Jan. 31, 2021

 “’Food will not bring us close to God.’ We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. ⁹But take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak.”  These days, we don’t really consider eating food sacrificed to idols to be anywhere on our list of dilemmas.  Nobody makes documentaries about it or writes ethics books about it.  But we do have considerations to weigh in which we have personal choice that don’t matter in the least to God which choice we make, however how it affects our neighbor is a key consideration and does matter to God, a lot. 

Last year this reading could have been interpreted to apply to the wearing of masks.  Substitute mask wearing for eating food offered to idols.  Everyone makes their own choice about whether to mask or not, however we have to consider those around us with vulnerable immune systems.  It is one thing to chose for yourself whether to risk getting sick, but we will all be held accountable if we infect someone else, especially those most vulnerable.  This year I see it applying to vaccines.  We all have a personal choice to make based on our views, our doctor’s advice, and finally our effect on our neighbor.  We are a nation based on the principles of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  We believe in individual rights.  But we forget that God looks at the whole picture and sees the plight of the weak and asks us if life might be more fulfilling when we consider the most vulnerable.

Pastors are nowhere on the timeline in Washington to get the vaccine.  Neither are childcare workers, for that matter, who are first in line in Oregon.  Pastors in other states are at the front of the list, since they are considered front-line workers, visiting the sick and imprisoned and caring for the elderly and most vulnerable.  Out here in the wild west, people don’t know what pastors do, and pastors aren’t on the list of most at risk, so we fall to the end of the line. 

Although I plan to get the vaccine when I can, I don’t mind waiting.  I have been so excited to see on FaceBook my healthcare worker friends getting theirs and hearing from you about your appointments.  I know that my turn will come and when I do I imagine tears of joy.  This virus has had such a hold on us and I am in awe of God’s work through medical science to bring a vaccine so quickly.  I imagine what it must have been like in 1918 to have to stay home without the benefit of technology to communicate, never knowing if another wave was on its way.  God has given us such advances in medical science, research that had already been happening on other forms of corona virus—I give praise to God and thanks to people who had the foresight to work on this over the years to bring us some relief from this terrible illness. 

Whenever someone else gets the vaccine, I give thanks to God, even though it isn’t me, because that person is a precious child of God, that person will not be spreading the virus to another precious child of God, and that person will be protected by the healing power of God who has given us the gift of medical science and people working around the clock to ensure that people are protected.  Each person who receives it brings us all one step closer to being able to visit people in the hospital or assisted living or prison.  It brings me one step closer to meet my niece who is a year and a half.  It brings us one step closer to in-person church.  It brings us one step closer to seeing a movie in a theater and eating out at a restaurant.  It brings us one step closer to a return to school.  It brings us one step closer to health, wholeness, and hope.

Not everyone can get the vaccine and some people choose not to based on their own experience and health history.  We all have a choice and when we make that choice, the effects of our choices on other people, especially the most vulnerable ought to be a consideration. 

This man in the synagogue is one of these vulnerable people.  If he was here we’d probably mute him.  He’s making a ruckus.  The other people there are embarrassed.  They don’t know what to do.  They are looking anywhere but at him, hoping that ignoring him will make him go away.  They feel helpless.  Their community is incomplete.  Maybe they knew him as a youngster.  Maybe they saw him going down a path of mental illness or falling prey to an unclean spirit.  Or maybe he’s a transient that’s just walked in the door that they have never seen in their lives.  This man is suffering and his suffering is causing pain in the community—nothing like the pain he’s feeling.  Jesus is our great healer.  He moves toward the pain, toward the wounds, toward the unclean, toward the vulnerable.  The unclean spirit recognizes Jesus, the Holy One of God.  Jesus’ own disciples, own mother and siblings, the scribes and pharisees and priests don’t recognize who he is, but this unclean spirit does and names him, proclaims truth.  And Jesus casts the unclean spirit out.

            People are amazed at Jesus’ authority.  Maybe it is because he’s just completed his rabbinical studies.  He’s a young rabbi, just starting out and he speaks with authority and wisdom.  But what they don’t know is that Jesus is the Christ Spirit that has been at work throughout the ages.  His authority comes as the author of life.  There is something very different about Jesus.  His authority comes from his integrity—what he says matches what he does and he does a whole lot more than he says.  He feeds the poor and heals the lepers and crosses the borders between Judea and Samaria, crosses boundaries between clean and unclean, Jew and Gentile, men and women.  His words and actions are consistent. 

The unclean spirit recognizes his foe from over the millennia. The unclean spirit divides people, it makes them sick, and not just individuals, but whole communities.  This man’s disturbances have wreaked havoc in this and other communities for years.  His parents blamed themselves, their neighbors blamed his parents, everyone wondered where they went wrong, they longed for him to fully participate in community, but they were afraid and helpless.  Jesus brings his willingness to go toe to toe with this unclean spirit.  He brings his authority, his integrity to face what and who is uncomfortable.  Jesus goes to the one that is hurting the most and gives his healing power.  This man certainly was not the only one in the synagogue suffering from an unclean spirit.  There were spirits of pride, of greed, of jealousy, of arrogance.  But this man was the one who was so weakened by this unclean spirit that he was able to receive the healing of Jesus, and from this one act of healing, it truly did work like a vaccine, in that it brought healing to the whole community.  Everyone was affected by this healing.  They saw that if someone like this could approach Jesus, maybe they could too.  They saw Jesus giving his time and energy to someone they had written off—maybe it was time for them to invest in someone that they considered to be a lost cause.  Maybe their troubles were not hopeless, if Jesus could heal this man.  As long as he was sick, their community could not be whole.

Our country’s values are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  God’s values are abundant life, liberation, and the pursuit of wholeness.  Abundant life—living fully in relationship with God and all other beings, thriving in the fullness of life.  Liberation—being freed from that which is reducing your life, isolation, selfishness, greed, racism, oppression to serve God and neighbor and be in healthy relationship and community. And the pursuit of wholeness, which is discovering who you are, God’s precious child and using your gifts or living your vocation or calling in service to God for the common good of all that God has created.  It is about living our calling with authenticity, practicing what we preach, continually learning and growing, considering the need of the whole community.

This week I attended Bishop’s Convocation for the Northwestern Washington Synod, a gathering of rostered leaders, pastors and deacons from Vancouver to Federal Way to Port Angeles and Forks and Aberdeen.  We participated in anti-racism training.  A big take away for me was an acknowledgement that as a white person I am used to being comfortable and others assimilating to the way I do things.  People of color in our culture are accustomed to feeling uncomfortable—stared at, suspected, avoided, targeted.  One thing Jesus did, he moved toward the discomfort, he approached people different from him and he learned and grew and showed us all a vision of the beloved community, the people of God.  I am challenging myself to move toward discomfort, so that God can teach me, heal me, and bring healing to our communities.