Readings

FIRST LESSON

The first lesson is by Russell DiCarlo from The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment by Eckhart Tolle

Blanketed by an azure sky, the orange-yellow rays of the setting sun can, at special times, gift us with a moment of such considerable beauty, we find ourselves momentarily stunned, with frozen gaze. The splendor of the moment so dazzles us, our compulsively chattering minds give pause, so as not to mentally whisk us away to a place other than the here-and-now. Bathed in luminescence, a door seems to open to another reality, always present, yet rarely witnessed.

Abraham Maslow called these “peak experiences,” since they represent the peak—the high moments of life where we joyfully find ourselves catapulted beyond the confines of the mundane and ordinary. He might just as well have called them “peek” experiences. During these expansive occasions, we sneak a peek—a glimpse of the eternal realm of Being itself. If only for a brief moment in time, we come home to our True Self.

“Ah,” one might sigh, “so grand . . . if only I could stay here. But how do I take up permanent residence?”

SECOND LESSON

The second lesson is from the Gospel of Mark, Chapter 7 verses 31 through 37

Jesus returned from the region of Tyre, and went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. They brought to Jesus a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. Jesus took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, "Ephphatha," that is, "Be opened." And immediately, the man's ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. They were astounded beyond measure, saying, "He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak."

This Week's Sermon

Date: September 6, 2009

Title: The Hurting and the Healing

Message Delivered By: Rev. Dr. Joe McMurray

Sometimes, don’t you just want to let everything go—all the baggage you carry with you in life? Sometimes we carry so much in our minds and figuratively, on our shoulders, we actually look like we’re carrying a heavy burden. Some of us even looked stooped over because of all this heaviness. Wouldn’t it be a huge weight off to be able to detach from things we don’t want to carry around with us anymore?

That was the thinking of a Catholic parishioner who wanted to do just that. The man had a nagging secret he just couldn't keep to himself any longer. The burden was wearing on him spiritually, and it began impacting him physically. He was having trouble sleeping, and without rest, he was unable to perform his job the way he needed to.

So he broke down, and made arrangements to go to the church on Saturday afternoon to confess his secret to the Pastor in the confessional. As he began, the man admitted to his confessor that for many years, even though everyone knew him to be very honest and successful, he had been stealing building supplies from the lumberyard where he worked.

"How long was this going on?” asked the priest.

“Oh, for years and years,” the man said.

“How many years?” asked the priest.

“Well, I’ve worked there for 30 years, and I started stealing material almost right away. So this has gone on probably 29 to 30 years,” the man answered.

“Well, I want to gauge the seriousness of the situation,” said the priest. “What was it that you actually took?"

“Building supplies,” said the man, feeling ashamed.

“How much did you take over the years?” asked the priest. “Was it just a little bit here, a two-by-four there, you know?”

“Well, no, it was a bit more than that,” the man said.
“How much more,” said the priest, “was it a larger pile of lumber?”

"Not exactly,” said the man. “Let’s just say I took enough to build an extension on my house. And enough to build my son's house.”

“Oh, I see,” said the priest. “That changes things a bit.”

“And then I built houses for our two daughters, and then there was the cottage at the lake that we also built," confessed the man.

"So this is a very serious offense, indeed," the priest said. "I shall have to think of a far-reaching penance for something so massive that it has taken place for most of your adult life.”

Trying to think of something more substantial than saying a few prayers or praying the rosary, the priest wondered if a deeper spiritual experience might be required, “Tell, me,” he said, “have you ever done a retreat?"

"No, Father, I have no experience with a retreat," the man replied. "But if you can get me the plans, I can get you the lumber."
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Will you pray with me? God, though we know you are always aware of our needs, when we put our needs into word and into prayer, we feel closer to you. Help us find the words that we may feel more connected to you. Give us the grace to endure whatever comes our way. And help us to find the strength to accept what we do not understand. And may my words and all of our thoughts be filled with honor and praise to you. Amen.
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You gotta love the miracle stories. The miracle stories from the gospels are filled with such hope for us. But we would be very much mistaken if we thought that hope lies only in the prospect of being completely healed.

Hope also penetrates those places in us that crave the care and concern of others. Hope is present in the very act of our reaching out. And hope also rises in us with the knowledge that others are actively participating in our healing through thought, prayer, and sometimes through intervention.

In this particular gospel story, the word about Jesus had already spread far and wide. It had reached a point where people were bringing loved ones to Jesus who, perhaps, were unable to come on their own. Perhaps the individuals themselves did not fully believe in Jesus’ ability or were physically incapable of reaching him.

The crowd begged Jesus to heal the man. Jesus took the man aside, privately. He touched the man’s ears and his tongue—the locations of his disability—and he looked toward heaven, and he sighed, and then said, “Be open.”

There are several remarkable things about this story that are worth exploring. Here was a man in need, most likely a man who had suffered a great deal in his life, not only by his inability to hear or speak clearly, but no doubt due to the treatment he had received from others too impatient to give him their time and attention.

Jesus touched the man, who almost certainly was not used to being touched. The sick, the infirm, the differently-abled were outcasts. Those from within these communities were people who were taught and believed by their religious tradition that those who had done wrong or whose ancestors had done wrong were cursed in some way—punished for the deeds they or others had committed.

This is known as retribution theology—the outmoded belief that God is the great scorekeeper who marks the path of our lives with black checkmarks each time we diverge from God’s will. When you’re good, God rewards you. When you’re bad, God punishes you. It’s a very simple and simplistic way of justifying the mysteries of life, especially when we try to explain the hardships and suffering we endure.

So this man, most likely an outcast—at least to some degree—was touched. Jesus prayed with him—something perhaps the temple priests were unwilling to do because even to touch the man was to be defiled, again, according to the religious tradition.

Jesus sighed, the story says. Of course, I don’t know why Jesus sighed, and this would be conjecture on my part, but the empathy and compassion Jesus must have had for this man must have been intense. For Jesus, who was sought out by many, to spend time with this man meant something very important to Jesus, and something very important to the man.

And then Jesus said, “Be open.” We assume Jesus was talking to the man’s eyes, don’t we? But what if Jesus was talking to the man’s heart? What if Jesus implored the man to open his heart to receive the power of God—the love of God? And what if, through Jesus’ prayer, his concern, his intervention—the man found hope where before there was none? I wonder if the man had not received his ability to hear and speak, whether he might still have felt hope and healing through Jesus’ intervention.

Hope is one of those peak experiences Russell DiCarlo is talking about. When we have it—when we put ourselves in the position to be open enough that hope can find a permanent home within us—we never want that feeling to end. That’s where we want to be; where we want to stay.

But alas, we are human, after all; and thus we are prone to acting out our humanness. Most of us are not strong enough to perpetuate a state of hopefulness for an extended period of time. That doesn’t make us bad people. It simply confirms that we can relax knowing we have not yet reached perfection.

Being human, we all hurt; we all have pain, whether we can admit it or not. I alluded to this last week when I made the claim that some of us bury ourselves in work, activities, distractions, addictions so that we don’t have to feel the pain of our humanness. And it may work some of the time. Externally, as we observe others, it may look like it works all of the time. I guarantee you it does not.

And so how do we accept the pain of others, even when it is cleverly disguised? With disdain? Impatience? Intolerance? Indifference?

And how do we treat our own pain? With ignorance? Pretense? Avoidance? Denial?

At various times in our lives, we are all desperately hurting people. We carry our various hurts and pains in different ways. Wouldn’t it be nice if someone came and stuck their fingers in our ears, or spit and touched our tongue? Or maybe it would be enough just to be touched, period; to be hugged and comforted; to be told that we were loved and cared about. And though it might not be that all the pain would simply disappear, there might also be a seed of hope left behind that says, “You are not alone. I care; we care; and God cares. And God cares through me.”

I received this flyer in the mail just yesterday from Rick Warren and The Saddleback Church. See—right on the front it says, “Are People in Your Church Hurting?” I’m glad they are asking that question. We should all ask that question. I wonder if Rick Warren is asking everyone in his church if they are hurting and how they are hurting—especially the LGBT folks who have so often been ostracized and marginalized by Rick Warren’s theology. I pray every day that people like Rick Warren are softening their hearts when it comes to including all of God’s hurting people.

Let me say something. In the midst of our health care debate, and you’ve heard me say this about our food program and hungry people—the same principle applies here: the healing of our soul is a right, not a privilege. Let me say that again: the healing of our soul is a right, not a privilege. Everyone deserves to be healed.

Yet I grew up in an environment where I was taught, both overtly and covertly, that it was the height of arrogance to assume I was worthy of anything. In the old days, suffering was noble, and suffering in silence was saintly. Though the term “martyr” was often used sarcastically, it was thought that those of us who would “bear our crosses” as good little Christians would have a “leg up” to get to heaven. Of course, heaven may mean something different to us now than it did then, but nonetheless, I bought into it and subscribed to it.

Many of us who are holdovers from Christian traditions of the 40s, 50s and 60s still have a deep-seeded belief down that we are not worthy of attention or grace. Too often we still believe we are—or must be—or must appear to be “unworthy” in some way, in order, ironically to make ourselves really worthy. It’s a very strange contradiction.

But by limiting ourselves in this way, by diminishing ourselves, by making ourselves appear “less than,” and by refusing to ask for help or identify our needs, we miss out on something else. We reduce the fact that we are made in God’s image; we abdicate God’s unconditional love—a love that transcends any possible thing we could do or any possible hurt we might have.

This irrationality risks pushing us further from God’s grace, and thus the trust we might possess—which leads to hope—becomes only a possibility or chance. We therefore reject the blessed assurance of a solid life, of positive choices, and fully becoming the people we are meant to be.

I mentioned recently that the hurt and pain some of us experience was as clear to us as the looks on our faces. I invited us to go to fellowship hour that day and to really look at one another—to remember one another’s history, at least the people we know—and to acknowledge the pain there and to bring as much joy and comfort as was possible—perhaps with a smile; or a “how ya doin’?; or with a hug or a funny story; or an invitation to spend some time together.

You know, this is something we really should do all the time.

And here’s the other side of it. Sometimes we need to put aside the busy-ness; to step aside from the compulsion to work 24/7; to leave the cell phone in the car; to put down the doughnut and step away from the table. Sometimes we need to take a good look in the mirror, and I mean a real good look. Stare at yourself in the mirror sometime. Look deeply into your own eyes.

It’s hard to do. My spiritual director one time told me to do this exercise. “Look at yourself in the mirror,” he said, “and concentrate on your face’s reflection in your own eyes.” And do you know, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t look myself in the eye. I couldn’t because I knew if I did, I’d be looking at the complexity of what God sees in me, and I was just not prepared for it. Try it sometime and come and tell me about your experience.

If you can do that, you’re going to see the hurt and the pain. If you can do that, and you remain in that place, you’ll not be able to avoid the compassion you feel for yourself. You’ll not be able to see yourself compartmentalized into the worker, the lover, the organizer, the friend, the partner, the peacemaker. You will see yourself as God sees you—as the whole being. It’s a difficult thing to experience—which makes it yet another reason why God is so great.

Sometimes we all need to take a step back and see where we are. Those who shared of themselves in the Grief and Loss Group can tell you how important that is; they’ll tell you of all the work they discovered they still have yet to do. And how difficult the work is. But they know they are not alone as they do the work.

The healing of humanity is not a privilege. It’s a right. We all deserve to be healed. Demand nothing less—for you, for those you love, and for those you do not even know—and I promise you will not be alone.

May we continue to follow where God is leading. Amen.