We can listen with empathy and take each other seriously

For those ministers who preach from the lectionary, the gospel lesson for last Sunday was a doozy. I had the privilege of preaching for Pastor Tom Holdcraft at St. Stephen’s Lutheran Church last week while he and his family visited his son at Troy University. I teasingly told him that he may have asked for the Sunday off because of the lectionary readings.

The prescribed passage from Mark’s gospel tells in part about the dire consequences for those who do anything to put obstacles before children or those who are marginalized by society. Found in Mark 9: 38-50, Jesus says that those who cause the little ones to stumble would be better off drowned. Further, if your hand, foot, or eye offends you, Jesus is reported as saying it is best to remove them and live maimed than to keep the offending body part and be thrown into hell.

I appreciate what Episcopalian priest, Barbara Brown Taylor, writes about this passage in her book, Bread of Angels. “The one thing I like about this text is that it defines the limits of Biblical literalism,” she says. “Walk into the most Bible-believing church you can find – where the women do not wear trousers or speak in church, where the men do not swear oaths or mow their lawns on Sunday – go into a place as strict as that and I bet you won’t find many people with eye patches and wrapped stumps, because even the most literal Christians balk at this passage.”

And for good reason. It is unthinkable to imagine that Jesus would suggest that we drown persons or cut off their hands or feet or gouge out their eyes for any reason. The Prince of Peace who said to those gathered around a woman to legally stone her, “Whoever is without sin cast the first stone,” surely did not advocate for this violent behavior.

These suggestions are hyperbole. They are exaggerations not meant to be taken literally, but certainly meant to be taken seriously. It is not that we can dismiss the point outright because it is over the top, but rather that we understand just how passionate Jesus was about protecting those without power or position or voice for him to use such extreme language.

I was moved by one of the theologians I read in preparation for preaching on this text.

Dr. Karoline Lewis, Associate Professor of Preaching from Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota, wrote about this passage in the context of her experience at the “Nevertheless She Preached” conference in Waco, Texas recently. She noted that women preachers know what it is like to have stumbling blocks placed in the way of following God’s call on their lives despite positive strides in the church. She also noted that all women know what it is like to have attempts at telling the truth “systemically and systematically dismissed as hyperbole.”

I have a wonderful counselor whose spirit is gentle and kind and whose wisdom is great. When the “#Me Too” movement began, we talked about how difficult it is for our society to face the sexual discrimination, harassment, and abuse that is prevalent in our society, in part because it is so prevalent.

For every person who has been mistreated in this way, there are others who were the perpetrators of the mistreatment. It is such a pervasive issue that it is difficult for it to gain traction. He noted that through the years of his counseling, he has seen the issue surface only to go underground again, because collectively we can’t sustain looking at its complexity or enormity.

An amazing AME minister who is both a physician and a pastor has taken a sustained look at the issue.

In 2016 she issued an invitation to her congregation, the Bethel AME church in Boston, to address sexual violence by looking at effective ways to shatter the silence. She challenged those in her congregation who felt called of God to this ministry to put policies and procedures in place to prevent and respond to sexual violence in their church, to educate their community about the pervasiveness of sexual violence and the long-term suffering it leaves in its wake, and to offer healing spaces for survivors.

The Rev. Dr. Gloria White-Hammond has been willing to examine theological interpretations that might lend support to blaming women and to encourage those men and women victimized by sexual violence to, each in their own time, experience grace.

According to the latest Christian Century magazine, “The Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, which runs the sexual abuse hotline, reports that every 98 seconds an American is sexually assaulted.”

It is far too prevalent and finding a way not to dismiss this as hyperbole or exaggeration is critical. We need to listen to each other’s stories with empathy and take each other seriously so we can heal. May we all look for ways to at last gain traction in changing these cultural norms that diminish us all.

The Rev. Candace McKibben is an ordained minister who serves as the director of faith outreach at Big Bend Hospice and as pastor of Tallahassee Fellowship.