February 5, 2012 Reflection by Rev. David Boyd

There is a tradition within Judaism, reflected in the prophets and wisdom teachers, that is called tikkun olam. It has become the name of the magazine and web community, Centre for Spiritual Progressives, begun by Rabbi Michael Lerner. It means healing, or mending, the world. The prophets and wisdom teachers, many of the psalms and many of the ancient stories of Judaism, speak of God as the Creator, the One who is Being of the universe. In particularities, this understanding is reflected in hospitality shown to the stranger, care of others, and welcome of the other as if that other were God in the flesh, all of which point to the universality of the God of Moses and Miriam.

Tikkun olam was embodied in Jesus of Nazareth, a Jew, and lives on in the Body of Christ today. I believe that this impetus to mend the world is what is reflected in the reading from Mark's gospel. There is another Jewish belief that by healing one life, or by saving one life, you save and heal the whole world. Jesus embodied this idea that I and thou are together one; there is no separation between I and thou, between you and me, between me and the someone on the other side of the globe. As one part of the creation suffers, so we all suffer. Jesus embodied this in his life and teachings.

One of the struggles we have in western thinking is that we want to compartmentalize things. I believe that this impetus to see our communal natures is growing again; having said that, I also believe that there is still a great deal of individualization that takes place. Health care may be an interesting case in point. In a place like Nelson, I think that the manner in which we view health care is changing. We are emphasizing the communal aspects of health care. We also know that when one of us is hurting, we all hurt in some way. We also know that our own health and recovery depends upon the love and support that we experience from others.

There was an interesting piece on the news last Wednesday night. It was about the effects of massage therapy. There have been some studies done to show that massage therapy blocks or inhibits the inflammation process. And of course, as we know, massage requires another's participation in our well-being. Knowing that we are held and supported by others is important to our well-being. It was certainly important to me when I took time off to seek wholeness in the midst of depression.

We make a common mistake when we come to the healing stories of Jesus. We think of them in individualistic terms. More often than not, the healing involved an important social dimension. In Jesus' day, disease was often seen as a spiritual problem and so people were ostracized when they were illÑmore on this next week when hear stories of leprosy in the Bible. It was thought that they had brought calamity on themselves because they had done something wrong. Because of this, the thought was that this wrong was infectious and others would be caught up in it. This is the communal nature of illness in Jesus' day, and perhaps still in ours today. In providing healing, sometimes the most important part was the restoration of the ill individual to the community, removing the stigma and the ostracization.

Whether our best friend or a family member is ill, or whether suffering happens as a result of the soccer riots in Egypt, or mining practices in Central America or Africa or here in Canada, or when suffering happens in 1st Nations communities or with indigenous peoples, we all suffer. And so we come together... to pray, to hold one another, to speak words of compassion, to heal, to advocate, to stand up, to love. Our prayer list, which includes not just those near and dear to us but also includes situations and people not so well known to us around the world, is long. And that's a celebration. As a community we embrace one another's pain and struggle and seek healing in its fullness. We seek tikkun olam.

In truly living compassion, we live the intention of the literal meaning of the Hebrew word. We take the struggle for healing and wholeness into our beings, into our wombs as women, into our guts as men, and new life is delivered. It is about new life; it is about holding and creation. It is about deep concern and seeking the common good, the common welfare, the healing of the planet.

Let me end with a prayer/poem by Janet Morley that I think gets at this idea of compassion and tikkun olam; I've shared this before, but it is deeply moving:

and you held me and there were no words
and there was no time and you held me
and there was only wanting and
being held and being filled with wanting
and I was nothing but letting go
and being held
and there were no words and there
needed to be no words
and there was no terror only stillness
and I was wanting nothing and
it was fullness and it was like aching for God
and it was touch and warmth and
darkness and no time and no words and we flowed
and I flowed and I was not empty
and I was given up to the dark and
in the darkness I was not lost
and the wanting was like fullness and I could
hardly hold it and I was held and
you were dark and warm and without time and
without words and you held me 
"And you held me", from All Desires Known by Janet Morley, Movement for the Ordination of Women, 1988, page 56.

Amen.