together for our final hymn – “Here I am, Lord.”
[i] Koenig, John. Healing in Practicing our Faith (Dorothy Bass, ed.) pg 150.
7th Sunday in Passionate Spirituality Series
James 5:13-16 Mark 6:6b-13
For the past six weeks, we have been exploring the power of Christian Spiritual Practices in our search for a fuller, more passionate spirituality as individuals and as a faith community. Each week, we have tried to share time-honored guidance that help us all engage these practices, or we have tried to provide the opportunity to actually experience them during worship. Sometimes, we have been able to do both. And today is no different.
Earlier in the service, we shared in a time of anointing. The service has remained essentially unchanged since the time of the early church, and as simple as it is, it displays all the wisdom of the Christian community about the spiritual practice of healing. Over the millennia, believers have accepted the power of prayer, anointing, and the laying on of hands as the soul of that practic. And yet, in modern history, we have come to see this ancient form of healing as more than a little questionable given our current understanding of medicine and the body.
There is a congregation in Connecticut that has dealt with this struggle in its own quest to embrace the ministry of healing. In the 1960s, they decided to begin holding healing services in response to the increasing despair they felt was surrounding their church. For forty years now, they have gathered every Wednesday to share in the Eucharist, intercessory prayer, anointing, and the laying on of hands. Though the results of their services are generally characterized by slow improvements in general health, over the years there have been “dramatic instances of physical or psychological recuperation.” And, the congregation has had its assumptions about spiritual healing questioned by what they have seen.
Member Avery Brook, a founder of the healing services program, talks about it in this way. “At the beginning, none of us wanted to admit that God was performing the healings which occurred in our prayer and study sessions. As sophisticated people, we preferred more secular explanations: psychosomatic mending (in other words, the power of people’s minds directing their bodies to get better), relaxation from stress, that sort of thing. [But, after awhile we realized that] when we pray for healing something always happens, even if it isn’t what we asked, [and] it is not the individual praying who is doing the healing, but God’s power working through us. We [just] needed to learn to get ourselves and our concern for results out of the way and just let God act through us.”
Brook’s last comment get at the heart of one of my own struggles with practice of healing – letting go of my concern for results. Growing up as the son of a doctor, I was steeped in the philosophy of the medical profession. And even though my father has repeatedly commented that “the science of medicine” is less a science and more an application of the gathered wisdom of the ages – wisdom gathered by trial and error (his favorite example being that even after years of study, no one really knows why aspirin works)… even with all that, I still have the expectation that a treatment should match a symptom and provide a cure. When I have an infection, I take antibiotics, and I expect the infection to go away. When I have a headache, I still take aspirin, and I expect that the headache will go away.
But the Christian tradition of healing doesn’t seem to work that way. Headache, infection, cancer, or whatever the ailment, we apply the same formula – prayer, anointing, and laying on of hands – and we can never be sure of exactly what will happen. Letting go of my desire for specific results is not only difficult, it tends to make me less eager to go through the process. When I am sick or in pain, I just want it to go away – and a quickly as possible.
I might call that a pretty straight-forward example of my desire for instant gratification, but I think there is something deeper at work. And, I am drawn back to Brook’s assurance that whenever they prayed for healing, “something always happened.” I’m not sure what that meant, but it seems like he was saying that letting go and letting God do the work, doesn’t always mean that we receive healing in the sense that we usually mean. And, I think that’s another hang-up for me.
I think of healing – for the most part – as having to do with curing the physical body. That’s the way our medical system sees it, and that’s what all of the stories of miraculous healings in the Bible describe. And yet, as we see in the account from Mark and many other scriptures, healing is often linked with casting out demons or restoring the social position of outcasts. So, the disciples were sent out to cast out demons and (almost as an afterthought) to heal the sick. Time and again, Jesus is said to have traveled throughout the country healing the sick and casting out demons. The woman with the constant flow of blood that made her unclean and untouchable received healing that allowed her to reenter society. And, the Gerasene demoniac was not only freed from Legion but also from the chains of custom and society that kept him on the edge, living in a graveyard.
Biblically – and throughout Christian history – healing is concerned with much more than the physical body. The central image is not a cure but a return to wholeness and peace. It’s the concept that’s all together in the Hebrew word “שאלמ” – which theologian and priest John Koenig describes as “a right relationship with God and our neighbors which gives birth to an all-embracing peace that spells the end of meaningless suffering.”[i] According to that definition, the goal of the Christian practice of healing is a return to Shalom and only secondarily the cure of physical ailments. That doesn’t mean that physical healing never happens. To the contrary, the experience of that Connecticut congregation along with many others across the centuries speaks to the continued gift of miraculous cures. But, it does mean that I – and most of us, I expect – need to enlarge our perspective when it comes to healing.
At its root, salvation means healing – healing in that holistic sense that Koenig describes, and the promise we have is that salvation is not just a hope for the future, it is a reality for believers in the here and now. When we look at things from that perspective, it is easier to see that healing events – physical, psychological, emotional, and spiritual – happen daily and are, in some sense, a gift of reassurance that the promise of salvation is real.
The practice of healing that we have received – passed down to us across the years – is a powerful way we can enter into that promise. When we act with God to bring about healing – for ourselves or for others – we become a part of the divine plan to bring about the restoration of all creation. That is not only a beautiful prospect placed in front of us as an invitation, it is a part of our baptismal promise to live, with the Spirit’s help, according to the example and teachings of Jesus. We have been given the tools of prayer, anointing, and the laying on of hands to help us, but most of us still need to work on getting out of the way – on letting go of our fears, our doubts, and our desire to control the outcome – so that the power of God is free to work through us making something happen – something that will bring each of us … all of us closer to the restoration of shalom that God desires for all creation.
Since it’s one thing to say all of that and quite another to come to terms with it in our minds and in our lives, I would like to invite you all to spend the next several minutes with a pencil and your journal. Explore in the privacy of those pages your own thoughts, your own fears and skepticism, and the hopes that rise up within you when you think about the practice of healing. There are, as usual, some questions in your bulletins if you need them to help you get started. We’ll come back together for our final hymn – “Here I am, Lord.”
[i] Koenig, John. Healing in Practicing our Faith (Dorothy Bass, ed.) pg 150.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Children's Sunday
6th Sunday in Passionate Spirituality Series
This Sunday we "for-went" much of our normal routine in celebration of children. Children were a large part of the service through singing, acting, reading, dancing, and leading. Below are some of the materials involved* (*much was used from Children's Sunday resources provided by UCC)
Call to Worship (Nick holding Shailoh, Carrie holding Alistair, and Kim holding Beatrix)–
Nick: Climbing High, reaching for the sky
Carrie: Jumping in puddles, laughing so merrily
Kim: Rolling in tickling green grass, dizzy with joy
All: The exuberance of children: God’s pure delight
Kim: Singing out loud and dancing wildly
Carrie: Running or toddling, legs all a blur
Nick: Hugging and sharing, faces aglow
All: The joy of children: a blessing from God and a reason to sing.
*Hymn Lord we bring to you our children SJ #90
(children walk in, waving ribbons: up the center aisle, around pews, back up the center aisle, placing sticks on vase on worship center, children return to steps)
*Opening Prayer (Katie reads, Nick leads congregation in repeating, Carrie leads children in motion as Katie reads)
For our opening prayer, Katie is going to read a line while the children do some movement. You then are invited to repeat the words and the movement that the children do. May our hearts and bodies join together in prayer!
Holy God,
you were with us when we were born,
you are with us as we grow,
you are with us when we hurt
you are with us when we are whole.
Thank you.
Thank you!
THANK YOU!
Would you help us to see?
Would you help us to hear?
Would you help us to love?
So we might change ourselves.
So we might change the world!
WELCOMING
Peace Lamp - American journalist Dorothy Thompson wrote, “If we wish to create a lasting peace, we must begin with the children.” May our congregation be a place of molding and making, shaping and supporting young peacemakers. May we be a place of peace for all God’s children.
Dedication of Alistair Phillip Eikler
Hymn I was there to hear your borning cry SJ #89
PRAYING AND GIVING
Prayer saying “Thank you” and “I’m sorry” and “Please help” (Scotty, Nick, Carrie)
(everyone focuses on the picture they brought of a child they know)
As I look at this picture, I say, “Thank you, God!”
For the gift of this person in my life.
Thank you for who they are.
Thank you for how they change who I am.
Thank you for all that is good in them,
and for all that is good in the world.
Thank you for making them my teacher,
and thank you for helping them learn from me.
Hold this child in your love!
All: Hold all children in your love!
(Ask everyone to focus on the silhouette given to them when they came in.)
As I look at this picture, I realize I can’t really see the face.
So, today, God, this picture represents someone I’ve hurt—
maybe because of something I did,
maybe because of something I didn’t do.
God, could you help me to realize what I’ve done?
Would you forgive me for what I’ve done?
Could you help me, tomorrow and every day afterward,
to make wiser choices—
ones that bring healing, rather than hurting,
to your world?
Hold these children in your love.
All: Hold all children in your love.
(all focus on picture of child they don't know)
God, this child is your child.
I’m not sure where they come from.
I don’t know what is happening in their life.
But I do know that, just like me, they need your love.
If there is some way that I can make a difference in their life,
guide me to that action—
so I can help to be your hands, your heart, and your love in the world.
Hold these children in your love.
All: Hold all children in your love. AMEN
Offering
In celebration and in hope, let us continue our prayer. Let’s each of us bring forward an offering today—an offering of the faces in our prayer. We’re going to place the photos on the communion table so we might see the faces of God’s children. As we do so, let’s bring our financial gifts in the offering plates as well.
EXPLORING
Children’s Choir - - Jesus loves the little children
Children’s Story - The Colors of Us
Sharing Scripture (Cockroft Family)–
As we engage the words of scripture today, we are going to do something a bit different. Nick will be reading the scriptures and we have some interpretive drama to go along with the words. Following each scripture, as we have been doing throughout this entire series, you are invited to gather with one or two other people and discuss one of the questions printed in the bulletin.
Exodus 2:1-10
· What aspects of childhood have you lost (pushed away)?
· What aspects of childhood would you like to receive again? How might you encourage child-likeness in your life?
Luke 2:41-52
When you think about all the things you’ve learned from the stories of Jesus’ life, which teachings are most important to you?
· What does that teaching (or those teachings) mean for how you relate to other children in the world?
SAYING GOODBYE
*Hymn and Dance - You shall go out with joy 427
*Sending Prayer
This Sunday we "for-went" much of our normal routine in celebration of children. Children were a large part of the service through singing, acting, reading, dancing, and leading. Below are some of the materials involved* (*much was used from Children's Sunday resources provided by UCC)
Call to Worship (Nick holding Shailoh, Carrie holding Alistair, and Kim holding Beatrix)–
Nick: Climbing High, reaching for the sky
Carrie: Jumping in puddles, laughing so merrily
Kim: Rolling in tickling green grass, dizzy with joy
All: The exuberance of children: God’s pure delight
Kim: Singing out loud and dancing wildly
Carrie: Running or toddling, legs all a blur
Nick: Hugging and sharing, faces aglow
All: The joy of children: a blessing from God and a reason to sing.
*Hymn Lord we bring to you our children SJ #90
(children walk in, waving ribbons: up the center aisle, around pews, back up the center aisle, placing sticks on vase on worship center, children return to steps)
*Opening Prayer (Katie reads, Nick leads congregation in repeating, Carrie leads children in motion as Katie reads)
For our opening prayer, Katie is going to read a line while the children do some movement. You then are invited to repeat the words and the movement that the children do. May our hearts and bodies join together in prayer!
Holy God,
you were with us when we were born,
you are with us as we grow,
you are with us when we hurt
you are with us when we are whole.
Thank you.
Thank you!
THANK YOU!
Would you help us to see?
Would you help us to hear?
Would you help us to love?
So we might change ourselves.
So we might change the world!
WELCOMING
Peace Lamp - American journalist Dorothy Thompson wrote, “If we wish to create a lasting peace, we must begin with the children.” May our congregation be a place of molding and making, shaping and supporting young peacemakers. May we be a place of peace for all God’s children.
Dedication of Alistair Phillip Eikler
Hymn I was there to hear your borning cry SJ #89
PRAYING AND GIVING
Prayer saying “Thank you” and “I’m sorry” and “Please help” (Scotty, Nick, Carrie)
(everyone focuses on the picture they brought of a child they know)
As I look at this picture, I say, “Thank you, God!”
For the gift of this person in my life.
Thank you for who they are.
Thank you for how they change who I am.
Thank you for all that is good in them,
and for all that is good in the world.
Thank you for making them my teacher,
and thank you for helping them learn from me.
Hold this child in your love!
All: Hold all children in your love!
(Ask everyone to focus on the silhouette given to them when they came in.)
As I look at this picture, I realize I can’t really see the face.
So, today, God, this picture represents someone I’ve hurt—
maybe because of something I did,
maybe because of something I didn’t do.
God, could you help me to realize what I’ve done?
Would you forgive me for what I’ve done?
Could you help me, tomorrow and every day afterward,
to make wiser choices—
ones that bring healing, rather than hurting,
to your world?
Hold these children in your love.
All: Hold all children in your love.
(all focus on picture of child they don't know)
God, this child is your child.
I’m not sure where they come from.
I don’t know what is happening in their life.
But I do know that, just like me, they need your love.
If there is some way that I can make a difference in their life,
guide me to that action—
so I can help to be your hands, your heart, and your love in the world.
Hold these children in your love.
All: Hold all children in your love. AMEN
Offering
In celebration and in hope, let us continue our prayer. Let’s each of us bring forward an offering today—an offering of the faces in our prayer. We’re going to place the photos on the communion table so we might see the faces of God’s children. As we do so, let’s bring our financial gifts in the offering plates as well.
EXPLORING
Children’s Choir - - Jesus loves the little children
Children’s Story - The Colors of Us
Sharing Scripture (Cockroft Family)–
As we engage the words of scripture today, we are going to do something a bit different. Nick will be reading the scriptures and we have some interpretive drama to go along with the words. Following each scripture, as we have been doing throughout this entire series, you are invited to gather with one or two other people and discuss one of the questions printed in the bulletin.
Exodus 2:1-10
· What aspects of childhood have you lost (pushed away)?
· What aspects of childhood would you like to receive again? How might you encourage child-likeness in your life?
Luke 2:41-52
When you think about all the things you’ve learned from the stories of Jesus’ life, which teachings are most important to you?
· What does that teaching (or those teachings) mean for how you relate to other children in the world?
SAYING GOODBYE
*Hymn and Dance - You shall go out with joy 427
*Sending Prayer
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