"Binding the Strong Man", June 10, 2012

I Samuel 8:4-20 Mark 3: 20-35 One of the wonderful things about reading the Bible is that the text does not always mean exactly what we thought or want it to mean, and new things are continually revealed. This passage of a House Divided, we discover Lincoln took out of context when addressing the Republican National Convention and actually is a passage about Family, and about the ways we undermine and humble the Strong Man, which could be a description for anyone Powerful, The Government, The Devil or even God. From the Reformation, one of the teachings of the Church has been, rather than being certain what a passage says for all time, to allow Scripture to interpret Scripture. Imagine you are the younger brothers and sisters of Jesus. As you live your life, reports come back that your brother is disturbing the peace. He stood up to the Pharisees and Priests, he is even getting into trouble with the Roman Empire. Everyone is talking about him, and what they are saying is he hangs out with Prostitutes, he eats with Dirty Hands, he consorts with Lepers and touches the Untouchable. Your resolution is to have a family intervention, to take him out of the spotlight. To do so, you need to find a way to confront him, that will isolate him from his followers, that will weaken him, and make him a man alone. First Samuel, describes a time when being the people of God was in its infancy, after Moses and Joshua, and Judges, the people had come into the Promised Land and continued to fight the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizites and Jebusites. This was a time of instability and threat, when what the people most needed and wanted and felt was for safety, security, to be accepted in order to risk independence. The traditional commentary about this passage focuses on cultural temptation to try to blend in and be like everyone else, to adopt the customs of others, which ultimately leads toward secularism. This week as Great Britain celebrated their Queen's Diamond Jubilee, the commentators described that despite our Revolution against a Monarchy, how many Americans were following this, and speculated that we might actually prefer this celebration to that of our Presidential Debates and robo-calls. The challenge which comes to the Prophet Samuel is that the people abandon trust in his leadership for something different. How similar this cry sounds to the Arab Spring of a year ago, and the societal evolution from Chiefs and Judges and Dictatorships and Monarchies to free elections and Democracy. Like leaders in our own time, Samuel responds defensively. But God intervenes, revealing that this is not a rejection of Samuel, but Rejection of God. The implicit message of this story, more than a desire to be like everyone else, is that “The Nature of Humanity is to Shame God, to reject; yet God Endures.” Psychotherapist Marc Miller published that Shame is one of the most basic of human responses and biggest problems for people to resolve, and yet shame has been virtually ignored in psychiatry. We teach people to deal with anger, love, aggression, lust, loss, sexuality, fear, excitement, but rarely if ever Shame. We are ashamed to discuss our feelings of shame. The exception to this has been a Child Developmental Specialist: John Bradshaw, who describes that the very First thing we learn is a sense of Trust greater than Distrust. Next after Trust, we learn Shame, but there is Healthy Shame and there can be TOXIC Shame. Healthy Shame is learning control to use the Potty instead of a diaper, and learning the word No. We have a need for structure and for discipling. Toxic Shame is a shame at feeling feelings, a shame at needing perceived as being needy, or wanting what we can never possess. When we lose touch with reality, lose touch with what we need, when we lose touch with what we want,. or what we feel, we lose touch with our humanity. Every form of Addiction comes back to this toxicity at the core of our being. A child is a precious gift of God, filled with grace and spontaneity. Addiction is when we no longer know what we feel, what we need, what we want so we satiate our needs and wants and feelings with what anesthetizes. Shame is a sickness of the soul....the humiliated one feels naked, defeated, alienated, lacking in dignity and worth. The shamed avert their eyes and bite their lip, and when the shame is especially exercised, shame disables the ability to think, to speak and to react. The point of shame is to crush the humanity of the other, forcing their submission to your will. Mark's Gospel of Jesus is personal and intimate regarding shame, far more than the Book of Samuel, and as such: painful. This is not about a Nation and leadership, but about family, one's own family. To grasp the Gospel of Mark, we need a perspective different from any other author. According to Mark, the domain of the Devil is NICENESS. If everyone just got along, if no one questioned, no one doubted, the rulers of this world would be in absolute control. To Culture, to Empire, to Church, to Community, to Family being nice and going along translates as dominance. According to the Gospel of Mark, Jesus ripped open the heavens and unleashed powers that were not control-able. Shame is a unique and dangerous experience, because shame is not rational. You cannot think your way out of shame. Most often, when embarrassed, when shamed we look for others to project our shame onto. None of us like feeling anxiety, worry, apprehension, guilt, shame. We find ways to bind our anxiety. Most often these begin privately, with only our knowing a problem, an indiscretion, a sin. We have difficulty accepting our responsibility and ownership of what we have done. We try to convince others of our righteousness and the sin of others. But the privacy of this knowledge, manifests what has been hidden as a Secret. Secrets gain power by their being secret, by being in the shadows and not being known by others. Secrets suck everything from our lives, until all we seem able to do is to protect the secret. The irony is that as soon as what is secret is brought into the light, the secret loses its power. Yet instead of making the secret open and transparent, we bind the anxiety to other persons. While Jesus' family felt shame, they attempted to shame him by describing him as possessed by Beelzebub. Shame is the means of undermining the powerful. Shame destroys political campaigns. Shame destroys marriages. Shame puts down the other's sense of self and makes of them only what we tell them they are. Strangely, the means of coping with shame also requires that we think outside ourself. Here I want to use three examples, one from Literature, one from Counseling, and one from Scripture. The year was 1871, roughly when this Sanctuary was first built, Napoleon Bonaparte was Emperor and France was in the midst of revolution. Babette Hersant was a wife and mother and the chef of one of the finest restaurants in Paris. Suddenly, Babbette's husband and child were murdered, and she needed to flee. Babette found herself on the peninsula of Jutland, north of Denmark, North of Germany, with the North Sea to the West and the Baltic Sea to the East. Searching for work and housing she found a tiny church in the community run by two sisters after their father, the founder, had died. All of their faith was about denial of self, denial of pleasure. The whole community wore black. Their food was intentionally bland. Following the death of their pastor, they had become a people without hope. Babette became the servant of the Sisters of Denial. Babette had one remaining relative, who weekly would play the lottery in Babette's name. Suddenly one day, a letter came in the post, for Babette. Inside was a letter of verification from an attorney, and a check for $10,000 that she had won the lottery. Babette was thankful to be alive, to have found a home and work. So she decided to create for the whole village the most elaborate feast anyone had ever seen. Two boats arrived, with fine crystal and china, and all manner of different exotic foods. When the appointed time came, everyone in the village was there, dressed in black, looking somber, saying nothing to anyone. But as they ate, their senses began to respond with pleasure, with variety, with tastes and textures they had never known. At one point, the Mayor's wife could not contain herself and belched, to which the man beside her said “Halleluia! I have been wanting to do that for an hour.” People began interacting, sharing expressions, looking one another in the eye and talking about what they enjoyed. As they finished the feast, the Village began asking Babette what she would do with her fortune. Babette responded that she had already spent it on this feast. She had withheld nothing for herself, but given it all and all her talents as a Chef, to give those who had given her a home and renewed purpose pleasure. Close your eyes and imagine a picture of yourself at any earlier time, perhaps a year ago, maybe 20, possibly as a child, a time when you were your most shamed, most humiliated, most vulnerable, when you were unclear what you wanted or needed or felt, because you were so alone. Got the image. Now, see yourself today walking into that space. Sit down beside your wounded-self. Take their hand in yours and speak in a soothing way...It is normal to Feel...It is normal to have Needs... I know what you wanted at that moment... I am here as your companion and champion... I will be here with you when ever you need. In both of our readings this morning, God and Jesus reframe who they are to those around them. Instead of the Period of Judges the People of God will now have a Monarchy and yet God will continue to be God. When rejected and embarrassed by his brothers and family, Jesus claims all those he loves as family. Binding the Strong Man, is about how we chose to deal with Shame... Whether we are shamed by shaming, Whether we shame others for our embarrassment, or if we can act in grace for others as an act of reclaiming them differently in faith.