Scripture Readings: Mark 5:1-12

Epiphany II  - Sunday January 14th, 2007

(by Rev. Glenn Brown)

The search is on to bring “wholeness” back to society and our youth in particular, by identifying values that are not linked to a value system and spirituality without attending church.  The search is being conducted because such wholeness was lost when teachers became so busy teaching fundamentals and parents become too overworked to have time to do it.  But it is also using a relatively new discipline called positive psychology, because people realize that some coherence is needed in society (not only among the youth), some sense of “we’re all in this together.”  Positive psychology attempts to find universal values which can be supported and lived by anyone/everyone, as a way to be happy.  It emphasizes gratitude, mindfulness, meditation, and random acts of kindness.

We can help, of course.  We offer Jesus’ five values and, I think, in the  liberal protestant tradition, a sixth value of understanding and appreciating what science can teach us.  In a world-view which says that our personality, memory, and capabilities are largely the result of chemical actions (neurons, hormones, and so forth), and that some of our qualities (some criminal acts, psychopathy, depression, bi-polarity, and so forth) are also, we need a satisfying way of understanding ourselves and each other.  It is better to recognize a neurological impairment in a serial killer and constrict his freedom of action, than it is simply to condemn him to death as a bad person, for example.  It is better to help the psychological and character growth of a teenager who casts a rock onto a moving vehicle, badly injuring the driver, than it is to imprison him.  Some of the advances in science can help us exercise our religious values of compassion and mercy, and not rendering final judgment.  And if teachers and parents are too busy to teach and illustrate these values, then churches should be more than happy to fill the gaps.

Why should these values be separated from value systems?  Why seek spirituality outside religion?  Why is it that people are still trying to kill Christ, just as they tried two thousand years ago?  What is so objectionable?

In a recent article about these efforts to develop character through positive psychology, a major limitation was noted by a student being interviewed:  “being positive will not help us solve Iraq.  All we can do is work one person at a time.”  That may be true if values are dissociated from systems; but perhaps the more systemic approach is valuable.  From the
Church’s perspective, that “system” is Jesus, the example of what the right relationship can be between us and God.  The prime example of that relationship is seen in the stories, such as today’s, where Jesus calls himself “son of Man.”

Today’s passage is the first story in Mark where Jesus calls himself this, and it is connected with healing a paraplegic, and forgiving his sins.  The title which Jesus used to describe himself, Son of Man, is obviously quite deliberate and careful on Jesus’ part.  Understanding, as we do, that Jesus is the physical intersection between God and humanity, we watch closely as Jesus demonstrates what that intersection means for us.  Here we have part of the answer:  it means humans, channeling God’s power, heal people and forgive sins.  For Jesus, the forgiving was the more important news.  

In Jesus’ time and religion, forgiveness was God’s purview.   Jesus insisted that people must forgive each other, as God forgives us.  The ability and necessity for doing that, are one of the connections between us and the divine.  (By contrast, rendering a final judgment is the purview of God alone, and is not part of the divine/human connection.)  And you notice that there is no sign of contrition nor a requirement that the man make up for anything he had done.  He was forgiven, period.  Indeed, we doubt that he expected anything to be done about his sins – his concern, and that of his friends (and what friends!) was his health, his impairment. 

The Old Testament teaches in many places that sin and ill health, as well as ill fortune, are connected.  Common was the presumption that both were signs that you were in God’s bad books.  Jesus specifically rejected this teaching, but still recognized that, while illness is not a sign of God’s ill favour, it can be a result of sin.  What exactly are we saying here? 

When there is a guilty conscience, for whatever reason, it can lead to depression, which can suppress the effectiveness of the immune system. If one is literally losing sleep, or losing appetite and so not nutritioning oneself well, illness can follow.  If a person has lost a relationship because of some act which offended or hurt, the loss can trigger illness.  The CMAC has often reported on research that some 70% of hospitalizations involved people who were feeling a great sense of loss.  As a hospital chaplain visiting people, I would routinely check in to find out what, aside from the disease, was going on in patients’ lives, looking for loss, depression, disconnectedness, or something like that.  It wasn’t that I’d sit down by the bedside and demand that they tell me what they had done wrong; usually just a casual invitation to talk about “how things are going” would evoke the stories.  Often, just getting something off the chest, being able to externalize the worry and look at it and consider it, helped people feel better even before the surgery or other treatment; or during recovery, it would speed things up.  Add prayer to that, a conversation with God during which the patient handed over the sense of guilt or the hurt, could relieve even more.  There was usually much more to the healing process in hospital than just the medical procedure.

We know that healing is a quality that has been given to people, although still one exercised by God either through healers or alone.  When we listen to Jesus, we recognize that forgiving also has been handed over but not relinquished, and it has great power.

You note that I say, “not relinquished.”  It seems that our society today wants God to relinquish these powers altogether, or it wants to assert that God never held them to begin with, that forgiving and healing can be done altogether sufficiently by humans alone.  We are trying not merely to kill Christ; but to believe that there is no God.

I guess I could understand this better if science were affirming us more.  I could see it if we really were independent, self-existing, self-causing beings.  But we are not.  We are accidents, and not real things at all; stories we tell ourselves and each other.  Now our religion is comfortable with this, because we have always said that God was in the beginning and we are merely God’s creatures.  If there be no God, we cannot exist.  Science says that we can’t really know that we exist – it is an article of faith, something we choose to believe and affirm in each other.  But science wants us to use that self-affirmation to deny God.  Let us gird up the loins of our electrons and quarks and neurons and chemical reactions, and say, “There is no God!”  It becomes really silly of historians to say that we have made God in our own image, when we actually have no image.

In Jesus we have the divine assertion that we have been given a connection with the divine.  Not just the opportunity to worship; not just the distant relationship which can be bridged through prayer; but the actual connection, physical in Jesus’ case; nearly so in ours.  It is that connection which makes healing and forgiveness possible in the really difficult circumstances (think of the Amish).  It is that connection which makes us and everything real.  To have values without systems, to have spirituality without religion, is rather like taking home cases after case of bottled water and saying to ourselves, we have what we need; as if the source of the water were the bottles themselves!  I understand the ease and convenience of the bottled water.  But someone, sometime, is going to have to collect more water from the source!

Let’s keep reminding people of the source.  Let us keep witnessing to God in our lives!

Last week I was at a meeting with some people who were recounting their volunteer activities.  All of them, one noted, spoke of only what they did for people in less fortunate circumstances – serving breakfast in Out of the Cold; volunteering at the chronic care wings of local hospitals, and so forth.  The question was asked, is it not good to help also those who are not less fortunate, in poorer health, in lower income, in unstable housing arrangements?  Values without a comprehensive system, a system that encompasses all forms of need, can be very limited and limiting.  The individuals spoke often and enthusiastically of how much satisfaction they derived from their volunteer activities.  The question was asked, must all volunteer activity bring personal satisfaction?  Is that the point?

In the ensuing silence, I spoke about the Core Ethic of our religion, be as concerned with others as yourself.  I pointed out how this ethic, because it is systematic, engages us with those who are and are not less fortunate, and engages us whether or not we derive satisfaction.  The religion, with its systemic coverage, is what gives us ground and place in the moral life.  Random acts of kindness can indeed be fun and satisfying; but it takes systematic acts to solve the deep and continuing problems.  Spirituality may indeed give us a sense of connection to the divine, but, given our biochemical nature, perhaps we are just fooling ourselves when we rely upon ourselves individually to certify the experience.  On the other hand, we have the great religions of thousands of years, during whose courses millions of humans have testified to the reality of the divine and our connection to it.  If science has understood us aright, religion is as close to reliably certifying our experience of the divine as we will ever get on this side of death.

Dr. Avis Glaze’s list of universal qualities of character:

Dr. Martin Seligman’s list of strengths