(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on February 17, 2019, Sixth Sunday after Epiphany)
Desperate for Touch
In the ancient world, miraculous
healings were nothing new. For
every story of Jesus healing the blind and the lame, there are stories of
Babylonian and Roman healers who do the same. I tire quickly of the game to claim power, to maintain that
Jesus could perform miracles greater than the other leaders of his day. What interests me is not the greatness
of the miracle, or whose touch bore more power, or whose words could accomplish
more.[1] Let the historians squabble over the
veracity of the accounts, if they want to. I’m just grateful that people have experienced healing that
leads to new life. Everything good
is from God, as James says. Far be
it from me to draw boundaries for God’s power.
What interests me is what any of this means for us today. I’m less interested in what happened in
the ancient world than in what happens in our world today, in my life and yours
and others’.
Luke tells us, “All in the crowd
were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them”
(6:19). These were people, Luke
says, who had diseases and were unclean.
In other words, they were folks whom normal society would have looked
down upon, whom in some cases normal society would have excluded. Here we see them reaching out to Jesus,
desperate for touch. And Jesus
welcomes them, embraces them. Time
and again, we see Jesus receive their touch and reciprocate it.
I wonder if it could it be that
simple. When Luke says, “Power
came out from him and healed all of them,” I wonder if that power could be as
simple as a loving touch, as the touch of love?
“Which Is the Greater Handicap?”
Jean Vanier tells a story from
his early days directing L’Arche, which is a community of friendship between
persons with intellectual disabilities and “normal people,” as our world calls
them. Vanier relates:
A man came to
see me when I was director of the L’Arche community. He was a man with many problems and a very sad person. I suppose he was somebody very normal. I
don’t like the word ‘normal’ but if anyone was normal, it was this man. While he was sharing his sadness with me
there was a knock on the door, and before I could answer it, Jean Claude was in
my office and laughing. Some
people call him mongoloid or Down’s syndrome but we just call him Jean Claude. He is a happy man, he likes to come by
my office and shake my hand. And that is what he did. He shook my
hand and laughed. Then he shook
the hand of Mr. Normal and laughed and he walked out laughing. Mr. Normal looked at me and said, “Isn’t
it sad that there are children like that?” … You couldn’t find anyone more
relaxed and happy than Jean Claude. When people start lamenting because there are people with
handicaps in our world, the question is whether it is more sad that there are
people with handicaps or that there are people who reject them. Which is the greater handicap?[2]
When I hear about Jean Claude and
how he would frequently stop by Jean Vanier’s office in order to shake his
hand, I think too of the multitudes who reach out to Jesus. Both are seeking touch. Connection. A sign that they belong, that they are beloved, that they
are blessed.
And I think of what Jesus says
immediately after this moment, immediately after he has touched the dirty and
the diseased, when he proclaims that it is these very people who are blessed. The poor and the hungry are
blessed. The tearful and
terrorized are blessed.
It makes no sense in the world of
Mr. Normal, who looks upon these people and shakes his head, saying, “Isn’t it
sad?” What Mr. Normal does not see
is that like Jean Claude these are the people who are looking for touch, who
are in touch with their need for love, who seek not power but friendship. They know where the blessing is.
The Woes of “Mr. Normal”
But Mr. Normal does not know where
the blessing is. Instead Mr.
Normal is on an ambitious quest for power, possessions, prestige.
My brother tells me the story
about when he first moved to Waco.
A deacon from his church gave him a tour of the town. When they got to the street lined with
the biggest houses, the street where Mr. Normal had achieved his dreams, the
deacon pronounced a verdict that I imagine could be delivered of many such
streets across the United States: This street, he said, is one of saddest
streets in town. Underneath the
gleam and the glitz lay broken families, addiction, and violent disputes.
Mr. Normal’s children are not
faring much better. We are
receiving more and more reports that the present generation of our youth is the
loneliest generation on record. They
are more connected than ever through the internet. But that connection is leaving them hollow. It is not friendship that they find on
their phones, but an impossible contest of pretense and posturing: endless
pictures of other people living the perfect life.
In a tragic twist, when Mr.
Normal seeks relief from all the energy expended it takes to get ahead, he
flips on the television. The
average American household watches nearly 8 hours per day. But even as the television relaxes Mr.
Normal, so it further isolates him from the world of relationship. Worse, it glorifies the values that
fuel his ambitious quest in the first place: power, possessions, pleasure. Is it any wonder that the world of Mr.
Normal becomes more like the fantasies he watches on television, ravaged by
violence, divided into us versus them, worried more about winning than about
relationship?
The “woes” of Jesus are not
pleasant, but they are pertinent.
They point out how far our world is sometimes from the blessing of God. Judgment has a place in our Christian doctrine,
and this might be a helpful way to understand it. Because the woes are not about a vengeful God. They are not about a God who punishes
us for our wrongdoing. The woes are
about what happens when we look for blessing not in the love of God but in the
promise of strength, success, or security.
The Blessing of God Is Needing Others
Recently the Operations Team has
met and discussed some of the challenges that our congregation faces. You’ll be hearing more about these
soon. As we begin reflecting on
what these challenges mean for us, I would like to begin reflecting on how the
Word of God within the words of scripture might offer guidance for us.
For today, I will offer only
this. The blessing of God is not
in security or strength. The
blessing of God is not a building nor is it a burgeoning membership roll. The blessing of God is needing
others. It’s the loving touch, the
touch of love, that fills that need.
Where I feel this blessing most strongly is in Sunday School or small
groups—or I know this happens in choir too—in moments where people can actually
be broken with one another, and love can actually be shared. Where I feel this blessing most
strongly is across the street, where the memory care residents light up in the
presence of visitors, where they eagerly welcome us at the table and hungrily
share communion with us. Where I
feel this blessing most strongly is in Valentine visits to Stuart and Marion, June
and Bubba.
There’ll be plenty more to talk
about in the days and months to come.
But for now, I would only offer for our consideration what Jesus offers
in his striking reversal of our world’s priorities: the blessing of God is
needing others.
Prayer
Strange God,
Who calls us
From the deathly existence
Of what is normal,
Into the new life
That is born
When in our weakness or need
We reach out for touch—
Attune our hearts
To where the life really is,
And guide us there,
In our personal lives
And as a church.
In Christ, who reciprocates our touch
And gives new life:
Amen.
[1] To me, this
kind of debate is but a variation of my, “My dad could beat up your dad,” which
is just another way of expressing our family loyalty, our tribal identity.
[2] Jean Vanier,
Images of Love, Words of Hope (Hantsport,
Canada: Lancelot, 1991), 94-95.
No comments:
Post a Comment