And here is Proper 18 Year B.

Here are the readings. Here they are!

Just as an editorial note, this is a very September 11th sermon. Our parish is located just a few blocks from the Brooklyn Bridge, and the doors of the church were opened that day to those who needed a place to go. And A year ago we had hosted a major event for the 10th Anniversary.

         Each time I began re-reading the texts for today I encountered the prophet Isaiah saying “Say to those with a fearful heart.” This began to feel like a bit of a commission. This suggested to me that we need to keep in mind those among us who are afraid. I began to examine what the fearful heart might mean to each of us, especially in light of the 11th anniversary of the September 11th attacks, which made us all people of a fearful heart. That day, those moments, I suspect the touched and changed each of us in some subtle and some significant ways. We all have our particular stories of what we saw, the pain we felt, what was lost, and the lingering effects that we each still contemplate. But we also have community stories. Here at St. Ann and the Holy Trinity there is the story about how these church doors made a difference by being open providing a place for the weary, the broken, the fearful and those who just needed a place where they could be with God. We also have the story of the moving "Sanctuary Still" memorial last year which brought many people into our church to observe the 10th anniversary of the attacks. But we also have more national and global stories, we may have heard them being told in the political conventions in the last few weeks. Our nation's stories which begin on September 11th, have various sorts of endings having something to do with the Freedom Tower and something to do with the capture and killing of Osama Bin Laden in Abad Abad, Pakistan last year.

            My personal story about September 11th is not one I really understood for a long time. I had just started college, and the September 11th attacks took place during my first week of classes my freshman year. As an 18 year old, away from home, attempting to be an adult, trying to take seriously the education that her parent's had emphasized her whole life, I was kind of confused by the whole thing. There is also little doubt that as a teen ager I was significantly self-centered, and couldn't yet see that whole picture to understand what was happening to us as a nation. I thought about what was happening to me as a new yorker, and maybe me as a new college student. but I couldn't yet see that big image. As I got older I found myself reflecting on the ways in which September 11th had shaped me and my classmates, what had beginning our time as adults under a cloud of fear and anxiety done to us all? Not to be flip, but part of that answer is very easy, it made us all a little anxious. But I think another part of that answer is that it took us all a little while to be willing to see the bigger national picture, to understand the relationship of our feelings to those of our communities, the nation and the world. But I think as a whole my particular generation is rather familiar with the language of anxiety, we close to the feelings of a fearful heart.

            But what's wrong with a fearful heart? There is a level on which it is appropriate. It's not wrong to be nervous about terrorism;it's not strange to feel lingering uncertainty. I suppose then my question is at what point does fear, anxiety and uncertainty become problematic? The passage from Isaiah is one of many many bible passages that tell us not to be afraid. This makes me ask what is the problem with fear from a biblical perspective?

            Well, I suppose the first sort of answer to this is that we understand that anxiety is unhealthy for the human body. On a physical level it leads to producing cortisol which is related to stress. Cortisol along with an excess of adrenaline when our hearts are really racing can have long term effects on the body. And anxiety can lead to sleepless nights and sometimes sever stomach pain.  And on a less physical level different sorts of anxiety have the effect of prevention, with social anxiety it might mean that you are unable to make lasting, meaningful connections with people. Sometimes anxiety in the workplace can manifest itself in an inability to produce work, someone might be so scared that there work will not be perfect that it is nearly impossible for them to begin working. Anxiety that relates only to terrorism might lead to an inability to travel or  visit certain places. But I suspect each of us is at least a little familiar with some aspects of anxiety if not in ourselves then we have seen it in our family or our friends. I think the problematic aspects of anxiety are the ways in which it prevents a person from being, doing, or relating. If we understand the way in which God functions- as a force for good, for justice, for love, for equality. God is an entity that is three parts, the part that creates, the part that came down and became human and died for us reminding us of God's commitment and love, and the part which stays with us inspiring us towards greater unity with one another and with God. The problem then with anxiety is that it gets in the way of us being able to be a part of the unity of God. Anxiety can make it difficult even to have unity with in one's self, let alone others or God. There is a certain distance from self, others and God that exists where there is anxiety.

            What then cures our anxiety? What soothes our swiftly beating heart? I suppose a number of things. For some anti-anxiety medication might do the trick, for others some talk therapy—but I think the thing we are really looking for as individuals and as a people, a community is some healing. What an opportune time to have in our Gospel reading today some stories of Jesus as a healer. I want to turn to them to look for ways in which we might calm our hearts, and might, more largely heal our communities.

            This passage from Mark has two healings in it and they are quite different. First of all the types of things the people need healed are different. There is a girl with a demon inside her, and a man who is deaf and has a speech impediment. Lets look first at the healing of the man. Jesus takes the man away from the crowd and does a complicated seeming ritual. It involves his fingers in the ears, his hands on someone else's tongue, spitting, saying words, looking up towards heaven. But at the end of this ordeal the man can speak clearly and hear. The very physical involvement of Jesus with this man's body illustrates the depth of Jesus' love for humanity. Christian ethicist Traci West writes that Jesus' healing ministry shows not just Jesus' love for humanity but his love for particular bodies. By extension we also see the way that Jesus loves each of us in particular. The fact that these two healings right next to each other I'm our text, but done so differently shows the way that Jesus understood our particularity and our individuality. In church I think we emphasize our shared community and identity as the body of christ in the world but we should remember too that God loves our particular selves and bodies too.

            The other healing in the gospel text is less of a touching/feeling /spitting ritual- but in some ways it is more complicated. First of all the sick person is not even there! And we  don’t really know what the demon is or what it is doing. Mark does give a description of what type of people they are. The mother is a syrophonetian woman. While this means very little to us, I think what we can understand is that she is an outsider. She is not a Jew. She is not one of Jesus' followers. She is a gentile. Even as such she understands who Jesus is and what he might be able to do. But Jesus seems unwilling. Some people think of this passage as a test. That Jesus is testing this woman to see if what she says is right, and then he will heal her daughter. But I don't think that is the correct interpretation. I think they are having an argument, or maybe a discussion and that the woman manages to convince Jesus that she is right. First of all, the fact that Jesus seems unwilling to heal the daughter because they are of syrophoenician origin seems to contradict many of the things we would like to believe about Jesus. I think we would like to think that he is always on the side of the outsider. However, even though he doesn't do as she asks right away, Jesus is willing to have a conversation. But more than that, and excitingly for us, Jesus is also able to have his mind changed. What I find most healing in this story is not the way that Jesus is open to others outside his fold, rather I find it healing that Jesus engages in conversation and argument. And he can be convinced of things. There is an invitation for those of us who need some kind of healing, some kind of soothing to engage in conversation with God. Just as the woman receives the healing of her daughter through conversation with Jesus, so too might we find that even talking, praying about our anxiety, that simple action alone, we might find that we are feeling less anxious. With anxiety, the action of doing, the action of asking to be relieved can be a great help. This story invites us to ask for that feeling of wholeness, to ask that our demons of anxiety and worry be cast out, to ask to be comforted.

            I find this idea of God, this idea of Jesus so healing. It is an understanding of God that is not far away and merely coming down to us for judgement or vengeance, instead it is a God who engages in conversation and is able to be convinced of things. this is what makes our holy scriptures a living Scripture, still speaking to us by the influence of the Holy Spirit. Today it speaks to us about anxiety and worry, especially in the time when we remember the events of September 11th, and our idea of God asks us to talk about it, and in that conversation to ask for God's healing love.