Dear Friends,
There are many new people among us! I am delighted! And, in true form, this was the week my body said “no way” to my personal deadlines. Hence, this did not land in your inbox at 10:30 on a Tuesday morning. Instead, I nursed a Monday Migraine (it’s own kind of unpleasantness) and 10:30 Tuesday finds me working on this newsletter in one of the elaborate atrium areas of a major Boston hospital center, waiting for an appointment.
It is appropriate that those of you who are new here are welcomed by the realities of my own experiences of disability, which inform a great deal of what you’ll find here. And it is appropriate that this week has one of those notoriously tricky healing stories – that of the faithful woman hounded by demons.
Faith – or Transformative Medicine?
I love receiving most of my medical care in Boston because the major hospitals – Brigham & Women’s, Beth Israel, Mass General, an assortment of other specialty centers – are all clustered together in an area called the Longwood Medical Area, which surround Harvard Medical School. That being said, it’s a big area and I’m usually on the move when I’m here and that means there’s a lot of places that (luckily) I haven’t seen before.
So, as I sit here writing, outside the window is a sign against a green facade: “Hale Building for Transformative Medicine.” Not only is this new to me, but it’s also perplexing. After all, I think most of us generally hope that, when necessary at least, medicine will generally be transformative. Modern medicine at its best can seem like magic. I think about the Epipens in my backpack and their ability to reverse potentially deadly symptoms. About the machine that, this morning, will reveal the inner structures of my heart. It’s miraculous, really, even if this exam won’t heal me. We do these things so casually – and particularly in this week’s Gospel, Jesus’s healing seems somewhat casual as well.
Let’s set the stage: Jesus is walking along and he’s being a bit un-Jesus-y, to be honest. A desperate woman calls after him, begging his help on behalf of her daughter, who is understood to have demons, and Jesus simply ignores her. She’s not one of his, he seems to claim – not of the house of Israel. Jesus, whose entire being is structured around reaching beyond the boundaries of the acceptable, is just not in the mood today, it seems, and his words are uncomfortable and even dehumanizing. “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”
Still, this mother perseveres.
“Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”
This is the plea that changes things. With these words, Jesus grants her daughter healing. But why does it take such extreme statements in this case?
I confess, in this passage, the interchange between Jesus and this mother, feels a lot like the modern American medical system. What is supposed to be willing benevolence becomes a desperate, extended undertaking. And some of us are lucky enough to receive a blessing. Jesus can work miracles, but it turns out he’s not just giving them away – and there’s something troubling about that.
What Makes & Breaks Us
As adults, we encounter these stories through the framework of our own experiences with illness and disability, as diverse as those are. We know that illness notoriously sticks around. Common ailments like arthritis or carpal tunnel aren’t dramatic, at least most of the time. But we also, at one point or another, come to know how illness and deep suffering and mortality are interwoven. We come face-to-face with death.
It is often startling to people when I explain how straightforward Godly Play is about suffering and violence and death. We do not shy away from these painful realities because they are also our children’s realities. And, when we are honest and forthright, we connect with their natural awareness of these matters.
After I went to the doctor, I journeyed to a different part of Boston to visit with some Godly Play friends and their children to visit the Aquarium. The aquarium isn’t afraid of death. The aquarium invites us to watch them feet herring to the penguins. It teaches us how to protect whales from injury related to lobster trapping practices. We peer into the tanks and find that while the eels aren’t hunting (the New England Aquarium has a very cool electric eel tank feature that shows the electrical activity involved in hunting for prey), a star fish has beheaded another fish for its lunch and sits grasping it in the tank. I point this out to the children. It is not gross or scary or upsetting, but compelling. We watch the tank of juvenile jellies pulse like tiny, iridescent hearts.
Obviously these are not the most upsetting types of death, these circle of life moments. But, at the same time, being present to these moments alongside the more haunting ones – the moments of pain and sickness that, like the Canaanite woman begging on behalf of her daughter – bring us to our knees. And for most of us, we are not delivered. Our faith does not make us well.
What our faith does is transform our relationship to living in these bodies and living with and alongside each other. (Ask me how I feel about the power of inclusion.)
I find it uniquely compelling that Jesus’s resistance to the act of healing in this passage occurs in the presence of a family member, rather than the patient themself. And, to the point, that he speaks so cruelly to this woman after saying that what makes us clean or unclean is what we say. We don’t give the children’s foods to the dogs. How dare he say that, really. And yet, when she counters his statement, so boldly, he turns. In that moment Jesus is changed. He who was born without sin and yet born fully human also needs, at times, to be transformed, to be redeemed.
As this week’s passage from Romans reminds us, “Just as you were once disobedient to God but have now received mercy because of their disobedience, so they have now been disobedient in order that, by the mercy shown to you, they too may now receive mercy. For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all.”
Is this a case of Jesus needing the same redemptive power as the rest of us, needing the mercy of the Father with whom he is both consubstantial and begotten? These are the big questions. Jesus’s incarnation makes him an example in more ways than one.
The woman’s pleas break Jesus’s resistance, his walls around who is to be saved. His mercy and God’s mercy become one – and we are left to wonder whether we receive mercy in our time of need. If we need to break through resistance. Or if we need to see ourselves through a different lens of transformation.
How is God at work in this pain?
Inviting God In
Many of us are in a moment of new beginnings. It’s the start of school years and programs. In our house, we’re a few days out from the start of my wife’s second year of vet school. And in that transitional, beginning space, maybe you’re feeling sad or anxious or overwhelmed. But are we inviting God in?
It seems obvious that we should be inviting God into our uncertainty, but I think when we’re overwhelmed, we’re all guilty of forgetting. I find this to be true often, both in my own practice and in my consulting work. As we all struggle to recruit volunteers to lead programming, for example, I hold you in my prayers that God whispers quietly in the ears of just the right people. It may not even be the people who will lead, but the people who see the gifts in others, and who will tell you where to seek out those gifts.
And as I pray for you, I also offer you the tools for prayer.
Kayla Craig shares with us a piece of her prayer for the first day of school.
Muddy Church has a sweet first day of school packet over on their Ko-Fi. It includes everything from your standard name, grade, favorite color pieces to mindfulness practices and bits of scripture that remind each child (and each of us) how beloved we are. I especially like the piece below, highlighting several passages about how God cares for us.
In the world of practical advice, I side with Jen Hatmaker who offers this annual reminder about the first week of school: Don’t plan anything that weekend. It doesn’t matter how exciting the opportunity is. That is time to rest, no matter how big or small your kids are and how many times you’ve done this.
If your kids are neurodivergent or otherwise disabled, you may want to extend that window of time. Personally, I had two long days this week and I plan to mostly stay in bed for a few days because I am physically and cognitively done. The first day back in my office at the start of the month? I made it three hours before I needed to nap in the armchair that lives in the corner. But even for kids who are entirely typical, going back to school is a big adjustment. It’s a time of transitions and those transitions need to be buffered by stability and security and calm. It’s time for naps and snacks.This isn’t precisely a first day of school thing, but it is on track with this week’s scripture – I must say I’m tempted to ensure that every church school director is putting these “Jesus Heals” bandaids into their first aid kits. They are, I admit, a bit silly, but I find them delightful!
And finally! This week’s soundtrack: Tish Melton’s “We Can Do Hard Things.”
As Melton reminds us, we may not know where we’re going but we are held in it all –And to be lovеd, we need to be known
We'll finally find our way back homе
And through the joy and pain, that our lives bring
We can do hard things
Amidst transition, may you feel seen and held. May you know that we are transformed in our experiences, not necessarily through our healing. Indeed, our faith can be transformational medicine in a way that is separate from our contemporary medical frameworks.
We can do hard things. Because we are always doing them together, whether it feels like them or not.
Peace,
Bird