In the flesh
July 7, 2019
Toward the end of my sabbatical, when I was driving back from Sedona, AZ, I was amazed once again at the variety of landscapes and climate across our nation. I began in a desert canyon of red rocks, then on to the high desert of New Mexico to the cattle country of Texas and Oklahoma to the rolling prairies of Kansas, the grassy hills of Arkansas, the flood plains of the Mississippi in Tennessee, the Appalachian mountains of North Carolina, and the marshy coastlines of Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware.
Geography affects the culture that arises from within in it. Geography affects how human beings interact with each other and with their environment. People who grew up on a prairie would naturally think differently, view the world, have a different experience of what it means to be an American than someone who grew up in the mountains; a cool dry climate versus a hot humid climate. All of us have a certain pride about where we’re from, where our people are from. Even if we’ve moved from place to place, one in particular can be special to us.
In this morning’s lectionary from 2 Kings, Naaman, a great general of the king of Aram (Syria), has a great deal of pride in himself, his king, and his country, and perhaps in that order. He has access to great wealth and great power and thus thinks he is entitled to be treated with deference. The king of Israel allows his ego to get stepped on and tensions rise.
It is the little people, that is, the ones who suffer the most from the powerful and wealthy, that remind us that true power is not real estate, that wealth does not have the last word. Imagine if the story went like this: General George Washington was the commander in chief of the Continental Army. He had won many battles. He was a wealthy landowner and had many slaves. He was held in high esteem. Here begins the fiction: But he also had a severe skin condition that gave him great shame.
A black slave girl that belonged to his wife Martha said that she knew of a healer and truthteller of the Piscataway people who could heal Washington. So Washington asked the Governor of Virginia to send a letter to the weroance or local chief requesting that the healer do everything possible to help General Washington. When the weroance received the letter, he prepared himself for battle, declaring, “The white man has taken my land, nearly destroyed our food supply, killed my warriors and scattered my people; now he wants favors?” The healer said to the chief, “Send him to me. I’ll handle it.”
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| ZSun-nee Miller-Matema, a descendant of Caroline Branham, a slave who was a personal maid to Martha Washington. |
So General Washington brought with him slaves and horses and white man’s clothes and came to the healer’s dwelling. The healer sent out a young apprentice with a message: “Go, wash yourself in the Potomac River seven times and your flesh will be healed and you will be made whole.” But Washington was used to his men and his slaves obeying his orders and was shocked that the healer would not at least come out to meet him. “I’ve crossed the Delaware River three times in battle! Why not that river? Isn’t it good enough? Who does this healer think he is?” But his slaves said to him, “Father, the healer could’ve had revenge on a white man and told you to do something difficult, and you would’ve done it. Be thankful the healer gave you something simple to do.” So George took himself down to the river and washed seven times. He was made new, as though like a young boy—as he was before his wealth and power and influence.
On July 4th a Twitter friend who is a citizen of the Potawatomi Nation, what is now Illinois, asked folks to go to a website, Native-Land.ca, and look up the original peoples of the land we live on. Many of you may already know this but our church is on the land of the Lenni-Lenape (LEN-ee leh-NAH-pay). In 1683 William Penn, who was a Quaker dedicated to non-violence, met with Tamanend, the chief of the Lenape Turtle Clan, and they agreed to live together in peace. Penn’s heirs did not honor this agreement and made a land grab. Less than a century later was the Penn’s Creek Massacre of 1755.
And so when we sing “this land was made for you and me”, we need to be mindful of who “you” is. Given that it was written by Woody Guthrie, himself a “dustbowl refugee”, “you” would be the dispossessed, the marginalized, the people who suffer the most due to the powerful and the wealthy.
This Table is made for you and for me. Like every tradition, like every human being, it was born in a particular place in a particular time and yet its true power goes beyond place and time.
It is for any place, any time we need to remember Jesus: who he ate and drank with, who came to him for healing and wholeness, who he traveled with, that he had no place to lay his head.
It is for when we need to remember what it means to love our neighbor as ourselves and who that neighbor is.
It is for when we need to remember to love our enemies and pray for them.
It is for when we need to remember that the powerful and the wealthy do not have the last word.
It is for when we need to remember that the Body of Christ is more about black bodies, queer bodies, immigrant bodies, women’s bodies, trans bodies, children’s bodies, disabled bodies, incarcerated bodies, poor bodies, anxious and depressed bodies, addicted bodies.
It is for when we need to remember that when we show up to our lives and our life together, all of it, the pain and the joy, in our bones, in our flesh, we open the way not only for our healing, our liberation but for all.
May it be so.
Benediction – enfleshed.com
It is an incredible thing to love and be loved,
to know that we are beloved by God and one another.
Too many have been convinced there is no place
where they are welcome,
there is no one to help them carry their load,
and they are unworthy of love and companionship.
Having been convinced of our own belonging,
and still working on it,
let us go and extend to others the love
that has been extended to us.
Christ sends us and Christ goes with us.
May it be so.
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