Healing Our Hurt So We Don’t Hurt Others, with Rev. Dr. Steven Koski.

Healing Our Hurt So We Don’t Hurt Others, with Rev. Dr. Steven Koski. Series: Everyday Peacemakers A Spacious Christianity, First Presbyterian Church of Bend, Oregon. Scripture: John 11.35; Luke 18. 38-42.

You are invited to join us at First Presbyterian Church in Bend and online this Sunday. This week, Rev. Dr. Steven Koski will discuss empathy and care for others and how we can find connection with others in their pain, possibly helping ourselves process our own suffering—experience how God’s healing presence is found when we meet one another with compassion.

Join us each Sunday, 10AM at bendfp.org, or 11AM KTVZ-CW Channel 612/12 in Bend.  Subscribe/Follow, and click the bell for alerts.

At First Presbyterian, you will meet people at many different places theologically and spiritually. And we love it that way. We want to be a place where our diversity brings us together and where conversation takes us all deeper in our understanding of God.

We call this kind of faith “Spacious Christianity.” We don’t ask anyone to sign creeds or statements of belief. The life of faith is about a way of being in the world and a faith that shows itself in love.

Thank you for your support of the mission of the First Presbyterian Church of Bend. Visit https://bendfp.org/giving/ for more information.

Keywords:

emotional pain, jesus, suffering, pain, pilgrimage, heal, story, pandemic, hurting, brokenhearted, wept, told, grief, feeling, wound, grieve, god, memorial service, lonely, cry, presbyterian, church, online worship, bend, oregon

Featuring:

Rev. Dr. Steven Koski, Rev. Kally Elliott, Tyler McQuilkin, Becca Ellis, Brave of Heart, Guests

Transcript

Steven: 0:36

Welcome to worship with First Presbyterian Church in Bend. We practice what we call a spacious Christianity, where there's room for everyone. And we mean to everyone, no matter where you find yourself on the faith journey. Even if you find yourself without faith, you are so very welcome here. We welcome your questions and doubts. And I see them as gifts that invite us into deeper conversations. We celebrate diversity and believe it's a strength. And we remind you every single week, that you are made in the image of God's goodness, and that you are so very loved. And we do our best to live the spacious and radical love of Jesus so that all might have a chance to flourish in this world. As we try our best to practice a spacious Christianity. We hope here that you can find space to breathe a faith you can believe in and a God who believes in you were so very glad to worship with you in this way. But if you find yourself in the area on Sunday mornings at 8:30am or 10am We'd love to have a chance to greet you in person. Take a deep breath and know that whether you're sitting on the couch at your desk in bed, maybe even washing dishes the presence of God's love is as close to you as your own breath and it's my prayer today that you might have become aware and experienced the presence of that love in a new way through our worship because when that happens it changes the way we are present in the world welcome

Narrator: 4:21

Oh Divine healer. He confess that sometimes we yearn for you to wave a magic wand to honor wounded lives. To remove our pain, illness, and suffering. Hear the Gospel story of the one seeking healing from Jesus and assume you will perform a similar miracle for all of us. If we just pray hard enough, and we do pray, open our eyes to recognize the teachings and tools you have given us with which to seek healing. In the midst of our afflictions and diseases. You whisper to us that wholeness requires self care and dressed in not just toward caregivers who can support and advise us. You breathe into US energy to move and stretch and reach toward health. You place in us an urgency to seek justice so that all may enjoy adequate health care. We knew our spirits in the midst of our diseases, and afflicting spirits transform us for the health of your creation.

Steven: 8:17

emotional pain impacts the same part of the brain that is impacted when there is physical pain. Our brain actually processes emotional and physical pain the same way. But physical pain we can name you know except get help. And it heals. We're not embarrassed to say out loud when we're when we're physically hurting. I'm not ashamed to tell you My knee hurts and you will probably tell me that your knee hurts to emotional pain is a different story. You know we keep our emotional pain bottled up and hidden from view where we're likely to avoid, suppress, medicate or deny our emotional pain. You know, during the pandemic we wore masks out in public to prevent the spread of COVID. wearing masks out in public is is no longer a requirement. But my deep concern is how we continue to mask our emotional pain, grief, suffering. I fear that we are in such a hurry to move on from the pandemic that we in our haste forgot to grieve. We never really really addressed our collective grief and trauma. We forgot to heal our pain. Anxiety and depression are are the norm. Our youth are in the midst of a mental health crisis. There's a loneliness epidemic where where people have no one to support them. Gun violence, road rage, bullying, hate crimes, and people just simply being mean and unforgiving are on the rise. Here's an important truth, emotional pain that is not healed and transformed, continues to get transmitted. We need to find, find ways to to heal our emotional wounds so that we don't wound others and ourselves. Parker Palmer said violence, violence to others or violence turn inwards to ourselves is what happens when we don't know what, what else to do with our suffering and grief. I was at a funeral where the minister said there's there should be no tears today. Because your loved one is in a better place. I wanted to jump out of the pew and show no, no, no cry, weep, scream laugh. It all belongs. I mean, tears. Tears are holy. For all you Trivia Buffs, what's the shortest sentence in the Bible? That's right. Jesus wept when Jesus wept, reminding us that our tears belong. And we're never alone in our pain and suffering. At that memorial service, we we sing the song, our God is an awesome God. And I really felt for those who are sitting in the pew that day grieving. feeling in that moment, that their God wasn't so awesome. I felt sad that memorial service wasn't. It wasn't a safe place, to be honest. And for them to express their emotional pain. friend recently told me that one of the most difficult aspects of her cancer is her family and friends, trying to be helpful, encouraging her to, you know, stay positive have faith. And her immense guilt at being unable to do so. You know, she said to me, I just want a space where I can be brutally honest, I want a space where I can feel all of the feelings that I'm feeling without feeling the need to apologize or protect others. You know, a healthy spirituality is an honest one. It's interesting that to say the name of Jesus, in sign language, is to take your right index finger and touch the palm of your left hand and to take your left index finger and touch the palm of your right hand. This is how you say the name of Jesus. In other words, to say the name of Jesus is to touch his wounds. Christianity is the only religion that professes that God who suffers, we may prefer a God who prevents or explain suffering. The God revealed in Jesus is the one who shares our suffering, the one who weeps with us, the one willing to enter the very depths of hell with us. The one who meets us in our pain, and calls us to meet one another in our pain. There's a story in the Bible of the Gospel of Luke where it says a blind man called out to Jesus. Jesus have mercy on me. Now those around him, rebuked him, tried to shut him up, told him to be quiet. But he shouted all the more Jesus have mercy on me. Jesus stopped, ordered the man to be brought to him. And when he came near, Jesus asked him What do you want me to do for you? The man replied, I want to see. Jesus said to him, receive your sight. Your faith has healed you. Immediately he received his sight and follow Jesus praising God. You know that man in that story, just think about it. You just he showed incredible courage. You know, being willing to be vulnerable, being willing to cry out to Jesus helped me and those around, you know, tried to shame him into being silent. You know, our culture's stigmatizes asking for help acquainting equating vulnerability with weakness. Jesus met the man in his pain and asked what do you want me to do for you? There was no judgment there was no shaming, Jesus essentially said, I see you. I see your pain, how can I best love you? You know those words are a soft blanket to land on when life throws you off the edge. Healing for this man began with one small but life changing word. Help. You know we try to impress each other with our strengths. And then we wonder why we feel disconnected and lonely. We connect to each other. Through our vulnerability, we connect to each other in that place of pain, like the man in the story. Our strength is found in the courage to face our pain and to ask for help. Asking for help is not weakness. It's the desire to be strong. Metta Lindley angle tells the story of a friend who was doing a solo cross country trip in the car driving across country in her car, and this was before cell phones and she asked this friend, what if you get lonely? And her friend who was in recovery said, That's okay. I'll just find the meeting. And the angle who was an Episcopalian? She mused. I really wonder what would happen if I if I wandered into some strange Episcopalian Church and said I'm lonely? What would people's response be? You know, it's not that people who go to Episcopalian churches or Presbyterian Presbyterian churches are less compassionate than people who go to 12 step meetings. I mean, let's be real. Most of those people are the same people. It's that too often churches. Even our church First Presbyterian. Too often churches mimic a toxic, addictive, wound benign culture where we silenced the one crying out for help. Rather than being a safe place where we can meet each other in our pain. Rabbi Sharon brouse tells this this beautiful story about what would happen in ancient times when people used to go on pilgrimage to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Now imagine if you would hundreds of 1000s of people making this sacred pilgrimage to Jerusalem, they would ascend the steps of the Temple Mount. And they would go through this arched entryway. And then they would turn to the right and circle around the perimeter of the courtyard. And they would then exit essentially right where they had come in. Except for someone who is brokenhearted. The person who was brokenhearted would make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. They too would ascend the steps, they would walk through the arched entryway. But they would turn to the left and not the right like the others. And every single person who would pass them coming from the right would have to stop and ask a simple question. What happened to you? And the person would say, I'm brokenhearted. my loved one just died. I'm worried about my sick kid. I'm depressed. I grieve the suffering of the innocent children in this world. I just found a lump. In the people who are walking from the right to the left would have to stop, listen and offer a blessing before they could continue their pilgrimage. I mean, what profound wisdom in this ancient ritual because if you spent your whole life dreaming of going on the sacred pilgrimage to the holiest place place for the holiest days, and doing your circle around the courtyard, the last thing in the world you want to do is stop and ask some poor guy who's coming toward you. Are you okay? What's your story? Where does it hurt and yet, the only religious obligation you have that day central to your own healing is to see this other person in their pain in their suffering. And ask them to tell their story. And then give them a blessing. And if you're the one who's broken, shattered, I mean, the last thing you want to do is be vulnerable. Last thing you want to do is, is show up in this place with all those people go against the current in such a public and visible way. And yet, that is your religious obligation that day. That is your courageous step towards your own healing. God meets us in that place where we meet each other in our pain. You know, maybe that's what every worship service needs to be about. I'm really concerned how we continue to mask our emotional pain and grief and suffering. And it's not just the unresolved grief or the pandemic, it's it's retirement it's cancer, it's death. It's job loss, it's divorce suicide, Children in Crisis, mental illness, war hate, a democracy in peril, climate change in in our culture, our culture that tries to shame and and to silence us when what we really want to do is cry out for help. Is it any wonder that the number of angry emails has increased that our that our patience with each other has diminished? That the need for anxiety medication has skyrocketed. pain that is not transformed. Just keeps getting transmitted. We are in an extended period of difficult change deep loss it impacts all of us so let me be the first to say help. I'm hurting you know it's been a hard few years. And I'm hurting and I know you are too. I just know it. So instead of trying to pretend we aren't in pain can we meet in that place of pain? Trusting that is precisely where God meets us. The people on the pilgrimage in the temple they knew there was no holier question than what happened to you. Are you okay? And there was no greater obligation or opportunity than being the blessing in the midst of the pain help I'm hurting How about you? Friends pain that has not transformed just keeps getting transmitted instead of trying to pretend we aren't in pain can we meet each other in that place of pain? of trusting that's precisely where God meets us. Ask someone today, how are you? And when they say fine. Say no. Really? How are you? And just listen. Listen as if all that matters is love. Friends go into peace in the love of Christ. And may you be present to others in their pain in such a way that it might bring peace to them and to you. Amen. Friends, we sincerely hope you found this broadcast and worship meaningful. Please help us make it possible to reach others with the important message of a spacious Christianity. First Presbyterian seeks to serve Jesus by serving the needs of others showing up in our community and the world when and where love and compassion are needed the most. Your generosity helps us to be generous in love and offer hope at a time when hope is in short supply for so many. By natural gifts large and small, make a huge difference in helping us continue these broadcasts and helping us continue to serve the needs of others in our community in the world. You can give online at band F p.org. You can use the QR code on your screen or mail a check to the church. We hope to see you again and please reach out if we can support you in any way. Until the next time. May God bless you and may you be a blessing to others.