Feeling Our Way, Healing the Wounds

Reflection for March 16, 2025 (2nd Sunday of Lent)

Affirming Sunday

Scripture: Luke 13: 31-35

A little while ago I decided I needed to diversify my sources for socio-political and theological perspectives. I started following some new writers and one of them is Dr. Robert Che Espinoza. They are a pastor from the southern US, who has just relocated to New York; a self-described “politicized theologian” (shouldn’t they all be?) and “public ethicist”. Their weekly newsletter is titled “Our Collective Becoming”.

A recent missive I received from Dr. Espinoza began this way:

“This week has been rough in many ways. On Wednesday, I learned of two queer leaders and artists who were murdered in Buffalo, NY. In their home!” I’ve been thinking about how to be right now and what to do. In many respects, the paralysis that sets in with how overwhelming things are has invited me to consider how much presence I have in my life and what are the contours of spaciousness in my life.”

Robert goes on to talk about the rise, over the last number of years, in far right and christian nationalist movements, both in the US and here in Canada (and around the world) which has resulted in the push to  reverse progress made in human rights and support for vulnerable populations such as immigrants, and which has had a particularly damaging and traumatic impact on members of the queer community. 

We’ve are all of course aware of the brutal campaign/crackdown/war on “DEI” currently being waged by the Trump administration on all public institutions. Just one of many stories which caught my attention this week was one about a middle school teacher who was told to remove an “All are welcome” poster from her door.  More disturbingly, teachers are putting their classrooms on lockdown against government agents trying to seize children without warning.

And we know it’s here in our country too. I have a minister colleague serving in a small town in rural Alberta whose congregation is committed to being an affirming space but even as they paint their steps in rainbow colours and show up in solidarity to marches and protests, they are also feeling overwhelmed with concern about the rise of hate groups and the impact on the mental health of youth from recent legislation in their province which now restricts the rights of students regarding use of a chosen name or pronoun, education about gender and sexuality, and to receive gender affirming care.

Back to Robert Che Espinoza - at the end of that journal post about the murder of those two leaders in the queer community in Buffalo, NY, he circles back to the sense of paralysis he has been feeling in the face of everything going on, and offers his conclusion that he can’t let the enormity of the challenges paralyze him or shut him down. What he needs to do, he surmises, is to keep feeling: to keep lamenting, keep getting angry, keep allowing the emotions and compassion to flow.

This flow of feeling, for ourselves and our communities, or in solidarity with the suffering of others, he says, is the only way we can “become the healing of the wounds”.

+ + +

In today’s scripture passage, we get a pause in the action of Luke’s account of Jesus’ ministry. 

In the chapters leading up to this, Jesus had sent out the twelve to practice their ministry. He had fed the 5,000 men (plus women and children); Peter had declared that the disciples say he, Jesus, is the Messiah; Jesus has told them they are now headed to Jerusalem where the Son of Man will undergo great suffering, be killed, and on the third day be raised; and then, the story we heard two weeks ago: they go up the mountain where Jesus is transfigured.

Next, Jesus performs a healing on the sabbath, then Luke tell us, he “went through one town and village after another, teaching as he made his way to Jerusalem.” And the tension continues to heighten, between Jesus and the religious authorities. But also as we know that Herod is receiving reports about Jesus and is increasingly anxious about who he is and his popularity, even wondering at one point if it was the beheaded John the Baptist, raised from the dead.

Now, in this passage, some of the Pharisees, the religious authorities, have tracked Jesus down to give him a dire warning:

Get away from here. Herod has heard enough about you, and he’s on the hunt. He wants to kill you.

Jesus responds first with anger and defiance, followed by a lament:

"Go and tell that fox for me, 'Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day (a reference to the day of resurrection) - “on the third day I finish my work.”

Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.' 

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! 

See, your house is left to you.  (Luke 13: 33-34)

Jesus’ response gives us a snapshot of the context in which the events of Holy Week will unfold. 

But what I want to focus on today, is how in his response, Jesus lets the anger, grief and lament, flow. He’s allowing himself to be present to his emotions, and to feel.

There’s an indigenous writer, Pixie Lighthorse, a member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, who writes for a publication called “Oneing: The Path of the Prophet”. And in one of his reflections, he talks about the value of allowing ourselves the opportunity for grief and lament, particularly in these current times. 

Here’s how he describes it:

“As external chaos rises, inner chaos is touched off. The need for inner resources to “see the bigger picture” and maintain faith is becoming amplified.”

“What’s going on inside is grief… our feelings are our inner waters, and to Indigenous peoples, water is our First Medicine.”

So we need, literally, to “feel our way” forward, letting the underground river within each of us to become more conscious, allowing our grief to surface as lament, which when done collectively, can catalyze into naming of injustice and movements to protect what is sacred.

Like trans lives. Like all queer identities.

Dr. Espinoza then goes on to talk about solidarity and the power of third spaces and something called a “counter-public”, noting:

“In the face of queer and trans erasure, I want to bring our attention to counter publics and third spaces. 

A counterpublic is a term from critical theory and political philosophy that refers to a public or space where marginalized groups create their own discourses, identities, and modes of resistance in response to dominant publics.”

Counter publics are emerging right now. Third Spaces (safe commons or common  spaces), especially for organizing, are trying to emerge right now. How, they ask, do we nurture these for the work of healing and repair and justice?

The church as counter-public & third space

I want to make the argument that the church - at least, progressive, inclusive, affirming christian churches - are are being called to step up and offer these kinds of places and spaces.

Here at TGUC, the idea of “third space” has for several years been embedded as part of our mission, but hearing it paired with this concept of “counter-public” gets my attention in a new way. Without dismissing the history of the power and centrality of the christian church in western society, or the power and privilege still being clung to or resurging within certain forms of Christianity which seem determined to remain entwined with empire, and white privilege - I do think that another form of christianity, one which is travelling a different road, perhaps getting back to its early christian roots - that form of christianity, of which we are a part - is to some degree experiencing a form of social marginalization which could allow it - us - to not just create and nurture “safe commons” but actually go further,  evolving into “counter-public” space.

These are spaces that, again, “create their own discourses (including collective lament), and identities, and modes of resistance in response to dominant publics.” 

It’s going to be needed more and more. And if you think about it, isn’t this the kind of community Jesus nurtured and called his followers to continue to create and be?

What a beautiful notion of the church, as a kind of intersectional, “counter-public” commons and third space. A community where we can welcome, affirm, honour, contribute, lament, storytell, learn, heal, and love - and be the change we want to see in the world.

This was Jesus’ original vision and ministry. This needs to be our vision - our identity - and our ministry: publicly, intentionally, and explicitly.

May it be so, as the spirit leads. Amen.