Amanda McMillen, “Disappointing Bodies & Eternal Hope”

I have a very annoying intrusive thought (are you familiar with intrusive thoughts?)  It’s something that you think about almost obsessively that you wish you didn’t, an image or thought that just comes to you suddenly and takes your attention away from whatever it is you were doing. Well, my intrusive thought, everytime I walk up to the pulpit, everytime I walk across the chancel here, or down the aisle, is that I am most certainly going to trip on something (who knows what, myself? A step? This robe? Doesn’t matter, it could be nothing) but I am certainly going to trip and fall flat on my face.

And I have good reason to fear this, I think. At home, I have a kitten who follows me around and bites at my ankles and I often trip over her, trying to avoid stepping on her, falling into a wall or table; I’ve missed stairs going down a staircase, I’ve missed stairs going up a staircase, I don’t know what it is but the idea of tripping and falling is always close to top of mind for me in my daily life.

Ultimately, though, I have to get on with my life and trust that if I were to trip and fall, my arms or something would hopefully find a way to break my fall. I can’t be constantly thinking about falling or I would never get out of bed each day for fear of each step. At the end of the day, I must find a way to trust my own body step by step.

In what ways do you trust your own body? I know that I put a lot of trust in my body, besides just getting me up the stairs to this pulpit this morning without falling. I trust my body to digest my food, I trust it to think of solutions to problems as they arise, to grow a child that I cannot see, to move me from point A to point B with my various bones and muscles and joints and ligaments. In many ways, our bodies are made to be trusted (it’s our only choice!) so that we can get on with our daily lives as God’s creatures.

But the truth is, we are so often so disappointed in our bodies, aren’t we? Disappointed that they don’t respond to another new diet the way we’d like. Disappointed by their softness, even though softness is such a wonderful quality in other areas of our lives. I know I’m often disappointed by my brain that can’t remember the name of someone I literally just met (which is a really unfortunate quality for a minister).

And of course, our bodies fail us. Bones break. Brains struggle to make connections, or calm our anxious thoughts. Tumors take over healthy tissues. Hair falls out. Wrinkles form lines that remind us of our eventual death. Eventually, our bodies can no longer survive the harshness of mortality, and they fail completely at our last breath.

Our bodies are beautiful, they are wonderfully made to do the things in life that we are meant to do - things like eat, and sleep, and work, and play, and share our lives with each other. Your body is so good, exactly how it is today, no matter if it fits the physical mold that you’d like it to fit, and even if disease has made it so hard to move or to keep thoughts straight. Still, God loves your body just as it is, simply because God loves you just as you are.

But still our bodies are not meant to be hoped in the way that God is. In Lent, we become aware of this. Perhaps you hope to give something up for the season of Lent - sugar, or alcohol, or sitting on the couch for long hours scrolling social media. Usually lenten fasts are wonderful healthy habits. But Lent is not meant to be a season for reveling in our ability to control our bodies. Rather our fasts are meant to be failed. Lent is when we become aware of our body’s limits. Even if you do manage to complete your lenten fast without cheating (I’m doubtful, but let’s just imagine) - even if you are, so what? Still, your body is a human body, and still you are fragile.

In our passage from Romans this morning, the apostle Paul talks about the promise to Abraham, that one day he would become the father of many nations. But Abraham had every reason not to believe this. He was old, and his wife Sarah was old - beyond childbearing years. But still, God had made a promise. They tried to get a child however they could - including using Hagar, Sarah’s servant, as a surrogate, which ended terribly and put Hagar in a position of great danger, being forced to flee into the wilderness. Their ways weren’t working. If God was going to give them a child, only God was going to do it. Paul writes, “Hoping against hope, he believed that he would become ‘the father of many nations,’ according to what was said, ‘So numerous shall your descendants be.’ He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was already as good as dead (for he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb. No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. Therefore his faith ‘was reckoned to him as righteousness.’”.

Abraham’s faith was not in himself. His faith was not in his body. His faith was not in Sarah’s body. He did not believe that his or his wife’s bodies, in the end, could be trusted to do this impossible thing. He believed, rather, in God’s promise. He believed that this God is one who does what He says He will do.

And why did he have this faith? Well I don’t know exactly, but it seems to me that he trusted in God simply because he had no other choice. His own body had failed him time and again. After years of waiting, he still had no child of his own. He resorted to other measures, like sleeping with Hagar, and it only made his family more dysfunctional. If God was to do this thing, then only God could do it.

So how does one “place their hope” not in oneself, not in one’s own body, but in God? That language sounds so decided and deliberate, like I’m placing a book on a shelf, in exactly the alphabetical spot it belongs. I’ll choose to place my hope here, not there, and then finally — I’ll be happy! But that’s not how it happened for Abraham. “Placing his hope in God” looked like failing miserably, and desperately hoping for rescue from himself. That’s all. His plan didn’t work and so all he could do instead was say to God - alright if you’re gonna do this then please go right ahead! That’s faith, and that’s what counted as righteousness for Abraham. Being desperate for help, being, unhappily and against one’s will, in touch with one’s limits - which is to say, being human. Being human is our one prerequisite for hoping in God, and that is very good news for all of us.

Faith is not meant to be placed in our bodies. These bodies are good, because they are loved, but they aren’t God. They are tired, they are human, they are limited, and ultimately, they are dying. Our bodies are meant to be loved, to be used, and to come to an end.

There’s a poem I love, by Mary Oliver, called “I Worried” that I thought of when reading this passage this week. She writes this:

I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers

flow in the right direction, will the earth turn

as it was taught, and if not how shall

I correct it?

Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven,

can I do better?

Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows

can do it and I am, well,

hopeless.

Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it,

am I going to get rheumatism,

lockjaw, dementia?

Finally, I saw that worrying had come to nothing.

And gave it up. And took my old body

and went out into the morning,

and sang.

This is what I hear at the end of this poem - I hear freedom. Freedom in knowing that we are limited. Even the sparrows can sing, and I am, well, hopeless. And yet I can take my old body out into the morning, and sing. My body is not meant to be perfect, it is meant to be loved, because it belongs to God, and in that admission I find great freedom.

Jesus’ own body failed him, too, in the end. His body allowed him to reach out and touch the sick and dying, and cause their bodies to heal from disease. His body allowed him to walk distances in order to be alone and pray. His body allowed him to eat bountiful meals with tax collectors, prostitutes, outcasts; sinners, like us. His body allowed him to bleed, to break, and to finally die. Jesus’ own body failed him in the end.

All of the hopes that we place on our bodies, we can place instead on Jesus’ body. His body failed him, just as ours do. But Jesus’ body did not have the final say in his life. His body truly died on the cross - and yet, that isn’t the end of the story. When our faith rests not in our own bodies, but instead on God, on Jesus’ body, then we have reason to be hopeful, because our faith is in newness of life.

The barrenness of Sarah’s womb brings about Isaac, her son. She had no reason to believe this was possible, based on her own body’s capabilities. She had lived a long life. For all intents and purposes, her womb’s work should have been done. When told she would have a child, she laughs, a sad laugh of deep longing. Perhaps you are familiar with a sad laugh of deep longing.

Miraculously, from Sarah’s womb comes Isaac, and from the tomb comes Jesus, alive and well. Faith belongs not in Sarah’s body which should have brought forth no life at all, and not in yours either, which continues to disappoint in all kinds of ways, but in Jesus’: where new life, after all of our disappointment and death, is born, for all people, in all bodies. Amen.