When I was younger, I noticed how people a lot older than me talked a lot about their health, mainly their aches and pains and the next doctor’s visit or medical procedure. Now at a more advanced age, I am doing the same thing! Mercy. But it sure has me reflecting on the body’s amazing collection of cells that form, grow, thrive, and deteriorate in the natural course of life. And oh the stories the body carries and our shared body of experience, and the mystery of the Spirit revealing itself in embodied form.
Jesus lived fully in his body and communicated God’s presence through sweat and blood. In all his being and doing he was about honoring incarnate divine reality and hope in one’s bodily existence, our communities, and the body of Earth. The body of a religious institution, he taught, was in its fullest form through outreach to other bodies.
In our gospel story, Jesus is teaching in a synagogue during the Sabbath.* He notices a suffering bent over woman, calls her over, and heals her. She stands up straight and gives glory to God. The leader of the synagogue is indignant because Jesus “worked” on the day religiously prescribed for rest and worship. What is Jesus’ response? The heart of our religious duty is to care for each other and set each other free, at any time.
When my prayer drops from my head to heart and fills and flows freely out of my body in demonstrations of love, I grow in awareness and understanding of God. I appreciate – and marvel at – how this very human body is intimately connected to God’s Spirit.
More and more I see that what causes the body to ache is not just physical ills. It is also how we do not honor God’s indwelling within ourselves and each other and all creation. We so need to bridge the separation of body and spirit and ignite a renewal of care in our human made structures for the sake of our collective liberation. Glory to God.
-Trish Stefanik, Overlook Retreat House at Dayspring
- When have you moved from recitation of a creed to transformative action?
- Who or what is waiting for your help, your particular embodied gifts to share?
- What bends you over in not just body but spirit? Imagine liberation.
