Guest Moodler: Be Real

Today's reflection was given by my friend, Cathy, for her United Church Community. The United Church and many other churches mark today as Truth and Reconciliation Sunday because it is the day closest to National Truth and Reconciliation Day, a day that was declared in Canada in response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's 94 Calls to Action. 

Truth and Reconciliation Sunday
at the Community of Emmanuel

So our little Community of Emmanuel prayed heartfelt prayers several times and in different ways for Truth and Reconciliation during our 45 minute service. 

Then at the Catholic Mass I attended afterward with my parents and Lee, there was not one word about Truth and Reconciliation. Not one word. 

So this afternoon, I walked to my nearest Anglican Church to enjoy their commemoration of the day with sharings by people who are survivors of residential schools and intergenerational trauma, honour songs, and a round dance. At the end there was a wonderful spirit of community and bannock to share. 

Today I feel the poverty of my own church's neglect of a day that should be important to all Canadians, no matter their faith. It's not even mentioned in the Canadian Catholic Liturgical Calendar in my monthly missalette, though other churches have been commemorating it since it was declared in 2021, and have been acknowledging the need for truth and reconciliation efforts since long before that!

In the spirit of reconciliation, I share my friend Cathy's reflection. May a willingness to hear the Truth and to work for Reconciliation be the basis for all our interactions with Indigenous People who have suffered so much because of past abuse and neglect and the forcing of foreign world views that were not in keeping with their respect for all people and Creator's creation.

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Sermon September 29, 2024

“Face Facts: Be Real”

National Day of Truth and Reconciliation

Cathy Coulter

When I was mulling over ideas for a sermon for our challenging reading today, I was doing a crossword and I read this clue: Face Facts, 6 letters. Answer? Be real. And I thought, that's what Jesus is doing in this passage from Mark as he teaches his disciples and us. Face facts. Sin and evil are real. There's no sugar coating it.

Tomorrow is the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. The truth and reconciliation process and the day marking it is a time to face the facts of the tragic legacy of residential schools and a long history of injustice towards Indigenous people. Over the last few decades many of us in this country were waking up to facing the facts of these harms. I know I was, having never been exposed to history from an indigenous point of view. It has been an uncomfortable wake up call as we think about our history as a country.

Last year I also led the service for the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation and I spoke about my own journey of reconciliation. My journey and my reactions were painful at times, and beautiful at times. I experienced growth and change. We do grow. We increase our awareness, our understanding, our compassion. This is good. And as time marches on we will continue to grow and get better and better. The world will get better and better. Kinder, safer, better for all. More equality. More caring and sharing.

At least that's how I used to think the world worked. Progress. Maybe a few setbacks. Dr. Martin Luther King said, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice”. In popular movies and books that I like, the good guys ultimately win over evil. The Psalms and other scripture often talk about the goodness of God prevailing. Psalm 27 says, “I am sure I shall see the goodness of our God in the land of the living” (Psalm 27:13).

And I believe that with all my heart. But at the same time, as I age, as I see what's happening in the world, I think I've been naïve to believe that things will always get better. I remember the moment I lost my naïve optimism. It was the 2016 US election. Then there was the pandemic and more and more polarization on social media and wars and political discord and environmental destruction with no evidence that humanity will turn it around. Increasing homelessness. Increasing addiction. Increasing anger and random acts of violence.  A young generation awash in anxiety. Backlashes to issues I thought were progressing. The complication of doing what we think is the right thing and the confusion when the ripple effects turn out to be the wrong thing. The dangers of black and white thinking.

Does anyone else feel this way? I  know they do because I've heard lots of people talk about not looking forward to the future in this current time. It's easy to feel despair when we think things are getting worse. But difficult times present an opportunity; an opportunity to face facts. To be real. To look at some hard truths. Jesus was not one to shy away from talking hard truths. Talking about sin and evil, like in our reading today. It sure can be uncomfortable. So bear with the discomfort while I explore it, but know that I'll get around to some good news as well, because Jesus is also all about good news.

Sin is a word I sort of rejected many years ago. The sin and redemption model of Christianity was very harsh and hard to relate to, frankly. I tried to be a good person. I didn't think I'd racked up a lot of big sins. The thought of people I loved, or even anyone, going to hell because they were so called sinners or they didn't believe in Christ didn't make sense to me. The word sin can be very triggering for people who associate it with fire and brimstone preachers who judge everyone who doesn't fit into their very narrow view of what is acceptable. I remember a mentor talking about how the prayer of confession in church would be more helpful if it became a prayer of affirmation for all those people who had trouble feeling worthy. That made sense to me. The image of God as a harsh judge who punished sin was gradually replaced in my imagination by a more loving God who loves us in all that we are. I began to see that getting better and better in an effort to become perfect is not a requirement to earn God's love.

This was all very important for me to address my own feelings of unworthiness. But gradually, as I became more grounded, I began to consider the concept of sin again with more nuance. What was it in me that didn't do the good I wanted to do, but the harmful things that I do not want to do, as Paul says in Romans? Why did I feel stuck so much of the time and not the person I wanted to be?  Why did I feel close to God one day, and completely distant the next? Why couldn't I understand myself?

Answering all that required me to look within, at all the faults and compulsions and shadows that hide there. Doing that with the security that God loves me no matter what, allowed me to admit I'm a flawed human being and not try to pretend otherwise. And while I do my best to correct what is hampering me or harming others, I'm never going to reach perfection. Can I learn to accept myself as God does, even as the loser that I am?

I heard a story once that struck a chord in me. A spiritual teacher named James Finley has problems with being forgetful and disorganized and he went to give a talk one evening and realized he'd forgotten all his notes. So he had to quickly jot some thoughts down just before he went on and in exasperation at himself, he talked to God saying, “God, am I ever going to get over this problem of not getting it all together?” and he heard God reply, “It's not looking good, Jim. But I love you anyway.” I loved that story. I felt something relax in me when I heard it. My striving for perfection for getting better and better all the time wasn't likely going to work nor was it a necessity to my being okay.

So the word sin for me became another way of saying my human limitations. Flaws that hamper me and harm others, whether intentionally or not. And yes, I can work on these things as best I can to grow in understanding and compassion. But first and foremost I have to humbly acknowledge them.

So what is Jesus saying in our reading today about cutting off our hand or foot or taking out our eye if it causes us to lose our faith rather than be thrown into hell? Well, I'm not sure, but one thing seems clear and it's that Jesus is telling us to take sin seriously. To face facts. To be real. To practice telling the truth about our lives, as we said in the prayer of confession this morning.

But there is more to sin than just recognizing our own faults. There is sin in the rest of humanity, in society. This is where my naïve optimism that the world was getting nicer and nicer kind of crashed as I wonder if that is even possible for humanity.

I came across a book in the library whose title caught my eye. It was “I Don't Believe in Atheists ” by Chris Hedges. In it he talks about the belief in our society that we progress morally as a species. The belief that science and reason will save us. That we think humans are “the culmination...of centuries of human advancement, rather than creatures unable to escape from the irrevocable follies and blunders of human nature.” Unless we face the facts of the sinfulness in the human condition, we will ignore or minimize catastrophes, thinking eventually things will get better. I think this has been true of the climate crisis or war, with us thinking “we'll figure it out in time” or “we are better than that now” while it has become clear that we haven't figured it out in time and that we are not better than that. While I do see the amazing goodness in people and am optimistic that our better natures can prevail, I think it's important to be real that when given the opportunity and in many circumstances, people can behave very, very badly. How many people, famous and otherwise, have I admired, heroes to me even, who have been exposed in scandal? Too many to count.

Hedges writes, “We have nothing to fear from those who do or do not believe in God; we have much to fear from those who do not believe in sin. The concept of sin is a stark acknowledgement that we can never be omnipotent, that we are bound and limited by human flaws and self-interest.” By acknowledging and being alert to sin in humanity and society, we are better prepared to address it, work to limit it, and not sweep it under the rug. Being awake to humans'  propensity to cause harm means we are more awake to the harms humans are causing, preventing us from hiding in a comfortable bubble while we passively wait for the world to change. It's like the work to look at our own individual faults and flaws. We become clear-eyed about sin and evil in the world, not in a despairing way and not in a way that leaves us feeling nothing but guilt, but in a real way that gives us courage to understand it and to stand up to it. Just as Jesus did.

For that we need to be rooted in hope. As Jesus was. But before I talk about that I'll mention one more idea from the Christ Hedges' book because it fits with our reading.

Hedges talks about the dangerous path of fundamentalist religion that needs to convert or overcome non-believers even by violent means. The Crusades of the Middle Ages, witch burnings, the Spanish Inquisition, the missionaries in the new world. And on and on into our present time. But Hedges argues that just as dangerous are the new atheists who have a utopian belief that science and reason will allow humanity to master its destiny and everyone standing in the way of that need to be cancelled or overcome, including and especially, religious people. He says these two groups, the fundamentalists and the more extreme and vocal atheists, both peddle in absolutes and call for the conversion or eradication of those who aren't on-side. I find there is more and more of that “our side vs your side” in today's world and I find it disturbing. People who feel they are on the right side of history can be very scathing about those who they feel are on the wrong side of history. Those who think they are right can be violent towards those they think are wrong, no matter what the issue. “If you're not with us, you're part of the problem and we can't associate with you,” seems to be the attitude.

Jesus warns about this in the first part of our reading when the disciples were a little peeved with those weren't in their group but were driving out demons. Jesus told them to let those demon-expellers be. It would soon be clear enough who was legitimate and who wasn't. I think this is a warning to us not to be too quick to dismiss those who aren't in the correct group or don't think the way we do. This is the lesson of small communities who have to get along with everyone, no matter what their politics or religious beliefs are, if they are to have any kind of community life. “Have the salt of friendship among yourselves, and live in peace with one another,” Jesus says at the end of our reading.

Be real about sin but live in hope that God's goodness will prevail. Be clear-eyed about human frailty but live in peace with one another. And while I didn't finish the Chris Hedges' book, I couldn't help thinking that there was something missing in what he was saying. I think he was missing love. The power of love to transform our frailties into a power for good. Yes, the world has big problems and this will never change. We progress morally, we fall back. And on and on it goes. But we don't need to despair because somehow God is present in all of it. The suffering and the goodness. The human weakness and the courage. The arc of the moral universe bending towards justice. Thanks be to God for all that we are, and all that we can be, but mostly for all that we are. May we be real with ourselves and our humanity, just as real as God is and hope is and love is. Amen.

Guest Moodler: Seeing beauty, seeing God

This past week -- well, all summer, really, I have been struck by the beauty of the world around me... the bumblebees in the bee balm and the hummingbird at the honeysuckle vine... the children riding past on their bikes... the cloudscapes in the sky... the perfection of purple beans hanging from their vines or blanching on my stove... the wonderful people in my life... and those in need of compassion who can benefit when we see their beauty and reach out to them...

My best friend spoke about this beauty at her church a few weeks ago when they began six Sundays of reflection called Beguiled by Beauty, and I have been internally moodling (musing and doodling) on her words ever since. Cathy graciously allows me to share her reflection here. 

Where are you beguiled by beauty, God's visible and invisible presence in your life? I invite you to Stop, Linger, Observe and Wonder at God's marvels wherever you may find them this week, but especially, in the marvel of your own soul...

Beguiled by Beauty

Cathy Coulter

God is beguiled or charmed by beauty. But what kind of beauty are we talking about? This is more than our superficial definitions of pretty. This is about the sacred worth of things that we become aware of when we sense the divine. We have all had experiences of this. I was visiting my brother and family in Cranbrook last weekend I came across a photo of my nineteen year old niece as a new baby and I was so moved by the beauty of of her newborn face. When I showed it to my niece, she said, “Ack!”, not impressed. I told her some day she would know how beautiful she is. I hope that day is not too far in the future.

It is hard for us to see our own beauty. This seems to be the human condition as we lose our innocence and experience the hurts and traumas of life. But we are told that we are created in the image and likeness of God. We are worth all that God is worth and we have a value that cannot be measured. No one can diminish or destroy that value because it belongs completely to God. There is that in you which no one, including yourself, can trash talk. St. Teresa of Avila describes our soul as a castle made of diamond. In the centre of that castle is God waiting for us to come near. Teresa says, “Where would the King of Kings rather be than in the middle of us. That is the most beautiful place in all of creation!”

Life would be so much easier if we realized this, that we are good and beautiful. That we don't have to prove ourselves to be better or worse than others. That there is nothing we have to accomplish to be worthy of being simply here, on earth as part of creation. If we all knew this it would be like being in heaven. Our soul is God’s heaven but we don’t realize it. Jesus knew it, and he knew it about everyone and everything he saw. And just like Jesus, when we know it about ourselves, we will know it about others. And others will see it in themselves, mirrored by us.

Compassion springs from this well of divine love within us. We access this well by slowing down and paying attention to what is right in front of us. When we slow down, God can catch up to us and show us glimpses of that divine beauty. We’ve all had experiences of this too. Moments when you’re caught off guard in the ordinariness of life when you have a moment of spaciousness and wonder and gratitude. It might be in nature, it might be with your loved ones. It might be among the pots and pans. It might happen when you’re walking down the street and see a stranger or when you’re sitting in church and a word or piece of music touches your heart. Maybe tears arise, or maybe you blink and the moment is gone. These are moments that God is sharing with us, moments of beguiling beauty. God is sharing God’s very self with us.

How can we be someone who God doesn’t have to run after so hard? I saw a nice little practice on the internet the other day. A 5 minute retreat called SLOW...S..L...O...W. Stop, linger, observe and wonder. I tried it out on a walk when I was feeling more like getting my walk in than stopping and lingering. I stopped in the presence of a beautiful acacia tree that has caught my eye more than once. I actually set the timer on my phone for 5 minutes and I stood in the shade and lingered. I felt a little silly but I focused on observing the tree. I gradually relaxed and noticed all the dragonflies floating around, and the sharpness of the blue sky against the yellow-green leaves. I gradually developed a sense of wonder which stayed with me as I continued on my walk, for a few more minutes anyway, until my thoughts began to chase each other around again. That’s a very intentional practice. But the moments that catch us off guard can also be times to practice SLOW. Stop when you notice you’ve become absorbed in something beautiful. Linger in that space. Observe what is happening inside you. Allow a feeling of Wonder to arise. Bit by bit, God’s grace will allow you to know the beauty of yourself, and of others and of all things. Pretty, unpretty... all beautiful.

This well of divine love that we can access when we become aware of these moments of beauty are the springs that nourish that cedar tree in Ezekiel (31:3-7). 

You are like mighty Assyria,
    which was once like a cedar of Lebanon,
with beautiful branches that cast deep forest shade
    and with its top high among the clouds.
4 Deep springs watered it
    and helped it to grow tall and luxuriant.
The water flowed around it like a river,
    streaming to all the trees nearby.
5 This great tree towered high,
    higher than all the other trees around it.
It prospered and grew long thick branches
    because of all the water at its roots.
6 The birds nested in its branches,
    and in its shade all the wild animals gave birth.
All the great nations of the world
    lived in its shadow.
7 It was strong and beautiful,
    with wide-spreading branches,
for its roots went deep
    into abundant water.

You are that tree giving shelter and shade to others. You are majestic in your beauty with your spreading boughs, your roots reaching deeply into an abundance of water.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Guest Moodler: A Play

My dear friend, Cathy, has done it again... used her creative writing to get me thinking about what's really important -- in this case, looking after ourselves at a deeper level by detaching from our egos, something that many of us learn a bit late when, as one of her characters comments, "something drastic" happens.

Even before appearing in these moodlings, Cathy wrote a lot of amazing stuff (just search Guest Moodler in the sidebar and you'll see some of her more recent reflections). I'm privileged to share this little play she wrote about "knowing," featuring our friends, Head, Heart, and  Body, who rediscover how to work together for well-being. May we all let our Soul Child's desire to just BE lead us to delight and peace and better overall health more often!

A Play 

by Catherine G. Coulter

Head: I call this meeting to order!

Body: You would! But really, Head, do we have to be in this stuffy boardroom? I mean, come on!

Head: What? Meetings are held in board rooms.

Body: Can’t you imagine us somewhere a little more….imaginative?

Heart: Somewhere where we feel relaxed and peaceful.

Head: Like where?

Heart: How about down by the creek on a warm gentle summer day. Where we went that time.

Head (exasperated): Oh alright! There! Is that better?

Body: Much! I’m going to stretch out on the grass. Ahh!

Heart: Oh, and listen to that red wing black bird! It just gives me a lift.

Head: Fine. Let’s start over. I call this meeting to order. Now I have an agenda. I’m going to read it off to you to keep us on track. Item number one: Situation. Item number two: Background. Item number three…

Body: Blah, blah, blah.

Heart: What about a check-in?

Head: Additional business can be added to the end.

Heart: But a check-in should always come at the beginning.

Body: Like an ice breaker!

 Heart: Exactly!

Head (sighing): Alright. Check in. Then S-BAR: Situation, Background, Assessment, Recommendation. It’s a communication model that has gained popularity in healthcare settings, especially amongst professions such as physicians and nurses.

Heart: Body, I think it sounds fine. Let’s just go with it. Okay. Can we start with the check-in? How is everyone? Head, you go first.

Head: I have to think about it. Body, you go first.

Body: Well, I know how I’m doing. I’m a wreck! A Titanic approaching the iceberg! Someone needs to steer this ship on a different course! I mean, look at me. My shoulders haven’t come down from around my ears forever. My upper back is a macramé of knots. My gut is completely shut down. And my nerves are keeping us awake at night. I mean, seriously! I could keep up when we were much younger but we’re reaching an age where things start falling apart. I’m speaking up but the message isn’t being heard or understood and I’m afraid the next communication from me to her is going to have to be something drastic.

Heart (gasps): No! That makes me feel like sinking.

Body: I don’t want to scare you but I’ve been holding this fight or flight reaction too long. Something’s gotta give.

(The three sit in silence, digesting this.)

Head: Well, what you say has made me think about myself. I’m tired too. Always spinning, planning, anticipating. Worrying. And it’s not just your nerves keeping us awake. I never get a chance to shut off. Except for the sporadic prayer time.

Heart: Oh yes! That’s my favourite time.

Head: I just feel like I have to keep on top of everything. If I relax for a minute….

Heart and Body in unison: What?

Head: Well, I don’t know. Something bad will happen.

(They sit in silence again for a few moments.)

Heart: I’m not tired, but I can see why both of you are, my dear ones. I feel like I’m just waking up. Stirring, you know. It’s like I was turned to stone, like in a fairy tale and now I’m coming alive. “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” It’s from Ezekiel and she’s been praying those verses for a long time. But it’s scary. So she puts up a little wall around me a lot of the time. It squeezes me.

Body: Yes, I’ve been feeling that little pain.

Head: Well it seems to me our check-ins are coinciding nicely with our agenda item one: Situation. Our girl wants to break free from this holding back, holding on, holding up.

Heart: Well said, Head.

Body: There’s another thing too. We’ve been working in isolation. At least I’ve been experiencing that. Like I’ve been marched along on automatic and nobody’s paying attention to me.

Heart: I know what you mean. There’s a disconnect among us.

Head: Well this may be a good time bring up Item two: Background. And I want to bring in another participant to join us.

Body and Heart: Who?

Head: Body, Heart, this is Soul Child.

Heart: Oh my goodness! I haven’t seen you, Soul Child for ages. Oh, I feel tears coming.

Body: Yikes! Why couldn’t you have warned us, Head? This one always wants to fight.

Head: I was doing some reading in Sandri Maitri’s book “The Spiritual Dimension of the Enneagram” and I learned about Soul Child. But how do you two know her?

Heart: Oh Head, it’s clear that you developed quite a bit after she went into hiding, but Soul Child was with us at the start, connected to Essence. She still is but she’s been acting out quite a bit.

Body: That’s right! She’s the one that made me eat half a coconut cream pie and lie on the couch all day last weekend. I felt sick afterwards.

Heart: She just needs a little attention.

Body: So why did you invite her, Head?

Head: Well once I found out about her, I thought she could provide us with some background. Like how were things at the beginning and how did we get from there to here?

Heart: Except she doesn’t talk in that way, Head. Not to be able to give a summary or a report. Here, Soul Child, lie down on the grass with us. Look up at the sky. Sees those fluffy clouds? Why don’t you see what shapes you can see in them. There. That will keep her satisfied for awhile. Body and I remember Soul Child, Head. We can fill you in.

Body: Yes. Back in the day, Soul Child loved to play and create and explore and delight. I had a great time running around with her.

Heart: I did too. I was filled with emotions overflowing back then. Tears of rage and hurt, great excitement and joy, abundant love. It was Being, pure and simple.

Head: What happened to her?

Heart: Well, you know. Life happened. Expectations, feelings of separation and scary times that made her need to hide and protect herself.

Body: We got our marching orders, so to speak, from the world around us and needed to protect her too. But hiding doesn’t work forever. She’s been wanting to bust out for a long time.

Head: She wants to play again?

Heart: Exactly. And create and delight…

Heart and Body in unison: And Be!

Head: I see. Well. My goodness. This is extraordinary. Well, let’s move on then to Item number…let’s see…three: Assessment. What is it we are looking for? What are our options?

Body: Well I’ll start from my perspective. I want to be more connected with the rest of you. More in tune.

Head: How do we do that?

Body: More check-ins for a start. Head you could do that. Start paying more attention.

Head: I’m sorry, Body.

Body: No blame. No shame. You’ve had it just as tough.

Heart: That’s right. What do you need, Head?

Head: Well, that’s hard for me to say. I don’t know what I need.

Body: If I may make a suggestion…and a pun…you’ve been shouldering too much of the load for too long, Head. Let us help you.

Head: But how can you help me? I have to do the thinking!

Heart: Silly Head. Body and I can think too. We can provide information that comes straight from the Source. You can trust what we say.

Head: Really?

Body: Absolutely. Learn to listen to us. That might mean getting quiet. Turning down the volume. 

Heart: Checking out so you can check in with us. We’re all in this together after all. We can trust each other.

Head: That does sound good.

Heart: And with trust, that wall will drop and I’ll have more space to expand and fill up and start flowing.

Body: And I’ll be able to drop these shoulders and untie these knots and take big breaths.

Head: And what about Soul Child? What do we do with her?

Heart: Oh, she’ll be okay. Once we get on track she’ll calm down and we can let her lead us into delight again.

Head: Oh that does sound good!

Body: So what’s the last item on the agenda, Boss?

Head: Ha Ha. I know now that I don’t have to be the boss and I’m going to lay that mantle down. But okay. Item four: Recommendations.

Body: Hey! Where’s Soul Child going?

Heart: Oh my goodness! Something has caught her fancy. There she goes!

Head: Shall we follow, Team? Let’s go!

Guest Moodler: Sermon on Wisdom

Six years ago today, I posted a sermon on the Bread of Life, delivered by my best friend, Cathy, in her United Church. Today I have the pleasure of posting another of her sermons -- this time reflecting on the very same readings, but with a different theme. Being a little older and wiser, I have to say I really appreciate her sharing about wisdom today, and am grateful to her for allowing me the privilege of posting it here. Enjoy!

Older and Wiser??

August 19, 2018

             
            When I saw the reading for this week on Jesus as the bread of life something twigged that I’ve done a sermon for this reading before. And sure enough. August 19, 2012… the exact same reading and the exact same date! What a coincidence! I talked about food, it was 9 minutes long and we left church early that day. Some have suggested I just repeat the sermon but I decided to do something new because six years on, I’m older and wiser. Well maybe.

             In our first reading Solomon, a new and very young king of Israel asked God for Wisdom when God was handing out wishes. God was very pleased that Solomon had asked for something so, well, wise. He hadn’t asked for riches or power but something more valuable. “How much better to get wisdom than gold, to get insight rather than silver!” it says in Proverbs (16:16). 

             Wisdom does sound like a good thing to have. But what is wisdom and how do we get it? According to those who study such things, wisdom has three factors: Cognition, reflection and compassion. Cognition is what we know and how we think. Experience certainly teaches us a lot. We look back on our youth and say, if I only knew then what I know now. That’s experience. But wisdom is more than just knowing a lot. Being able to reflect on our experiences and gain insight into them and then use that understanding to help ourselves and others is what turns our experience into wisdom. 

             When I was working in nursing homes 20 years ago, I remember being surprised at the number of elderly people I met who did not seem wise. To be honest, there were many who were silly, exasperating and annoying. Don’t get me wrong. I loved them anyway. I learned then that people often carry entrenched patterns of behaviour and personality throughout their lives, and older and wiser doesn’t always apply. But one woman I cared for I remember particularly and thought of as wise. What was the difference? Florence had a multitude of physical ailments: crumbling bones, pain, a tremor, and a heart condition. But whenever I had to take her medication or provide care I would always sneak in some extra time with her. I felt good in her presence. I loved to chat with her. She radiated a quality of peacefulness despite her considerable challenges. She was gracious, grateful, had a good sense of humour, and a genuine interest in others. 

             What I read about wisdom from the definitions I found on the internet may explain the wisdom I found in Florence, the nursing home resident. Wisdom is maintaining positive well-being and kindness in the face of challenges. Florence certainly displayed those qualities. It’s not like she never complained or expressed pain but she did not allow the hardships to define her. But to get to that point we have to look within. As well as the hardships in the world around us we have to see and acknowledge what is negative within ourselves and own it. We have to accept our negative qualities, learn from them and forgive them, which leads us to have greater empathy for others. Wisdom is characterized by a reduction in self-centeredness. Wise people try to understand situations from multiple perspectives, not just their own. But it is understanding ourselves more fully that allows us to see things through others’ eyes. 

             Someone wrote to me the other day that we really need more sermons on when life doesn’t work out. And I’m aware that in the midst of heartache, broken dreams, devastating illness or loss, fears about the state of our world and its future, that this road map to become wise I’ve just outlined is small comfort. When you have an experience, reflect on it, turn that insight into compassion and you’ll be wise. Poof! No problem. Easy peasy. But while that’s an important formula, I think there is more to it than that.

             There is a wisdom in the world that is deeper than the psychological processing of our minds and behaviours. We see this in children who come up with surprising gems of wisdom. The same can be said for people we would describe as unsophisticated or “simple”. I spent years working with people with intellectual disabilities who taught me more about being real than I ever taught them. There is the wisdom of nature: the amazing world of animals, and how plants and insects and other species find a way to thrive and survive. And there is the deep wisdom of your own being. You know there have been times in your life when you acted on wisdom from within yourself that steered you in the right direction at the right time. I think of the two times in my life, twenty-five years apart, when I experienced an overwhelming urgency to come home while living or vacationing abroad, and cutting my plans short and getting home in time to be with my parents when they needed me most even though I had no idea beforehand. In the first case, my Mom was diagnosed with terminal cancer 10 days after I moved home, and in the second, this spring, I cut my vacation short to go to my Dad, who died 3 days after I arrived, much, much sooner than anyone could have predicted. 

             If there is this deep wisdom flowing through the universe and us, and I believe there is, then I think it is that wisdom that sustains us through the difficult times and ultimately changes us for the better. 

             How can we trust and cultivate that wisdom from God? How can we grow in the wisdom we need to make a difference in the world and in our own ability to cope with the challenges of life? I do think we have to work at it and the first step is to desire wisdom and to ask for it. 

             Solomon was not older and wiser when he became King. But he had the wisdom to know what to ask for to be the kind of ruler that was needed and that he wanted to be. He knew he needed more wisdom and God blessed him with that and more. We might be in position where we have a steep learning curve ahead. Or we recognize things aren’t working for us and life is full of dissatisfaction, and we might think there’s got to be a better way and cry for help. This is a cry for wisdom. Or we are visited by tragedy and the suffering leaves us unable to imagine going on, and shaking our fists at God in anger and asking why. That honest response can be a call for wisdom. And when we call for wisdom, wisdom answers. Hear from Proverbs, which are the Proverbs of Solomon: “The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom, and whatever else you get, get insight. Prize her highly, and she will exalt you; she will honour you if you embrace her. She will place on your head a fair garland; she will bestow on you a beautiful crown.” (4:7-9)There is a line in one of our hymns that God is wiser than despair. We too can be wiser than despair. And what a gift to the world we can be when we are. 

             So there is working on ourselves to gain wisdom and there is asking for wisdom. But there is another beautiful way we become wise, and that is by being with wise people. Richard Rohr, a wise man and author, says, “Transformed people transform people.” What that means is by being in the presence of someone wise, holy or transformed, we are changed ourselves. The reverse also applies. If you do your own inner work and gain wisdom, others you are with will gain something from you that you don’t even realize you are giving. Think of the wise people in your life… grandparents or other relatives, teachers, people in this church. Remember how it felt, or feels to be around them. I think of one of my grandmothers. My memories with her are coloured by a sense of unconditional love, safety, wonder, and desire to learn and become my best self. When we hang out with wise people they hold up a mirror of positive acceptance which helps us discover our potential for wisdom within. I think of all my nursing mentors, including my own mother, who showed me the art of nursing with compassion and intuition. Not only does a mentor like this give us a model to emulate but they too give us the encouragement to believe in our own abilities. 

             I think of all the farmers I grew up with who seemed to be wise by absorbing the wisdom of the land and the cycles of nature and I think of my own farmer father who faced his death earlier this year with such grace and wisdom that I have rarely seen. 

             I think of the people of this church. When I sit up in the choir, I am surrounded by the wisdom of those other choir women. Their collective life experience, their joy (we laugh a lot) and their compassion inspire me constantly. I have so many examples of women I want to be when I grow up. We need wise elders as models for our own aging. And I think of the many members of this church whose lives I’ve been privileged to share in a deeper way in my role as Parish Nurse, hearing their amazing life stories and seeing their compassion and humility in the face of living through incredibly challenging times like a world war, or the loss of a child. I am humbled and inspired by the people of this church every day. 

             Finally, we as a church are inspired and changed by the wisdom of Jesus. We know the stories of Jesus and have a template for a moral, compassionate life. But there is something more here, something deeper than pretty stories. 

             In our reading from John, Jesus talks about being the bread of life, the living bread that came down from heaven. Then he tells his disciples that the bread is his flesh and they must eat it and drink his blood to have life. Talking about eating flesh and drinking blood is too gross for me. Too many horror movie images. But eating bread, I can think about that. I love bread. And bread as body works symbolically. That’s why I made the little bread bodies for the children. And of course there is the sacrament of communion, the ritual that Jesus gave us. When we eat bread or anything else we take it into ourselves. It becomes us. We chew on it and chewing on something is a metaphor for thinking things over, reflecting and processing, one of those steps of wisdom I mentioned at the beginning.        
           
             Jesus wants to pass on his wisdom which he received from his Father, our God. Eat me, Jesus says. I am the bread you want that satisfies, that gives life. Take me in, chew on me. How do we do this? By spending time with him. We do this when we come together in worship. We do this when we read the bible, not just reading the stories but chewing on them, taking them in through repetition and study. We spend time directly with the wisdom of Jesus in the mystery of silence and in prayer. And we do this indirectly as well, by spending time with those who have taken the wisdom of Jesus into their own cells. We have a library here in our church of good books, of spiritual wisdom just waiting to be feasted upon, wisdom from the path of Jesus and from parallel paths of other faiths. There are wise people in your own life to remember and give thanks for. There are wise people around us on every side whose wisdom will rub off on us. There is the created world to spend time in and absorb its wisdom. There are sources of wisdom all around us if we have an open heart and eyes to see and the desire to eat some good bread. 

             
Bon appetite! 

Let us pray. 
Jesus, we ask you for this bread of life, 
for wisdom, 
for life in all its fullness 
that we may be filled and give to others from that fullness. 

Amen.

Guest Moodler: Sermon on Forgiveness

My friend, Cathy, has written a beautiful sermon that's she's delivering at her church today. Her congregation gets to hear the story of Joseph forgiving his brothers (Genesis 45), and the story of Jesus' encounter with the Canaanite woman (Matthew 15:21 ->). (These days, I am the Canaanite woman, pleading with Jesus to heal my daughter, too, who has been having a difficult time of late -- if you have any spare prayers, I'd be grateful.) I'd like to be in Cathy's church, to hear her share with her Christian community. What she says about spending time in silence with God, the ground of our being, is so true. Enjoy.

Forgiveness

Cathy Coulter, RN, BScN, Parish Nurse

Not everyone that comes to church has grown up hearing the stories of the Hebrew Scriptures, but chances are they know the story of Joseph and the amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Here’s a quick synopsis: Joseph was the favoured child among the twelve sons and one daughter of Jacob. His jealous brothers sold him into slavery to a caravan going to Egypt. In Egypt Joseph experienced suffering and adventure but eventually ended up finding favour with the Pharaoh and gaining a position of power. When famine spread throughout every country, Jacob’s sons came to Egypt to look for food and Joseph recognized his brothers and finally revealed himself to them as we heard in the reading this morning. It’s a really great story with twists and turns that I’d forgotten about and I encourage you to read it again for yourselves.

Our scripture passage today is dramatic. Think of the emotion of that moment. Joseph had been ripped from his family and his home and here were the brothers that had done it. We expect Joseph to harbour anger and thoughts of revenge. But Joseph forgave his brothers with a graciousness that turned their world upside down.

How about Jesus’ response to the Canaanite woman in the Matthew gospel? Was his response as welcome and gracious as Joseph’s? A Canaanite woman seeks out Jesus to beg him to save her daughter and Jesus says in effect, “Nope. You’re not good enough.” Jesus has taken his disciples away for a rest and that rest gets interrupted by this demanding woman. Who hasn’t been in this situation? You’re just about to have a break or settle into something you enjoy and you’re interrupted by someone’s demands. You’re annoyed. You ignore them, like Jesus did initially, or feel like saying to them, “I can only please one person a day. Today’s not your day. Tomorrow’s not looking good either.” But the woman has the courage to persist and use her wits to counter Jesus’ argument that only the Jews should receive his healing. Jesus finally shows graciousness at this point. He hears the woman. He changes his mind.

Does he admit he made a mistake? Not in our scripture reading, and likely not in traditional theology. But I like to think about Jesus, not as some sanitized, sinless saint, but also as a human being who has the vulnerability to admit he was wrong and change his actions accordingly.

How I want to see myself is how I see Jesus once the woman has schooled him with her quick witted reply to his protests… “Even the dogs get the crumbs”. How often I react when I’m caught out in bad behaviour by feeling embarrassed and defensive and “double down” to prove I’m in the right. But Jesus softens and changes his attitude. He shows the woman respect, hearing her and praising her for her faithfulness. And, best of all, he sends his healing energy to the Canaanite woman’s daughter.

Two stories this morning. One of forgiving and one of admitting making a mistake. We need to practice both of these actions to bring peace into our lives and our world. But how difficult forgiving and admitting mistakes are for us.

Forgiveness is a mysterious process to me. It’s not something we can summon up with will power. We can say with our heads, “I forgive you,” but we can’t force our hearts. I don’t know if it’s something we can practice and work on, or if it is more to do with God’s grace working on and healing our hearts. It doesn’t happen all at once, but you’ll know when you’ve truly forgiven someone. I’ve tried to figure out how to express the feeling, the knowing, but I can’t, other than to say a bad feeling is replaced by a feeling of love. We can’t force ourselves to feel forgiveness but I wonder if the first step is wanting to forgive. Wanting to have our eyes opened to the other’s humanity like Jesus and wanting to find gratitude like Joseph.

And what about admitting we’ve made a mistake? This can be excruciating, if we’re honest with ourselves. I call it my cringe-worthy moments. When, after my blustering and protesting and telling friends my side of the story to prove I had every reason to act (or not act) or say what I did…when I can finally admit to myself that I behaved badly or acted stupidly, or spoke wrongly, I feel an inward cringing that I find really hard to take. Do others ever experience this? That terrible feeling of cringing embarrassment?

I think I’m not alone because there is an epidemic of being right at all costs. I’m sure many relationships end because both parties insist they are in the right. Marriage can be a battle ground of two people being right. Like the old joke goes, I married Mr. Right. I didn’t know his first name was Always. The same joke can be told about Mrs. Right. A self-help talk on the internet is titled, “People Would Rather Die than Give up Being Right.” The classic, pathological example of this is the current leader in the country to the south never admitting he is wrong.

A really nice little book about this kind of thing that I found surprisingly useful is the classic “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff” by Richard Carlson with the subtitle “And it’s All Small Stuff”. One of his quotes is, “Choose to be kind over being right and you’ll be right every time.”

So it’s not easy to admit we’re wrong. And it’s not easy to forgive. And I think that it is almost impossible to do either fully without two conditions.  These are the two conditions for being able to forgive and being able to admit we’ve made a mistake. The first is we have to allow ourselves to be vulnerable. While forgiving may seem magnanimous, in reality, true forgiveness is hard because it means we leave ourselves vulnerable to being hurt again. Think about this for a minute. Even if you never see the other person again, to forgive you must drop the wall that you put up to protect yourself, and that is a vulnerable place to be, but the only place from which you can live a whole hearted life.

And of course, to admit we’ve made a mistake is to be vulnerable. It is to admit we are not perfect, and perhaps, like me, feel some uncomfortable feelings.

The second condition to be able to forgive and admit we’ve made a mistake is really the only condition because we can’t allow ourselves to be vulnerable without it. This condition is knowing we are grounded in that which created us and sustains us. In our tradition we call that Love. We call that God. We need to know in our hearts, in the very core of being, that we are okay as we are, loved as we are, not required to pass a worthiness test. That there is a purpose and a rightness to our very specific being in the world right here and now. If we don’t experience this sense of okayness and are not grounded in that sense of being loved, it will be impossible to become vulnerable. It will be impossible to forgive and allow someone who has hurt us back into our heart, or to admit we are flawed and imperfect and (God forbid!) wrong about something. It will be impossible because without that sense of groundedness it will feel like we are falling, with our feet swept out from under us. It will feel like we are dying. People would rather die than give up being right.

Jesus said over and over, in his words and in his life, you have to die before you can live. Sometimes life circumstances force us to be vulnerable. And then we fall, and that is where God begins to reconstruct our hearts. But we can also get a head start on the heart reconstruction that gives us that sense of ultimate security, and allow God to work on our hearts with prayer, particularly contemplative prayer when we stop doing and learn to sit in the presence of the Holy.

Until we come to know God as the ground of our being, we experience too much anxiety about protecting ourselves and making sure we don’t slip up. But when we sit in intentional silence, there is no hiding from ourselves, no pretending that we are better than we are, or covering up because we think we are worse than we are. In silence we can’t pretend we are in control and slowly and gently we begin to relax into that which is holding us. Into who is holding and always has been. And always will be. Practice sitting in silence every day. Start with 5 minutes. Then 10. Then 20. And see your life change.

What two betters examples do we have of people who lived grounded in the love of God than Joseph and Jesus? Look at the rest of the stories of their lives. It is really profound.

So now I want to ask you, who in your life are you estranged from, or have a strained relationship with? Are you ready to think about forgiveness?

A few years ago I spoke here about a vulnerable letter I wrote to my cousin when our relationship had been fractured. That was the talk that I got the most feedback about ever. One woman told me that after I spoke she went home and phoned her son whom she hadn’t spoken to for two years. Well, ever since then I was thinking about another letter I needed to write for another relationship that I had deliberately let go, but never felt right about. This was a friend that I had shared many important life experiences with when we were in our twenties. But I did not relate to the direction her life took after that. It seemed not to share many of the values that were important to me and I grew increasingly uncomfortable whenever we got together until finally I just kind of dropped her. But it niggled and niggled and I could never move on. It took years, maybe ten years until I was ready to try to find some closure and I did that this spring, writing her a letter over three stints in a coffee shop. The letter I ended up writing took me by surprise because through it I worked out why I was so uncomfortable with her life choices. I had been jealous. I was not secure in my own choices and felt I suffered in comparison. My wobbly self-esteem took the form of judging her harshly but what I worked out in the letter, now that I am more in that place I mentioned of feeling grounded, was that I actually behaved badly towards her. It turned out to be a letter of confession and apology.

When I came home from the coffee shop after I was done, I felt really buzzed, like the decaf coffee I’d ordered had been caffeinated. But I felt really good. Really happy with the letter. It was a good energy, and the rest of that day I turned to a big job I’d been poking away at and that was cleaning out the basement. And my goodness, did I clean out that basement! I couldn’t believe it when I was done. I honestly felt a surge of power and energy that I can only explain by the release of admitting I made a mistake and asking for forgiveness, and for forgiving my friend as well.

Annie Dillard writes:  “On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? ... It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews…. ”

There is power in this God of ours. God is the rock on which we stand. God is the wind beneath our wings. God is the great dissolver, the great heart reconstructor. God gives us the power to forgive and ask for forgiveness and even clean our basements.

Let us pray.

God of Joseph and Jesus, thank you for the gift of life! Thank you for the gifts of the heart. Give us courage and grace to forgive and be forgiven. 

Amen

Guest Moodler: Sermon on Vulnerability

My dearest friend is giving the sermon at her church again today, and it's one I definitely appreciate. Of late, my beautiful young daughters have made me more aware of my limitations and the fact that I no longer fit with young society... and my body just isn't as strong as it used to be. I'm vulnerable, and yes, aren't we all aging! But it's all okay if we can be ourselves...

Enjoy some words of wisdom!

Thanks again, Cathy, for letting me share them here!

Sermon on Vulnerability

August 25, 2013

Cathy Coulter

How many of you know a teenager that has said, “I don’t know anything”? Isn’t it much more likely to come across a teen who thinks and acts like they know it all? Here are a couple of lines you can use them in such times: the first one is  “Oh, sorry. I keep forgetting that I’m not young enough to know it all.” Or maybe you can gently advise them that “It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.”

 Our reading today from Jeremiah tells us of a young man, Jeremiah, who wasn’t like our typical teen. Jeremiah says to God, “Hold it God. I don’t know anything. I’m only a boy.” God tells Jeremiah, “Don’t be afraid. I’ll be right there looking after you.”

In contrast, our reading from Luke tells of a woman “so twisted and bent over with arthritis that she couldn’t even look up”, who’d been suffering like this for eighteen years. I imagine her as an older woman.  Jesus heals her and sets her free.

          These readings made me think about the journey from youth (Jeremiah) to old age (the bent over woman). I’m fascinated by the journey into old age. I’m on that journey, of course, like everyone else -- and like everyone else, I have my regrets and complaints but I’m also curious and yes, fascinated. When I discovered my first grey hair, I remember being amazed. That thing was growing out of my head, just like an old person! What a disconnect between feeling as young as we always have and the reality of our bodies wearing down.

          I like grey hair by the way. I’m trying to learn to love wrinkles, achy joints, and rolls around the middle as well. Or at least accept them.

          I’m also fascinated by how aging is perceived in our society. I could have become a social researcher and studied it but instead, I’m a nurse and I witness it. We don’t value aging. And we don’t prepare people for it. Many people are taken by surprise by aging. We still think we have the capabilities of the much younger selves we imagine ourselves to be. Sometimes I want to say to people, what did you expect? That it wasn’t going to happen to you?

          We keep the discussion of aging in the closet. We don’t talk about dying either. As a Hospice nurse I want to talk about it, to normalize it, so we can get on with the business of doing it well – doing aging and dying in a way that is rich in gifts and blessings for ourselves and others. I’ve witnessed this way and have been gifted by it.

          So I was all prepared to stand on my soap box once again and deliver another variation on how we should age but ….and here comes my pun…it was feeling kind of tired. I think my theme is getting old!

So now it’s Friday night and I still don’t know what I’m going to talk about on Sunday morning. And then I remembered a speaker we heard at the Global Leadership Summit.
          The Global Leadership Summit is a two day event of amazing speakers that is video cast all over the world to develop leadership in churches and I would like to use this moment to thank the Visioning Committee for funding ten members of this church to attend this summer. Several of us have gone for two or three years and I believe it has provided some amazing vision and commitment to this church and its mission in our community.

          Brene Brown is a social researcher who wanted to study connectedness and ended up studying shame and vulnerability. Shame is a subject like aging. It’s pervasive and nobody wants to talk about it. Brene Brown says shame is the gremlin that tells you that you’re not good enough. We need to feel connected to others and if we don’t connect or feel like we don’t fit in, we feel shame – we feel we’re not good enough, or smart enough, or attractive enough, or successful enough or whatever enough. And that feeling of shame leaves us feeling vulnerable.

          But paradoxically, Brown discovered that vulnerability is the birthplace of love and belonging. This is the message of Jesus, and the beauty of the Gospel. God turns the way the world works on its head and takes what looks like weakness and powerlessness and turns it into the power of love, abundant life, grace and joy. It is the way to God. Think about relationships. The most intimate, life giving relationships are the ones in which we allow ourselves to be vulnerable, to let our authentic selves be seen, the good and the not so pretty sides of ourselves. Our best, most loving relationships are just a taste of the life-giving goodness of God when we let ourselves be open to it.

          We believe that to be vulnerable is to be weak. But in reality, it is a place of great courage.  People who risk vulnerability have the courage to be imperfect and to be kind to themselves for not being perfect. They have authentic connections with others because they are willing to let go of who they should be to be who they really are. They are willing to say “I love you” first. They are willing to admit they made a mistake. They are willing to do something with no guarantees of a certain outcome. They are able to breathe through the waiting for the results of a medical test and say, “I’m scared.”

          Learning to be vulnerable gives us great strength, a power that cannot be taken away. This is a paradox that is hard to understand. It’s the power of a baby born in a manger in Bethlehem. It’s the power of love that death cannot destroy.  It’s the power of knowing we are loved as we are, and no one can diminish us or make us feel unworthy.

          Vulnerability, like aging, doesn’t get good press in our society. It’s not a comfortable place to be. So we avoid it. We avoid it by numbing our uncomfortable feelings, not realizing that feelings are all or nothing and when we numb the uncomfortable ones, like embarrassment, guilt, shame, we also numb the ones we seek like joy, love, gratitude. We avoid vulnerability by making the uncertain certain. We tell ourselves we have all the right answers so they must be wrong. Or, I won’t try anything new because I don’t know how it will turn out so I’ll stick with what I know, even if it’s not working so well for me.

          We avoid vulnerability by being perfect at all costs. Looking perfect, doing things perfectly. And if we can’t be perfect, we don’t even try. Would I ever give a sermon without having every word prepared in front of me? Not on your life. I would become tongue-tied, embarrassed, and utterly incomprehensible. I would be too vulnerable.

I have problems with vulnerability too. I might pretend otherwise, being in a warm and fuzzy, caring profession. But scratch the surface and you’ll find strong walls.

I see the advantage of letting those walls down. Letting myself be deeply seen, sharing intimacy and deep connection, loving with my whole heart, practicing gratitude and joy in the face of discomfort. Believing I am enough. I see the gifts of vulnerability but I don’t know how to get there.

Brene Brown, in her research in discovering the importance of vulnerability, promptly had a breakdown or as she prefers to call it, a spiritual awakening. She was a researcher with a measuring stick, who liked control, predictability and answers. She went to a therapist and said she wanted to learn how to be vulnerable but it was hard for her. She said to the therapist, “I want a strategy.”

          We can’t learn to be vulnerable with a strategy. That is just more control, predictability, certainty. We can only risk, with a courageous heart.

          Jeremiah was feeling pretty vulnerable. God was asking him to be a prophet to the nations. Jeremiah wanted to avoid vulnerability by throwing up the excuse of more vulnerability…. “I don’t know anything!” Little did Jeremiah know that vulnerability is exactly God’s way. “You don’t know anything? Perfect! You’re the one for me.” If Jeremiah had been an expert politician or motivational speaker, his own ideas of the right thing to say would likely not have been God’s ideas.

          In the Global Leadership Summit, there was a comedian telling jokes between speakers. His name was Michael Junior and he was very funny. During one set he told a bit of his story, how the pressure of stand-up comedy became more bearable when someone told him he wasn’t out to make people laugh but to give people the opportunity to laugh. Michael Junior told the story of when he agreed to do some stand-up comedy in a maximum security prison. As he walked into the prison he didn’t know what jokes he would tell to this audience. He was a blank. He was a mess. He kept walking and nothing was coming to him. He kept walking hoping against hope that when he got to the front of the audience he would have a joke. He reached the front of the stage and looked down at all the men staring back at him, not with any degree of sympathy. He had three more steps to go until he reached the centre of the stage and he still didn’t know what he was going to say. He reached the centre of the stage and looked down at a man right in front of him, a man with a long white beard  and believe it or not, a name tag that said “Moses”. Michael Junior thanked God silently, pointed to the man and said, “Hey Moses. You should go to the warden and say, let my people go.” That brought the house down and then he was away. He gave those men an opportunity to laugh. After he told that story, Michael Junior said, “I didn’t know what I was going to do or what I was going to say until I got my feet in the right place.”

          When we allow ourselves to be vulnerable, God tells us where to go and what to say and is right there looking after us, just like God said to Jeremiah.

          The woman of the story in Luke was vulnerable: a woman, bent over, likely old. She was in the synagogue where Jesus was teaching. It doesn’t say what the woman was doing there but maybe she came to hear him. She didn’t stay home and hide. She came out in all her vulnerability and that was where Jesus saw her and set her free. Perhaps it took great courage for that woman to come to the synagogue. Or perhaps the synagogue is a place where vulnerability was welcome.

          Is our church a place where we can be vulnerable, where anyone can be themselves, just as they are? The number one barrier to belonging is feeling like we don’t fit in. When we don’t fit in, we feel shame. Is that why aging is so hard for us because we no longer fit in to our young society? I want this church to be a place where we can say, “Be here, be loved. Be here, be respected. Be here, belong…whoever you are.” If we bring our authentic, vulnerable selves here, or anywhere, God will be with us and will set us free.

Let us pray.

Oh humble and vulnerable God,

Show us the way to be humble and vulnerable ourselves, so that we can find our way to your loving heart and in so doing learn to love ourselves.

In the name Jesus who shows us the way,

Amen.