Holding opposites…

Readings for the day Hosea 6:6, Matt 9:9-13, 18-28

 

It feels to me that today I’m weaving with disparate ideas and uncommon threads

I have a pile of something soft, like silk – some bulky wool and some sticks, twine and feathers

And I need to weave a single item or idea from these vastly different fibres… we’ll see how it turns out…

 

Holding opposites… What is before us in the readings?

Hosea 6:6 has God say – I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of The Divine within all! – rather than burnt offerings.

In the Gospel we see Matthew being called and the ‘righteous’ and ‘sinners’ being named or accused. In the Inclusive Bible the word sinners is in speech marks but the word righteous, later on, is not – but they both require some unpacking, I added them in our reading today.

In Matthew we also have Jesus’ important, but almost throw-away line, people who are in good health don’t need a doctor; only sick people do! As well as his not so subtle suggestion to his critics to – Go and learn the meaning of the words, ‘I desire compassion, not sacrifices.’ I have come to call not the ‘righteous’ but ‘sinners’.

Then we have the daughter who has died… and the woman who heals herself and Jesus’ heel,

we have the raising of the dead/sleeping child and the blind ones who are simply the question, do they believe that Jesus can do what they are asking of him.

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If Jesus is to be believed then we are our own medics.

It is the faith of the father, the woman and the blind ones that heal. So, by extension is it OUR faith that makes us whole? The Doctor is one’s own self, ‘YOUR faith has made you well Jesus says’ Do you believe that I can do this?

The Father proclaims – My daughter has just died but if you come and lay hands on her, she will live.

The woman thinks, If only I can touch his cloak, I will be healed, then she hears “Courage, daughter your faith has healed you”

The blind ones are asked, do you believe I can do this?” They reply, Yes, Rabbi.

I think that faith is the pivot around which all this is woven and held.

Is it possible the we might we be the physicians of our own and other’s souls?

I am not speaking here of our ability to heal the sicknesses of the body but the other, deeper and less obvious wounds that we carry and inflict daily.

I know from my own life that I can certainly hurt and heal. I know from my own experience that I have been held and healed and wounded by others…

Our words and actions can be wounding or uplifting, harmful or a blessing to others and to the more than human world…

We put pressure on others and pressure is put upon us by other’s expectations

We hurt one another and the planet and her inhabitants without intending

We might PAUSE to reflect on our own, particular, human slip-ups…

I’m thinking of small things like jokes that don’t land as funny and the gentle passive-aggressive coercion many of us use to we get what we want anyway when we appear to be negotiating or being collaborative.

Another example is simple talking and listening – which, if deep and genuine, leads to real conversation that is deeply healing. We heal when we are truly heard.

As opposed to not listening at all or only listening in order to formulate our response.

 

We have pictures of illness and health – dis-ease and the ease of wellbeing before us.

There are so many ways we can be well and whole and not all those ways include being without symptoms or illness. There are so many ways we can be unwell or dis-eased and not all of those are visible or mean we must see a doctor.

Even the You/Me distinction can be made too strongly – it might then become Them and Us

Yes, it is true that we each live in our separate skins but we share a common humanity and also know how we are united in ideas of Us and Ours.

 

I was reminded of the words in the Communion services that say, ‘We break this bread to share in the body of Christ. Though we are many, we all share in the one bread.’

And Cor 12 tells us, ‘Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it’.

 

I’d like to invite us to take seriously today the words of Theresa of Avila who lived in Spain from 1515-1582. Active during the Counter-Reformation, Teresa became the central figure of a movement of spiritual and monastic renewal, reforming the Carmelite orders of both women and men. The movement was later joined by the younger Carmelite friar and mystic Saint John of the Cross, with whom she established the Discalced Carmelites (unshod or barefoot). A formal papal decree adopting the split from the old order was issued in 1580.

Teresa’s autobiography, The Life of Teresa of Jesus, and her books The Interior Castle and The Way of Perfection are prominent works on Christian mysticism and Christian meditation practice.

To help us enter into her mysticism more deeply, I have invited Kaye to gesture Theresa’s prayer while I read it. Please watch Kay as she responds to Theresa’s words and consider the possibility that we might gesture to one another when we use these words later as our farewell blessing.

Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,

Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now, on earth, but yours…

So I wonder is how might we be, with our one precious life, so that people see Jesus Sophia when they meet us?