“Slavery is the root evil behind all our nation’s sickness. For a modern country that could make its peace with slavery, it was a short step to denying the full humanity of women, LGBT folks, all people of color, and poor people. Until we face into, repent, and work to heal racism, we all will feel crazy and sick.”
Sermon by Gary Hall at All Saints Church, Pasadena, on Sunday, August 25, 2019.
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For those of you younger than 80 who don’t know me, I’m Gary Hall. I worked on the staff here from 1990 to 2001, the last five years of George’s time as rector and the first six of Ed’s. Working at All Saints was always, shall we say, an adventure. One day early on in my time here I was at my desk and received a call from the rector’s office. Now in George’s day the rector’s office didn’t call you to say, “Hey, how’s it going?” In George’s time, as in Ed’s, the rector’s office called you either because a) you had messed up, or b) they had a Mission Impossible task for you. The latter was the case this time.
I was told that an older parishioner named Paul (first names only, please) was at Huntington Hospital and wanted to talk to a priest right now. He had been diagnosed with a virulent form of leukemia, and he had to make the decision today whether or not to start a very harsh form to chemotherapy. I dropped whatever other urgent thing I was doing and sped over to Huntington.
Now my generation of clergy were trained in what we used to call “non-directive” counseling: that is, we strove to help the patient or client come to his or her own mind, not just take our advice. So I sat there with Paul, who couldn’t make up his mind, trying non-directively to lead him to some kind of decision. It was for both of us, frankly, torture. “So Paul, I hear you saying you don’t know what you want to do.” “That’s right Gary, I can’t make up my mind.” “Undecided, eh?” “That’s right.” It went on like this for a seeming eternity, a kind of mobius strip feedback loop of endless indecision.
Suddenly, like a bolt from above, George Regas himself entered the hospital room. He put his hand on my shoulder and remained standing.
“Stay seated, Gary. What’s the matter Paul?”
“George, I can’t decide whether or not to do chemotherapy. If I don’t take it, I’ll die. If I do, it might kill me.”
George didn’t miss a beat. “Oh, you’ve got to do it, Paul. Got to do it.”
“Really, George?”
“Absolutely. Got to do it. I have to go now. You keep at it Gary. See you back at the office.”
George said a prayer and left. I sat there with Paul for another 20 minutes trying to process what just happened.
Paul did do the chemotherapy. He lived another 20 years.
I decided to change my counseling technique.
People who were not around in the Regas years may not know that before George was known as a peace and justice leader he had the reputation as a priest with the gift of healing. In fact, I believe it was George’s commitment to healing that drew him into justice issues in the first place. I think about George’s healing-justice combo whenever I read Gospel stories about Jesus.
We over-educated Protestants tend to think that Jesus was famous for his parables and sayings, a kind of first century professor in sandals. But when you read the Gospels closely you see that the crowds came out to see him primarily because he was a healer. And it was his work as a healer that brought Jesus increasingly into conflict with the forces that oppress and diminish human beings.
Today’s Gospel [Luke 13: 10-17] is a case in point. A woman comes to Jesus, in the words of our translation, “bent double, quite incapable of standing up straight”. Luke uses a rare Greek word here, συνκύπτουσα, suggesting that her legs are bowed together and that she is bent over—literally tied up in knots. He calls her over and says, “Woman, you are free of your infirmity.” He lays his hands on her, she stands up straight, and immediately begins thanking God. The story then goes on to focus how the synagogue authorities get all bent out of shape because Jesus dared to heal someone on the sabbath.
Luke is making an analogy here. This woman is tied up in knots the way Israel itself is tied up in knots. She suffers a literal, physical twisting and brokenness in the same way Israel is twisted and broken by hypocrisy. Luke the Gospel writer wants us to see more than one person’s problem here. He wants us to see ourselves. Jesus heals a woman who is tied up in knots. Jesus means to liberate an establishment that is tied up in hypocrisy. That is true for first century Jewish Palestine. It’s doubly true for 21st century America.
I guess I’m drawn to the image of the woman doubled over with legs bowed together because these days I feel that way myself. Who do you know right now who isn’t tied up in knots because of the hypocrisy, racism, and vitriol of our current national life? As New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg tweeted last week, “The front page of the NYT right now looks like one of those pre-election parodies about what [this current] administration would be like.”
And she’s right: there were stories on one single front page about new immigration rules allowing the indefinite detention of families; the NRA turning the president against universal background checks; the president accusing Jewish Democrats of “disloyalty” and then canceling a trip to Denmark because they won’t sell him Greenland. What sentient, breathing person can take in this stuff on a daily basis and not find herself all tied up in knots?
Luke’s bent over bow-legged woman is twisted because her community is twisted. You and I are all tied up because our country is sick with the sins of racism, xenophobia, and hate. Social sickness has personal consequences. You can’t live in this current moment and not somehow feel how sick and ugly it really is. As Mark Twain said, in parody of Rudyard Kipling’s poem, “If”, “If you can keep your head while those about you are losing theirs, you are not aware of the situation.”
Jesus healed this woman because he felt her pain and knew its cause. Jesus comes to heal us, and he does so by making us agents of healing and liberation ourselves.
In today’s reading from the Hebrew Bible [Jeremiah 1: 4-10] God calls Jeremiah to speak both personally and publicly: “This day I appoint you over nations and territories, to uproot and to tear down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.” I wish there were a national George Regas who could walk into our rooms, put his hand on our shoulders, and tell us that it will all work out.
But the truth is that, as the living hands of Jesus on earth, you and I will have to do this healing work ourselves. Like Jeremiah, you and I are appointed to uproot and tear down, to build and to plant. We are sick with the social sins that surround and infect us. But it’s not hopeless. Jesus offers us both personal and social liberation. We have, in the church and in all justice communities, the opportunity to work not only for the healing of the nation but the healing of ourselves.
The healing stories of Jesus are a sign of God’s intention for us. This is not first century Bible land. God wants us to take up our bed and walk. God wants us to straighten ourselves and give thanks. God wants us to face into all the destructive, dehumanizing forces that tie us in knots and turn and liberate ourselves and each other. But we can only free ourselves when we acknowledge we’re sick. We can only repent when we have admitted our implication in sin.
Today marks the 400th anniversary of the arrival of enslaved Africans on the American continent. Frederick Douglass noted in his Narrative long ago that slavery proved as injurious to the owners as it did to the slaves, turning them into fierce, stone-hearted oppressors. If you are a white person in America and think that slavery has nothing to do with you, you are kidding yourself. You are, like Israel’s religious authorities and the woman they crippled, tied up in moral and intellectual knots. All of us bear the sin and pain of slavery and its consequences.
Slavery is the root evil behind all our nation’s sickness. For a modern country that could make its peace with slavery, it was a short step to denying the full humanity of women, LGBT folks, all people of color, and poor people. Until we face into, repent, and work to heal racism, we all will feel crazy and sick.
What George knew then and I did not was that our friend Paul didn’t have the luxury of not taking chemotherapy. What I do know now is that you and I don’t have the luxury of falling into political despair. We will heal ourselves and our world by holding on to and making real our shared vision of justice, love, and above all, hope.
Today at noon Episcopal churches across America, including this one, will ring their bells for one minute not only to remember the arrival of enslaved Africans at Port Comfort, Virginia 400 years ago. We’ll ring the bells also to ask forgiveness and to commit ourselves to reconciliation with each other and God.
Let’s take that minute as an invitation from Jesus to straighten ourselves, stand up, and be healed. I know, from my own experience here and elsewhere, that doing this work together is actually in itself joyful and will help us all feel both healthy and sane. There is no cheap, easy path to serenity. Only in promoting our community welfare will we find personal wholeness and peace.
Jesus worked for justice because he was a healer. We can’t say we follow Jesus and continue to benefit from white privilege. America will never be—we will never be—the nation and people we hope to be until we take responsibility for slavery and all of its consequences which even now infect our lives. For our sake, and the sake of our nation, we need a reckoning. We are bent over and tied in knots. Like my friend Paul facing leukemia, we need to take our medicine.
“Oh, you’ve got to do it, Paul. Got to do it.” “Really, George?” Yes really, George. We’ve all just got to do it. Amen.
