Sermon: We are One Body

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We are One Body

By Rev. Julie Yarborough

November 10, 2002

Mark 5: 1-20 and 1 Corinthians 12: 12-27

ried alive. That’s what it must’ve been like for this man who lived among the tombs of Gerasa, isolated from the community, alone with his demons, surrounded by death.[1] Crying out and cutting himself with stones, he probably wished he was dead.

Although the Gospels describe this man as demon-possessed, we would say that he probably had some form of mental illness that could not be diagnosed in that time. Today there are many diagnoses of mental disorders, some of which can be effectively managed by medication and therapeutic treatment, and others that cannot be managed very well, at least, not consistently. At times it still seems as if the demons are too many and they cannot be controlled or contained.[2]

Many families in our society and, I might add, quite a few in this congregation, are living with these demons daily, yet with the stigma attached to mental disorders even in this day and age, most of them are isolated and struggling to get through each day on their own. When medications stop working or the patient begins to feel better or doesn’t like the side effects and stops taking the prescription, the demons often appear. Hallucinations or rages may occur, deep depression may set in, and in some extreme cases, the patient may attempt suicide.

One mother I recently talked to told me that everyday she feels like she is walking on eggshells. She never knows what sort of mood her son will be in when he comes home from school. If he’s had a bad day, he may take it out on her. He has difficulty making friends and he feels very lonely. Worst of all, the parents of this child have had to give up their dreams for him. He doesn’t adapt to change well, so they don’t travel much and new experiences are difficult. Their whole world changed the day that their son was diagnosed.

Demons come in many different shapes and forms. And while the demons of mental illness may be the most obvious, the demons of addiction and abuse are no less harmful and isolating. The secrets of guilt and shame are powerful agents, which work together to separate the addicted person and his or her family from the rest of the community. Roberta Bondi, who grew up with an alcoholic mother, describes this phenomenon:

When one person in the family has a drinking problem, the whole family has a drinking problem. One person contracts the disease and everyone else dies from it. Children grow old before their time. They must learn to lie well to the outside world, to other members of the family, and to themselves. Parents fight with words and screams too bitter for children to be able to decide who is wrong and who has been wronged. Everyone must take sides, however. The whole nightmare is kept going by an endless succession of lies where the difference between what is real and what is not slowly pales …[3]

Just as there are families in this congregation living with mental illness, there are families in Christ Church struggling with the demons of addictions in isolation. Some members of Christ Church, living with addictions, are active members of groups such as Alcoholics or Narcotics Anonymous, groups that are often described as being more church-like than most congregations. Listen to a description of one of these groups by Frederick Buechner:

Through prayer and meditation, through seeking help from each other and from helpful books they try to draw near any way they can to God or to whatever they call what they have instead of God. They sometimes make serious slips. They sometimes make miraculous gains. They laugh a lot. Once in a while they cry. When the meeting is over, some of them embrace. Sometimes one of them will take special responsibility for another, agreeing to be available any time of the day or night if the need should arise …[4]

Buechner goes on to say:

I do not believe that such groups . . . are perfect any more than anything human is perfect, but I believe that the church has an enormous amount to learn from them. I also believe that what goes on in them is far closer to what Christ means his church to be, and what it originally was, than much of what goes on in most churches I know.[5]

What is it about these groups that make them seem so much more authentic than most churches? Perhaps it’s the lack of pretension, the brutal honesty, the vulnerability, and the understanding, support and acceptance that is found in the midst of such community where everyone recognizes their own brokenness and need for a higher power. The church does have much to learn from our brothers and sisters in recovery about how to create safe communities where healing can take place. We could also take some lessons from the small village of Geel (pronounced “Hale”), Belgium.

Around the year 600, an Irish king went mad when his wife died. Mistaking his daughter, Dymphna, for his dead wife, he tried to force her to marry him. She was horrified and ran away, boarding a ship and disembarking in what is now Antwerp, Belgium. Princess Dymphna hid in a small town by the name of Geel until she was found by her father’s soldiers. The king arrived and proposed again, and this time, when Dymphna refused him, he ordered that she be beheaded. The villagers buried Dymphna, and soon after her death, healings, especially those of the insane, were reported near her grave. In the seventh century, as in biblical times, people with mental disorders were believed to be demon-possessed. They were frequently harassed and stoned. As fame of the miraculous healings near Dymphna’s grave began to spread throughout Europe, desperate families brought their mentally ill loved ones to Geel in search of healing. Local families provided boarding for those who arrived in search of a cure. A curious thing began to happen. Though many of those who visited St. Dymphna’s grave were never cured, for those who stayed in Geel, healing occurred. It seems that the Geelians had grown accustomed to behavior that was ostracized and feared elsewhere. In Geel, the mentally ill were welcomed and accepted for who they were, as they were. To this day, the good people of Geel still operate a foster-family system for the mentally ill that has been in place for over a thousand years![6]

When a patient is placed with a family in Geel, they get better! Motor functions improve, and doses of medications are lowered, but most importantly, healing from a lifetime of rejection begins to occur. People who have lived in isolation for most of their lives are recognized as children of God and welcomed into the community. No one thinks it strange to see a woman talking into a shoe as if it were a cell phone, or a man conducting an imaginary symphony on a street corner. In Geel, Belgium it is possible to glimpse the Kin-dom of God on earth.

In the story of the Gerasene Demoniac, and in many other incidents in the Gospels, Jesus finds his way to those who are in isolation and invites them to live once again in community. Again and again we read of Jesus going to tax collectors, prostitutes, lepers, and others in need of various kinds of healing. Each time, Jesus makes his way to those who are broken, helps them find their way to wholeness and brings them back into community. If we are indeed the body of Christ, then we are called to do the same. We are called to reach out to those in need of healing and bring them into the beloved community. And within our own congregation, we are called to recognize that the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and need to be clothed with greater honor and treated with greater respect.

When I was in high school, the youth and adult choirs at my church sang together in a musical called The Gathering, about Christian community at its best. The words from the musical are still meaningful to me, and I’d like to share some of them with you today, as a vision for what we might become:

When the church is the church it is nothing more or less or other than the presence of Christ through His people. A part of the meaning of grace is that Christ is in us for each other. We are called to be priests to each other. If we are the church, then I may come to you as I would come to Christ . . . just as I am, knowing that you will understand my tears, my anger, my sin, believing that somehow Christ will see me with your eyes, touch me with your hands, heal me with your love.[7]

May it be so at Christ Church.

Amen.

[1] Mary W. Anderson, “Christian Century,” June 3-10, 1998, p.573.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Roberta Bondi, “Beyond my Reach” in Alive Now!, May/June, 1995, pp.18-19.

[4] Frederick Buechner, “Like You and Me,” from Telling Secrets, as printed in Alive Now!, May/June, 1995, p. 56.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Elizabeth Sherrill, “A Place to Belong” in Guideposts, November 2002, p. 36-38.

[7] Ken Medema, from the musical The Gathering.