SUNDAY SERMON
May 5, 2003
3 Easter, Year B
Church of the Holy Communion
The Rev. Gary D. Jones
Gospel: Luke 24:36b-48
In his much-loved book entitled The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis chronicles a series of correspondence from the chief devil, Screwtape, to his underling nephew, Wormwood. In these letters, Screwtape is coaching the younger Wormwood on strategies for tempting human beings and luring them away from God. And in one letter, Screwtape says that one of the more effective strategies for luring humans away from God is to convince them to believe that it doesn't matter where, when or how they pray.
Persuade them, Screwtape advises, "that the bodily position makes no difference to their prayers; for they constantly forget, what you must always remember, that they are animals and that whatever their bodies do affects their souls." (Letter IV)
The point, of course, is for the tempter to help us believe that we are so spiritual that we can pray just as well driving in the car or walking the golf course as we can anywhere else. Just don't let them get down on their knees for prayer, Screwtape advises, because when they realize the role their bodies have in their relationship with God, at that point, we start to lose them.
This morning's Gospel lesson raises some interesting questions about the spiritual and the tactile dimensions of the Christian faith, and it causes me to rethink the modern obsession with things spiritual. What does it mean for corporeal beings to be so intent on being "spiritual," whatever that means?
"Touch me and see," the resurrected Jesus says to his disciples, "for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have." And then, while the disciples are still disbelieving, Jesus seems to want to make his point humorously by asking, "What do you have to eat around here, I'm starving." … "And they gave him a piece of broiled fish," the Gospel story says, "and he took it and ate in their presence."
Don't be afraid, Jesus says, touch me. It's I, your friend. Touch me, don't be afraid. And can't you just hear the voice of the hospital patient who is so tired of being handled only with gloved hands. Or the voice of the elderly person, who is now a bit stooped over and wrinkled, who hardly ever is touched anymore, calling out to her small grandchild, please, God, touch me.
How do we reflect on our experience of touching and refraining from touching?
In the Friday morning Men's Bible Study here at Church of the Holy Communion, one of the men spoke about his wife's participation in the "rocking ministry" at the Med. People who give their time to the ministry of holding and rocking newborns, many of whom have no one else to hold them. Tiny babies, crack babies, some of them shivering and crying uncontrollably, … and yet, when another human being reaches into the incubator where this baby is convulsing and places her hand on the child, the spasms often stop, and the breathing slows.
What do you know about the power of human touch, and the power of refusing to touch? Many speak about what it is like, holding your child in your arms, how in certain moments it seems as if the adult who is cradling his child slips into another dimension altogether at such times, as if he is slipping in and out of eternity.
Some of you remember fondly how naturally and spontaneously your child once crawled up into your lap to snuggle or hug. Things often change with teenagers, though, don't they? The touch that used to bring a sense of comfort and security now is often shunned and resisted.
Or, remember when you were dating? The spiritual sensation and charge you felt when this new person first reached out to hold your hand, or when you felt her put her arm around you for the first time? But what is going on later in our marriages, when we pull back or want to be left alone? What is it that causes our touch to lose its spiritual power?
Others will speak about the power of touch after a loved one dies, a spouse or a child. Memories bring good feelings, but we want desperately to feel in a different way.
I have a friend who is one of the most popular hairdressers in Charlotte, NC. If you are not already a client of his, you just have to put your name on a waiting list, and the odds aren't good. One day in my office, my friend described his routine at work. When a woman first sat in the chair, my friend would routinely turn the chair to the mirror, place his hands on her shoulders, and as he gently rubbed her shoulders, he would ask her how she was and what they might do today for her.
These women come in way too often to get their hair done, my friend says. But he is convinced that their time with him in the beauty parlor is one of the few times these women are touched affectionately but without sexual motive, while they hear someone asking them how they are getting along in their life. And the end of every session is a series of affirmations - sincere affirmations -- from my friend about how beautiful the woman is. And he means every word.
So when my hairdresser friend told me once that he was thinking about going
to school in social work because his clients all told him how much better they
felt after talking with him, and he thought perhaps he should get training to
become a certified therapist, I practically jumped out of my chair in protest.
"You are going to be ten times more helpful to people as a hairdresser.
As a hairdresser, it's your job to touch people who come to you. If you become
a therapist, it'll be your job to avoid touching them."
So, in this age of wireless internet communication, with fewer and fewer letters
written in pen and ink, with fewer tangible, sacramental signs that someone
loves me, … in our day when we're just too busy to gather on the front
porch, shoulder to shoulder on the porch swing, … is it any wonder that
massage therapy is on the rise?
"Touch me … I am not a ghost." Although these are Jesus' words in this morning's gospel lesson, they could well be the deepest spiritual plea of every human being. We are not pure spirits, and the spiritual power and profundity of touch - whether we touch or refuse to touch - cannot be overestimated.
Throughout the Easter season, we hear stories, often very strange stories, about physical, corporeal encounters with the risen Jesus. He speaks with them, eats with them, walks with them, and invites them to touch him. And the culmination of it all is the cornerstone of the Christian life: "Now," this obviously corporeal Jesus says, "as the Father has sent me in the flesh, so now I send you."
What we simply must remember is that the cornerstone of the Gospel is not a set of beliefs to which we must subscribe. The cornerstone of the Gospel is Love incarnate - love in the flesh, Love enfleshed in Jesus, and now love in our flesh.
Increasingly, I'm convinced you shouldn't worry too much about whether or not you believe all the right things in just the right way, in accordance with accepted orthodoxy. Surely one of the reasons Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan, about a priest and Levite who did not have time to love, on the one hand, right-believers who passed by a person in need, as opposed to a Samaritan, a known heretic, whose belief system was all wrong, completely unbiblical -surely the reason Jesus told people of his day to go and be like the Samaritan was that he believed love in the flesh was more important than orthodoxy in the head.
The First Letter of John puts it all very simply: "everyone who loves is born of God and knows God." (1 John 4:7)
"Touch me and see," Jesus says. "Let us eat together." The Christian life is about love in our flesh and bones. It's not about ghosts and or just being "spiritual."
The former Episcopal monk and writer, Martin Smith, tells about teaching a class on contemplative prayer, devoting weeks to didactic and practice sessions on how to still the mind and become more present to God in prayer. Months after the class, one of the participants, a young woman, returned to Martin Smith and said she had tried to pray but just wasn't able to do it. "I guess I'm just not a spiritual person," she said.
Smith asked her to tell him what happened when she prayed. The young woman hemmed and hawed a little at first but then confessed, a little embarrassed, that each time she tried to enter into contemplative prayer, she started to think about intimate physical relations - hardly appropriate thoughts to be having when you're trying to pray. And there seemed to be nothing she could do to stop them. Martin Smith replied, "I believe God is speaking to you in your prayer times. I believe God is telling you to stop seeking him in the nethermost reaches of heaven. Stop trying to be so 'spiritual.' 'Get back into your body,' God is telling you. God will not be known in some sort of otherworldly way. The dwelling place of God is with human beings."
This morning's Gospel lesson begins with the disciples standing around talking theology, and Jesus is standing right there among them. And his message? If you want to know God, put down the theology book and tend to your love relationships. Take, eat, this is my body. Drink this, all of you, you are all forgiven. Get out of the clouds, come back to earth. I am here, across from you at your own breakfast room table, in the pew next to you, in the grocery store. Touch and see.