2 Kings 5: 8-14; Galatians 6:9,10

Our therapeutic task

Martin Luther King is known for his saying: “The arc of history bends slowly, but it bends toward justice.” What he meant to say that we don’t change society and the world overnight, but in the end we make progress. President Obama quoted it in his acceptance speech in Chicago in November 2008. The problem that we have today is that this quote is being used a little bit too much these days.  Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg used it the other day to herald the Supreme Court ‘s decision in favor of same sex marriage.  A senator also used it recently.  It may be used a bit too often now, but that does not make it any less beautiful a saying.  The point is that good change comes slowly.  It has enormous setbacks.  In the process of achieving it there may great suffering.  But there is that bending toward the good.  Paul seems to understand this in Galatians:” So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, when we do not give up.” He continues:”So then, whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all, especially for those of the family of faith.”  Martin Luther King had learned much of his thinking of Paul of course and undoubtedly he was familiar with this passage.   Paul encourages the new Christians not to be weary, because he knows they will be.

In every act of change for the common good, there is an element of healing: healing of resentment or bitterness, healing of injustice and inequality, healing of discrimination, healing of physical ills, healing from guilt, healing from grief, healing from despair, healing from fear and anxiety.  Almost every act Jesus performs in the Gospels has a healing dimension.  Elisha’s act of helping Naaman the Aramean general is above all an act of physical healing, but it is also an attempt to heal to loss of dignity of the proud Naaman and to heal the tension between the King of Syria and the King of Israel.  But it did not come easy. To begin with, the King of Israel is literally freaked out by the request from the King of Aram to heal his general. It is a recipe for war in his mind, for what if he can’t deliver.  Elisha’s confidence in the healing he can facilitate eases his anxiety, but then things almost go horribly wrong.  There doesn’t appear to be much of an arc to this history.    Naaman is offended by what he interprets Elisha’s lack of respect. He seems to feel that Elisha behaves like a peasant, giving what seemed to be random commands that insult the powerful man.  Elisha’s apparent lack of care almost creates an international incident, but in the end Naaman is cleansed of his illness and full of appreciation for Elisha’s God.  In the new remake of the Lone Ranger we see a constant illustration how one bad thing after an another can happen and how the evil can triumph time and time again.  Oswald Chambers writes: Faith for my deliverance is not faith in God. Faith means, whether I am visibly delivered or not, I will stick to my belief that God is love. There are some things only learned in a fiery furnace.”  The “fiery furnace of course” are the trials of life. Well, as we have seen, there is not much delivery for the Lone Ranger’s brother, for his sister’s in law and nephew, for the Comanches and for Tonto who is truly a man lost in his own trauma.  He can only heal when justice is done and the evil are punished.  His past carelessness as a little boy in helping two greedy frontiersmen has resulted in the murder of his entire village. But the reckoning keeps escaping him.  In the mean time the book smart  Lone Ranger does not believe in the violent use of guns and keeps making enormous mistakes.  In the “Rains of Ranchipur” Lana Turner is a heartless yet beautiful woman with twenty red suitcases  who while she is married, collects men on her journeys, falls in love with them, including with a resident of the palace played by Richard Burton who lives in the palace of the Maharani,  but in the end tosses all those men as disposable items.  She needs to be healed of her selfishness and finally begins that process after an earthquake and a flood hit Ranchipur in Rajastan. In takes her much of her life to claim her humanness.

Friends, we know that Nelson Mandela is on life support.  In the mean time his relatives are fighting over his legacy, which can be lucrative, by feuding over where two of Mandela’s children should be buried.  In the traditional belief of his tribe, the patriarch cannot make a peaceful journey to the afterlife if the family is feuding. What a need for healing in this family even after the healing Mandela has brought to his nation.

Friends, the task of healing is never done. In a way we are all physicians. We all have a healing task for those around us and those far away, through our ears, through our words, through our presence, through our donations.  Today you are a healing presence for someone.  We as a church too have a healing task.  We are a therapeutic community, or at least we are supposed to be. We are supposed to help heal loneliness and fear and conflict and despair.  We are to be a presence for the ill and the infirm, the poor and the bereaved.  As Christians we are called to be healers out of faith in the love of God. May God help us.

Coach’s corner

Explorations II: toward an open process

Dear friends,

As I explained earlier, we have decided to enter a period (roughly a year) of exploration as a congregation now that the hundredth anniversary is far enough in the rearview mirror and we have settled into routine activities.  I believe it is helpful to reiterate that in this explorative process we are not responding to a problem or a weakness. As far as our leadership is concerned there is no obvious problem.  We are who we are. Now there may be individuals who make comparisons between us and other churches and thus define a problem. That is their right and they will have a chance to share their opinions. Instead of the word “problem” or “weakness” we are instead using the term “condition.” A condition is neutral and can be very positive and thinking about conditions rather than problems is likely to lead us to greater objectivity.

During our last session meeting we made several decisions about the process of group discussions in the coming year. First, on Cathy Nishizaki’s suggestion we agreed a questionnaire is necessary, partly because in the groups some people will be more vocal and adamant than others.  We also agree that in the next three weeks session members will have submitted some questions for that questionnaire. Also we decided that those questions should be open-ended and not be leading questions with a desired answer or questions with yes/no anwers. I see no reason why you could not give input into the formation of those questions so feel free to chime in with your session members (Effie Komure, Bill Nagata, Bill Grissom, Cathy Nishizaki or Maureen Huang). Furthermore we concluded that during the month of July Titus Toyama will do a demographic study of our congregation, of both member and non-members, including frequent visitors. While we await the questions from the session members and Titus’ findings, no decisions about the groups will be made.  On the issue of membership of those groups, it is clear that the presence of anyone who attends Parkview is requested.  In other words group membership is not limited to those who have at one point or another decided to become a church members.  Everyone’s input is helpful.  For example, sometimes a two-time visitor will see something a long-time member no longer notices.

Maurine Huang has submitted some open-ended questions early and I would like to share these with you so that you can start your process of personal reflection. These are: 1. What brought you to Parkview? 2. What do you think draws other people to Parkview? 3. What do you see as some of Parkview’s unique strengths? 4. What are ways to honor Parkview’s strengths? Maurine sees those as “possibly roundabout ways to get into the desired conversations” and she emphasizes that  we should not be in a  “rush to “re-vision without taking the time to consider where Parkview has been and what strengths and ‘areas needing attention,’ have emerged.”

You will notice that we are going about this deliberately, because otherwise it will be easy to just pay lip service to this exploration and thus miss the chance of seeing things in a whole new way.  We do not know where this process will take us. This is exciting, but to some it may also be a bit scary. So be it. Thank you in advance for participating. May God bless our continued journey in ministry. Aart