I Corinthians 12.12-26
I love how Eugene Peterson in The Message translates verses 25-26, “The way God designed our bodies is a model for understanding our lives together as a church: every part dependent on every other part, the parts we mention and the parts we don’t, the parts we see and the parts we don’t (the parts we accept and the parts we don’t, the parts we like and the parts we don’t, the parts we celebrate and affirm and the parts we don’t). If one part hurts, every other part is involved in the hurt, and is involved in the healing. If one part flourishes, every other part enters into the exuberance.”
If one part hurts, every other part hurts and is involved in the healing.
If one hurts, every one hurts and is involved in the healing. What a different vision for the world than the one we live in where it is all about proving your worth, showing others how strong and successful you are, competing against each other, winning, not showing any weakness, looking after yourself. Here we have a vision of the world, not as hierarchy, where some are on top and others at the bottom, where some are acceptable and others aren’t…here we have a vision of community where everyone belongs…everyone has a place…everyone is celebrated and honored and affirmed…a vision where no one needs to defend him or herself because it is vision where we are all broken – and we are all part of each other’s healing . . . a vision where the weak and vulnerable are not discarded or judged but part of the whole.
One of my favorite novels is written by Kent Haruf called “Plainsong”.
It’s about life in a small Colorado town. It’s a simple story about ordinary people, to whom ordinary things happen, and who, on occasion, show they are capable of extending extraordinary grace to others.
The story is about a father and two sons; their mother struggling with depression;
A school teacher caring for her aging and increasingly difficult father who has dementia;
A 17 year-old girl, pregnant and alone;
And two elderly brothers, bachelors, cattle ranchers who are set in their ways and lead relatively closed lives on a ranch 17 miles south of the small town of Holt, Colorado.
Victoria, the 17 year-old, has been kicked out of the house by her mother because of her pregnancy.
Maggie Jones, the school teacher, has taken her in, but Maggie’s father with dementia is making the situation impossible.
So, one day, Maggie drives 17 miles south of Holt to the ranch of the two elderly brothers, Raymond and Harold McPheron. The brothers are on a tractor, returning to the house. They had been feeding cattle out in winter pasture.
Maggie stepped away from the barn and stood waiting for them. They moved heavily in their winter overalls.
Let me share with you how the conversation went.
“You’re going to freeze yourself standing there,” Harold said. “You better get out of the wind. Are you lost?”
“Probably,” Maggie Jones said as she laughed. “But I wanted to talk to you both.”
“Uh oh. I don’t like the sound of that,” Harold said.
Maggie said, “Don’t tell me I scared you already.”
“Why heck,” Harold said, “Just like everybody else. You probably want something.”
“I do,” she said.
The three of them enter the modest bachelor farmhouse with stacks of magazines and greasy pieces of farm machinery on all the furniture.
“I came here to ask you a favor,” Maggie said to them.
“That so?” Harold said, “What is it?”
“There’s a girl I know who needs some help,” Maggie said “She’s a good girl but she’s gotten into some trouble. I think you might be able to help her. I would ask you to consider it and let me know.”
“What’s wrong with her?” Harold asked. “She need a donation of money?”
“No, she needs a lot more than that.”
“What sort of trouble is she in?” Raymond asked.
“She’s 17. She’s four months pregnant and she doesn’t have a husband.”
“Well, yeah,” Harold said, “I reckon that could amount to trouble.”
Maggie explains that the girl’s father abandoned the family years ago. Her mother won’t have her in the house because she’s gotten pregnant. The father of her child doesn’t want anything to do with her.
“All right then,” Harold said, “You got our attention. You say you don’t want money. What do you want?”
She sipped her coffee, looked at the two old brothers, “I want something improbable,” she said, “That’s what I want. I want you to think about taking this girl in, of letting her live with you…caring for her.”
They just stared at her.
Finally, Harold said, “You’re fooling.”
“No,” Maggie said, “I’m not fooling.”
They were dumbfounded. They looked at her as if she might be dangerous.
“Oh, I know it sounds crazy,” she said, “I suppose it is crazy. But the girl needs somebody; she needs a home for these months. And you,” she smiled at them, “You old coots need somebody too…somebody or something besides an old red cow to care about and worry over. Look at you both. You’re going to die some day without ever having enough trouble in your life. Not the right kind of trouble anyway. This is your chance!”
After a long silence, Harold says, “Let’s get back to the money part. Money would be a lot easier.”
“Yes,” she laughed. “It would. But not nearly as much fun.”
Maggie asks them to think about it and leaves.
The brothers return to work, stunned into silence by such a proposal.
I love that line, “You’re going to die some day without ever having enough trouble in your life…the right kind of trouble anyway. This is your chance.”
Do you have enough trouble in your life? The right kind of trouble? Having the right kind of trouble is good, even necessary for your soul. Jesus was always getting into trouble – breaking the rules, hanging out with the wrong people, religious folks in his day thought he was dangerous – he preferred the company of the unwanted, the broken, the lost.
Paul expresses a certain kind of trouble where you can’t turn your back on those who hurt – their hurt is your hurt and somehow your own healing is wrapped up in theirs.
A great example of some one who understood the grace of inviting the right kind of trouble in your life is Jean Vanier.
In 1964, Jean Vanier, the son of a former Governor General of Canada, was teaching philosophy at The University of Toronto when he visited the Chaplain of an institution for cognitively and physically challenged people.
That visit was a turning point in Jean Vanier’s life and it became clear to him that God was calling him to something new. God was inviting the right kind of trouble in his life.
Soon after, he invited two cognitively and physically challenged men from this institution to come and live with him. In time, others joined them, until the community grew to over 400 people. He called the community L’Arche, which is French for The Ark and now there are over 140 L’Arche communities across the world..
Vanier’s goal was simple : create a community where people with and without disability could belong, celebrate and affirm one another’s value and gifts and make the world a less harsh and friendlier place.
Vanier said we tend to ask the wrong theological question. When a person is born with a disability or a person is suffering from cancer or a person is suffering in some way, we often ask “Why?” “Why would God allow such things?” to which there is never a satisfactory answer. A better theological question to ask is, “How can we live together as a community with such grace that every person, in spite of their frailties and brokenness, abilities and disabilities, has a place, belongs, is valued and can experience a fullness of life?” For Vanier to love is to show someone their value and worth.
Vanier said, “In the midst of a harsh, violent, and judgmental world, God invites us to create new places of belonging, places of grace and kindness, places where no one needs to defend himself or herself, places where each is loved and accepted, where the beauty of each person is sought and affirmed.”
Jean Vanier welcomed these two men with significant physical and cognitive challenges to live with him. He wrote, “We began to live together. I did the cooking, so we didn’t eat very well. We did everything together. We worked in the garden together. We fought together. We prayed together. We forgave each other.
I began this journey by thinking that I could do good for them, but then as the days and then the months moved on I began to discover, little by little, what they were doing for me – transforming me, changing me, teaching me. I was the one being healed…being made more whole. I began to realize love isn’t something you do for some one. It is entering into a covenant where you accept me as I am and I accept you as you are, where we promise to accept each other with all that is fragile, all that is broken, all that is beautiful, and we participate together in each other’s healing.
Where did you find Christ? He was always present with the poor, the broken, the lost, the hurting, the unwanted – Vanier said, “I realized Christ is hidden in our mutual weakness and vulnerability.”
Barbara Brown Taylor says the hardest spiritual work in the world is to welcome and see the presence of God in each person – to encounter another human being not as some one you can use, change, convert, fix, help, save, enroll, convince, or control, but simply as some one, just like you, whose heart is the same as yours crying out for love and a sense of belonging, and who can spring you from the prison of yourself, if you will allow it.
Thomas Merton said, “Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. That is not our business and, in fact, it is nobody’s business. What we are asked to do is to love, and this love itself will render both ourselves and our neighbors worthy.”
Do you remember the two brothers? When the sun had gone down in the late afternoon, the brothers Raymond and Harold did talk.
“All right,” Harold said, “I know what I think. What do you think we should do about her?”
“We take her in,” Raymond said, “After all, maybe she wouldn’t be as much trouble.”
“I’m not talking about that yet,” Harold said. He looked out into the gathering darkness.
“I’m talking about, why heck, look at us. Old men alone. A couple of old bachelors out here in the country 17 miles from the closest town which don’t amount to much, even when you get there. Think of us. Set in all our ways. How are you going to change now at this age of life?”
“I don’t know,” Raymond said, “But I’m going to. That’s what I know.”
“And what do you mean?” asked Harold, “How come she wouldn’t be no trouble?”
“I never said she wouldn’t be no trouble. I said maybe she wouldn’t be as much trouble.”
“You ever had a girl living with you before?” Harold asked.
“You know I ain’t,” Raymond said.
“Well, I ain’t either. But let me tell you. A girl is different. They want things. They need things on a regular schedule. Why, girls, they got ideas in their heads you and me can’t even imagine. And, darn it, there’s the baby, too. What do you know about babies?”
“Nothing. I don’t even know the first thing about ‘em,” Raymond said.
“Well, then, “ said Harold.
“But, I don’t have to know about any babies, yet,” Raymond said, “Maybe I’ll have time to learn Now you going in on this with me or not? Cuz I’m gonna do it.”
Harold turned toward him. The light was gone in the sky and he couldn’t make out the features of his brother’s face. There was only this dark familiar figure against the faded horizon.
“All right, “he said, “ I will. I’ll agree. I shouldn’t, but I will. But I’m going to tell you this one thing first.”
‘What is it?”
‘You’re getting darn stubborn and hard to live with. That’s all I’ll say. Raymond, you’re my brother. But you’re getting flat ornery and difficult to abide. And I’ll say one thing more.”
“What Harold?”
“This ain’t going to be no Sunday School picnic.”
“No it ain’t, “ Raymond said, “But I don’t recall you ever attending Sunday School either.”
One hurts…every one hurts, and every one is part of the healing.
“You don’t ever want to die some day without ever having enough trouble in your life, the right kind of trouble…so open your heart, open your heart to God’s Grace, this is your chance!
