“We can be healed. Each of us and all of us. And … we can only be healed together. For it is the love of God poured into and through us in community that is the ultimate power, the power that can heal every wound, the power that can make each of us and all of us whole. It is the love of God poured into and through us in community that is the power that is never used to dominate or manipulate but always used with to rejuvenate and regenerate.”

Sermon by Mike Kinman at All Saints Church, Pasadena, on Healing Sunday, January 5, 2020. Readings: Psalm 72:1-7, 10-14 and Matthew 2:1-12.

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We are wounders.
We are wounded.
We are healers.
We can be healed.
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Can we take just a moment?

There is so much happening in our world.
In our nation.
In our lives.

I wonder … can we take just a moment?

It’s been more than 50 years since John Lennon sighed and sang, “I read the news today, oh boy” … and now the news doesn’t just come every day, it comes every hour. It comes every minute.

It is intrusive.
It is addictive.
It is relentless.

And every piece of news, every story melds with a piece of our story.

And we feel it.
We feel it in our bodies,
in our hearts,
in our souls.

Or maybe we don’t.

Maybe we have built a wall,
or anesthetized ourselves,
or maybe our brains just can’t handle any more, so we just don’t feel any more.

Maybe we feel too much.
Maybe we are crushed by the weight of feelings.

And maybe feeling is what we long to do
… maybe we haven’t felt something in a long, long time
… maybe we long to feel, to feel anything that reminds us that we are alive.

And our lives, our stories … they keep going too.
It’s relentless.

And there is good.
There is such good.
Such joy.
Such hope.
And yet there is pain.
Pain from within.
Pain from without.

It’s intrusive.
…addictive.
…relentless.

Every day, every hour brings something new that melds with something old.
It’s relentless. So, can we just take a moment?
Can we just take a moment… please… and breathe.

Right here. Right now.
Just for a moment.
Let’s close our eyes.
And take a moment.

Breathe in.
Hold it. Feel it.
You are alive. You have life within you.
And it is good.
And you are good.
Then let it out.

One more time.
Breathe in.
Hold it. Feel it.
Let it out.

Now can we just sit here for a moment?
And breathe.

…

Now … can we try to trust?
I know trust is hard. I know so much has been done to break our trust. That is part of the pain.

And … for just this time together, can we try to trust…
to trust even just a little bit that in this time we are together, that in this space
…it is OK to feel.
…it is OK to not be able to feel.

For this time we are together, can we try to trust that
…no matter what you have experienced in church before, in this space, it is OK to be who you are, to become who you are becoming.

…that in this space, you are safe.

…no matter what you have experienced in church before, in this space, to try to trust you are not alone.

OK.

This is Healing Sunday at All Saints Church.

Every year, we pause as one year ends and the next begins.

We pause and take just a moment before our intrusive, addictive, relentless world resumes.

Before we are thrown back into the fray of endless activity and insulated loneliness.

A moment together.
To stop.
And breathe.
And feel.

To feel what this world is doing to us.
To feel what we are doing to one another, to ourselves.
To be as honest as we can about the wounds we carry.
To dare to speak the truth of our wounds, even if it is only in the silence of our hearts.
To dare to trust that we can be healed.

I’m learning there are four truths about human existence.

We are wounders.
We are wounded.
We are healers.
We can be healed.

And each one of those identities, so central to who we are and how we experience life … has expressions of power and powerlessness that are crucial to understanding how we stop the
intrusive
addictive
relentless
cycles of wounding that enslave us.

The first thing we need to recognize is that we all are wounders. We wound each other, the creation and ourselves, and we do it for a thousand reasons.

We wound out of fear and out of ignorance.
By our action and inaction.
We wound with intention and we wound unawares.

And when we wound, we have power.

Whether we know it or not, whether we crave it or not, every time we wound, we are exercising power and using that power by commission or omission, intentionally or unwittingly to bring harm.

Because that’s what wounding is.
Wounding is a misuse of power.
To bring harm instead of wholeness.
To tear down instead of to build up.
To isolate instead of to bring together.

We are all wounders. because whether we have a little power or a lot, we all misuse it sometimes.

The first step in solving a problem is admitting there is one. We are all wounders.

Let that truth keep us from the circular firing squads and purity tests that leave nobody worthy of our love and support.
Let that truth bathe us in humility and free us from shame.

Let that truth make us more aware of the power we have … and how we choose to use it.

We are all wounders.

And … we are all wounded.

Nobody gets through life unscathed.
Just as we all have used our power to harm others, others have used their power to harm us. Sometimes our own bodies, our own minds, our own memories have turned against us.

We are wounded in small, seemingly inconsequential ways and in huge, traumatic, debilitating ways.

And because our wounds reveal our vulnerability to others’ power being used over us,

…because our wounds have the power to make us more vulnerable to that happening again,

…because we believe the lie that vulnerability is weakness
we hide our wounds
we are ashamed of our wounds
we treat our wounds like scarlet letters.

When we start to cry, the first thing we do is apologize for our tears … instead of saying “yeah … that’s right … I’m hurting.”

When someone says, “how’s it going?” the word “fine” or “great” escapes our lips even before we have time to link it to thought.

We are all wounded. And … we can also discover that our wounds can give us power.

That’s right … there is power to being wounded and we know it.

The power of our wounds is important, even sacred.
It chases away the clouds of shame.

There is power to claiming our woundedness. To speaking, singing and even screaming the pain, the grief, the fear, the rage.

Jesus’ disciples told the blind beggar screaming at the side of the road to shut up … but Jesus said “No … bring him to me. Let me hear that cry.” Because Jesus knew that crying out, claiming the power of our woundedness is an important first step in moving from victim to survivor, a first step on the road to healing and wholeness.

There is good and sacred power in making the world aware of our wounds … and we need to provide, hold and protect space for that speaking, singing and screaming to happen.

And … because there is power to claiming our woundedness, that power can be misused.

Particularly for those among us who have been oft- and deeply wounded in ways that have robbed us of power, the power of claiming our woundedness can often feel like the first, best power we have ever had … and we can fear it is the only power we will ever have. It can feel so good to claim, speak, sing and scream it that like any power, it can seduce us.

We can use the power of our woundedness to manipulate others.
We can let the power of our woundedness — the pain, grief, fear, the rage – lead us to lash out as wounders, keeping the cycle going.

We can confuse discomfort for woundedness and try to claim the same power. And we can become so seduced by how good it feels to claim the power of our woundedness – to speak, sing and scream it – that we can get stuck in that place of woundedness and never take the next step into healing.

We are all wounded, and there is power to claiming it.
But claiming it is but a step on the journey … not the destination.

Third. We are all healers.

There is no magic to healing.

Yes, there are people whose presence, whose words, whose touch have been and are deeply healing in our lives … but that does not mean they have magical or even special powers … and we vest others and ourselves with those powers at our great peril.

There is deep power in healing. And when we confuse the power that heals with the person through whom we receive it, we risk a dependency that is debilitating instead of empowering.

There is deep power in healing. And there is nothing magical about it. It is the natural, transforming, restoring power of love. Love is the greatest power for healing in the universe. And love cannot be held and manipulated … love can only flow into and through.

This was the message of Jesus … a message that has been misinterpreted and misused for nearly two thousand years as we have tried to own that power and use that power for our own ends. Jesus never meant to say that HE was necessary for transformation and healing. Only that love was. And that love was available to everyone, everywhere, anytime.

Jesus looked down from the cross to his mother and the beloved disciple and said “woman, behold your son” and then to the disciple “behold your mother.” The love that heals, that sustains, that transforms does not die with me, it lives on in you.

When the resurrected Christ stood on the shore and told Peter how to love him, he didn’t say “tell people to come to ME” he said

YOU. Feed. My. Sheep.
Love. One. Another. AS I love you.

We are all healers. And … if we believe that healing power is something we can own and use. If we buy into the lie that we or anyone else can be the healer and savior, it is just one more misuse of power that will only lead to more pain, more grief, more and deeper wounds.

Which leads us to what this Sunday … and what every time we gather is all about.

That we can be healed.

Our sister, Becca Stevens, reminds us there is only one sacrament of the church with seven prisms … healing. And what heals is love.

Love that is more powerful than hate.
More powerful than pain, than grief, than rage yet somehow lives within it.
Love that is more powerful even than death.
Love that is the very nature, power and being of God.

Love heals.
And love cannot be owned or wielded.
It can only flow between and among and through.

We can be healed. Each of us and all of us. And … we can only be healed together. For it is the love of God poured into and through us in community that is the ultimate power, the power that can heal every wound, the power that can make each of us and all of us whole.

It is the love of God poured into and through us in community that is the power that is never used over to dominate or manipulate but always used with to rejuvenate and regenerate.

In a few minutes if you come forward for healing prayer, it is not the person who stands before you who is somehow laying magic hands on you but the love of God that fills this room, that touches you and can heal you whether you come forward or not.

We are wounders.
We are wounded.
We are healers.
And we can be healed.

I want to invite us to take one more moment. And if you are able, to trust enough to reach out and take a hand of someone next to you.

Now, just for a moment. Close your eyes.
And take a moment.

Feel that hand in yours. Feel your hand in theirs.

And just for a moment, feel that connection and try to trust that … right here, right now, it is OK to be who you are, who you are becoming,
…that you are safe.
…feel that hand and try to trust that you are not alone.

Feel the power of the love that flows between, and among, and through, and for just a moment, try to trust that we can be begin to be healed. Our world. Our nation. Ourselves.

If all we do is stop.
And take a moment.
And breathe.
And let love heal us.
Together.