Well, we all know that Fran loves to cruise. In cruisers’ lingo there is a term called PCD. Post-Cruise Depression. The joke goes that the only way to live with it is to book another cruise so you can look forward to something. It may sound funny, but depending on the experience, it can be hard to come back to real earth.
Two weeks ago I went on a cruise out of Panama, visiting Colombia, and the eastern Caribbean. It was without a doubt the best vacation I have been on. But it was a dream; in many ways, there was nothing real about it. Someone there to make the beds up in the morning and take them down at night; someone to cook and serve and clean up all the meals; as a repeat cruiser, a lounge where breakfast, evening hors d’oeuvres and wine and stuff are laid on free; interesting ports, formal nights, and being spoiled completely. For the people who work on those ships, it is real life of course; for us, it’s a dream. Coming back to reality can be a real shock.
I don’t use this story to trivialise what we call mountaintop experiences, but the aftermath is the same. It is so unreal, so good, that coming back “down” is hard.
You may have had a mountaintop moment, or a moment when the world around you was transformed and you heard the voice of God. These experiences come in all shapes, sizes, and kinds, and touch us in places we never think need to be touched, until it happens. The very experience suspends real time for us; time stops, or at least it seems as if time stops.
So what is this transfiguration business? What’s the point? We have some disciples supposedly seeing both Moses and Elijah. How did the disciples know the two figures with Jesus were Moses and Elijah?
Well, we could say it was the story teller’s way of showing that Jesus was really God’s son, and was now the sole authority for God on earth, taking into himself all that Moses and Elijah represented for the Jews. That would be the law and the prophets – the very heart of belief for the Jews. It may well be that Moses and Elijah were inserted in the text to make the point, that the law and the prophets came together and were incarnated in the person of Jesus.
But maybe that wraps it all up a little too neatly. Maybe we need to wrestle with this passage just a little. We can’t just assume that what we think it says, is it what it really says. Words and their meanings change, the story is set in a period of history about which we know something - but not everything.
What would you think if you saw a person’s appearance change “from the inside out”, right before your eyes. “His clothes shimmered, glistening white, whiter than any bleach could make them”. Clearly the vision is beyond description with mere human words.
There is a theory in some quarters that each human gives off light, an aura. In parapsychology and many forms of spiritual practice, an aura is a field of subtle, luminous radiation supposedly surrounding a person or object. For example, in religious art, people of particular power or holiness are depicted with a halo around the head, or some light around the body.
Then too, the Celtic peoples talk about the “thin places” where the connection to the spiritual plane is thinnest, and easiest to pass through. All we know in this story is that Jesus and the disciples went up a mountain. Tradition has that it was Mount Tabor, but in fact the mountain is never named. Maybe it doesn’t matter what mountain it was - mountains in the Bible always figure in important events. Was this one of those thin places, where Jesus and the disciples were so in touch with the spiritual that they had this experience? And after it was over they sat there shaking, and asking each other “What just happened?”.
Some of you, I am sure, have had something of the same kind of experience. Maybe you had something “other worldly” occur in your life that might be called a mystical experience, or a “mountain top” experience. You may not have wanted to share it with anyone. You couldn’t find the words to describe it, or you didn’t quite know what had happened yourself; you were afraid someone would think you were crazy. It’s funny isn’t it? We are a church, we are willing to say we believe some of the most unbelievable things, and yet we are afraid to speak about spiritual experiences because people might laugh at us, or call us crazy. We come away from such experiences shaking, saying to ourselves “What just happened?” We not only don’t want to talk about such experiences, but if we do tell someone, we ask them to keep it private, not to tell anyone else.
Then there is the other reality - that in comparison to the brightness, the high of the experience, the real world - the one we live in every day - seems drab in comparison. We want to run back into the experience. Or we are completely stunned and can’t figure what to do next - and we want to hold on.
That was how Peter reacted...wanting to stay in the brightness and colour and clarity of vision of the experience. The wondrous experience didn’t end with the vision. A cloud came down and they heard a voice - or at least they thought they did. And then the cloud lifted; Moses and Elijah were nowhere to be seen, and Jesus appeared once again in his probably dusty clothes. It was a colossal let-down. Mystical encounter with God - over. Can’t hold onto it. Nothing to do now but go back down the mountain into reality.
In every single one of the sermons I’ve heard and written on this text, the major focus is on the reaction of the disciples. It’s almost as if we assume Jesus knew what was going to happen, or made it happen, or made it some kind of teaching. The text doesn’t tell us that, though. The text says that Jesus and the disciples went up a mountain, and this experience happened to all of them. The text tells us that when it was over Jesus told them not to talk about it. In fact it looks to me like Jesus was a little stunned as well. Oh, he had a couple of similar experiences before - fasting in the desert, and then his baptism. But I can tell you from personal experience that no one goes out of his or her way to have one of those experiences. They are too dramatic and intense, and frankly draining. Jesus recognised the nature of the experience, but he also knew what the reaction would be if they all came running down the mountain saying they had seen Moses and Elijah, and seen Jesus talking to them, and shining like the brightest of suns. I have a feeling that despite his previous experience, Jesus was also saying “What just happened?” HE didn’t see Moses and Elijah - at least the text doesn’t say he did, it says the disciples did. And it says their vision was covered by a cloud. So we don’t actually know what happened to Jesus.
When we are fortunate enough to have those kinds of experiences that let us know there is something beyond our earthly world, experiences that leave us wanting to stay in the moment, rather than return to reality, we have to realise that we can’t package them or hold onto them to re-experience whenever we wish. We can’t come out of a prayer time in which God seemed especially close and hold onto that feeling. I think Jesus was wise enough to know that, even if the disciples didn’t.
So here we are, down from the mountain, back from the dream, back to living in a real world that seems rather mundane. What now?
The disciples caught a glimpse of what the realm of God would be like. Jesus kept telling them that the realm was at hand, and here was the view. Then they had to come back to what the world is, and live in it. There was a point. They were being called to come back to the ordinary world, to bring to it something extraordinary. They had to learn how to translate the wonder and insight of their experience into the ordinary day to day world.
It is what we are called to as well. Who are we? What is the vision of the realm? How do we retain the inspiration and joy as we return to the ordinary? Hold these questions, as we begin Lent.
[With thanks to Rev. Beverly Snedeker for inspiration for this sermon.]
Friday, February 20, 2009
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Healing and Touch Mark 1:40-45 Sixth Sunday of Epiphany
Have you ever had head lice in your home? Your children come home from school with a note that a student was found with lice...
When Norio and I were younger, and moved to Michigan, we spent a couple of weeks in a motel before finding a more permanent home. It was only after we moved into our new home that we found out the children, all four of them, had lice.
Makes you itch just thinking about it, doesn’t it?
And look at all the assumptions which come with it - that infected people don’t have good hygiene; that they live in dirty homes; it’s their own fault that they are infected, as if they invited the lice to come and live on their heads. We try to stay away from them, as if somehow lice can jump from head to head, or person to person. [i]
Rev. Nancy Price, in Nova Scotia, tells the story of a young doctor treating a child with AIDS. It was clear this child was suffering, was alone, and because of the child's physical condition would not know love or care. This young doctor hugged and held the child. His family, and even the nurses, chastised him for showing affection and care to this terrified child. [ii]
Now, it is clear that AIDS can’t be contracted by hugging someone - but we still treat those suffering as if they are lepers. Remember the proposals to take all the AIDS sufferers and isolate them on a island? Separate everyone from the mainstream population?
And remember the pictures of Princess Diana, hugging people with AIDS, with sick and dying children on her lap? When commenting about Diana, Nelson Mandela said:
"When she stroked the limbs of someone with leprosy, or sat on the bed of a man with HIV/AIDS and held his hand, she transformed public attitudes and improved the life chances of such people, people felt if a British princess can go to a ward with HIV patients, then there's nothing to be superstitious about."[iii]
The Biblical word for leprosy includes several types of skin disease, including what we call leprosy today, but also including psoriasis, acne, rosacea, liver-coloured birthmarks. Culturally, if the outside was blemished, it was assumed that the “inside” was blemished too. Sin was seen as the root cause of all forms of leprosy.
Remember the stories about sacrifices in the temple? The people believed, because the religious leaders told them, that every animal for sacrifice had to be completely unblemished. Purity laws required it.
A leper approached Jesus - now, we don’t know what the skin condition was, or how long he had it. What seems clear is that he was not willing to remain isolated from human contact or human community. He went to Jesus and issued what was tantamount to a challenge. He said to Jesus “If you choose, you can make me clean.” and Jesus, “filled with compassion, reached out his hand and touched the man.”
There are two things I see in this text - first, that the man does not directly say to Jesus “heal me, make my body whole and unblemished.” I see it more as a challenge to set aside the norm of society which isolated people who were ill, and to accept them into the mainstream despite their disease.
‘Especially if the translation "declare me clean" is used, this leper is approaching Jesus as a priest -- one who had the power and authority to declare lepers clean and thus restore them to normal society.
Myers (Binding the Strong Man) writes about this: "The leper appears aware that his approach to Jesus, a nonpriest, was itself in violation of the symbolic system, which is why he gives Jesus a chance to refuse. It is almost as if he says, "You could declare me clean if only you would dare (1:40)."
Witherington (The Gospel of Mark) also notes: "...the primary concern is with being clean so that he can reenter Jewish society, being a whole person. This is a very Jewish way of looking at disease, by focusing on its ritual effects, whereas a pagan would have simply said, 'If you will, you can make me well.'" [p. 103]’[iv]
But there is something more. Our translation reads “reached out his hand”, but a closer translation says Jesus took the man to him. In other words, he hugged the man.
By hugging the man, even by touching him, Jesus himself then became “unclean”. So Jesus also could not go into the normal places - synagogue, marketplace. He had to remain isolated and outside as well.
Jesus touched the leper. He left the safety of his ‘clean’ world and entered the world of the leper with the simple act of touching him.
In my trip two weeks ago, I took an excursion to the city of Cartagena de Indias, in Colombia. We drove around the old part of the city, investigated the fortifications and walls; the next stop on the trip was the Plaza de Inquisicion - the Palace of the Inquisition, where the Spanish supposedly investigated witchcraft. More than two hundred people were burned as witches and heretics.
Right next to this museum is the Cathedral of Saint Peter Claver, a Jesuit known as the Patron Saint of the slaves. He was canonised in 1888.
Cartagena was a chief centre for the slave trade in the Americas for over 100 years. Ten thousand slaves poured into the port each year after crossing the Atlantic from West Africa under conditions so foul and inhuman that an estimated one-third of the passengers died in transit. Pope Paul III condemned the slave trade, Pius IX called it “supreme villainy" but it continued to flourish. Claver declared himself "the slave of the Negroes forever."
“As soon as a slave ship entered the port, Peter Claver moved into its infested hold to minister to the ill-treated and miserable passengers. After the slaves were herded out of the ship like chained animals and shut up in nearby yards to be gazed at by the crowds, Claver plunged in among them with medicines, food, bread, brandy, lemons and tobacco. With the help of interpreters he gave basic instructions and assured his brothers and sisters of their human dignity and God's saving love...Claver understood that concrete service like the distributing of medicine, food or brandy to his black brothers and sisters could be as effective a communication of the word of God as mere verbal preaching. As Peter Claver often said, "We must speak to them with our hands before we try to speak to them with our lips."[v]
We must speak with our hands before we try to speak with our lips.
What does it mean, in this day and age, to be “clean”? Is cleanliness next to godliness? If we shower every day and make sure we don’t have a bad odour, no pimples or acne, no chapped skin - are we godly people? Is that all it takes to be clean inside? Or is it the other way around? Is it that being loving and generous people (godly people) makes us clean inside? Is outer cleanliness an indication of what kind of people we are?
In the Toronto Star this weekend, there was a story about a native man who allowed his two young children to freeze to death in the midst of winter. In petitioning the judge, one of the elders commented that the man should be restored to health (ie healed) within the circle of the community - that in fact to exclude him from the community would prevent his healing, and hence the community could not be healed either.[vi]
And this is the other part of the story of the leper’s healing. In reaching out, holding him, touching him, Jesus did what the priests in the temple have refused to do - he has restored this man to community - and he sends the man back to the priests to show them. In the same way, in reaching out and touching those who are considered “lepers” today - those lepers are restored to life in community. Healing takes place - perhaps the healing of the disease if that is possible, but certainly the healing of the soul. May it be so.
[i]. Rev. Randy Quinn, from the sermon “Cleanliness is Next to Godliness”.
[ii]. Rev. Nancy Price, from the Midrash discussion list
[iii]. Nelson Mandela, November 2, 2002
[iv]. Brian P. Stoffregen Exegetical Notes, at CrossMarks Christian Resources http://www.crossmarks.com/brian/mark1x40.htm
[v]. St. Peter Claver http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Claver
[vi]. http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/587620
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Hearts Healed A sermon based on Isaiah 40:21-31 Fifth Sunday in Epiphany
"Raise your eyes upward, and look to the heavens. Who created all these? The one who brings out the host of stars, and calls them each by name. Because of God’s great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.
Why do you say, O Jacob, and complain, O Israel, "My way is hidden, my cause is disregarded by God"?
Do you not know? Have you not heard? God is the Creator of the ends of the earth. God will not grow tired or weary; but no one can grasp the magnitude of God’s understanding. God gives strength to those who are tired, and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young people will stumble and fall; but those who hope in God have their strength renewed. They will soar on wings, like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”
*****************************************************************************
A man was out walking in the mountains, enjoying the scenery, when he stepped too close to the edge and fell. On the way down, he was able to grab a limb of a gnarly old tree hanging from the side of the cliff. He was about 100 feet down, on the side of a sheer cliff, and about 900 feet from the floor of the canyon below. If the tree gave way, he'd fall to his death. In fear he cried out, "Help me!" Again and again he cried out, but to no avail.
Finally he yelled, "Is anybody up there?"
A voice replied, "Yes, I'm up here."
"Who is it?"
"It's God"
"Can you help me?"
"Yes, I can help."
"Help me!"
"Let go."
Looking around the man panicked. "What?!?!"
"Let go. I will catch you." said God.
"Is anybody else up there?"
*****************************************************************************
There’s another story I wanted to put in here. It’s the one which has gone around about a flood, and a man who won’t evacuate when others do because he believes God will swoop in and save him. As he is huddled on the roof of his house someone comes by in a canoe and offers to take him to dry land. “No” replies the man “God will save me.” A while later someone comes by in a rowboat, and offers to take him off the roof. Again he replies “No, God will save me.” Sometime later a helicopter comes by, and the man waves it off. Hours later, huddled on the roof as the waters rise and the house begins to go down, the man cries out to God “Why didn’t you save me? I’ve had faith and I have been waiting.” And God replies “I sent you the canoe, the rowboat and the helicopter and you refused them all. What did you expect?”
*****************************************************************************
Some of you know that from time to time I do a blog on the Wondercafe website at the United Church. This week, a person asked why, when they are reading scripture and studying the Bible and trying to live life properly, why do they not get an answer from God which they can recognise? My question to this person was, what would it take? What do they mean “...and answer I can recognise.” and suggested that perhaps they are looking so hard for something they can recognise, that God’s answer is going right on by and they aren’t seeing it.
I think all these stories are pretty typical, and they have nothing to do with our age or maturity - but much to do with our frailty and humanity. We pray to God and want an answer to our prayers instantly. We want God to come to us the way WE want. We want some Damascus road experience, something which grabs our attention, like thunder and lightning and a voice out of the clouds - we want the answers we want, and forget that perhaps God knows the answer we need.
The people of Judah must have felt the same. They were living as slaves in Babylon, hundreds of miles from their homes. The temple had been destroyed, and God seemed to have forgotten them. They felt, literally, God-forsaken.
Unfortunately we have been taught to believe that God will come and help us solve our crises, heal our diseases, turn our mourning into joy, mend relationships, end hardship, and dry all our tears. And I believe God does all those things, in our lifetime - but just maybe not the way we want or expect it to be done, and in God’s time.
We are impatient if God doesn’t act on our prayers right away, partly I think because we are a society not known for waiting for things. Everything is now at our fingertips. Book a plane ticket, a cruise, on the internet; got a pain, some big pharma company has just what you need; got a medical problem, need to lose weight? Got a headache? Got a heartache? Just call a dating service, find your perfect match. All the way down to the most mundane - instant noodles in a cup, just add hot water. In fact, now in Japan you can buy little freeze dried packs of instant miso soup. How many people have we seen on the cellphone before the plane even gets to the gate, or talking while they drive? Information, goods and services, virtually everything comes to us faster and faster, and we expect instantaneous response. If people don’t respond to us the way we want them to, we start imagining what they are thinking, and then assume it is the truth about how they and we relate. There is no space for waiting, or for working at something.
So we try to squeeze God into that instant response mold; but not only that, we want the answers we want, in the format we want, so that they are easily recognisable, instantly identifiable as God, right here, no doubt at all. And God just doesn’t work that way.
I want to ask you this. Is there something about those “god-forsaken” moments which might be of benefit to us? Is this a life test? Is it that in fact we have to do some spiritual work here, to *discern* - there’s that word again - *discern* what God might be adding to our lives, or where God *is already* in our lives? Is it that we have to take on faith that God *is* present, and not expect some neon sign flashing which says “Yes, God is here!”?
The message from Isaiah *is* that God is here, now. Perhaps we haven’t seen, perhaps our hearts are so weary and our sight so darkened that we cannot see. Nevertheless, if we believe in a God of Creation, a God who names stars and who names us as well, then we cannot say we have been deserted by God. God is constant, we are the inconstant factor. Perhaps sometimes our lives seem to wander and we aren’t able to see clearly into the future, when we desperately want to be able to see. Perhaps we want to scrunch God in there with the life assurance - there’s a hilarious term - and the GIC’s and the investments....so it can all be mapped out with no questionable parts at all.
I believe that God is always with me. God heals the wounds, and sets my feet on the path I need to travel, and I in return have to walk it with trust. That doesn’t mean I just turn everything over to God and sit there waiting. I do have to do something too. I have to get into the boat, or the helicopter, or set out on a different path. I have to learn to look and see where God is, and grasp that connection. God is there, God never leaves. - and for each of the ills which wounds us in this life, God heals. Thanks be to God.
Our hymn is one of my very favourites -
“Healer of our every ill, light of each tomorrow,
Give us strength beyond our fears, and hope beyond our sorrow.
In the pain and joy beholding how your love is still unfolding,
Give us all your vision, God of love.”
Sources:
1. Rev. Frank Schaefer “Strength in the Desert”
2. “Healer of Our Every Ill” Words and Music by Marty Haugen 1987. C. GIA Publications 1991.
3. Isaiah 40:27-31 paraphrase
Why do you say, O Jacob, and complain, O Israel, "My way is hidden, my cause is disregarded by God"?
Do you not know? Have you not heard? God is the Creator of the ends of the earth. God will not grow tired or weary; but no one can grasp the magnitude of God’s understanding. God gives strength to those who are tired, and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young people will stumble and fall; but those who hope in God have their strength renewed. They will soar on wings, like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”
*****************************************************************************
A man was out walking in the mountains, enjoying the scenery, when he stepped too close to the edge and fell. On the way down, he was able to grab a limb of a gnarly old tree hanging from the side of the cliff. He was about 100 feet down, on the side of a sheer cliff, and about 900 feet from the floor of the canyon below. If the tree gave way, he'd fall to his death. In fear he cried out, "Help me!" Again and again he cried out, but to no avail.
Finally he yelled, "Is anybody up there?"
A voice replied, "Yes, I'm up here."
"Who is it?"
"It's God"
"Can you help me?"
"Yes, I can help."
"Help me!"
"Let go."
Looking around the man panicked. "What?!?!"
"Let go. I will catch you." said God.
"Is anybody else up there?"
*****************************************************************************
There’s another story I wanted to put in here. It’s the one which has gone around about a flood, and a man who won’t evacuate when others do because he believes God will swoop in and save him. As he is huddled on the roof of his house someone comes by in a canoe and offers to take him to dry land. “No” replies the man “God will save me.” A while later someone comes by in a rowboat, and offers to take him off the roof. Again he replies “No, God will save me.” Sometime later a helicopter comes by, and the man waves it off. Hours later, huddled on the roof as the waters rise and the house begins to go down, the man cries out to God “Why didn’t you save me? I’ve had faith and I have been waiting.” And God replies “I sent you the canoe, the rowboat and the helicopter and you refused them all. What did you expect?”
*****************************************************************************
Some of you know that from time to time I do a blog on the Wondercafe website at the United Church. This week, a person asked why, when they are reading scripture and studying the Bible and trying to live life properly, why do they not get an answer from God which they can recognise? My question to this person was, what would it take? What do they mean “...and answer I can recognise.” and suggested that perhaps they are looking so hard for something they can recognise, that God’s answer is going right on by and they aren’t seeing it.
I think all these stories are pretty typical, and they have nothing to do with our age or maturity - but much to do with our frailty and humanity. We pray to God and want an answer to our prayers instantly. We want God to come to us the way WE want. We want some Damascus road experience, something which grabs our attention, like thunder and lightning and a voice out of the clouds - we want the answers we want, and forget that perhaps God knows the answer we need.
The people of Judah must have felt the same. They were living as slaves in Babylon, hundreds of miles from their homes. The temple had been destroyed, and God seemed to have forgotten them. They felt, literally, God-forsaken.
Unfortunately we have been taught to believe that God will come and help us solve our crises, heal our diseases, turn our mourning into joy, mend relationships, end hardship, and dry all our tears. And I believe God does all those things, in our lifetime - but just maybe not the way we want or expect it to be done, and in God’s time.
We are impatient if God doesn’t act on our prayers right away, partly I think because we are a society not known for waiting for things. Everything is now at our fingertips. Book a plane ticket, a cruise, on the internet; got a pain, some big pharma company has just what you need; got a medical problem, need to lose weight? Got a headache? Got a heartache? Just call a dating service, find your perfect match. All the way down to the most mundane - instant noodles in a cup, just add hot water. In fact, now in Japan you can buy little freeze dried packs of instant miso soup. How many people have we seen on the cellphone before the plane even gets to the gate, or talking while they drive? Information, goods and services, virtually everything comes to us faster and faster, and we expect instantaneous response. If people don’t respond to us the way we want them to, we start imagining what they are thinking, and then assume it is the truth about how they and we relate. There is no space for waiting, or for working at something.
So we try to squeeze God into that instant response mold; but not only that, we want the answers we want, in the format we want, so that they are easily recognisable, instantly identifiable as God, right here, no doubt at all. And God just doesn’t work that way.
I want to ask you this. Is there something about those “god-forsaken” moments which might be of benefit to us? Is this a life test? Is it that in fact we have to do some spiritual work here, to *discern* - there’s that word again - *discern* what God might be adding to our lives, or where God *is already* in our lives? Is it that we have to take on faith that God *is* present, and not expect some neon sign flashing which says “Yes, God is here!”?
The message from Isaiah *is* that God is here, now. Perhaps we haven’t seen, perhaps our hearts are so weary and our sight so darkened that we cannot see. Nevertheless, if we believe in a God of Creation, a God who names stars and who names us as well, then we cannot say we have been deserted by God. God is constant, we are the inconstant factor. Perhaps sometimes our lives seem to wander and we aren’t able to see clearly into the future, when we desperately want to be able to see. Perhaps we want to scrunch God in there with the life assurance - there’s a hilarious term - and the GIC’s and the investments....so it can all be mapped out with no questionable parts at all.
I believe that God is always with me. God heals the wounds, and sets my feet on the path I need to travel, and I in return have to walk it with trust. That doesn’t mean I just turn everything over to God and sit there waiting. I do have to do something too. I have to get into the boat, or the helicopter, or set out on a different path. I have to learn to look and see where God is, and grasp that connection. God is there, God never leaves. - and for each of the ills which wounds us in this life, God heals. Thanks be to God.
Our hymn is one of my very favourites -
“Healer of our every ill, light of each tomorrow,
Give us strength beyond our fears, and hope beyond our sorrow.
In the pain and joy beholding how your love is still unfolding,
Give us all your vision, God of love.”
Sources:
1. Rev. Frank Schaefer “Strength in the Desert”
2. “Healer of Our Every Ill” Words and Music by Marty Haugen 1987. C. GIA Publications 1991.
3. Isaiah 40:27-31 paraphrase
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