Regarded & Beloved
Introduction
Earlier this summer a few of us attended the Alaska School of Theology, a two day learning event held at St. John UMC. This year’s scholar was one of my seminary professors, Dr. Shelly Rambo.
Shelly’s area of expertise is in trauma and theology and this summer’s topic was really equipping us as faith leaders to lead Trauma Responsive Congregations. We explored how congregations can become sites for healing in response to the realities of trauma shaping our collective life—to foster awareness of trauma’s cultural and intergenerational impact, to acknowledge the legacies of spiritual harm enacted within church spaces, and to forge paths of healing resourced by our faith traditions.
While sitting through that course I jotted down some notes for a short fall worship series, connecting the invitation we extend each week to Make Yourself at Home here at TUMC to the work of becoming and being a site and source of healing.
I was jotting down these notes as Dr. Rambo was discussing the importance of "regard," a term borrowed from the work of Howard Thurman, and how local faith communities instill within ourselves this sense of "regard" for oneself and for one another. A sense that is incredibly important in creating resilience.
Now, regard was Howard Thurman’s term. But it’s very much connected to the affirmation of belovedness that you hear from me pretty much every week. An affirmation that we, as church community, are called to be beloved community, and that by being beloved community – community which affirms and reaffirms each of our innate belovedness – we are being both a trauma responsive community and building within ourselves a deep well of resilience.
These practices which we embed in our collective identity – simple practices like the intentional way we begin worship, community embedded practices like the culture of getting to know guests and visitors, ritual practices like our open communion table; practice woven into every fiber of our collective being as a Reconciling Congregation – these are practices that can not only help us heal from those traumatic events in life, but can in a sense help guard us for those events that will occur.
To be reminded of belovedness, and of the truth that we can all always come home, because of Who God Is and who WE are.
Howard Thurman
So, just as Dr. Rambo was sort of using Howard Thurman as a conversation partner for part of her work, we’ll be welcoming some of Dr. Thurman’s work into our life these next few weeks.
Howard Thurman was a mid-20th century theologian, preacher, higher education chaplain… a mystic and something of spiritual sojourner. Thurman was a mentor to several prominent Black theologians and activists including MLK Jr.
And even before trauma had entered the public lexicon, or even the academic literature, Thurman was discussing not just the mental and spiritual effects of systemic trauma – racism, poverty, etc. – but also the somatic effects, the physical effects of enduring such prejudice and abuse. In various writings Thurman discusses these as the effects of "disregard" or "disinheritance." In other words, of being told or treated as if you are not worthy. Lesser. Unloved even.
In one of his best known books, Jesus and the Disinherited, Thurman defines "the disinherited" as the poor, the oppressed, and the marginalized, "those who must live with their backs against the wall." There in 1949 he, as a theologian, is already writing about the physical effects:
". . . The somatics of disinheritance: It is clear, then, that this fear, which served originally as a safety device, a kind of protective mechanism for the weak, finally becomes death for the self."
— Howard Thurman, Jesus and the Disinherited (1949, p. 35)
Drawing modern parallels is not hard. Especially in this era when so many prominent people are saying the quiet parts out loud.
The Prodigal
How then do we as a community practice the antidote? How do we inoculate ourselves and one another against this disregard for our inherent worth? How do we put into practice the proclamation of each and every person’s sacred worth, and not just proclaim it, but live it, show it, demonstrate it?
I remembered some stories. Some stories Jesus told, AND the context in which Jesus told these stories.
You see, Jesus had some people coming to him to hear him teach. Tax collectors and sinners. People of little or no regard to polite society. People whose social value was next to nothing. The disinherited. And folks objected to Jesus hanging out with them. Y’all know who objected – the religious folks. We all know what kind of people object to Jesus hanging out with the outcasts, the downcasts, the disinherited.
And Jesus has some stories to tell them.
Our central story this week and for the next three weeks is Jesus’ simple story about a family. A son who is younger, another who is older, and a father. It’s a simple story and as many preachers have said, there’s no reason to make it complicated.
The younger son does what is horribly offensive to his father and demands his inheritance way too early. He squanders it. He dishonors himself. He became destitute and desperate. He thought himself disowned and unworthy of anything.
Thurman retells the story in a sermon from 1951 like this:
"While he was in that state, it occurred to him that he was his father's son. He'd forgotten that. He was his father's son. And so he said, 'I will go to my father. And I will not let my pride stand in the way. I'll just tell him what I have been doing, the kind of person I am, and tell him I don't want to be his son anymore, but I want to be as one of the hired servants. Because it is better to be a hired servant of my father than to be in the far country, stranded and alone, or surrounded by sunshine friends.'
But his father saw him coming, and ran out to meet him, so that the boy didn't have a chance to say, 'Father,' so and so, and so and so and so. 'Make me as one of the hired servants.' The only thing that the boy had a chance to say was, 'I'm so sorry. And I realize now that I didn't do this against anyone, but against you, and against myself, really.'
His father fell on his neck and kissed him, was so glad to see him, that in that swirling moment of heightened ecstasy, he said to his servants, 'Get the special garment, kill the fatted calf. Wash him and bring him in here, so that he can know that he is at the center of my heart where he's been all the time.'"
About God
Jesus told this story, this and the other stories he tells here in Luke’s lost and found chapter, to answer the question of who God is, and what God is like. It’s a question his critics don’t often necessarily ask, but one they should have asked. It was an answer they need to hear to understand that their condemnation of those judged to be sinners simply doesn’t matter.
It doesn’t matter because of who God is: The almighty LOVE like this father’s love who will always welcome us home. The LOVE that will be so ecstatic at our coming home that nothing shall be spared in the celebration.
"For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!"
Jesus’ answer was one they needed to understand that their condemnation simply doesn’t matter because of who those people are: beloved. Just as the son could only ever be the father’s beloved.
Pursued by Love
Laura told me about the group who was gathered for Illuminated Texts on Monday evening exploring different translations of Psalm 23, noting that in many translations it reads "surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life." But in some, the Psalm is translated "surely goodness and mercy shall pursue me all the days of my life."
Was it not the father’s love that ultimately found the son? Or perhaps helped the son to find himself? That even in his lowest moment he knew he would receive some kind of welcome at his father’s home, even if his own being – misinformed from misinformation swirling around him – was convinced that he had somehow failed his father in some irredeemable sense. And yet… there was that glimmer that even then nothing could separate him from his father’s love.
Oak Trees
In his autobiography With Head and Heart, Howard Thurman writes about this old oak tree that stood in the yard of his childhood home:
"When the storm blew, the branches of the large oak tree in our backyard would snap and fall. But the topmost branches of the oak tree would sway, giving way just enough to save themselves from snapping loose. I needed the strength of that tree, and, like it, I wanted to hold my ground. Eventually, I discovered that the oak tree and I had a unique relationship. I could sit, my back against its trunk, and feel the same peace that would come to me in my bed at night. I could reach down in the quiet places of my spirit, take out my bruises and my joys, unfold them, and talk about them. I could talk aloud to the oak tree and know that I was understood. It, too, was part of my reality, like the woods, the night, and the pounding surf, my earliest companions, giving me space."
— Howard Thurman, With Head and Heart, p. 9
We are blessed, I hope, with a place much like Thurman’s Oak Tree. Less a place and more a community really, here with your church. A community which retells stories of our belovedness, and reminds us that we can always come home to God’s love. Love that will pursue us, embrace us, and celebrate us.
It’s a gift and a blessing so many of our friends and loved ones I am certain are missing. An opportunity then for you, to share an invitation, as we continue to remind one another that we can all come home, and make ourselves at home because of who God is and who we are to God. And to one another.
Regarded and Beloved.
Amen.
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