by Bruce G. Epperly

I was raised in a conservative Christian home. But, by the time I entered high school, I had forsaken my Baptist roots.  As a rather precocious spiritual seeker, the texts that inspired me throughout high school were the Tao Te Ching, Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita, The Lord of the Rings, The Teachings of Don Juan, Walden, and the writings of Emerson and Hesse.  I found God through Hindu meditation and psychedelic adventures rather than the black-backed Bible that was my childhood guide.

By the time I entered college, I felt a lure to explore Christianity once more. But, I didn’t know how to get there.  The only Christianity I could imagine was narrowly doctrinal and spiritually deadening.  I would have to give up everything I learned from other faiths to become a Christian again, and I couldn’t do that.

As a first and second year college religion and philosophy major at San Jose State University, focusing on world religions and Asian philosophy, two books provided a gateway and a path. I chanced upon Paul Tillich’s Dynamics of Faith and my theological world was turned upside down.  Tillich asserted that faith included doubt.  As a Baptist child, doubt was the enemy of faith, and since as college student, I doubted everything about conservative Christianity, I felt I could no longer call myself a Christian.  Tillich’s work was a gateway to Christianity.  I didn’t need to know all the answers to call myself a Christian; I just needed to see the way of Jesus as an ultimate concern.  Christianity was not primarily about propositional truth but about a way of life and experiencing the world.  I could call myself a Christian with all my questions and doubts, because questions and challenges opened the door to spiritual and theological adventure and growth.  Christ was in the questions as well as the answers.

Shortly thereafter, I enrolled in a course on Process Theology, taught by Richard Keady.   We read Whitehead’s Process and Reality and essays by process theologians such as John Cobb, who later became my graduate school professor.  The texts were difficult, but they presented a way of navigating Christianity – a path – that made sense to me.  Process theology stressed God’s intimate love – God touched all creation gently and without coercion, God also experienced everything in the world – including my deepest questions and joys – and responded with love and not judgment.  The world of process theology stressed the interdependence of all life, the unity of humankind with the non-human world, the partnership of faith, science, and medicine, the revelation of God in all faith traditions, and the importance of humankind in shaping the future of our planet.  The future is open-ended and we have a role in healing the earth.

Process theology didn’t have all the answers.  In a universe of 100 billion galaxies, absolute theological or scientific certainty is an illusion.  But, process theology took me down the pathway that Paul Tillich opened up for me.  Tillich allowed me to claim the word “Christian” for myself and process theology gave shape to my Christian faith.  I am still evolving as a teacher, pastor, writer, administrator, and spiritual adventurer.  But, I am grateful for a gateway and path that enabled me to claim the way of Jesus as my way to God and to discover that being a Christian meant being open, rather than closed, to the many other pathways toward the divine.

Bruce Epperly is Professor of Practical Theology and Director of Continuing Education at Lancaster Theological Seminary and co-pastor of Disciples Community Church in Lancaster, PA. He is the author of seventeen books, including Holy Adventure: 41 Days of Audacious Living and Tending to the Holy: The Practice of the Presence of God in Ministry. Those interested in his work on healing may consult God’s Touch: Faith, Wholeness, and the Healing Miracles of Jesus and Healing Worship: Purpose and Practice.

By Bruce Epperly

Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

2 Kings 5:1-14; Psalm 30; Galatians 6:7-16; Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

The biblical passages present a countercultural vision of wholeness of body, mind, spirit, and relationship.  In a world of chaos and complexity, this week’s scriptures invite us to trust God’s presence in the ordinary, simple, undramatic, and accessible realities that support and nourish us.  The healing and transformation we need is right in front of us. We don’t need to do anything spectacular, but just accept the grace in which we live and move and have our being.

The healing of Naaman from a skin disease reminds us that healing can occur anywhere, by any practice, through any mediator, and at any place.  In this story, the powerful Naaman finds healing from an unexpected source, a Hebraic slave girl who testifies to the power of her God.  Naaman encounters an unexpected healer, Elijah, a Hebrew, who points the general to an unexpected healing modality, a dip in the nearby and rather undistinguished Jordan River.

Naaman is initially angry at Elijah for suggesting such a simple healing.  No doubt, he expected something expensive and dramatic, not a simple and effortless everyday peasant act of bathing.  But, once again Naaman receives counsel from an unexpected source, his servants who remind him that “if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it?  How much more, when he said to you, ‘Wash and be clean.’?”

The healing we need is often right in front of us.  Naaman needs to let go of his need for the spectacular or the special and awaken to the simplicity of God’s healing presence.  God seeks healing in every circumstance and by many media.  Healing is embedded in our immune, circulatory, and nervous systems as well as in the movements of our emotional and spiritual lives.  When we say “yes” to Jesus’ question, “do you want to be healed?” new pathways of mind, body, spirit, and relational healing emerge.  Healing can come from any sector – a gentle touch, taking your medication prayerfully, medical treatment, energy work, meditation, counseling, the ritual of laying on of hands, caring acceptance, and a change in lifestyle and diet.  We don’t need to go a far distance, when God is right here with us, providing resources for our wellness in every situation.

Psalm 30, in the spirit of Walter Brueggemann’s analysis of the Psalms, moves from disorientation to new orientation.  The Psalmist lives by the hope that God will transform his mourning to dancing and defeat to victory.  All of life, not just positive and uplifting experiences, can be brought before God prayerfully. In opening to God, we find healing resources amid our experiences of pain and loss.

Galatians invites the reader to open to God’s new creation.  While God moves through our rituals and practices, we are saved and healed by opening to God’s transformation rather than living by legalism.  Our efforts and ethics are important, but undergirding everything is God’s innovative and transsformative grace.  In times of struggle, we need more than ritual and law; we need “new creation” that breathes life into our rituals and policies.

Luke 10 is a call to share good news simply and without attachment.  Jesus’ followers are called to go out into the world without a safety net, trusting that God will provide inspiration, energy, and power.  Called to be faithful, Jesus’ followers don’t need to worry about results.  If they follow God in the present moment, they will bring good news to strangers and receive grace adequate for every challenge.  In the long run, “Satan” or the forces of evil and entropy cannot match the creativity and healing presence of those who are faithful to the future that God promises them and this good earth. Our names are “written in heaven” for God will always give us the energy and insight we need, providing us with possibilities for growth and healing every step of the way.

For preachers who wish to make a homiletic connection with the Fourth of July, today’s passages call congregations to seek simplicity in complex situations.  Simplicity and being simplistic are not the same things.  These passages do not call us to simplistic solutions but faithful responsiveness. Simplistic legalisms and political slogans undermine relationships and national life.  We need to think globally, experience the intricate interconnectedness of life, recognize the complexity of economic and international relationships, while reclaiming simple community virtues – generosity, compassion, friendship, honesty, fairness, sacrifice for a greater good, and care for the whole.  National holidays call us to go beyond self-interest and personal profit to care for the community, local, global, and national.  The healing we need as persons and communities is right in front of us and becomes self-evident when we trust divine wisdom and not self-interest and consumption for our happiness and security.

Read more meditations on the Fourth of July by Bruce Epperly: Celebrating Independence and Interdependence

Bruce Epperly is Professor of Practical Theology and Director of Continuing Education at Lancaster Theological Seminary and co-pastor of Disciples Community Church in Lancaster, PA. He is the author of seventeen books, including Holy Adventure: 41 Days of Audacious Living and Tending to the Holy: The Practice of the Presence of God in Ministry. Those interested in his work on healing may consult God’s Touch: Faith, Wholeness, and the Healing Miracles of Jesus and Healing Worship: Purpose and Practice.