Sermons

READING – Parker Palmer, Healing the Heart of Democracy, pp. 18, 43-45

READING – 2 Corinthians 4:16-5:1; Mark 3:20-30

SERMON – A House Divided

Over twenty years ago, the famed educator and spiritual guru Parker Palmer published a book “Healing the Heart of Democracy” which addressed the growing divisiveness in American politics and society. He wrote “It is in the common good to hold our political differences and the conflicts they create in a way that does not unravel the civic community on which democracy depends.” Unfortunately, few seem to have heeded the wisdom of these words: these days we are witnessing, it seems, just such an unraveling. But there is hope!  “A house divided cannot stand” Jesus warned, but if his followers and others hold to the justice, love and forgiveness that he taught, we can even now be truly family together, enjoying and expanding a sturdy community of love that shines with the light of God’s dwelling place, God’s “house not made with hands.”  But how do we do that?

Parker Palmer provides us some answers, answers that are rooted in the Gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ.

Before I get to them I note on this weekend when some people gather to mark and to mourn the ravages of gun violence in our culture, that Palmer dedicated his book Healing the Heart of Democracy to five young girls who lost their lives to violence: the four victims of the racist bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham Alabama in 1963, and to Christina Green who died in 2011 when a gunman fired on a crowd attending an event hosted by congresswoman Gabbie Giffords, who was also seriously wounded.

This is what he says in his dedication:
When we forget that politics is about weaving a fabric of compassion and justice on which everyone can depend, the first to suffer are the most vulnerable among us—our children, our elders, our poor, homeless, and mentally ill brothers and sisters. As they suffer, so does the integrity of our democracy. May the heartbreaking deaths of these children—and the hope and promise that was in their young lives—help us find the courage to create a politics worthy of the human spirit.
These deaths, and so many since, have indeed been “heartbreaking” again and again. How are our hearts going to heal, how on earth do we go about healing the heart of Democracy?

Palmer points out that there are two ways in which our hearts can break: they can either break and fall completely apart, smashed to smithereens, or they can break open, break open to reveal something new, to begin new life.

A friend and colleague of mine was talking about the rain that fell the other day. The earth, she said, can be like a sponge, opening up to let the rain soak in so things grow; or it can be like the soil in her garden with too much clay, so it does not open to the rain but the precious water pools on its surface and runs away before it can bring nourishment.

The heart is like the soil, needing to be broken open so the good word, the rain, the life-giving spirit of God can seep in and change everything. She also had another image for me: a certain kind of seed she is planting in her garden has such a thick skin it is noto rious for having only a 33% germination rate. That skin has to be broken open so the seed can find its life. We need to let our shells be broken open

So if you are finding yourself heartbroken by the current state of politics and communal life here in the USA in 2024, don’t let that make you sink into despair as if you were made of clay. Lean into the heartbreak and let your sadness break you open so that your ground is soft and your husk gives way to enable you to reach a new level of compassion and much new growth.

And listen to what Jesus had to say. “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” The passage we read isn’t quite clear to us in some ways, in part because in our heads we no longer have the model of evil in which disease of mind or body is the result of actual demons, Satan and his cohorts and underlings, like Beelzebub, who invade us and take us over, like a robber violating the sanctity of our home. Before we dismiss this ancient belief as superstition, just let me say that in order to overcome such evils, it may in fact be helpful to associate them with forces outside ourselves, as opposed to identifying ourselves completely with them. I am not a bad person, although bad things may become manifest somehow through me.

The passage we read comes right after a story about Jesus ridding someone of such demons. The people are of course astonished at the power he displays, the power to heal and to make whole. Some among them—the people with religious power, the scribes and pharisees, who for all their righteousness and knowledge cannot effect such healings—these scoff at Jesus and says it is he who is demon possessed. He is crazy, they say, trying to dismiss him.

But Jesus says “No, how could that be? I have cast out the devil from this man, and the devil does not work against himself. Indeed, I have bound up that evil force and have rendered it powerless and have stopped the plunder. His accusers should be rejoicing.” As it is, by calling Jesus insane and by not recognizing his power to heal his detractors are not merely putting him down, but are working against God who is the source of all healing. That’s the sin against the Holy Spirit: If we do not recognize the power of God to make things whole and put things right, there is little hope for us.

Because a house divided against itself cannot stand.

Which brings us to our present time again, for surely we live in a house divided, a society divided against itself. How can we find healing?

Before I attempt an answer to that I want to say something about our reading from the Old Testament. I just want to point out one of the uncomfortable truths of human nature it reveals. The people we meet in the Book of Samuel are a people who have been liberated from slavery, have traveled a weary way across the desert, and have received the law of God which has formed them with a new identity as the people of God. But they are not content, because they see that other nations have kings and emperors and overlords and various other kinds of authoritarian rule, and yet seem to be wealthy and stable. We want to be like them, they say, not in this messy arrangement of trying to rule ourselves along laws and principles laid down by a God whom we cannot see. In God’s abundant mercy, God tells Samuel to listen to the people’s desire for authoritarian rule. We know today it’s a desire people still have. They want a leader to look up to, who will make the difficult decisions for them, who will make them feel safe by attacking their enemies, who will act like a strong man. But, says God, you must warn them too: warn them about what they are going to have to put up with in order to satisfy their desire for a king or for any authoritarian rule—injustice, terror, oppression, war, and the loss of integrity. God is good. God gives the people what they want. But then the people have to live with the consequences. Be careful what you pray for!

We will not find healing by turning to authoritarian rule, by having a king. We will be like the clay soil. The king they chose, Saul, was an unmitigated disaster.

So once again, where is healing?

Parker Palmer suggests in his book that there are five practices and attitudes we must have in order to heal, five attributes of a heart that is broken: not broken apart, but broken open.  He calls them habits of the heart, habits we must cultivate in order to heal ourselves, our communities, our nation, and our world:

We must understand we are all in this together;

We must develop an appreciation of the value of otherness;

We must cultivate the ability to hold tension in life giving ways; 4. we must generate a sense of personal voice and agency;

We must strengthen our capacity to create community.

There is much to be said about each one of these things, Read the book [Healing the Heart of Democracy.] All I want to say here and now is that Palmer did not think them up on his own or make them up out of nothing.  They are absolutely dependent on the teachings of Jesus, as Jesus is absolutely dependent on the Spirit of God as it made itself known to him both in the tradition of his people and in personal revelation.

Jesus warns us: a house divided cannot stand. But he also comforts us in that assurance that with God’s help we can bind the devil up and stop the plunder of our house. Because although we have an earthly dwelling place, in which our politics are played out for good or ill, we know that we also have entrance to an unseen house, God’s house not made with hands, and we are invited to live there, while we live in the world. With this faith, we can recommit to love God and love our neighbor as ourself, to welcome the stranger, and to stand up against every claim of empire that might makes right. With this faith we will be able to heal, as another prophet [Micah] said, as we do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our God.

Amen.