Posts Tagged ‘Pain’
Unshakable Faith – Br. David Vryhof
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Br. David Vryhof
Most preachers, when they reflect on their preaching, will find that they have a few themes that they come back to again and again. For me, one of those themes is the question of what it means to believe. I return to this theme repeatedly because I want to challenge the popular understanding that believing means holding a certain set of statements or claims to be true – statements, for example, about God or Jesus or the Bible or salvation. When we speak of believing in this way, Christianity becomes a matter of the head rather than of the heart.
We know that faith does not spare us from the pain of human existence. Believing does not guarantee that we will never have cancer, or suffer the loss of a loved one, or lose a job, or watch a business fail. Believing does not solve all our problems or make us rich or popular or successful. It does not exempt us from the experience of pain and suffering. It does not make everything right. Read More
The Journey of Healing and Faith – Br. Jack Crowley
Br. Jack Crowley
Our Gospel this morning is a story full of healing and faith. The action begins with Jesus on foot making his way towards Jerusalem. As Jesus enters a village, ten lepers approach him. These ten lepers are respectful of Jesus and do not get too close to him. They cry out to Jesus saying “Jesus, master, have mercy on us”. These men are sick and outcasts in society, they are begging for help.
Jesus tells these ten sick men to go show themselves to the priests. They do as they are told by Jesus and begin their journey. Then as these ten men are making their way to the priests, they are all healed. Now this is where the story gets interesting. One of these ten healed men turns back around. He makes his way back to Jesus. He throws himself at the feet of Jesus, praising God and thanking him for his healing.
Jesus is clearly pleased by this man’s gratitude but also wonders aloud where the other nine men he healed are. How come they haven’t come back to give thanks? The story ends with one of the most beautiful lines in the Gospels. Jesus tells the healed man at his feet to “Get up and go on your way, your faith has made you well”. Read More
The Poison Contains the Medicine – Br. Keith Nelson
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Br. Keith Nelson
Seasoned practitioners of many spiritual traditions have come to understand a basic premise. In moments of profound crisis, the ordeal afflicting our spirit often contains, hidden inside it, a truth we need. We need to encounter, to acknowledge, and finally to reckon with this truth, in order to be healed.
Somehow, the poison contains the medicine.
The corresponding question then becomes:
How do we extract the medicine and live to tell the tale?
In this short story from the book Numbers, Moses uses what anthropologists would call sympathetic or imitative magic. Traditional societies often use an object representing a common threat or affliction – in this case, the mysterious, powerful viper – to heal the affliction caused by the thing itself. Encounters with desert-dwelling snakes would have been frequent in the wilderness wanderings of the Israelites. Moses’ response in the text suggests an imitative logic: fight fire with fire. Subdue the literal burning of snake venom in the flesh with an image of a snake cast from burning, molten metal. This is underscored by the word-magic of the Hebrew: the word for snake, nehash, sounds evocatively like the word for bronze, nehoshet. Read More
Stress and the Blessed Virgin Mary – Br. Jack Crowley
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Br. Jack Crowley
The Blessed Virgin Mary went through many stressful situations in her life. Think about how stressful those nine months of her controversial pregnancy with the son of God must have been. Then to give birth while traveling. Then to have to flee into Egypt. Then the pressure of raising a son who is the Messiah.
So imagine how Mary felt that fateful Friday in Jerusalem watching her son slowly tortured, mocked, and executed by the authorities of her day. Her son did not die a clean, quiet death. The crucifixion would have been loud, chaotic, and messy. After all the stress Mary had been through in her life, for it to culminate with her son dying on a cross like that feels like a cruel fate.
Mary did not give in to self-pity or despair. Our Gospel this morning demonstrates how Mary endured the stress and trauma of the crucifixion with quiet resilience. The Gospel writer tells us that as Jesus hung on the cross, Mary and the Beloved Disciple stood beside each other. I personally find great comfort in this image, Mary and the Beloved Disciple standing in solidarity focused on Jesus. They were not running away or shielding themselves from the horror unfolding before them. They took it all in. They were able to take the pain together. Read More
Straight and Narrow Pain – Br. Jack Crowley
Matthew 7:14
Jesus does not sugarcoat his words in today’s Gospel. He tells us that the road we have to walk is hard. There is no way around it. Life will not always be easy. Such brutal honesty from Jesus may seem jarring, but he is preparing his disciples for the long journey ahead of them in which they certainly face hard times.
When I was a senior in college, I went to bed one night with a slight pain in my left leg. I thought I was just sore from exercising. I woke up the next morning and my leg had swollen to the point that I could barely walk. Soon after I started sweating and shivering uncontrollably.
The first doctor I saw in the hospital walked into my room holding the biggest syringe I had ever seen. The syringe looked like a water bottle with a comically oversized needle on one end and a plunger on the other. He explained that he had to drain my leg immediately and there was no time for anesthesia. Then he looked me in the eye and told me that this was going to be painful.
My memories of that week in the hospital are a blur now, but I still remember the tone of voice the doctor used as he lovingly did not sugarcoat telling me what pain I was about to feel. Jesus has the same love for us disciples when he tells us that the road we will walk in his name will be hard. The straight and narrow path will never be pain free. Read More