Brad Sullivan
Proper 8, Year B
June 28, 2015
Saint Mark's Episcopal Church, Bay City, TX
Mark 4:35-41
Jesus healed a woman of her hemorrhage without even meaning
to. She had been suffering from this
hemorrhage for 12 years, was made worse by the doctors, and then she heard
about Jesus. As he passed by her in a
crowd, she touched Jesus’ garment, and immediately she was healed. “Your faith has made you well,” Jesus said,
“go in peace.”
Peace is, I believe, the key to her healing. The hemorrhage was obviously not bad enough
to kill her. She had been living with
this hemorrhage, bleeding for 12 years.
The hemorrhage wasn’t killing her, but it was keeping her from living. Because she was bleeding, she was
unclean. Anyone who touched her, or anything
on which she sat was also unclean. She
couldn’t enter the temple, and couldn’t live a normal life.
I don’t know for sure, but it seems like it would be
difficult to have quality relationships with people if they could never touch
you, if you could never sit in their presence, and if they could never touch
anything you touched. Whether you ended
up as a pariah or simply one to be pitied and gossiped about, my guess is this
woman’s relationships were rather less than ideal.
Jesus healed her not only of a hemorrhage, but of the
isolation and shame that went with it.
He made her whole and gave her peace.
This peace means shalom, wholeness and peace of mind, body, spirit, inside
and out. He restored her to relationship
with others so she could have wholehearted relationships with people, rather
than forever hiding behind fig leaves.
Ultimately, that is what Jesus did for this woman and what
Jesus does for us. He restores us to
proper relationship and helps us remove our shame so we can be naked an unashamed,
as Adam and Eve were in the Garden with God and with each other. At the root of all of our need for healing is
that first consequence of Adam and Eve’s disobedience to God: shame and disconnection. After eating the fruit which God told them not
to eat, Adam and Eve immediately hid themselves from God and from each
other. They were ashamed and put up
barriers to their once open and wholehearted relationships. Wholehearted living, Brené Brown calls it.
Wholehearted living or wholehearted relationships mean that
we can be courageous enough to be our true selves with others. We can let go of our defenses and the armor
we put up around ourselves, and we learn to trust other people. We can be honest about ourselves and accept
honesty from others. Wholehearted living
means we can have empathy and compassion toward others, and toward
ourselves. We can care more about people
than we care about being right. We care
enough about others to speak the truth to them, and we care enough to speak
that truth in love. Wholehearted living
means we’re willing to be uncomfortable for the sake of love, that we’re
willing to hurt for the sake of forgiveness, that we’re willing to let go of
our self-righteous anger for the sake of seeing another with compassion and
empathy.
The woman whom Jesus healed of her hemorrhage, was healed so
that she could live whole heartedly, without shame and disconnection.
At Saint Mark’s, we too have a hemorrhage of which we need
to be healed, several probably, like any other community, but today, I’m
speaking specifically of the hemorrhage of gossip.
I raised this issue at our parish meeting back in January,
and was asked a few days later if I had raised the issue because of something
in particular or if I thought that we were worse about gossip than other
parishes. I said, “no, just the usual
kind of gossip that happens everywhere.”
Thinking more about that question, however, I’ve realized that I’m not
concerned with comparing us with other parishes. I wasn’t called to be the rector anywhere
else. I was called to be rector
here. There’s gossip here, and a pretty
good amount of it. Like the woman with
the hemorrhage, the gossip isn’t killing us, but it is keeping us from
wholehearted relationships with each other.
I know this is small town Texas. I know people gossip. I also know that gossip
is not what Jesus intends for our lives.
Gossip puts up barriers to whole Wholehearted living. Gossip, or generally negative talking about
someone else behind their back puts that other person on the outside of a
relationship. The gossipers feel like
they are more connected because that other person has been disconnected. He’s in the out group, so “we’re good.”
Of course connection through gossip is not true
connection. It’s not wholehearted
connection. It is connection based on
shame and fear. It is connection with
the fear that, “once I leave, someone might gossip about me, and then I’ll be
on the outside.” Gossip just keeps us
behind fig leaves instead of truly, wholeheartedly loving one another.
If we are ever going to be the church Jesus intends for us
to be, we have to stop gossiping, here and everywhere else in our lives. We need to be a light to others, showing them
how to live wholeheartedly, rather than gossip.
This doesn’t mean we don’t ever talk about what’s happened
in our lives, or about what happened with another person.
Let’s say you’re talking to a friend about how someone has
hurt you. The friend listens
compassionately, empathetic for the pain you’ve been caused. That’s good venting along with supportive
talking and listening. Then let’s say
the friend starts talking about his own problems with the person who hurt
you. Now we’re probably getting into
gossip. “I know, he’s just a jerk, isn’t
he. Let me tell you what he did the
other day.” Gossip.
Realizing sometimes we need to vent out emotions, that needs
to be done with a trusted person, knowing it won’t go any further. It also needs to be done for the sake of
healing not bashing someone else.
Perhaps when you’re sharing how someone has hurt you, and your friend decides to share similar negative
experiences that he’s had with this other person, but not to have a common
enemy, not feel connection by disconnecting the other. Let’s say your friend starts sharing common
negative experiences out of concern for the other person. “You know, he was kinda mean to me the other
day too. I wonder what’s going on. I think I’m going to check on him, see if
everything is ok.”
Now we may not be
gossiping. Now we may be caring about
someone. Perhaps you both start looking
at this other person with empathy and compassion. Perhaps through those lenses, you find
healing for yourself. Perhaps through
those lenses of empathy and compassion, you find a desire to seek
reconciliation with that other person, for his sake as well as for yours.
It’s just that easy, right?
Speaking the truth in love is not nearly as easy as
gossiping, but it is courageous.
Choosing to say, “wait a minute, let’s stop talking bad about this
person; let’s instead look at this person with compassion and empathy,” is not
easy, but it is courageous. Forgiving
another, rather than gossiping is not easy.
As former dean of our cathedral, Joe Reynolds said, if we’re really
going to forgive, something has to die (our hurt, our self-righteousness, our
being right, etc.). Forgiving means
letting something die. So, choosing the
pain and grief of forgiveness rather than gossip, and letting die within us
that which needs to die in order to forgive is not easy, but it is
courageous. Choosing to seek connection
and wholehearted relationships, not by setting someone else up as an outsider
through gossip, but seeking wholehearted relationships with others is not easy,
but it is the way of Jesus.
Gossip has no place in Jesus’ kingdom. It is a hemorrhage from which we and most
everyone else needs healing so that we can live wholeheartedly.
Wholehearted living is the kind of life Jesus offers
us. Wholehearted living is the kind of
life God intends for us, so that we can live without shame or fear, but with
daring, with empathy, compassion, and love.
Amen.
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