No Need To Be Ashamed

Jeremiah 29:1,4-7; Psalm 66:1-12; 2 Timothy 2:8-15; Luke 17:11-19

(Look these up at bible.oremus.org or biblegateway.com)

Today we hear in the prophetic book of Jeremiah words of counsel to the people who have found themselves in exile, far from home, not to give up but to find a way to ‘bloom where they have been planted.’  Perhaps that’s an odd bit of advice, or perhaps it’s very timely, to people who are feeling so very uprooted.

We also hear in the continuing conversation in Paul’s letter to young Timothy some sage advice not to get entangled in wars of words with people who might try to prove him less experienced or too young for this kind of work, but to not be ashamed and to speak the truth.  And in the Gospel, we hear of how Jesus heals ten lepers and sends them to the Jewish priests to be admitted back into the community, but the Samaritan who realizes his healing returns to Jesus alone.

And today in the life of the church we observe Domestic Violence Awareness Sunday.  This is something relatively new in the life of the church and in the self-understanding of Presbyterian Missions.  However, it’s an integral part of what our mission agency and several of our ministries do.

The Church (meaning the church universal) has really failed on this point for as long as anyone can remember, and only recently started teaching that no one should have to experience violence in their homes, even if they are married to the person that abuses them.  So the first thing that I want to say today, and on every other occasion where I have the opportunity to do so, is that abuse is not, and never has been, part of God’s plan for our lives.  Abuse is sin, and the shame for it rests solely on the abuser, and not the abused.

I was also reminded this week that as the Church, (meaning the church universal), we’re not terribly good at defining what abuse is or who might experience abuse.  Perhaps that doesn’t surprise anyone here after a decade or more of abuse scandals.  But let me tell you how I was reminded, because I was really impressed.  I met several students at the high school who are involved in a group called Imagine, which teaches awareness, prevention and intervention for domestic abuse.  They were active in discussion about allowing men into the group.  This is because we often think of abuse being caused by men against women.  However, in recent years we’ve been increasingly aware that men can also suffer from domestic violence, whether their partner is male or female.  And women can suffer whether their partner is male or female.  Truly no one is immune from a situation such as this.  I thought to myself that even though I was in a similar group in high school and college, I was not nearly so wise.

From PADV Packet: (www.presbyterianmission.org/padvn)

Violence in any form is a destructive force that damages and destroys life and well being.  When violence is woven into the fabric of family relationships it distorts and destroys not only the violence between the victim and the perpetrator but the well-being and sense of self of each and every family member.  So often, families enmeshed in violence have lost a sense of hope and the prospect of healing and restoration seems to be a remote possibility.

I think that you can be at home, and still feel like you are in exile, that you have no home.  I think you can also have a church home that doesn’t really feel like home, a place where you find yourself all alone in a room full of people, because of whatever it is you are wrestling with or don’t want other people to know.

So then, you have a choice, albeit a difficult one:  do you stay where you feel you have no true home, and try to make the best of it, or do you pack up and go?  Sometimes, just such questions really are the biggest ones of our lives.  

Well then, when is it okay to bloom where you are planted?  When is it okay to go?  Actually, the same Bible and the same God tells the same group of people different things at different times in their journey.  And so it is with us.

A lot of people facing abuse don’t leave because they fear what may happen to themselves, or their children, or their pets.  And that is a legitimate fear demonstrated far too often--the deadliest time in an abusive relationship is often when the abused person tries to leave.  However, others get out because they realize what’s going to happen to them or the children or the pets if they don’t go.

At this particular point in the Israelite’s lives, so recently exiled, so weakened from the journey, and so traumatized, God tells the people to bloom in exile.  Find a happy home.  Raise a healthy family.  Thrive, don’t just survive, and don’t give up.  A day will come when there will be healing and joy.  Even if you’ve had to leave everything behind just to save your own life, there is hope.

Now God is not being Pollyanna about this, God’s just being realistic.  God knows they’ll never physically make it back home, or anywhere good, in the physical state that they’re in.  They have to get their strength back.  They have to build up a few resources, build up their numbers, and multiply--surround themselves with a supportive community that will be a force to reckon with when it is time to get up and go.  They’re going to have to be wise about this, and prepare for the journey.  They’ll get home someday, we’ll cover that story in a few weeks, but for now, it’s time to figure out a plan for the meantime, even though they are faced with difficult truths.

Alright.

Now for something a bit different...let’s talk a bit about leprosy.  We’ve talked about it before: that nasty flesh-eating disease that makes you look like a zombie; no easy cure back then like there is today; nobody wants to be around you because you stink and look awful and they don’t want to catch it from you, so you’re in exile, (see a theme here?) living in a leper colony until you die.  You can’t even go to worship, because the priests don’t want you bringing your mess in there.  But then Jesus comes along and heals these ten lepers he meets.  Why does the Samaritan come back?  The lepers whose spiritual home is in Jerusalem are begging to be freed from their stigma.  When they go to the priests, the priests will admit them back into the community, and that’s what they desire most.  The Samaritan isn’t going to be accepted into that community anyway; that’s not his people.  Because there is no fear of stigma in him, because he is not ashamed, he can recognize the truth and come back praising Jesus.

There is no need to be ashamed when speaking the truth, especially when the truth heals you and sets you free.  This is the philosophy behind the new shelter being built here in Dane County, that the women who live there have no need to be ashamed, and that by being in the light, they are safer, than trying to hide in stigma and fear.

I want to share with you something else from our Presbyterian Mission website on this issue, because it’s so well put: When domestic violence occurs, hope and restoration are never easily attained.  Sometimes they are decades in the making, especially if the victim or survivor of domestic violence and her family have no community of support to assist them on their long journey.  This is precisely where the Church should be.  As Christ’s agents of hope, we are charged to be “a light, shining in the darkness,” to those whose hope has been thwarted and do not know where to turn.

The Psalm today says, “we went through fire and water; yet you have brought us out to a spacious place.”  Ours is a God who turns the sea into dry land, who has kept his people among the living, and has not let our feet slip.  Ours is a God who will not let us be lost, no matter in what situation or where we find ourselves.  And our God is a God of justice, a God of compassion, a God of healing.  We are not alone.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

Prayers this Week

For all who are caregivers for loved ones struggling with extended illness, that they may find respite, courage, and strength for the journey.

For those struggling with illnesses that have not yet been fully diagnosed, that they may find the answers and the treatments they need.

For all who are suffering from domestic violence, that they may find safety, hope, and healing.

For ministries of healing and hope in the PCUSA and around the world.

For families of children with special needs, that they may find the support, welcome, and access they need for full inclusion.

For families who are homeless, whether living with a relative or friend, living in their car, or living in a shelter or on the street, that they may find a true home.

From Trafficking to Freedom

Human trafficking today, our modern forms of slavery, recall today's Scripture passages about the Israelites being in exile, Paul being in prison, and some surprising advice from Jesus to his disciples on how to become servant leaders:

Lamentations 1:1-6, Psalm 137, 2 Timothy 1:1-14, Luke 17:5-10
(Look these up at bible.oremus.org or biblegateway.org)

A Provocative Gospel

Friends, I bet you’ve noticed the Gospel of Luke….is a pretty provocative one:  as we’ve covered these past few weeks, it’s the gospel of the 99%, the gospel where the poor are lifted up and the mighty taken down a few notches, it’s a gospel that flies in the face of the status quo.  If you haven’t gone home offended yet by some of these gospel stories, I’d be surprised.  Luke’s Jesus doesn’t mince words.  Yet sometimes even a blunt Jesus can be a little hard to understand.

We also have in the readings today the psalm of exile in Babylon, and the passage from Lamentations of a people thrown into exile.  Throughout our study of Jeremiah, we heard this time was coming, and now it is here.

Photo: Alamy

The Devastation of Exile

So the people are now in exile, and they lament.  They have lost everything.  

Exile meant that after the city was conquered and destroyed, all the best and brightest were taken off to Babylon as labor to build its own cities and civilization instead of Jerusalem.  This wasn’t supposed to happen:  hadn’t they already been delivered out of Egypt?  Yet, here they are again, far from home, and held captive.  

There’s a new film coming out, Twelve Years A Slave, which is already being hailed as the ‘Schindlers’ List’ of American slavery.  I hope that when it arrives here, that some of us might take a field trip to go see it.  For most of us who are white, we can’t begin to realize how enormous a trauma slavery was and how it still affects the Black community in our country today.  Slavery involves exile, because people were taken from their homes and lives against their will, loaded onto boats, carried across the oceans, to become a labor force for a different race of people. But perhaps we can begin to understand even a glimpse of that experience by hearing these scriptures this morning in all their pain and bitterness.

God, Grief, and Suffering Seeking Meaning

In the Psalm today, the Babylonian captors asked their Israelite captives to sing their songs of Zion.  Now, a Song of Zion is a song about Jerusalem, and by that time in their faith lives, the Temple had become understood as God’s home.  Now they felt they were separated by God because they were separated from God’s home by a thousand miles!

You can also hear a painful Grief response in the scriptures, one that goes something like:  “I must have done something really awful to deserve this,  someone I love must be really angry with me; even God must be really angry with me!”

I think we often desire meaning in suffering, to know that our suffering is not for nothing.  And yet that desire we have meaning does not mean that our suffering is God’s plan, and it doesn’t even mean that our suffering is for some greater good.  I know that it hurts, but sometimes suffering is caused for no good purpose.  Sometimes it’s caused by purely evil purposes, one human against another with utter inhumanity.  Sometimes the only greater good would be for it to end.

Yet, the exiled Israelites believe that only the Lord can end their pain.  After all, this is still the God that led them out of Egypt and the slavery there.

So, let’s go back to putting ourselves in their shoes.  You can imagine that, right?  You can imagine how people uprooted from everything they’ve ever known, and knowing they have next to no chance of returning to that life, and being subjected to cruelty and domination every day of the rest of their lives?  People who have lost their children and parents and spouses to unimaginable violence?  They wouldn’t blink at exacting even a fraction of pain out of their oppressors like they’ve experienced.  They’re angry enough to kill their enemies’ children, as it says in the psalm.  In the same shoes, we might feel the same way.

And yet, really, they couldn’t retaliate, since it would probably cost them their lives, the last thing they had left.  American slaves knew this, and suffered severe beatings and killings.  People in prostitution and housekeeping today, are often in the same situation of fearing harm to selves or to loved ones if they were to stand up for themselves, or try to escape.

Human Trafficking:  What Does It Look Like?

One of our peacemaking themes for this season is human trafficking.  Trafficking is when exploits another human being in order to make a profit:  whether prostitution or pornography, corrupt forms of adoption, under-the-table household help, even exploiting people migrating in hopes of a better future.  Homeless teenagers are even trafficked in the streets of Madison at night, in order to pay for a place to sleep.

Of Slaves and Servant Leadership

So, with this understanding of slavery and trafficking in mind, let’s talk about today’s Gospel, which probably just got a whole lot less comfortable for us.  After all, Jesus and this mustard seed parable invoke a master/slave relationship.  Jesus asks the disciples if they would call their slave in after working all day and feed him dinner and wait on him.  Well, no, probably they’d rather have him keep working until they were fed.  But Jesus is training these disciples to be the future leaders of the church, not to have people wait on them because of their status, but for them to model servant leadership by waiting on those with least status.  If people want to applaud them for their service, they shouldn’t gloat, they should simply say, “we did what we ought to have done!”

Solidarity in Suffering

And servant leadership can involve even more difficult situations as well.  After all, Paul is in prison as he’s writing Timothy, offering instruction in Christian leadership.  Paul, who is suffering, is telling Timothy not to be ashamed that he is suffering, but to join him in that suffering, for the sake of the gospel.  The risks are high.  Yet there is hope, something even beyond the threat of captivity and death.

Bringing Hope for Freedom

You may have heard of Frederick Douglass, who said, “I prayed for twenty years and God didn’t answer until I started praying with my legs.”  In escaping his nightmare, he became one of the best speakers and advocates for ending the practice of African-American slavery.

Friends, even though these are difficult issues and moments in history to reflect on, I want you to leave here today knowing that there is also hope, and cause in rejoicing:  In the past, Presbyterian churches were among those working with the Underground Railroad, and fighting for equality afterwards even up through the time of Martin Luther King Jr.  To meet the needs of people trafficked and enslaved today, ministries supported through the Peacemaking program bring hope for freedom; work on advocacy for better protections; ministries of healing for survivors.  Sowing peace where anger exists.  Helping create conditions which allow people to work with dignity where they live, so don’t have to fall victim to traffickers in a strange land.

"Set Free" by ajosephproject.com

We know we can’t do it all, but we are able to help do a few good things.  And in the meantime, we can weep with our brothers and sisters who are far away, even in the past, and begin to understand when pain is carried forward.  And we can do so knowing we are not alone, but knowing that God is with us, just as God is with all who suffer and especially those who are being held against their will.  Nothing will ever separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.  Thanks be to God!

Prayers this week:

On festival of St. Francis, we give thanks for our animal companions and the joy they bring to our lives; and we remember with love those pets who have died.

For all who find themselves trapped and waiting for freedom.

For the peacemaking ministries of the PCUSA, especially those who work for the healing of survivors, and ministering to all who have been impacted or may be tempted to acts of violence.

For the many African people who died when their smuggler’s boat capsized in the ocean this week, who were fleeing violence and poverty in their home countries.