4 Epiphany B January 28, 2018
Deut. 18:15-20 Ps. 111
1 Corinthians 8:1-13 Mark 1:21-28
Lectionary Link
The mythologies of the Hebrew Scriptures includes unseen heavenly competition between the Supreme God and all of the other gods and as the God El was becoming the Supreme God of the heavenly council, the people of Israel were interacting with the people in Canaan who had other gods as their favorites. God's will in heaven was becoming God's will on earth as the people of Israel professed their sole allegiance to the One true Supreme God. This One holy God was holy and special and pure and epitomized cleanliness, even as the other gods and fallen angels were the hidden source of the evil and uncleanliness that had seeped into the world.
An entire cosmic universal public health system was devised and promulgated in the writings of the Torah. Things were clean or unclean, pure and impure, permitted and forbidden. Human states of holiness and purity were described; human states of unholiness, uncleanness and impurity were described.
Rule of transition from going from an unclean state of being to a clean state of being were specified in purity rules. The purity rules were devised to keep the people of Israel separate and distinct from those who did not and could not comply to the rules of holiness.
Rules of holiness and cleanliness are easier to maintain if one does not have to live close to people who do not comply with the rules.
In the history of Israel, there were very few years of actual secure borders. The other peoples of Canaan and their cultural and religious practices continually impinged upon the social and political life of Israel. Intermarriage occurred and the gods and idols of the foreign brides often came into the lives of those who were supposed to be living lives of unwavering devotion to Yahweh and the Torah. There arose a class of religious leaders, the prophets, who blamed most of the ills which beset their countries of the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah, on the infidelity of people of Israel in "chasing after foreign gods."
In the ancient public health classification one could either be holy and clean or unholy and unclean. For example, a dead body was unclean and if one contacted a dead body, one had to go through a purification rite to be designated to be in a holy state again.
The conditions of being unholy or unclean were specified in the ritual practice of Judaism. In a practical sense, it was a religious public health system which derived from long experience of observing outcomes. In the long history of eating pork, the coincidence of frequent trichinosis was probably observed. One could see the injunction against eating pork as a rule to protect and prevent illness. It could also have been an affirmation of the nomadic tribal origins of the people of Israel who were accustomed to herding sheep, goat and cows but not pigs so there could have been economic reasons not to eat pork.
Each human person lives in an outer world and each human being contains within oneself an inner world. The inner world has its own traditional geography of soul and spirit. To live a holy life of health and salvation involves the integration of one's inner life with the outer world of our family and social environment.
What happens when the inner world of a person seems disordered to such a degree that behaviors result in causing self-harm or harm to other people in society?
How does one designate an "anti-social" person so the general populace can be "protected" from such a person? A person who has a disease that seemed to be infectious to others was designated as "unclean" and there were recommendations for quarantine and segregation of such infectious people. The history of humanity includes all of the ways in which societies have designated persons regarded to harmful to the community and often ignorance of the actual conditions has led to abhorrent discrimination and shunning. Social fears have created bedlams, asylums, debtors' prisons, sanatoriums, prison colonies, and all sorts of incarceration.
Strange behaviors frighten people. Our streets are full of persons with strange behaviors; people regarded as have serious mental health problems. Much of the violence in our society is attributed to mental health problems.
During the time of Jesus, the religious public health authorities had ways of designating a person who frightened the general populace. A person was designated as having an unclean spirit. This meant that such a person was disordered within and could not peaceably negotiate the inner life with the outer world to the satisfaction of his or her society. Such people were often loved by their families who were at their wits end to know how to help a person who was so disordered. A leper was a person who was designated as "unclean" because of the visible splotches on the skin. A person who was wild and uncontrollable in behaviors and speech was designated as one who had an unclean spirit, perhaps because of internal interaction with a fallen angel or demon.
People out of control are frightening to the general populace. Most societies devise rules and laws and structures for dealing with people who are perceived to be out of control.
In most Episcopal Churches, the liturgies are so solemn that they don't seem to be the place for a two year old who is throwing a fit. A two year old can really upset Episcopalians in their liturgy; imagine a man out of control attending the synagogue where Jesus was attending. The frighten congregants wanted to call the 911 authorities of the day and remove this wild man. As a wild man with an unclean spirit, he was polluting the rest of the community. The wild man knew enough to know that he wanted to be able to come to inner peace and self control. The man with the unclean spirit confessed Jesus as the "clean and Holy One." He regarded Jesus to be a Whisperer who could help him. Instead of segregation, instead of a strait jacket, instead of handcuffs and restraints, Jesus pierced into the inner life of this person. He was the ultimate people whisperer. He did not remove this man as unworthy of being included in humanity; he went to the inner source of the problem. This story represents the cosmic theology of the early church.
St. Paul, wrote his writings before the Gospels were written. He said that while he lived he was seated with Christ in the heavenly places above all principalities and powers of darkness. Christ as being the interior super-hero was the teaching of St. Paul. This belief of Christ being above the principalities of darkness came to be presented in the Gospel story of Jesus as one who exorcised unclean spirits and demons. Jesus was the Ultimate People Whisperer.
To be human is to know at times the experience of a disordered inner state of being. Situations of sickness, loss, pain, threat, depression, disappointment, addiction, and fear can literally take us over an leave us in a disordered state of chaos. We can be helpless to ourselves and others when we experience these disordered states. When we are sick, we want a doctor or hospital care to whisper us and give us hope that we can return to a former state of health. When we are in an accident or victim of a crime we look for EMT responders and officers of the law to whisper us to the assurance to returning to a state of safety. When hurricane, fire and landsides reek havoc, we look for responders and outside help to whisper a sense of hope back into us and our community.
Whispering is not an official ministry of the church, but it perhaps one of the most practical ministries that people can do for each other when our lives are put in harms way or when our lives become disordered because of the loss of mental and physical health.
The Whispering ministry of the church is found the passing of the Peace. It may seem trivial and routine, a mere liturgical gesture but the theology of the Passing of the Peace, is the theology of mutual Whispering.
The Gospel is that people who wish to live in mutual peace with one another should not be denied the opportunity, no matter what the existing pre-conditions are.
A humane health care system is based upon both giving care and keeping everyone as safe as possible. This is the Gospel health care system too. Jesus was in the center of the synagogue offering spiritual health to all who wanted it. This is same spiritual program of the church. We are to offer the hope of Christ to whisper the souls of all people in all conditions back into the inner/outer equilibrium of peace to be able to live with hope in the midst of all of the circumstances of life.
Today you and I are called to go forth and whisper and be whispered by the calming peace of Christ. A mom who whispers a troubled baby to rest and calmness does the whispering work of the peace of Christ. Learning how to be with each other in some of the challenges of life and helping each other maintain hope is the ministry of whispering.
I hope and pray that each one has been able to find the whispering that one has needed in the times of disorder and chaos that has come to our psychological and spiritual lives. And I pray that each of us are rising to occasion to whisper the people that God sends for us to bring the hopeful message of peace of Christ.
May God help us be whispered by the peace of Christ. And may we go forth to whisper the peace of Christ to others today. Amen.
Deut. 18:15-20 Ps. 111
1 Corinthians 8:1-13 Mark 1:21-28
Lectionary Link
The mythologies of the Hebrew Scriptures includes unseen heavenly competition between the Supreme God and all of the other gods and as the God El was becoming the Supreme God of the heavenly council, the people of Israel were interacting with the people in Canaan who had other gods as their favorites. God's will in heaven was becoming God's will on earth as the people of Israel professed their sole allegiance to the One true Supreme God. This One holy God was holy and special and pure and epitomized cleanliness, even as the other gods and fallen angels were the hidden source of the evil and uncleanliness that had seeped into the world.
An entire cosmic universal public health system was devised and promulgated in the writings of the Torah. Things were clean or unclean, pure and impure, permitted and forbidden. Human states of holiness and purity were described; human states of unholiness, uncleanness and impurity were described.
Rule of transition from going from an unclean state of being to a clean state of being were specified in purity rules. The purity rules were devised to keep the people of Israel separate and distinct from those who did not and could not comply to the rules of holiness.
Rules of holiness and cleanliness are easier to maintain if one does not have to live close to people who do not comply with the rules.
In the history of Israel, there were very few years of actual secure borders. The other peoples of Canaan and their cultural and religious practices continually impinged upon the social and political life of Israel. Intermarriage occurred and the gods and idols of the foreign brides often came into the lives of those who were supposed to be living lives of unwavering devotion to Yahweh and the Torah. There arose a class of religious leaders, the prophets, who blamed most of the ills which beset their countries of the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah, on the infidelity of people of Israel in "chasing after foreign gods."
In the ancient public health classification one could either be holy and clean or unholy and unclean. For example, a dead body was unclean and if one contacted a dead body, one had to go through a purification rite to be designated to be in a holy state again.
The conditions of being unholy or unclean were specified in the ritual practice of Judaism. In a practical sense, it was a religious public health system which derived from long experience of observing outcomes. In the long history of eating pork, the coincidence of frequent trichinosis was probably observed. One could see the injunction against eating pork as a rule to protect and prevent illness. It could also have been an affirmation of the nomadic tribal origins of the people of Israel who were accustomed to herding sheep, goat and cows but not pigs so there could have been economic reasons not to eat pork.
Each human person lives in an outer world and each human being contains within oneself an inner world. The inner world has its own traditional geography of soul and spirit. To live a holy life of health and salvation involves the integration of one's inner life with the outer world of our family and social environment.
What happens when the inner world of a person seems disordered to such a degree that behaviors result in causing self-harm or harm to other people in society?
How does one designate an "anti-social" person so the general populace can be "protected" from such a person? A person who has a disease that seemed to be infectious to others was designated as "unclean" and there were recommendations for quarantine and segregation of such infectious people. The history of humanity includes all of the ways in which societies have designated persons regarded to harmful to the community and often ignorance of the actual conditions has led to abhorrent discrimination and shunning. Social fears have created bedlams, asylums, debtors' prisons, sanatoriums, prison colonies, and all sorts of incarceration.
Strange behaviors frighten people. Our streets are full of persons with strange behaviors; people regarded as have serious mental health problems. Much of the violence in our society is attributed to mental health problems.
During the time of Jesus, the religious public health authorities had ways of designating a person who frightened the general populace. A person was designated as having an unclean spirit. This meant that such a person was disordered within and could not peaceably negotiate the inner life with the outer world to the satisfaction of his or her society. Such people were often loved by their families who were at their wits end to know how to help a person who was so disordered. A leper was a person who was designated as "unclean" because of the visible splotches on the skin. A person who was wild and uncontrollable in behaviors and speech was designated as one who had an unclean spirit, perhaps because of internal interaction with a fallen angel or demon.
People out of control are frightening to the general populace. Most societies devise rules and laws and structures for dealing with people who are perceived to be out of control.
In most Episcopal Churches, the liturgies are so solemn that they don't seem to be the place for a two year old who is throwing a fit. A two year old can really upset Episcopalians in their liturgy; imagine a man out of control attending the synagogue where Jesus was attending. The frighten congregants wanted to call the 911 authorities of the day and remove this wild man. As a wild man with an unclean spirit, he was polluting the rest of the community. The wild man knew enough to know that he wanted to be able to come to inner peace and self control. The man with the unclean spirit confessed Jesus as the "clean and Holy One." He regarded Jesus to be a Whisperer who could help him. Instead of segregation, instead of a strait jacket, instead of handcuffs and restraints, Jesus pierced into the inner life of this person. He was the ultimate people whisperer. He did not remove this man as unworthy of being included in humanity; he went to the inner source of the problem. This story represents the cosmic theology of the early church.
St. Paul, wrote his writings before the Gospels were written. He said that while he lived he was seated with Christ in the heavenly places above all principalities and powers of darkness. Christ as being the interior super-hero was the teaching of St. Paul. This belief of Christ being above the principalities of darkness came to be presented in the Gospel story of Jesus as one who exorcised unclean spirits and demons. Jesus was the Ultimate People Whisperer.
To be human is to know at times the experience of a disordered inner state of being. Situations of sickness, loss, pain, threat, depression, disappointment, addiction, and fear can literally take us over an leave us in a disordered state of chaos. We can be helpless to ourselves and others when we experience these disordered states. When we are sick, we want a doctor or hospital care to whisper us and give us hope that we can return to a former state of health. When we are in an accident or victim of a crime we look for EMT responders and officers of the law to whisper us to the assurance to returning to a state of safety. When hurricane, fire and landsides reek havoc, we look for responders and outside help to whisper a sense of hope back into us and our community.
Whispering is not an official ministry of the church, but it perhaps one of the most practical ministries that people can do for each other when our lives are put in harms way or when our lives become disordered because of the loss of mental and physical health.
The Whispering ministry of the church is found the passing of the Peace. It may seem trivial and routine, a mere liturgical gesture but the theology of the Passing of the Peace, is the theology of mutual Whispering.
The Gospel is that people who wish to live in mutual peace with one another should not be denied the opportunity, no matter what the existing pre-conditions are.
A humane health care system is based upon both giving care and keeping everyone as safe as possible. This is the Gospel health care system too. Jesus was in the center of the synagogue offering spiritual health to all who wanted it. This is same spiritual program of the church. We are to offer the hope of Christ to whisper the souls of all people in all conditions back into the inner/outer equilibrium of peace to be able to live with hope in the midst of all of the circumstances of life.
Today you and I are called to go forth and whisper and be whispered by the calming peace of Christ. A mom who whispers a troubled baby to rest and calmness does the whispering work of the peace of Christ. Learning how to be with each other in some of the challenges of life and helping each other maintain hope is the ministry of whispering.
I hope and pray that each one has been able to find the whispering that one has needed in the times of disorder and chaos that has come to our psychological and spiritual lives. And I pray that each of us are rising to occasion to whisper the people that God sends for us to bring the hopeful message of peace of Christ.
May God help us be whispered by the peace of Christ. And may we go forth to whisper the peace of Christ to others today. Amen.
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