THE CHURCH OF CAIAPHAS
Luke 15:1-7, John 11:45-53
[Since spoken communication differs from written, some of the grammar and syntax of this transcript may seem awkward in written form. To keep integrity with the spirit of the original delivery, the transcript seeks to stay close to the exact words spoken.]
Today we're going to focus on chapter 15 of Luke's gospel. Many people who have commented on this chapter have called it, "the gospel of the gospel." Many have said that this is, perhaps, the essence of the gospel--the purest kernel of the gospel's message. And it's a chapter--an entire chapter--that is about lost things: a lost sheep; a lost coin; and a lost person, in the form of a son--a story, perhaps we're all familiar withÖthe story of the Prodigal Son. The context of all these stories in Luke 15 has to do with Jesus' response to this scandal that he is creating among the respectable people in his society: the scribes and Pharisees. Because Jesus himself is hanging out with lost people--the tax collectors and sinners and prostitutes.
And the message in all these stories in chapter 15 of Luke's gospel, especially the parable that we're going to be focusing on today, has to do with a rather radical counter-intuitive, counter-cultural theological idea. Radical for that time, and I think, for ours. Namely the notion that God is more concerned with the lost than with those who think they are in the right place. There's a real kicker in this story. And I love parables because, you know, they're really open to interpretation. Jesus asks the question--and I think there's some real irony in asking it--he says, "Which of you wouldn't leave the 99 sheep in the wilderness? He literally asks that: "Which of you would not leave the majority in the desert to go after just one?" And I would venture to say that most everyone would say, "Not me." It's not rational to put at risk 99 sheep to go after just one who's lost. Most people would write that one off.
These are stories about the paradoxical joy of the "found lost"--the idea that the greatest joy in life can be experienced when what was lost--whether it's a person, or a sheep, or a coin--is found. And that joy is not just for the found person, but for everybody. To me, I think that's what the story is about.
I want to talk about this story--the parable of the lost sheep--in the context of the church. And the question I want to ask us, and in some ways challenge us with, is this: What kind of church are we? And what kind of church do we wish to be? Are we going to be the kind of church that seeks, like the good shepherd, the lost? Or are we the church of Caiaphas, willing to write off and sacrifice the one in favor of the 99? That's what we're going to talk about today. And in talking about that stuff, I want to focus our attention on one particular group of people in our society, hanging out, one might say, at that same margin where Jesus was hanging out with the outcasts of his day. Namely, those suffering with or affected by mental illness. Today is the final Sunday in Mental Illness Awareness Month, and we're going to focus attention on an issue that rarely gets much attention at all, in church or outside of church. Again...the issue of mental illness. It's important that we do that because there are people in this community, in this church community, as well as people outside the walls of this church, who are suffering in silence and who need our support. But the reason that they're often suffering in silence is this: the terrible stigma our society projects onto people dealing with mental illness.
Several weeks ago I convened a group at the manse, the house where we live, around a very simple question. The question was, "How can we as a church community more effectively minister to people dealing with issues of mental illness?" And we had a very fruitful conversation. But number one on the agenda, in response to that question, was this: that the most important thing we can do as a church community is talk about how to de-stigmatize mental illness. That seemed to be the most important thing we can do. And to talk about how misunderstood it is by our larger society. Today's the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, when we remember especially those who have died, and sacrificed their lives in defense of our country. But we also remember those who are now serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. And people who come back from those conflicts with a severed limb, or other injury that's physical, we well know how to deal with that as a country. We celebrate people who overcome injuries like that. I read a story the other day in the New York Times about a sprinter who had lost a leg in Iraq, and who was trying out for the Olympics with a prosthetic leg. But the tragedy is that those people coming back from these wars who have broken spirits and psyches, often come back with injuries that are not well understood by our culture. Many of them who do not identify and deal with the mental injuries they've sustained will self-medicate with alcohol or drugs. Some of them will commit suicide--many of them already have. It makes me sad that we live in that kind of society.
The stigma around mental illness involves how often we mistake mental illness, or it's close cousin addiction--addiction to alcohol or drugs or really anything--how we mistake those things for moral failure. During our conversation at the manse, which was lead by our parish associate Tom Baker, Tom pointed out that we don't accuse the diabetic of moral failure for not having the courage to produce insulin. And yet we look at those suffering from depression, or alcoholism, or bipolar disorder, or schizophrenia and think that somehow, if they could just try hard enough, they should be able to overcome it. Or perhaps we think of them as bad seeds, or as moral lepers. So many of the people suffering with mental illness, and their families, stay in the closet, ashamed to admit that they are struggling, and suffering.
We need to be the kind of community where' it's OK to talk about such things.
I guess I should take the opportunity to come out the closet myself, in a way. Although I think I might have spoken about this in a previous sermon, I want to lift up the fact and share the fact that my father, who was a Presbyterian minister, at one point in his career--for ten years--served a church in Elkhart, IN of 1,000 members. My father had bipolar disorder. And he never let anyone know that until the end of his ministry in Elkhart, when he had an episode for which he had to be hospitalized for two weeks. The church was very loving and understanding of him, and gave him a sabbatical, after which my dad completed 17 more years of fruitful ministry. And no one would ever look at him and say, "There's a bipolar person."
People don't realize that people with mental illness are just like folk with cancer, or liver disease, or glaucoma. Their illness is treatable, and they often recover, and lead healthy and fruitful lives. And the point is that whatever life they lead, however functional or fruitful we might define theirs to be, we need to love them as they are, and not as how we wish them to be. Not trying to put them in our conveniently labeled cultural box called "normal."
I don't know if you caught it, but a couple of weeks ago, actually I think exactly two weeks ago, in the New York Times, there was an article about people with mental illness coming out of the closet. It was about how such people are starting to talk about their mental illness in a way similar to those who are gay, how they treated their being gay several decades ago: by being open about it, owning that part of who they are. They called it "Mad Pride." They spoke of a desire that people not see their supposed illness necessarily as a deficit, but as a dangerous gift that requires attention, care, and vigilance to maintain. One bipolar man, praising the gift of biochemical medication to manage his condition, is cited in the article as saying, "I take drugs to control my superpowers."
I think also that we need to be careful in how we speak of people with mental illness. Because in a way it's kind of dangerous, I think to use this parable in talking about mental illness. The danger is that we put them in the category of "the lost people," and ourselves in the category of people where we should be--while we pity them from the comfortable 99, and they're in the minority. If you've seen the movie Michael Clayton--it's a wonderful movie in many ways--it made me think a great deal...you'll know what I'm talking about. It will bend your perspective about who is ill and who is not. Is it our society that's ill, perhaps, instead of those it labels and marginalizes?
Terry Gross, in an interview on NPR several years ago on "Fresh Air," interviewed a woman who was heading an organization for people who have become disfigured--burned, or for whatever reason look different from the majority. And at one point, Terry Gross asked this woman, "Do you ever want to be beautiful?" And the woman, without skipping a beat, responded, "What do you mean? I am beautiful." We need to be careful that our judgment about those who are different doesn't place them in some lesser category because they are different.
I want to go back, though, to my main point, as I conclude today. As I said, this sermon is about the church--about the people gathered here, whichever camp you might place yourself in: the comfortable 99, or the one who is different. It's about us. Because this story about the lost sheep is about how God sees the one--the one who's different. And by extension, it's about how we ought to see that one. I can't stress that enough. This story that's not just about the one--it's about us all.
My colleague Elizabeth Vandegrift, who is pastor of the church in Ewing, told a story--I share a Bible study with her once a week and a group of clergy colleagues--and she told this story about the church she served before coming to Ewing. It's a church that broadcasts all the sermons on the radio. And she said every time she preached, she'd get a call from this man who would say, "You know, you need to tell me I'm a sinner, so I can be forgiven." And she said, "Well why don't you come to church, and we'll talk about it?" He said, "I can't come to church. I'm mentally ill, and I'm afraid to." And so every time she preached, this man would call up and he would say, "You need to tell me I'm a sinner so I can be forgiven." And she'd say, "Well, come to church. I'd like to meet you." And lo and behold, several months later, this man sat in the back of the church and introduced himself as Joe, the man who was calling after her sermons. And that was the only time he came. He could only muster the courage to come once. But she said that after she left the church and came back to visit, there was Joe, a member of the church. And people spoke about Joe, and how much they had learned from him. And Joe spoke to her and said, "You know what? Here I feel like a human being. Here I know I'm forgiven. I'm a sinner, and that I'm forgiven, because these people love me. Like Jesus loves me." He found a place there. And Joe's presence, and the love he received, was not just for Joe, but for the whole community.
St. Augustine wrote of the church that its essential character is not that of a sanatorium for the saints, but a hospital for the sick. So the question for us today is: what kind of church are we? Are we the church of Caiaphas, or the church of the good shepherd?
Now what do I mean by the church of Caiaphas? Did you hear the words of that second gospel lesson? This is the ethic of Caiaphas, who says, "Isn't it better that we get rid of one troublemaker to keep the 99 comfortable? Is it not better that one man should die than the whole nation perish?" You know, that is the ethic of the world. That is the ethic of our culture. But are we called to be different, as a church of the good shepherd? Are we a church--are we a place where no one is written off, no matter how weird? No matter how different? No matter how "other"? Are we called to apply our resources toward taking care of the one, whose needs are outside the majority's? Are we the church where everyone has a place--and where we spend the energy to make sure everyone is included? And so here are some more specific questions. And I'm sure we could think of many others, but I commend them to us:
Sometimes I think we show the culture of our church in even very simple ways, such as how we are at coffee hour. So here's a question. When you're at coffee hour, do you find yourself hanging out with the 99, the people that you know and are comfortable with? Or do you notice the one who's not talking to anybody, and who perhaps wants someone to chat with.
What kind of congregation are we?
It's strange that at this point in my ministry this parable--the parable of the one and the 99, seems so important. And I feel like it's just now that I'm beginning to understand it. That it's a story not just about the one who's found; it's not just for the sake of that one that Jesus tells this story. It's for the sake of the 99. Or maybe it's better to put it this way: it's for the sake of the 100.
"For behold I have come to seek and to save the lost." I'm here because I'm a found lost one. Someone found me--Jeff Vamos, forgiven sinner--and turned me into a seeker; a finder.
So, how about you?
Amen.
May 25 , 2008
The Reverend Jeffrey A. Vamos
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