Ephesians 3:27-29, Matthew 8:1-4
Rev. Dr. Deborah L. Clark
September 25, 2022
Professor O’Connell was in rare form. On any day of the week, he was known for his charisma and passion. On this particular Thursday he waxed especially eloquent on the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, a leader of the Transcendentalist movement from the mid-1800‘s. Our class of college sophomores, juniors and seniors was rapt. In the 1980’s version of texting in class, my friend Andrew leaned over to my desk and wrote in the margins of my notebook. “When I grow up, I want to be a Transcendentalist.” “Me too,” I leaned over and wrote on his paper. We thought we were being ironic–at 19 and 21, we were pretty sure we were already grown up.
Andrew and I were inspired by Emerson’s vision of human possibility. By entering deeply into nature, Emerson wrote, by coming to rely on ourselves rather than someone else’s ideas or rules, we come to know the Oversoul, the Divine Spirit that connects us all. Emerson summed up his core beliefs with these words, using the language of his time: “I believe in the infinitude of the private man.” Andrew and I were ready to soar to infinitude with Emerson.
Until the next week. The final assignment in the unit was Emerson’s essay “Experience.” We were shocked by the tone of this piece. Instead of reveling in infinite possibility, Emerson despaired at the limits of our human capacity to connect with each other. He began the essay, written two years after the death of his son Waldo, with his despair that he couldn’t even feel his own grief. He went on to reflect on the narrowness of our human perception. No matter how much I may think I know someone, he wrote, I can see them only through my own eyes, never through theirs.
And then he painted a stark image of human beings as discreet spheres moving through space, touching each other only on our outermost surfaces before veering off into other directions. Barely connecting, and not for long.
I remember the picture so clearly because I was devastated by it. So was my friend Andrew. As much as we loved Emerson’s vision of infinite possibility, this image hit closer to home. It spoke to our adolescent struggles to figure out where we fit. It touched what we were beginning to understand about the human condition: our painful struggles with isolation and our sometimes desperate quest for connection and belonging.
Andrew convinced me to go with him to talk with Professor O’Connell. Andrew began the conversation: “If that’s all there is, just barely touching the surface of each other, then what’s the point? We’re trapped inside ourselves.”
I don’t remember exactly what Professor O’Connell said, but somehow he invited us to turn the image around. Instead of despairing that all we can do is touch each other, we could rejoice in our capacity to touch. Andrew wasn’t convinced. I wasn’t either, but I was intrigued.
Four decades later, under our tent at a recent Monday noontime prayer circle, I found myself describing Emerson’s essay. I’m not sure why I thought of it that day, but it’s been swirling around in my mind ever since. It swirled around again this week, as I prepared to preach the second in our series of anniversary sermons. Our series focuses on the three parts of our church’s mission statement: renewing our spirits, embracing one another with Christ’s love, engaging in caring for God’s world. This week we focus on the second part. For the last 195 years, we have been embracing one another with Christ’s love. Cups of tea and gentle conversation. Prayer shawls. Quilts. Cards. Rides—first in buggies and now in cars. Casseroles—American chop suey in decades past, now sometimes gluten- and nut-free and plant-based. Phone calls. Emails and texts, Facebook and Instagram. So many ways to show our love and Christ’s love, multiplied by 195 years.
Just as I’m tempted to wax poetic about the warmth and caring of this community, Emerson’s image of human isolation stops me short. What if we really are separate spheres bouncing around, barely touching the surface of each other’s lives? Are we deluding ourselves that we can be community, that we can embrace and be embraced by one another?
This week I re-read Emerson’s essay “Experience.” I marveled that I thought I understood it as a teenager, because I certainly don’t now. As I read, I accepted Professor O’Connell’s invitation to turn the image around–to claim our capacity to touch as a gift. I began to view Emerson’s picture through the lens of this healing story from Matthew’s gospel. All we can do, Emerson writes, is touch one another. That’s all Jesus did in this story. He reached out his hand and touched the leper. It was just a touch.
The leper knew what it was like to be utterly alone. Because of societal fears and judgments around leprosy, he was forced to live far from family and community. He was physically isolated, not allowed to touch or be touched. Jesus reached out past the fear, past the judgment, past the isolation.
Through that touch, the leper knew he was no longer alone. Through that touch, a sacred healing spirit moved from one person to the other, connecting them together, connecting them with something beyond themselves—the power of love. It was just a touch, and it was enough–enough to draw the leper out of his isolation, enough to assure him of his worth, enough to allow him to claim his wholeness.
Most of us have times in our lives when Emerson’s stark picture of human isolation rings true. There are times we harbor a secret pain we fear no one can understand. Other times we have been so hurt by how we have been misunderstood that we cannot imagine ever being known. We feel alone in a crowd, sure we are the only one feeling what we do. We despair that we can barely touch the surface of each other’s lives.
In the face of those times, our gospel story points us to the hope of our faith: our moments of connection are holy, healing, transformative. When we touch–a physical touch, a greeting, a smile, a phone call–God is at work, a sacred spirit connecting us with one another, awakening us to love.
Emerson is right. No matter how hard we try, we can never fully know one another, for we are always seeing or hearing the other person from our own perspective. Still, with God’s help, we can listen deeply, honoring one another’s stories even though our understanding is incomplete. It is true that we don’t always know how to help–but we can always let each other know we care. Sometimes, in our efforts to connect, we collide instead, bumping up against conflicting expectations. Even then, by the grace of God, we can step back, apologize, and work toward reconciliation.
Emerson is right. All our efforts to understand, to help, and to care are constrained by our human limitations. Professor O’Connell is also right: because our efforts are constrained, they matter even more. Our gospel story invites us to take these truths a step further: through our imperfect efforts to touch one another, we are part of God’s love at work. Our attempts to know one another even a little bit point us toward the One who knows us fully. Our awkward expressions of caring open us to the gift of God’s unconditional love.
It seems like a huge leap from Emerson’s image of isolated human spheres to the apostle Paul’s vision of a community where all are one. Or maybe it’s not such a leap. Paul is writing to a deeply divided community, plagued by misunderstanding and judgment. He knows first-hand how constrained our human connections can be. He also knows first-hand the power of God’s love to overcome our limitations. When Paul writes that in Christ, we are made one, he is not talking about some mystical feeling of merging into each other. He is talking about a shared conviction that makes us one. We dare to believe that God’s spirit is at work in our every effort to touch, to help, and to care. We are one because we make a choice to reach out to one another. We are one because our intention is to be part of something greater than ourselves. We are one because, with our every touch, God connects us together.
The more I think about it, the more I realize how bold we have been for the last 195 years, proclaiming that we embrace one another with Christ’s love.
Are we being too bold? If we were trying to do this on our own, yes. Here is where this second part of our mission statement overlaps with the first—renewing our spirits. As we seek to renew our spirits, gathering in worship, studying and singing and praying and seeking to know God, we find strength to reach past isolation and embrace one another with Christ’s love.
Since our spirits are renewed by God’s grace, we can be bold. God is in our efforts to reach out. When we offer a ride, God leaps into the car with us, guiding us on our journey. When we dare to start an awkward conversation, God’s grace holds us up when our words fall short. When we crochet a prayer shawl, with a prayer in every stitch, God’s healing spirit transforms both giver and recipient. God is at work each time we reach out, and God is at work weaving those individual moments into a rich, glorious fabric of love that can embrace us all.
Renewing our spirits, embracing one another with Christ’s love. These first two parts of our mission statement point us to our third, which we will explore more fully next week: engaging in caring for God’s world. This fabric of love we stitch together is not just for ourselves; it is for the children of the Sunrise School who are warmed by our quilts; it is for patients at Framingham hospital who received our prayer shawls; it is for all God’s beloved creatures, all God’s beloved creation.
On our altar scape are many expressions of caring—a tea pot, a phone, cards, quilts, a prayer shawl. In the basket beneath the table there are many more prayer shawls—made by members of our church and the Open Spirit Prayer Shawl Group. After the service today, I invite you to come forward to take one. If you don’t already have one, please take one with you and wrap it around you when you need assurance that you are loved. If you’ve already received one, I invite you to expand the embrace of our caring, taking one to give to a friend or neighbor. Karen Nell and I will be here to help you pick one out and to pray with you, if you would like.
Let us bless these shawls: God of love, through these shawls, assure us that our touch matters. Embrace us