Say anything

John 3: 1-17
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
May 27, 2018 – Trinity Sunday, Mental Health Sunday

         About 8 years ago, I wrote a sermon with the same title; that there are taboo subjects we tend to be silent about in the company of others, including church, and usually those are money, sex, politics, and religion. But there is another reality we are so reticent to talk about, we don’t even list it among the things we don’t talk about: mental health and mental illness.


                   

         Let me say right at the outset—I am no mental health expert. But just because many of us are not knowledgeable doesn’t mean we shouldn’t talk about it and learn about it, especially in church, especially when one in four families copes with some variant and degree of situational or chronic mental illness. That’s 43 million adults. That’s one in five teens. For those that identify as cisgender, that’s almost twice as many women than men. That could be as many as 10 families in this congregation, and my family is one of them. We need to talk about it especially when not talking about it increases stigma, shame, and isolation.


         

         LGBTQ persons are 3 times more likely to experience a mental health condition, compounding the stigma, shame, and isolation. For LGBTQ people aged 10–24, suicide is one of the leading causes of death. LGBTQ youth are 4 times more likely and questioning youth are 3 times more likely to attempt suicide, experience suicidal thoughts or engage in self-harm than straight people. Between 38-65% of transgender individuals overwhelmingly think about suicide and the plans to carry it out. Family support plays a particularly important role in decreasing the likelihood of suicide. Someone who faces rejection after coming out to their families is more than 8 times more likely to attempt suicide than someone who is accepted by their family after revealing their sexual orientation. And as many as 40% of homeless teens identify as LGBTQ. All because they can’t talk about it and find community.







         

         I’m not saying supportive community and being able to talk openly about sexuality and gender and mental health replaces the need for medication and therapy. All of these resources need to be available for mental illness just as we have many treatment approaches to physical illness. I’m not saying we only need to change our minds to have mental health, and I don’t think that’s not entirely what Grace was saying. And yet they also lived the heart of Jesus’ message in their healing: they learned to love themself as they are and now uses that self-love to help save the lives of others. Love plays a foundational part in our mental health: unconditional, self-giving love: for God—for what is good, holy, and true—love for others and for ourselves, and community built around that love.

Jesus and Nicodemus, Henry Ossawa Tanner, 1899

         Jesus told Nicodemus and the faith community from which came John’s gospel, that he was sent not to condemn but to love that we might be saved through that love. Nicodemus had to come to Jesus under cover of darkness to talk about his theological questions. He couldn’t speak openly in his faith community about his questions nor could he be seen speaking with Jesus. In many of the healing stories in the gospels, people with mental illness were thought to be possessed by demons and they were ostracized from community. In the Gospel of Thomas, a collection of sayings of Jesus, he said, “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.” I am beginning to think that Jesus himself was neurodivergent, that is, that he had a brain, a mind that functioned in ways that diverged significantly from the dominant societal standards of ‘normal’, and he continues to do so from today’s standards of ‘normal’.



         Ernest Bruder, who was an innovative psychiatric hospital chaplain and author of the seminal book Ministering to Deeply Troubled People, said it like this: “Those with mental illness are just like us, only more so.” No matter who you are, or where you are on life’s journey, you are welcome here. We all have the same fundamental needs, no matter who we are, but even more so for those experiencing a mental health condition. We all need supportive community and acceptance and opportunities to serve and contribute and to have the love of God made manifest through us.



       

         I think the same is true for God. I think God is just like us, only more so. Even God needs someone to talk to, to say anything. Even God should not be alone. And so in the Trinity I see a metaphor, a model of community. In Andrei Rublev’s icon, each figure’s head is bowed, a humble posture, as if they are listening to one another. Adjusting for perspective, all three figures seem to be the same height—none is superior or inferior to the others. They appear to be no specific gender. Each carries a staff—this is a traveling God, the three-in-one on a journey. Perhaps most important, they are seated at table, taking time to rest, sharing a meal from the one bowl in the center of the table. Interdependence. Communion. Self-giving love. And as viewers of this icon, we become part of the picture; we are included in the circle; we share in its message, and God provides for us a sacred space for hospitality and refreshment.



         

         I invite us to pray about, think about our journey as an Open and Affirming congregation: how we can be more intentional in our acceptance and affirmation of everyone, especially LGBTQ individuals, any who live with a mental health condition and their families, and provide safe, sacred space within this community and within our hearts. By doing so, we just might save a life. Holy One, help us to listen to one another, really listen, learn from one another, to offer self-giving love, that we may realize and live into our interdependence with you and all living things. Amen.