Pentecost 14, Proper 16C
God who made the world; Christ who bore the cross; Spirit
who lifts us higher; help us shoulder our burdens. Amen.
One of the observations I’ve had from time to time about my
experience of preaching is, that it is sometimes hard for me to preach to
congregations who aren’t conversant in the music of the Indigo Girls. And though they do have a following, their
music doesn’t make them the kind of “household name” that typically works best
as sermon illustrations.
So, even if you haven’t heard of the Indigo Girls and you
don’t know anything of their music, I hope you’ll indulge me for a moment as I
tell you about them.
The group is made up of two singer/songwriters, Amy Ray and Emily Saliers. One of the reasons that their music has spoken to me for so many years is that it tends to have a very strong social justice edge. In their songs, they address issues like equal rights and addiction and volunteerism and poverty. Though they’re not explicitly religious, there are certainly aspects of their songs that speak to my own understanding of religion and spirituality, and what it means to represent Christ to the world.
As I was reading the gospel lesson this week, one song in
particular kept rolling through my mind: “the girl with the weight of the world
in her hands”. The song speaks of this
unnamed girl – perhaps she was someone real in their lives, or some
conflagration of women they’d known – but whoever she was, she had a familiar,
unaddressed mournfulness to her.
It’s familiar, because we’ve all encountered those
characters in our lives. Just this week,
you probably saw the young boy from Allepo, Syria. He had survived a bombing, and was sitting
alone in an ambulance, dirty and bleeding.
His image spoke to so many of us because of its mournfulness. He wasn’t crying. He wasn’t unconscious. He was simply in a state of shock, taking in
all that had happened to him. Being so
young – people say that he was probably about 5 – war and crisis were about all
that he’d known. Perhaps he wasn’t
crying because he wasn’t surprised. He
was simply taking in the tragedy once again, as if he’d come to expect it. In his own way, he was that “girl with the
weight of the world” in his hands.
I kept hearing this song in my mind this week, thinking of
that woman in the story “with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen
years.” We’re told that she was “bent
over” and “quite unable to stand” until she met Jesus, and experienced the
saving power of Christ.
How often do we feel “bent over” as though we had “the weight of the world” in our hands? And, how much more often, still, do we encounter those mournful souls in the world who might as well be bent over from shouldering the weight of the world?
The truth is, there are those in our world who more often
shoulder the weight of the world than others.
The Syrian boy that we all saw this week is only one example. But there were other examples, if we were
willing to see it.
A lot of us have been watching the Olympics, or at least
following some of its stories. At its
best, the occasion of the Olympics is a time for us to join together in
celebrating those things that are best about the human experience: teamwork,
physical achievement, multiculturalism and pluralism… And there have been instances of those things
during these Olympics, but there have also been some less shining moments. There have been times when our shortcomings
have also been on display. There have
been times when the mournfulness cast upon those “lesser” members of the global
community has been highlighted. Have you
heard the stories?
Perhaps you heard about how Gabby Douglas, a gold medal-winning,
young, African American Meanwhile, you very likely haven’t heard of
Ryan Crouser and Joe Kovaks: gold and silver medal winners who also didn’t put
their hands over their hearts as the national anthem was played. Crouser and Kovaks are white men, but they
faced no public outrage for the same action as Douglas. The only differences were their race and
gender.
Or, you probably heard about Ryan Lochte and his
teammates. They vandalized a local
business in Rio and destroyed its property, but when speaking to the press,
they made up a story about how they had been robbed at gunpoint. There has been embarrassment and outrage
about their actions in the public, but the International Olympic Committee tried
to make excuses for them. Their
spokesman said, “We have to understand that these kids came here to have fun.
Let's give these kids a break...”
In principle, I agree.
People do make mistakes, and forgiveness and redemption are a huge part
of how I believe we should be relating in the world. But it’s important to hear that call to
forgiveness and redemption in the context of our wider world: Ryan Lochte is a
32 year old white man, and we’re told that he is just a “kid” who deserves “a
break”.
But what about the story of Tamir Rice? He was a 12 year old African American boy. Trayvon Martin was 17. Michael Brown was 18. All of these young African Americans were
deemed sufficient enough of a threat to warrant lethal force, and those
decisions were later upheld by systems of authority. Just think about that – young African
Americans systematically warrant lethal force, but a 32-year-old white man who
committed actual crimes is excused as just a kid having fun.
Whatever you think about the particulars of any of these
stories, it seems pretty obvious that there are certain members of our society
on whom the “weight of the world” is more easily thrust. There are certain people among us who are much
more likely to be left with crippling spirits.
If you’re a woman, or if your skin is dark, or if you’re a child in a
war-ravaged country, or if you are attracted to people of the same gender as
yourself, or if you gender expression doesn’t conform to social expectations,
or if you’re poor… You’re more likely to
feel the weight of the world bearing down on you.
Jesus saved that woman.
Christ freed her from the crippling spirit. And we are meant to be the hands and feet of
Christ living in the world today. It’s
easy to see the crippling spirits all around us. If we look, it gets very easy to see them. But how will we free those people we find
trapped under them? How will be Christ
to the ones who are suffering? How will
we alleviate the suffering we unthinkingly perpetuate?
A lot of people will tell you that this story we read today
is about Jesus healing on the Sabbath, but in doing so, they’ll skip right over
the woman who was healed. Don’t forget
about the woman with the weight of the world in her hands. That’s where the story begins. Not with the men arguing over it, but with
the woman. That’s where Jesus first
shows up.
That’s also where we’re called to be – right in the thick of
it, easing burdens. That’s where Christ
lives, and that’s where we should live, too.
Amen.
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