The Rev. Joseph Farnes
All Saints, Boise
Advent 2B
December 10, 2023
Last week, we used our eyes in the sermon. We looked at an icon of Jesus, and we meditated on a verse from a psalm: “Show us the light of your countenance, O Lord, and we shall be saved.” We tend to be very visual people. Vision is a powerful sense. We can see far away (might need glasses, or binoculars, or a telescope to do it). We can see colors and patterns. Vision is wondrous.
And so are our other senses. Our senses of sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch, even more interior senses like balance and movement. The way our physical bodies interact with the world around us and how our bodies move. We human beings, like other animals, have wondrous senses.
And we recognize what treasures they are most poignantly when those senses diminish. When our vision gets weaker, and our glasses or surgeries can only do so much. When our sense of hearing fades, and hearing aids go on the fritz. When our sense of smell diminishes and we can’t smell the wonders of flowers or the rain. When our sense of taste departs, and we cannot taste the flavors of our favorite foods anymore. When our bodies feel weaker and more unsteady and unbalanced. We feel our bodies. We’re not brains floating around with sensory input like robots – we recognize that we are our bodies, too.
We are brains, bodies, senses, thoughts, dreams, spirits, souls. Bodies can fall apart, but they are still good. Their goodness is not based on what they can do; our bodies are good because they simply are.
This might seem strange to hear. A lot of Christian theology throughout the ages has been negative about the body. Some spiritual authorities imagined that we’re all called to be like John the Baptist – fasting, locusts, honey, camel’s hair, treating our bodies harshly. The body was, at best, something tolerated, but it had to be kept in its place, and the body was, at worst, a thing that led us to temptation with its desires and needs. The hope was that in heaven, poof, we’d have something better, the fully improved model of the human body that was perfect.
But something seems off to me about that. When I was Mormon, I recall someone saying that in heaven we’d get new bodies that were perfect, and that would be like in our late 20s, early 30s. Which year did I have the perfect body, again? Or is it going to be like an alternate universe where I was in perfect shape? (And what does perfect shape mean, anyway?)
Because my body is also part of me. I’m teddy bear shaped! And what age was perfect? I was adorable as a kid, and who knows what awesomeness will be revealed as I get older!
And theologians who have disabilities have asked that same question. One such theologian, Amy Kenny, wrote an incisive, prophetic book called “My Body Is Not A Prayer Request,” that challenges how we talk about our bodies. Amy Kenny is disabled – her bodily conditions make walking difficult, so she uses canes and sometimes a wheelchair to help her get around. She gives her canes names, and her wheelchair has a personality. She recalls how many folks have said they’re praying for her, praying for a miracle so she could walk again, how she won’t need her canes or wheelchair in heaven. They acted as if her body was a burden, an eyesore, something to be ashamed of for how it works. It was their discomfort, not hers. They couldn’t imagine a heaven that included a woman in a wheelchair. She would be an imperfection in a perfect heaven.
And so Amy Kenny pointed out that, for as “incarnational” as Christians like to be, they sure don’t like the implications of the incarnation. One of the core Christian claims is that Jesus is fully divine and fully human – he hungered, he thirsted, and baby Jesus had to be changed and potty trained. And she then point out: didn’t Jesus have his crucifixion wounds in the resurrection?
The problem for us Christians is that sometimes we really lack imagination. We don’t imagine big enough. We can’t imagine a heaven that has a woman in a wheelchair. If God’s heaven is limited by what we humans think is perfect, then I do not think any of us could ever make it in.
What do we hear in Isaiah? “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
The uneven ground shall become level? Seems like God imagines something accessible for all people, drawing all of creation together with him. And that tender image of God – He “will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep.” God is strong enough to care for everyone, and God’s imagination is much bigger than ours.
And I’m glad that God is strong enough to care for everyone, and that God’s imagination is bigger than ours. I’m glad that God envisions a future of welcome, I’m glad that God sends us out to share this good news. I’m glad that the limitations we imagine are not the last word – that a new heavens and a new earth are possible, one that doesn’t depend upon some human description of “perfect”. That gives me hope.
It gives me hope to know that God makes a way. God sends John the Baptist to herald the work of Jesus Christ, who is our way, our truth, our life. It gives me hope to faithfully do the little things that make for justice and compassion to help me live out the Psalm: “I will listen to what the Lord God is saying, for he is speaking peace to his faithful people and to those who turn their hearts to him. … Mercy and truth have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other. Truth shall spring up from the earth, and righteousness shall look down from heaven.” It gives me hope to trust that God will make all things new. It gives me hope to believe that all creatures are beloved by God who created them.
Hope is not a far-off thing, hope is not a feeling or a thought, friends. Hope is rooted in our bodies, what we do. Hope is every morning getting up when you do not know what the day will bring to your body, mind, or spirit. Hope is every act of compassion we offer ourselves and one another. Hope is made flesh in Jesus, and hope is given a body in you, too. Make hope come alive in whatever you do. Amen.