Possibilities

Many progressive Christians are leery of spiritual healing, and for good reason. Modern medicine accomplishes some amazing things.  And despite doctors’ interventions and fervent prayers, clearly some people don’t get healed, and how is that fair?  We don’t want to build expectations we can’t deliver.  Certainties, even grim certainties, can be easier to deal with than possibilities.  Certainties allow us to plan, to feel secure.  They meet our expectations.  But we are constantly changing, the world is constantly changing, and what appears certain usually isn’t.  In my experience, this world is filled with possibilities, and not many certainties.

My Facebook feed this week had this post, from a UCC friend in San Diego: “Just booked a Reiki II training with a Pentecostal I met at a Franciscan monastery while on a Daoist retreat.”  Spiritual healing goes interfaith.  Reiki is originally from Shinto Japan.  It is one of a number of practices that some Christians are using to reclaim the art of spiritual healing.  When I do Reiki for someone, I can be pretty certain that they are going to get very relaxed.  They often fall asleep.  What else might happen?  I don’t know.  My job is to bathe them in love, and hold the space for God’s possibilities to do whatever they do.  A wise teacher long ago told me that in that situation some kind of healing, physical, emotional, or spiritual, will always happen.  My experience has taught me that it’s usually not in the form we expect.  

***

Brea Congregational United Church of Christ

September 16, 2018

Opening to God’s Possibilities

Mark 7:31-37  Then he returned from the region of Tyre, and went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis.  32They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him.  33He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue.  34Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.”  35And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.  36Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it.  37They were astounded beyond measure, saying, “He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”

According to the Gospel of Mark, Jesus did not come to heal.  He came to give us the Good News of the Kingdom of God.  But, according to the Gospel of Mark, Jesus’s healing was wildly popular.  Long lines of people formed when they heard he was in town, looking for healing. People tracked him down when he went out into the wilderness to pray. People even tore down the roof of a building where he was teaching to get at him for healing. 

How shall we take these healing stories today?  If you’ve been here a while, you know you get to choose.  Some people are skeptical of all claims of healing by spiritual means, in the past or in the present.  Some people think Jesus did do amazing things in his time, and that time is over.  

“Be opened,” Jesus said.  There are other possibilities for understanding this story; I wonder if you are open to this one.  Whatever the historical accuracy of Jesus’ healing stories, Mark wanted his readers to know how powerful Jesus was.  And Mark wanted his followers, us, to encounter that power ourselves, by stepping into the story. What happens if we use our imaginations and put ourselves in the place of this man whose ears and tongue are closed, who is in need of being opened, being healed?  This is a different way to experience the story, not as history to be pondered, but as a parable to be lived: an invitation to encounter the transforming power of Christ today.  Instead of, “What really happened two thousand years ago?” we can ask: “What in me is closed off?  What might be opened if I invite the power of God to work in me?  What might become possible?”

Do you know anybody who was given a medical diagnosis, and told, “Nothing can be done, it’ll be like that for the rest of your life,” and it turned out that condition resolved and the person made significant recovery?  I know quite a few. 

Many progressive Christians are leery of spiritual healing, and for good reason. Modern medicine accomplishes some amazing things.  And despite doctors’ interventions and fervent prayers, clearly some people don’t get healed, and how is that fair?  We don’t want to build expectations we can’t deliver.  Certainties, even grim certainties, can be easier to deal with than possibilities.  Certainties allow us to plan, to feel secure.  They meet our expectations.  But we are constantly changing, the world is constantly changing, and what appears certain usually isn’t.  In my experience, this world is filled with possibilities, and not many certainties.

My Facebook feed this week had this post, from a UCC friend in San Diego: “Just booked a Reiki II training with a Pentecostal I met at a Franciscan monastery while on a Daoist retreat.”  Spiritual healing goes interfaith.  Reiki is originally from Shinto Japan.  It is one of a number of practices that some Christians are using to reclaim the art of spiritual healing.  When I do Reiki for someone, I can be pretty certain that they are going to get very relaxed.  They often fall asleep.  What else might happen?  I don’t know.  My job is to bathe them in love, and hold the space for God’s possibilities to do whatever they do.  A wise teacher long ago told me that in that situation some kind of healing, physical, emotional, or spiritual, will always happen.  My experience has taught me that it’s usually not in the form we expect.  

Our 12-step friends deal in possibilities.  It can seem impossible for a long-time alcoholic to stay sober. Step two of the 12-step process is, “Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity”— to believe that recovery from alcoholism is even possible. Holding open that possibility often requires a whole lot of work, and a supportive community to help a person show up and keep doing that work, until the possibility can become reality.  

Have you noticed that you can’t force somebody else to be open to a possibility when they’re closed to it, just don’t believe it’s possible, don’t want to accept the invitation?  According to Process theology, God has the same dilemma.  In formal Process theology, God is not described in human terms. Instead God is like a force of nature– actually a force in and through and beyond nature.  That force is constantly inviting us into new possibilities for good: for healing and relationship and learning and celebration.  The God of Process thought never forces those things on us; instead that God lures us with beautiful possibilities, and we choose them, or not.  Sometimes we just close ourselves to God’s invitation.  And there are always more possibilities.

How do we discover God’s possibilities for our lives?  How can we be open to them?  That, to me, is one of the most important purposes of prayer.  I write in my journal, “Here is my situation, God.  What shall I do?”  A surprising amount of the time, I get a sensible answer– when I remember to ask.  Sometimes I get an answer that really surprises me.  Is it my subconscious?  Is it God’s Spirit?  I can’t tell, and I finally realized it doesn’t much matter.  What matters is that I show up and ask the question.  Sometimes my own head is an echo chamber.  When I share my situation with caring friends, they often see possibilities that I can’t.  Our Buddhist friends practice mindfulness: a kind of gentle, unattached paying attention.  Mindfulness often helps possibilities become clearer.  

When I was at the OC Pride parade this summer, checking out the booths, one of them was recruiting foster parents.  “Have you ever considered becoming a foster parent?” said the woman as I walked by.  

            “I’m hoping for grandkids someday, but no.”  

            “Why not.”  

            “I can’t because…”  That lady was good.  I listed off my reasons and she countered each one.  I started wondering, is foster parenting a real possibility?  I went home and mentioned the idea to Scott.  I thought he’d shut it down.  He didn’t shut it down.  Foster parenting.  Not likely, mind you, but it might just be possible.  Something to pray about.

I’ve been writing in my journal some other possibilities that seem pretty unlikely, but I refuse to close the door on them.  Reversing climate catastrophe.  Healing the political divide and reversing economic inequality.  My sister staying sober for more than a month or two.  None of these seem likely to me, but they are possible.  

Sometimes these possibilities just help me keep hope alive.  When I am feeling restless or brave, I ask: “What can I do to help them happen?”  It may not be my job to do anything.  Or I may discover some small action that can make a difference, usually not in the way I hope or expect.  Often the difference I make is to just to open a possibility for someone else.

A neighbor of mine has become a dear friend in the past few years.  We have walked together through a lot.  We’ve been there for each other.  There was a point, though, when I though I should give up on the relationship.  For the second time in a row she forgot she had made a date to spend time with me. Just clean forgot, made other plans, didn’t seem very bothered. I was telling myself, “She just doesn’t care enough about me to bother keeping appointments.”  

But I wondered if there was a possibility there I wasn’t seeing.  So I screwed up my courage and put on my Compassionate Communication. That’s one of my favorite possibility tools.  I called her up.  “I’m going to ask you something really awkward,” I said, “because I care about our friendship.”  That intro put her on alert that I was anxious but not angry, and I was about to bring up a hard topic out of care and not to blame her.  Then I got down to it.  “This is the second time you didn’t remember we made an appointment.  I’m feeling discouraged. I wonder if our appointments matter to you.”  She sheepishly explained that she doesn’t keep a social calendar.  Just doesn’t at all.  But she also claimed she valued our friendship.  She’s usually home most of the day and lives down the street.  So we agreed that I’d just call or knock on the door when I wanted to visit, and that has worked pretty well. 

To this day, I am almost always the one who calls her.  But I made peace with that a while back when she told me, “It’s weird, Terry, but you always seem to call when I most need to hear your voice.”  

We can’t be open to every possibility. Sometimes accepting limitation is the most healing thing we can do.  Other times, God is inviting us to something new. “I can’t,” we say, when the truth is, “I won’t.”  “That’s just the way it is,” we say, when we don’t want to get our hopes up.  Do we really know what is possible?  

I invite you to reflect now on possibilities in your life.  What in you is closed off?  What might be opened if you invite the power of God to work in you?  What might become possible?  Ponder that for a minute or two.

***

An open heart is a tender heart, a powerful heart.  An open mind is a mind that can learn, and grow.  May we be opened to God’s possibilities for all of us.  Amen.