A Sermon for Mental Health Sunday
By Terry McKinney
April 18, 2010
Third Sunday of Easter
Lessons: Acts 10:9-17, 27-28; 1 Corinthians 12:22-27
I was once a chaplain somewhere that had a psychiatric ward. My tour the first day took me to the entrance of the ward, but not inside it. I was told not to go there unless I was paged. I went there at my first opportunity. The patients there didn’t always want to talk about their faith, the connection wasn’t always there, and I often felt a kind of helplessness, being unable to do anything except be there. That made it exactly like every other ward in the hospital.
That experience, and the patients letting me be there with them, shaped the direction my ministry was to go in. It was a mutual transformation. It seems that Jesus always chooses the outcasts and marginalized to reveal what ushering in the Kingdom of God looks like.
When I was on the ward, I wished I had a verse or two about mental illness in the Bible to offer, but it’s just not there. There are references to “unclean spirits” in multiple healing stories, and many think this is how mental illness was understood in the first century, but others disagree. When I read about shrieks and convulsions as the unclean spirits are leaving the body, it’s difficult for me to think of that with what we today call depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, etc.
Whatever the phrase refers to, being unclean in the first century meant being completely rejected. It meant being without the structures and supports of society. It meant you could no longer participate in the temple or the religious life, which was at the heart of the community. While we don’t use the word the same way today, the reality is that mental illness twenty centuries after Jesus is still largely considered unclean. Those it affects are still excluded and marginalized in myriad ways, and they remain hidden.
It’s easy to think of the term “mental illness” as referring to them, not me. But according to the National Institute of Mental Health, one in four adults has a diagnosable mental illness within any year. Imagine that. What does that mean at this moment? Take stock of three people near you. Now include yourself. Realize that one of the four of you passed through something, will pass through something, or is right in the midst of struggles. Maybe that person is you. There’s such a huge stigma, isn’t there? It’s in every part of our society, including churches. Because of this, many of those who suffer choose either to stay away from church entirely, or to remain silent.
In most of our mainline Protestant churches, we have a sort of “Don’t ask, don’t tell” approach to mental illness. It’s never reviled or supported, it’s just invisible. It’s simply not spoken of, and those who suffer do so silently. Where is seeking the lost coin or lost sheep in that?
The topic is taboo, just as it was with cancer not all that long ago. Today, similarly to those who lived quietly with the frightening but usually invisible experience, those of us who struggle with mental health issues can be very adept at keeping any visual signs well hidden. This is largely a safety measure since the church has not always received those with mental illness warmly.
The cost of this is very high. For the person suffering, it creates a disconnect at least, or a rupture at worst, between one’s struggles and one’s lives of faith. Even though the evidence may not be visible, it also separates people from their faith communities since they worry that people knowing their secret will result in their exclusion in one way or another. For the community itself, the result of fear or silence about the subject is that Christ’s body is not whole. The opportunity to realize that the marginalized are not only outside the church walls but within them robs the community of the chance for transformation and newness of life God desires for us. Often, churches suggest you can “faith” it away, if you will. Your wellness is a measure of your faith. Our own Mental Health and Spirituality Group was actually started in response to such an experience.
It all began with a phone call to my mother. She had told me a few months previous that the church was starting a depression support group, and I wanted to check in with her about how the group was going. She told me, “Oh it’s great. I learned something today, that depression is not of God.” The cure my mom was given was praying the right way, praying often enough, and believing hard enough. It all came down to the strength of one’s belief. And believe me, if there’s anything the mentally ill are running low on, it’s strength. And so if your illness doesn’t go away, guess whose fault that is?
So is it that depression a kind of God-less wasteland? No. Depression is of God. Isn’t that a strange thing to proclaim? Does this imply that God sends us mental health struggles to teach us a valuable lesson, or in order to achieve our spiritual health and enlightenment? Certainly not. But it testifies that God might be recruiting those struggles to bring us into deeper relationship and greater fullness of life. And that’s really the root of our mental health ministry, that God can be found moving where we’d least expect. Isn’t that part of our Christian, resurrection hope: what looks at first like death may in fact contain the seeds for newness of life?
When I proposed a Mental Health and Spirituality Group to run during Lent of 2008, it was based on that idea that Jesus was with us in the dessert amid whatever wild beasts surrounded us. Our own Carter West partnered with me to shape the group into something that has continued to run every Sunday afternoon since then.
In the group, we do something counter-intuitive, inviting people to enter into the painful experience of their struggles, wondering how and whether God is meeting them there. At heart is the question: is it possible that what comes out of our mental health struggles isn’t an impediment to our relationship with God, but a conduit to it?
To shed light on the reality of mental health struggles in our church, and to give a forum for us to gather, is to proclaim boldly that all or included in the life of this church. It’s to deny the idea that anyone is unclean or excluded. And part of our discipleship is to recognize more and more whatever it is we’ve been calling unclean.
The practice of radical inclusion in the community became part of Peter’s journey. In his vision, he’s told by a voice, "What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” It’s tough for us today to understand how shocking this vision was for Peter and the earliest followers of Jesus. As enlightening as this was, it must have been extremely difficult for them as well. Opening the doors of God’s salvation, of Jesus’ salvation, to those who had been deemed unclean meant opening the doors to strangers, and to fear. What must it have been like for those who first brought in the once unclean Gentiles? What was that experience like along the way? How did it transform them? Was it a mutual transformation, perhaps?
God’s proclamation in the midst of our larger practice of Open Door at First Church is that those with mentally illness aren’t ‘unclean.’ How has this transformed us?
Four months ago, I decided to do a bit of a survey here of members, lay leaders, and clergy, to find out how they’ve experienced the group. In particular, I wanted to know what effect they believed the presence of the group has had on First Church as a whole. The responses moved me so much, so I want to share some of them.
People said all these things:
—It’s about parts we’re ashamed of that play an important role in our relationship with God, for deepening that relationship with God and the church
—It’s a place to explore the suffering, anxiety, incomprehension, and sometimes anger that burden those of us who live with a mental-health issue, in the light of God’s loving meaning for us – and through us for others
—People have said there’s just comfort in knowing it’s there, even if they’re not going to it
—We have to acknowledge that those we help will change us
—I’ve heard others talking openly about their mental health struggles, and I know they wouldn’t have done that before the group started.
Is it possible that First Church’s gift of healing and inclusion to our Mental Health and Spirituality Group has been met with a healing gift from the Mental Health and Spirituality Group to First Church? I’d like to hope that it’s been mutual, that we’ve both transformed each other, and changed our vision of who we are as children of God and followers of Jesus. I believe our mutual transformation through this and all our practices of inclusion of the marginalized is what Paul was referring to:
“What is more, it is precisely the parts of the body that seem to be the weakest which are the indispensable ones. It is the parts of the body which we consider least dignified that we surround with the greatest dignity; and our less presentable parts are given greater presentability.” (1 Corinthians 12:22-23)
Today, we’re called to follow Peter’s lead and Paul’s charge, to recognize that what we’ve been calling unclean, God calls clean. To remember that Jesus always chose the outcasts and marginalized to reveal what ushering in the Kingdom of God looks like: restoration and inclusion.
My deep hope is that this ministry, and its slow transformation of us, is the movement of the Spirit in our midst. In this and all other areas of ministry, we remember that the people we include will change us. The coming of the Kingdom is not always easy, and sometimes it feels risky. Finding the lost sheep and the lost coin will change us. It can be frightening, and yet Jesus reminds us that it causes rejoicing.