Healings and Signs

 

John 4:46-5:18

               I want to start today by asking you a question.  What things did Jesus do in his ministry?  Teaching, preaching and healing.  Anything else?

               Why healing?  Do you think it was to get people’s attention so that they would pay attention to him?  Do you think it was so people would like him, come to listen to him?  Was he trying to be liked?  Was he trying to show signs to prove he was who he said he was?  Was it about proof?  Was it about forcing people to believe?  Or was it for another reason? 

               Jesus spent a lot of time touching, caring for, listening to, and engaging people that other people rejected.  Those with leprosy were outcasts.  They couldn’t live with their families and it was assumed that someone in their family or the person themself, must have done something wrong and that is why this person was sick.  Disease was believed to be punishment.  Some people still have this thinking but they call it Karma.  While there are different understandings of what Karma is (so I’m not knocking the idea itself), some believe that while it may not be clear why there are people who suffer and others who don’t, those who suffer must have done something to deserve it, either in this life or in a past life.  But Jesus first confronted this idea with words like “the rain falls on the righteous and the unrighteous,” and “He replied, “Do you think the suffering of these … proves that they were more sinful than all the others?  No, I tell you!”  But he went much further than just declaring that it wasn’t their fault that they were afflicted.

               He touched, he talked to and with, and he healed any who were in need – the rejected, the outcast, the condemned, the judged, the dismissed.  He touched them, included them, treated them as the incredible and beautiful people that they were, regardless of how others treated them.

               I have a ten dollar bill here.  If I mangle it and squish it and stomp on it, if I make it dirty or even filthy, what is it then worth?  It is still worth ten dollars.  The appearance, the condition, the outward attributes of this money don’t change it’s worth.  Well, Jesus was able to see that this is the same with people.  He saw beyond the outside of the bill.  He saw beyond the dirt, the scrounge, the disease.  He saw beyond the vocations, the successes, the judgments, the rejections.  He saw beyond their achievements, their choices, their mistakes, their sins.  He saw beyond all of that to who they WERE.  And who they were is the same as who you are – you are a child of God.  Worthy of infinite value. 

               I came across an article in Sojourner’s Magazine that was talking about Henri Nouwen.  Henri Nouwen was an amazingly gifted priest, professor and writer.  I love his books, I love the way he thinks.  He has a brilliant as well as deeply faithful and spiritual mind.  But after teaching for many years, he was invited to become pastor to a community of people with intellectual disabilities.  He soon discovered that they didn’t care how brilliant he was, and all the wonderful things he had written and taught just didn’t mean that much to them.  He told the story in one of his books, Life of the Beloved, of one particular woman, Janet, who one day asked Henri for a blessing.  When he tried to bless her with the sign of the cross on her forehead she became very upset and said, “No, I want a real blessing!”  He didn’t know what to do with that, but that evening at worship, he mentioned that Janet had asked for a real blessing, and as he was speaking she marched up to the front and gave him a huge hug.  In that moment, he found the words that were needed.  “Janet, I want you to know that you are God’s beloved daughter.  You are precious in God’s eyes.  Your beautiful smile, your kindness to the people in your house, and all the good things you do show us what a beautiful human being you are.  I know you feel a little low these days and that there is some sadness in your heart, but I want you to remember who you are: a very special person, deeply loved by God and all the people who are here with you.”  She gave him a satisfied smile, but as Nouwen then turned away, he found himself surrounded by the others in the community also asking for blessings.  Henri gave each one a hug and a personal affirmation that they were loved as they were.  And Henri walked away a changed man.

               There is a video called “Who You Are: A Message to All Women.” The man who created it also did one for all men.  I wish I could show you, but instead I’m just going to read to you the words.  The person who created this did this video for all of you: for all people.  In the video, he walks onto a stage and he says this:

“You are beautiful.  You are smart.  You are funny.  You are kind.  You are unique.  You are worthy of Love and affection.  You are never too much. And you are always enough.  You are precious.  You are a diamond, a rose, a pearl, the most stunning of all God’s creation.  You are worth more than you could ever imagine.  Worth more than the numbers on the scale, or the hair product you use or the shoes you wear. More than how many (people) wish they were you, or how many people wish they had you.  More than the price tag on your clothes or the percentage on the top of your math test or even the number of followers you have on twitter.  Your worth surpasses all earthly things because in the eyes of God you are loved and you are worth dying for.  Regardless of who you think you are.  Whether you model in a magazine or you model pottery with grandma. Whether you are on the hot list or the not list.  Whether you’re head cheer leader or a high school drop out.  Whether you are miss popular or whether you’ve never had anyone you could call a friend.  Whether you love yourself and love your life or you can’t stand to look in the mirror and you feel everything is falling apart.  Whether you are such a winner or you feel like the world’s biggest failure.  Regardless of who you think you are.  The reality is that you deserve someone who would give up their life for you because you are powerful and strong and capable.  Read about the women in the bible: Esther, Ruth, Mary, Martha.  These women changed the world forever and inside of you each and every one of you is a person with that same power and strength and that same world changing capability. And your responsibility is to find that woman and set that woman free.  This is who you are.  And any voices in your mind that try to tell you differently are not from God.  And when you hear that voice you say to it, no: not me.  I am a daughter of the living God: cherished, loved above all things.  I am awesome!  Please, don’t forget it.”           

               This is a beautiful sentiment.  But the reality is that it is a different thing when that kind of blessing comes from someone who really knows you and really loves you, when the blessing is genuine because it is from a place of real knowing.  One of the lines in a praise song that I like is. “This is what I’m sure of, I can only show love When I really know how loved I am. When it overtakes me, Then it animates me, Flowing from my heart into my hands.”  I think there is deep truth in this. 

               Unlike some of our faith brothers and sisters who say our relationship with God begins with our conversion, with our submission, with our choosing to change, I believe with every fiber in my being that instead, our relationship with God begins with God loving us, with God choosing us.  That love allows us to change, that love gives us the courage and strength to change, that love is what allows us to love others and to follow in Jesus’ footsteps. 

               Jesus not only healed the bodies of the outcast, the oppressed, the disadvantaged, and the physically broken.  He healed their souls by showing them, reminding them, acting in a way that said beyond a doubt that they were loved and valued, that they were worthy, that God still saw them as more important and beautiful than anything they could imagine. 

In writing this sermon, I found myself reflecting on the movie The Help.  The Help is a movie about the caste system in the Southern states, especially in the late 50s and early 60s.  Poor and oppressed African American women worked as “help” to the powerful, wealthy white women.  The help raised the white women’s kids, the help cleaned their clothes, made their food, took care of their families and homes but were treated like dirt, were less than, were always the servants and never treated as equals.  Despite this, despite this, the black women often loved the white babies they cared for.  They genuinely cared for and about them, knowing all the while that those white babies would probably still grow up to be their own oppressors.  In the movie, the main character, Abilene, had care over a specific toddler, Mae Mobley, who was not loved by her own mother.  Mae Mobley’s own mother saw her as a hassle, as a problem, as a burden.  She did not want her or love her, and did not want to care for her.  And so, as Mae Mobley herself said to Abilene, “You are my real mother” and in so very many ways she was.  Abilene had a routine, then, that she did every day with Mae Mobley.  She would take this little girl of two or so years of age and say to her, “You is smart. You is kind. You is important!”  And she would ask Mae Mobley to repeat it and remember it.  Towards the end of the movie Abilene was fired.  And Mae Mobley was left with this mother who didn’t like her.  Abilene, in tears, turned to the little girl and said, “Baby, I have to retire now.  You are my last little girl.  But I need you to remember everything that I told you.  Do you remember what I told you?”  To which Mae Mobley repeated, “You is strong.  You is kind.  You is important!”  “Yes,” Abilene cries, “Please remember.”  And then she turned to the mother and told her to give her sweet girl a chance. 

We are invited to do the same.  As we are called to follow, we heal others by showing them how loved they are.  That starts by remembering how loved YOU are, by trusting in that love, by resting in that love.  God’s love for you is so deep that Jesus healed.  God’s love for you is so deep that God continues to offer all the different kinds of healing: healing of soul, healing of emotions, healing of spirit especially.  That may not look like physical healing.  But healing is offered in many, many ways.  It is often not the physical healing we would hope for: our bodies age and all of our lives are mortal.  But that does not mean that healing is not there for us.  It is there, but in many different ways.  We are called to look for it, to accept it, to embrace it.  And then to go into the world, affirming, uplifting, and healing one another.  Amen.

Signs? Or not?

    Things have been very difficult the last few weeks.  Personally, professionally, family-wise - things have been difficult.  Not that this is highly unusual.  I think that there are always good things to be grateful for and always challenges that give us the opportunity to grow and learn.  The last few weeks have been particularly difficult, but there are going to be times like that, there just are.  Sometimes things are better, sometimes things are harder.  When I compare this to what is going on for people around the world, I know I remain lucky, that my survival is not being threatened and that this, too, will pass.  I know that the nature of my own challenges are such that I have the possibility of growing through and from them, rather than being ruined or devastated by them.
     Still, in the midst of difficult times I strive to see the signs of love, of God's presence, of hope in the world.  I'm not alone in this.  When I shared with my spiritual director about the family of doves that had built a nest in the eaves outside my front window, she felt it was a clear message from God of peace coming, of preace present despite the other things going on, of love and hope.
     So what happens when the signs you turn to for reassurance go south?  My kids and I have watched the Doves build their nest, lay their eggs, hatch their eggs.  We have seen the cute baby chicks being fed and nurtured.  And then this morning we saw that no one was in the nest anymore. Instead, there were two dead chicks under the nest and the parents had left, leaving the nest empty and abandoned.  And I found myself left with the larger question: what happens when the signs of hope become another example of pain, death, rejection and despair?
       The very practical and the very skeptical parts of me rally easily with self talk such as "Well, that wasn't really a sign. It was just a couple birds making a messy nest under the eave, birds who lost their babies and left." And "Well, that is reality, right?  Look at what's happening in your personal world and in the larger world, too.  Stuff happens.  One day things look good and the next they don't. It's just the way it is."
        I've found myself thinking about all the very positive (or Pollyanna-ish, depending on how you see it) memes and sayings out there.  The one that always sticks with me most being the line from Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, "Everything will turn out right in the end.  If it's not all right, it is not yet the end".  I've hung on to that, despite the world which shows me something very different.  I think about the end of the movie Life of Brian, and the profoundly humorous ending song.  Everyone is crucified at the end; Brian, who has really done nothing of any value either good or bad, being among them.  And they are all on their crosses, in agony, about to die, singing, "Always look on the bright side of life".  It's funny because it's true.  There ARE times when there is little to no good to be found. Not, perhaps, for us middle class, white, heterosexual, privileged comfortable folk.  But there are people being bombed and killed, there are children kidnapped into sexual slavery, there are people living in extreme poverty, without food and in some places without water, there are people who suffer hate crimes and there are many others suffering beyond the possibility of survival through no fault of their own.  There are situations when folk simply cannot "always look on the bright side of life" because there are situations in which there isn't a bright side of life. Again, this isn't the case for me or for people I personally know.  I am in a privileged group of folk.  I know this.  But I am all too aware that it is from a place of privilege only that we can declare that "everything will be all right in the end..." or that we can sing, "always look on the bright side of life."  Likewise, it is only people who have never seen a community of children literally starving to death, or have never listened to a person who has just been raped, or have never heard the stories of someone who has been in a war, or have never talked with someone who has experienced human trafficking who can say "everything happens for a reason" because once you have seen, heard or experienced first hand those kinds of atrocities, you know that there can be NO reason, ever, for those terrible things to happen.  There can be no kind of loving God, ever, who would tolerate the kind of suffering that goes on in this world. No, God doesn't plan this.  There is no reason for this.  People do this to each other.  And it is awful. And God weeps and works to bring the highest good out of these horrible things.  But no good, loving God would ever inflict that kind of pain on another human being.
       So I look for the signs of God's presence.  I look for the signs of God's love that are there despite the suffering.  And I see three things.  First, the doves do come.  They do.  Awful things happen, but beauty happens too.  Second, we are called, as always, to refrain from turning away from the hard things and instead to see them, working hard to be the bearers of the kindom (no, that's not a typo) to the world.  We are called to see the pain and strive to create a world where the horrors and cuelties no longer take place.  Third, that no matter what we do, there will be pain we can't prevent.  We can only do what we can do.  We are still called to rejoice in the good, to grieve with those who suffer, to remember them, to carry their messages forward, and to continue to work for a better world, despite the results, despite the setbacks, despite the times when the plans we hatch end up in death on the rocks below.  Sometimes that will happen.  And sometimes the plans will grow into birds who soar and bring messages of peace to others.  Giving up is the worst we can do.  Looking forward to new possibilities and new life, with Love as our guide, on the other hand, is the best.
--
        Since writing the above, we had an amazing thing happen.  As we went outside to get rid of the birds that had died (this happened right outside our front door and a smell was beginning to creep inside), we discovered that one of the two baby chicks had NOT died.  We called the nearby wildlife hospital and brought this baby chick to them to care for.  I found myself reflecting in a very different way on all of this. I had written above about the importance of keeping our eyes open and working to prevent pain, to help bring about healing.  And then we were given the opportunity to do exactly that: to help this little chick recover, despite falling from the nest and despite its parents abandoning the nest.  And this time I was truly struck, convicted, by the lesson present in such a concrete way before me.  We must pay attention.  Because if we had not taken the time to really look at that which seemed painful and perhaps even unbearable, if we had not stopped to see, the chick would not have gotten the help it needed.  It sometimes seems easier to ignore the tragedies in our world.  But our willingness to look, to engage even the tragedies can also give to us insight about how we can help. That help is needed - everywhere there is pain that help is needed.  Turning away will not stop the pain.  And while it is still true that there are things we cannot fix, there are also things we can. There are places and people and situations that need us.  Without our willingness to be present with the painful realities of life the gifts we have been given for the good of all the world are useless.
      I hope that bird, that sign of peace, will fly one day.  Either way, I am trusting that the choice to do good, to offer care where it was needed, makes a difference in some small way.   And I also have faith that many small ways and small choices add up in the end.

Sunday's sermon - Reading the Signs and Thanksgiving

Reading the Signs

Jeremiah 33:14-16

Luke 21:25-36

11/29/15

In today’s lesson from Luke, Jesus is talking about a new day coming.  He is announcing what that will look like when the new earth begins.  But the pictures that he draws are not pretty.  “On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea.   People will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken.”  These catastrophes, these crises, these traumas, they are the sign of the new world coming, a new life coming.  They are the sign that things are changing. 

Do we experience these things now?  Of course we do, as did the Israelites in their time as well.  People are scared, people are angry.  We hear a lot about fear, anger, and hate.  At some level this happens in all times, but right now it seems particularly acute once again.  And the scriptural message to us is two things.  First, when horrible things are happening, these are invitations for us to rely more fully on God, to trust in God knowing that God is with us in these changes, in these challenges.  And second, these difficult signs and hard times are actually fertile ground for new birth, for new life, for a resurrection that comes again and again, and again.  These hard times provide an opportunity to approach life differently, to do it again, right this time, to truly seek to live in LOVE rather than fear or hate.  To work towards good rather than towards polarization and enmity.  Again, to live as we are called to do, in gratitude, hope, and love rather than in anger and fear.

Today we begin the new church year.  Today is our New Year’s day in the church.  And we begin the new church year with anticipation of the new life that is coming, as we look towards Jesus being born anew into our lives.  We remember that out of whatever chaos we have and do experience, new life will come.  And yet, Advent is not the time when that new birth has happened.  It is a time of waiting for the birth of Christ.  We wait for God’s presence to show us how to live and what to do.  We wait for God to come anew among us.  We wait for the new thing God is doing.

Waiting is hard.  We aren’t a people who wait easily.  In our instant gratification society, it is especially hard to wait.  We don’t want to wait for food so we get “fast food”.  We don’t want to wait for the mail, so we do our correspondence instantly through email, or even faster through texts.  And yet, advent calls us to do exactly that.  We start the year by doing the thing that is hardest for us to do – to wait.

I can’t think of a more appropriate thing to do when the world is in chaos.  I know we want answers now, we want solutions NOW.  We want it fixed now.  But wisdom does not come instantly.  The beginning of the church year teaches us, right off the bat, that there is great learning to be done and great gifts to be found in being patient, in waiting for God to come, as God does – at Christmas in the form of a baby, but among us as well, in many, many forms.  Waiting does more than this as well.

Jack Shriver shared with us at lectionary group this last week that according to Buddhism there are really only two emotions and we have to choose which one we go with.  There is fear, and there is love.  There is a reason that throughout the bible God’s angels say, “do not be afraid” again and again and again.  It is in our scriptures over 100 times, and  out of Jesus’ mouth over 20 times.  Why?  Because when we are in fear, we cannot love.  We cannot have compassion.  We move towards anger, which moves towards hate, which causes suffering, as Yoda would say.  But when we are in love, we see with eyes of compassion, of grace, we see with an effort to understand the other rather than judge the other.  We see with eyes that move towards wisdom and deep solutions. 

When we are in fear mode we tend to be reactive.  Psychology tells us that when we are afraid or angry, certain parts of our brains, in particular the higher thinking, actually get shut off.  There was an article out about that just this week of a study done at Bangor University that showed this to be the case.  Do you not experience this yourselves?  The stupid things we say tend to only be said when we are angry or afraid.  The really dumb things we’ve done tend to be done in times of fear and anger.  As a side note, for some reason this doesn’t come up in conversations about easy access to weapons and it should.  It isn’t just mental illness that causes people to react in violence.  There was a story out this week about a waitress shot to death after asking a man to not smoke in the Waffle House.  He got angry. And when people become fearful or angry, those higher processes that say, “don’t do this really stupid thing” - they literally turn off.  The angrier or more afraid we become, the more fully they turn off – for ALL of us! Obviously we all need to work some on anger and fear management, but we will get angry, we will become afraid.  And in those times our higher thinking will shut down.  That is not where we want to be when we are making the difficult decisions about how to deal with crises like we are facing as a world today.  But those feelings of fear and anger cannot be turned off immediately when we are in crisis.  It takes time, and often prayer and meditation, or quiet listening, to still our hearts and minds to the point where we can move more towards love and from there make good decisions.  In other words, waiting, the call of Advent to WAIT, allows us to move out of our fear and into the more rational, logical, helpful, loving and wise parts of our brains.

There is an old Cherokee story in which a man told his grandson, “My son, there is a battle between two wolves inside us all.  One is Evil.  It is anger, it is hatred, under all of that it is fear, and from those places it does evil.  The other is Good.  It is joy, peace, love, hope, humility, kindness, compassion and truth. and from those places does good.”  The boy thought about it, and asked, “Grandfather, which wolf wins?”  The old man quietly replied, “The one you feed.”  Waiting is taking the time before feeding either wolf to listen for God, to be led by wisdom, to watch and hope. 

I like very much that Advent follows immediately after Thanksgiving.  Because I think that wisdom and waiting also have to begin with gratitude.  Being grateful, focusing on the good, remembering that God has blessed us with so very much in every day also quiets the heart and mind and stills the fear. 

            Some of you, I know, have begun gratitude journals.  These take different forms.  In one gratitude practice, at the end of each day you are asked to list 5 things for which you are grateful.  In another there are specific areas you look at each day over 30 days in which you name something for which you are grateful.  It doesn’t matter how you do this.  A recent study showed that taking time each day to be grateful improves our overall outlook.  It improves our sense of well-being.  It makes us calmer in the face of crises.  It lifts depression.  And it increases our ability to make good decisions rather than panicked, fearful decisions.

            It also reminds us to live in hope.  We don’t just wait.  We watch and we hope. 

            The God we wait for, the Jesus that we anticipate coming came to give us LIFE so we could LIVE.  He called us not to live in fear, but to aim for love in all things.  Gratitude helps us to wait, to watch, to be hopeful.

            Psalm 140, translated by Nan C. Merrill reads like this:

Deliver me, O Giver of Breath and Life, 
from the fears that beset me; 
help me confront the inner shadows 
that hold me in bondage, like a prisoner 
who knows not freedom. 
They distract me from all 
that I yearn to be, 
and hinder the awakening of 
hidden gifts 
that I long to share with others.

For are we not called to make Love 
conscious in our lives? 
You are the Light of those 
imprisoned in darkness. 
Surely You will guide us 
into the new dawn, 
that we may live as co-creators 
with You.

        Jesus was born into a chaotic and broken world as a baby, helpless, innocent, gentle.  But we are not at the birth yet.  As we begin our new year, I invite all of us to begin again, and to begin again by being still, by waiting, by watching for what God is doing and where God is leading us.  I invite us all to start with gratitude and remember all the good that God has done in each of our lives.  We can trust in those blessings, that they are there every day for us, that they will come every day.  We can have the wisdom to not live in fear, but to live in love.  We can take the time to wait for wisdom to come, as God comes all the time, as Jesus came to us at Christmas.  We can watch for where God is coming now, and we can being the year with Hope. It is, after all, what we are called to do on this the first Sunday of Advent.