“The Road to Jerusalem: Soothing”
Rev. David E. Gray
Bradley Hills Presbyterian Church
March 29, 2009
Isaiah 1: 2-6; Mark 1: 21-31
The last time I stood in this pulpit I preached about the importance of loving one’s neighbor. We talked about the Great Commandment – that we are commanded to love God and our neighbors as ourselves. One of you came up to me after the service and said, “I hear people frequently talk about the importance of loving one’s neighbor. Why doesn’t anyone ever preach about the importance of loving oneself?” And so that’s what I’m going to do today.
Our lessons this morning come from the first chapters of two of the great books of the Bible. Our first lesson comes from the first chapter of the prophet Isaiah. And our second lesson from the first chapter of Mark’s Gospel. Isaiah 1 is about a hurting people who were not healed. Our section of Mark 1 describes hurting people who Jesus did heal. And these lessons help us see the importance of our recognizing God’s presence in our midst. For that is one way we begin to learn to love ourselves. Reading now from the first chapter of the Gospel of Mark and God’s Holy Word.
The downside of the modern focus on personal responsibility when it comes to our own health is that we too often blame ourselves when we get sick or when we do not get better as quickly or as well as we would like. Self-accusation, anger, isolation and a lack of caring for ourselves can be as debilitating to us as the underlying injury itself.
There is healing to be found in our Bible. As we walk the road to Jerusalem, we need to stop along the way so that we can soothe the soles of our tired feet. Mark chapter 1 helps us sooth our inner souls as well.
The Gospel of Mark is a Book that emphasizes the healing power of Jesus. Mark records how Jesus spent a lot of time early in his ministry healing people around city of Capernaum, near the Sea of Galilee. Other Gospels begin with discussions of Jesus’ genealogy, birth narratives or discussions of the Word of God, but Mark quickly gets to the action of what Jesus does in the world. One point of distinction for Mark is how quickly and thoroughly he gets to the discussions of Jesus as healer. No other Gospel, emphasizes the healing part of Jesus’ ministry so quickly, not even Luke the doctor. Matthew waits eight chapters before talking about Jesus as healer, but Mark emphasizes Jesus’ healing ministry right in his first chapter. Jesus heals the man with an unclean spirit, he cleanses the leaper, and he heals Simon’s mother-in-law.
When our son Brendan was born last October, my mother in law stayed with us for a few weeks afterwards to help. When President Obama’s mother in law, Marianne Robinson, moved into the White House to help take care of his two daughters, the Washington Examiner newspaper called me to ask for input about the ups and downs of living with in laws in close quarters in a sleep deprived environment. True story. I don’t think I added much other than to say that if the President and his mother-in-law were concerned about their privacy, the White House is big enough for them to have their space if needed.
In Mark’s Gospel, the issue for Simon’s mother-in-law was just the opposite; she didn’t want space, she wanted to be engaged with those around her but couldn’t until she recognized the presence of God in her midst. As the eldest woman in the home, by the traditions of the times, Simon’s mother-in-law would have taken the leading role in providing hospitality to her guests. She would have loved to have served as emerging leader like Jesus at her home when he arrived, but she had to be healthy herself first. She was not afraid to have her son in law ask for help and when Jesus reached out his hand to her, she was not afraid to take it. When Jesus healed her, she immediately began serving those around her. But she had to be healthy before she could serve others.
This is oxygen mask theology. You know how the F.A.A. requires flight attendants to announce as your airplane is about to take off that if there is a sudden loss of cabin pressure you should adjust your own oxygen mask before helping your child’s? We have to be healthy to help others. We need to love ourselves before we can show love to others.
If we deny we are sick when we have a fever, we are the ones who suffer. If we blame ourselves and deny ourselves help when others offer it, our guilt will get in the way of our healing. If we turn our backs on ourselves and on the presence of God in us, our injured souls are not soothed.
That is the problem for the people of Israel in our first lesson. Isaiah opens his book with God’s condemnation of the people of Israel for their lack of repentance. Sounds like a traditional Lenten lesson. The people refused to face the reality of their need for help. They turned their backs on those trying to help. They were overwhelmed with guilt, not love, for themselves. They did not know the presence of God in their midst. Isaiah writes of the people of Jerusalem, “the ox knows his master and the donkey his master’s manger, but Israel does not know.” They turned their backs on the “Holy One of Israel.” Contrast the Israel who does not know the master, with the man “with the unclean spirit” in the first part of Mark 1. He isn’t well, but he still recognizes Jesus, and cries out, “I know who you are, the Holy One of God.” He affirmed the presence of God in his midst using very similar language to those who deny God in Isaiah 1.
For the people of ancient Israel, the healing of body and soul were greatly prized. Isaiah uses the metaphor of a body that doesn’t heal to describe the results of Israel’s disobedience. He writes that there are wounds and welts and open sores that could not be soothed. A place people have gone for soothing of sores and wounds since ancient times is the Dead Sea. 1300+ feet below sea level, the Dead Sea is the lowest place on earth. Its waters contain the highest concentration of salt anywhere. Ten times as salty as the world’s oceans, for example. During one of my favorite visits abroad, we ventured to the Dead Sea. It’s so salty that you can lie back, float and read a book in the water. After the 8:15 service, one of our members shared that they were floating in it just last weekend. Dead Sea salts are prized for their restorative powers. The Queen of Sheba and Cleopatra, and many people today travel there to feel the effects of the soothing salts today. Doctors will prescribe that patients with some skin ailments go to the Dead Sea to soak. However, the Dead Sea is dying. The Dead Sea is really good at healing others. But it is terrible at healing itself. The Dead Sea is a one way Sea. Water flows into the Dead Sea from the River Jordan but stays there. It has no outlet. The water just evaporates from the Dead Sea. The Sea heals others but does not take care of itself and so it is disappearing.
We can take on the problems of others and have no outlet. We listen to our children complain and we need someone to complain to. We cannot keep taking in all the frustrations from others without having an outlet ourselves. We need an outlet for the pressure we feel or our souls will evaporate and we will not be able to sustain our helping others.
When we put the world’s problems on our shoulders, bottle it up inside, turn our backs on God and others who will help, we show no love for ourselves. When we open up, share our burdens, connect with God, even when it is to scream at God, “I’m angry, how could you let this happen? - like the man with the unclean spirit, we recognize the presence of God in our midst and we open ourselves to the possibility of being soothed.
John writes, "We love because God first loves us." Loving ourselves starts with our affirming the presence of God in our midst. If we are looking for the presence of God in our midst, start in here (tap chest). We are made in the image of God and we are connected to the presence of God’s Holy Spirit. So no matter what ills befall you in this mortal life, recognize that you are a never to be repeated miracle of God. And that since God loves you, you are to love and take care of yourself.
One challenge of our Reformed Tradition and its focus on the sinfulness of humankind, is our neglecting the image of God in us. Presbyterians have traditionally taken sin seriously because we believe the Bible takes it seriously and therefore that God takes it seriously. Reformers have traditionally been concerned with the sin of idolatry because the first two commandments of the ten commandments of the Hebrew Bible focus on humans worshipping things other than God. Chief among those idols is worshipping ourselves. Making idols of ourselves is something we dare not do. Yet denying and persecuting ourselves is something we dare not do either.
Much of New Testament theology is grounded in the idea of loving our neighbor as ourselves. The presupposition of that philosophy is that we must first love ourselves. It doesn’t do our neighbors any good for us to love them as ourselves if we treat ourselves poorly. Our neighbors would just assume pass on that. We start with loving ourselves, caring for ourselves, and honoring the presence of God in our midst by stewarding the gifts God has given us. And then we are able to love our spouse, our children and our neighbors.
The Sea of Galilee where Jesus healed is fed by the same River Jordan as the Dead Sea. But the Sea of Galilee has an outlet. The water flows into the Sea of Galilee, but then flows out to the south. The Sea does not bottle up all that comes to it. The Sea of Galilee is teaming with life because it has an outlet for the pressures placed on it.
Where are your outlets? How are you caring for God’s creation in you? Like Simon’s mother-in-law, are you making sure you are healthy before trying to heap others?
One of the more powerful books I’ve seen in the past year is David Sheff’s Beautiful Boy. Its Sheff’s 2008 account of how his son, Nic, became addicted to methampthemines and how his own preoccupation with Nic’s addiction became his obsession. Sheff did not have an outlet for the stress he was placing on himself. He got so caught up in his son’s addiction that he ignored his own health. He started to stress and the stress over his son led to a brain hemorrhage. As a result of his own physical issues, Sheff came to the realization that he could not heal his son on his own. He didn’t have that power, so instead of obsessing about his son’s recovery, he learned he might as well focus on seeking healing for himself first. Then he could help his child. Oxygen mask theology.
Sheff quotes from William Moyers, son of Bill Moyers. The younger Moyers also struggled with addictions and wrote that “recovery is ultimately about dealing with that hole in the soul.” Where are the holes in your soul?
Holy week is coming up next week. If the holes in your soul have to do with how you view yourself, you aren’t alone. We all feel like Swiss cheese sometimes. We feel like turning our backs on ourselves, ignoring our friends, denying our God, and refusing to admit we need help.
But you know what the great thing is about a God who creates us all in God’s image? God recognizes us even if we aren’t in a place to recognize God. And so even if all we can see are the holes in our souls, if we look hard enough, sooner or later we might stumble across the image of God in ourselves. And that moment will be soothing.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
