People at the hospital are always asking my opinion about things such as current events, and fortunately for them I almost always have an opinion to offer.  Though I have learned the fine art of diplomacy along with fine tuning my ability to read people like a book, I am sometimes guarded in my answers.  They say of course you shouldn’t speak of politics or religion in mixed company, but since religion is my business I try to make it everyone else’s business as well.  But I don’t get into many political discussions because even Jesus ate with prostitutes, tax collectors and republic . . .  uh, excuse me, publicans!

            One question or comment I heard several times this last week had to do with the shocking news story that broke about Mother Teresa of Calcutta.  It seems many good folk catholic (or not) are disturbed about the new revelations about Mother Teresa’s faith. And in case you missed it here is the story as recounted by NPR:

A new book about Mother Teresa, Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light, based on the many letters she wrote to her spiritual counselors and confessors over an almost 50-year period, show a spiritual life that was, as she described it, dry, dark and lonely. Three months before she accepted her Nobel Peace Prize, she wrote to a spiritual confidant: “Jesus has a very special love for you … [but] as for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great, that I look and do not see, — Listen and do not hear — the tongue moves [in prayer] but does not speak … I want you to pray for me — that I let Him have [a] free hand.” (All Things Considered, NPR.ORG)

And ABC newsfeed further explains the story:

In dozens of letters spanning 66 years, Mother Teresa described the “emptiness” she felt and confessed her struggles with faith and the existence of heaven in pages she had planned to have destroyed. A decade after her death, they have been published in the book “Come By My Light” as part of the petition for her sainthood. The lives of the saints are personal, but they are not private,” said The Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk, who is publishing the letters. “The documents are really are quite valuable in that they speak of her own holiness and the value … to people who can relate to what she was going through.” They offer surprising revelations, including one instance in which she writes, “no faith — no love — no zeal — [The saving of] souls holds no attraction — Heaven means nothing … it has been like this more or less from the time I started ‘the work.'” (ABC News: Struggles of a Pious Leader, August 24, 2007)

            I have heard comments the past couple of days like “isn’t it terrible what they are doing to Mother Teresa” and “what do you think about all this stuff about Mother Teresa?”  Well here is what I think:  I think she had a crisis of faith, that she had dark nights of the soul, that she had good days and bad days, that she was very human serving in inhuman and extraordinary circumstances.  For 50 long years she lived and breathed with the down and out, the dying, and the destitute of Calcutta.  We, on the other hand, are insulated from such hardships and poverty. Most of us (myself included) cannot stand to stop flipping the channels on the tube for five seconds when we see one of those “starving orphans” commercials on TV.   I think her to be more of a saint for wondering where in the heck God was in that hell-hole than I would otherwise if she glossed over the pain that she witnessed every single day with some sort of spiritual anesthesia or religious amnesia.

            Whatever your opinion, she was a fascinating woman. She labored for years in anonymity in a place that didn’t produce many heroes. It was in 1968 that British writer-turned-filmmaker Malcolm Muggeridge visited Teresa. Muggeridge had been an outspoken agnostic, but by the time he arrived with a film crew in Calcutta he was looking for something else. Beyond impressing him with her work and her holiness, she wrote a letter to him in 1970 that addressed his doubts full-bore. “Your longing for God is so deep and yet He keeps Himself away from you,” she wrote. “He must be forcing Himself to do so — because he loves you so much — the personal love Christ has for you is infinite — The Small difficulty you have regarding His Church is finite — Overcome the finite with the infinite.” Muggeridge apparently did. He became an outspoken Christian apologist and converted to Catholicism in 1982. His 1969 film, Something Beautiful for God, supported by a 1971 book of the same title, made Teresa an international sensation.[1]    

            When I think of Mother Teresa, I think of that famous close-up, black-and-white portrait of her cradling a baby in both hands.  She was a diminutive woman, stooped over and frail, impoverished herself, but had a glow that could not be hidden under a bushel.  And under those facial lines of a person that had seen more than her share in life, she possessed a smile that infected all those who saw it.

            In our gospel text today, we have the story of another little stooped over woman who may have been suffering from something like osteoporosis.  We read here that Jesus performs another unsolicited miracle by healing an unnamed woman without her asking.  She was simply referred to in the text as the “bent woman,” or the “stooped-over woman” and was said to be bent over double.   I am not sure what that looks like, but it sounds real bad.  When we say we are bent over double, it usually means a terrible stomach or abdominal pain. In her case it was something as bad and more permanent as this woman had been crippled in this way for 18 long years.  Jesus simply noticed her while preaching and he said, “hey you over there, by-the-way, you are healed.”  And since such miracles were his specialty after all, she straightened up and began praising God like nobody’s business.  The rest of the story deals with those there that were hoping mad that he healed her on the Sabbath.  The merciful but confrontational Jesus called them “hypocrites” (which is getting to be trend in Luke) and reminded them that they took care of their dumb animals when they were in need on the Sabbath, how much more then should he help a real live woman.  They were publicly shamed by his pointed retort, and the rest of the crowd would have laughed at their stupidity, but nobody there cared as the rest of the folk rejoiced that one of the faithful had been healed.

            Of course, several things bother me about this story.  One, she is said to be bent over because an evil spirit had a hold of her and that is problematic on so many levels. It raises a lot of questions which I guess are simply understood by those there that day and are immaterial to our story.  Secondly, she seemed to be healed as part of an object lesson or teaching moment that allows Jesus to duke it out with the leaders of the synagogue.  It makes me think he might have gone there looking for a fight.  But what bothers me most are the things I do not know: what was her ailment, why did he heal her, and why on earth would anyone who worshiped in the place care that she was healed? 

            I actually know the answer to that last one, she was not the point, the rules were the point and that was Jesus point that the rules shouldn’t be the point.  But what about this woman, this “bent over woman?”  We know nothing about her faith; we know nothing about her attitude or her outlook on life.  Heck, we don’t even know her name!  We sure don’t know why Jesus chose to heal her. We only know a couple of things: She was transformed physically and spiritually by the miracle, and the religious folk got madder than a Baptist who accidentally booked Disney World on Gay Pride Week.

            But there is something else I know.  That the bent over woman’s life intersected the life of Jesus Christ, and she was never the same.  And for that matter, neither was anyone else in that room, good, bad or ugly.  And life is made up of the stuff of such intersections.  Sometimes God comes to us in our stooped over state as well.  And we all have something pushing on us that can bend us or even break us at anytime and at anyplace.

            When our lives are consumed with some hardship one of three things always (and I do mean always) happens spiritually: Our faith is rejected, or our faith is strengthened, or our faith is transformed in some way.  For the rulers of the synagogue, their faith, or at least what their faith should have been was rejected.  For those in attendance besides the rulers of the synagogue, their faith was probably strengthened by witnessing this incredible act. The text said that they rejoiced in all that he did.  And the bent over woman’s faith?  It was strengthened as well.  So whose faith was transformed?  Transformation was the goal for the rulers of the synagogue who needed to be knocked off their religious perches left to begin at square one rebuilding something that resembled authentic faith, but as far as we know it did not happen.

            So what does hardship, trauma, or crisis or simply living with a chronic illness do to your faith?  What about becoming overwhelmed by the human condition?  It evidently shook the foundations of one Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who is up for sainthood in the Catholic Church as a perfect spiritual example of humanity sent by God Almighty.  

            So what about you, what has living life done to you? Has your faith been rejected, strengthened, or transformed?   For me in my journey, it has been some of all three.   I was reminded of that this past week as my story had a point of intersection as well.  Jesus came to my office along with a 28 year old woman who abruptly reentered my life.  Her name is Eve and she is from another state.  This young woman is a person who did an internship in chaplaincy with me at Baptist some years ago while she was in college.  She was a good student and she was assigned a tough clinical area, the surgical oncology unit at Baptist.  So she was in town and stopped by to visit with me and to catch up on things.

            We exchanged pleasantries, smiled and laughed a little; she laughed, I laughed, we both told each other how good the other looked.  I scratched my 51 year old brain to remember what I could about her.  She basically looked the same, I am sure I have changed more than her.  When she was here she had long beautiful hair, and now she wore a short style, but I immediately would have known her anywhere.

            She began our conversation by saying what a profound life changing effect our course had on her.  That she remembered and recounted very vividly a few of the personal encounters that she had with patients while here those five weeks.  She marveled about people’s faith, people who were facing unbelievable hardships and the ravages of cancer, something that a 20 year old doesn’t just see everyday.  I silently thought to myself that many, many others (myself included) have had their faith rewritten by such head-on collisions with the human condition.   

            You see, I have a confession to make.  When I started at the hospital some 26 years ago I was just 25 years old, but I already knew it all.  I was also a raging fundamentalist, whose sermon points always began with the letter “P” for some reason.  I viewed scripture as being dictated by God through human typewriters; I viewed it as a rule book for life that contained all the answers that one needed.  I interpreted life though its lens, even if I had to distort reality to get it to fit my paradigms.  And then something happened:  I became overwhelmed as the first chaplain assigned to the new oncology unit 10A, in 1981. I made friends with a patient who was a school teacher my own age from western Arkansas who came in regularly for a round of chemotherapy.  He had leukemia.  I spent many hours visiting with him and cultivating our friendship. He was doing well and responding well to treatment the last time I ever saw him.  Then casually reading the paper one Saturday morning with my coffee, I saw was struck down when I saw his name in the obituaries.  It seems that after what would be his last round of chemo, he became immuno-compromised and died of a common cold.   I could not believe it.  It did not seem fair.  It was not supposed to end that way.  His life and mine had intersected a brief moment in time.  Our paths crossed, our book of life shared a page or two.  But for me, the God who held all the answers didn’t seem to have any that comforted me.  And I didn’t want to hear how he was better off in heaven.  I thought only the naïve want to hear that.

            Over then next few years, my faith was transformed.  Other such intersections rewrote my life and work.  I became skeptical and a deconstructionist with more than my share of existential angst.  But with a lot of reflection and hard work, I began to rebuild.  There had to be “more” or we are the most cursed of creatures.  I learned to embrace ambiguity.  I learned that I don’t have to know or understand to have faith.  I learned what and who is really important.  I learned that most religious stuff really doesn’t matter in the big scheme of things, only God matters.  I learned that a God that I could figure out would be smaller than me anyway.  I made a lousy cynic, so my faith was transformed into something else all together.  I have long since resolved many of my faith issues and am a humble servant of Jesus Christ this day and am comfortable resident on the street of “I don’t have to know or understand.”

            But I had another point of intersection this very week when Eve walked into my office and back into my life.  You see, her clinical assignment was life changing on more than one level.  She told me that she herself has spent many days since on a surgical oncology unit as a patient.  She was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer with liver metastasis, and she was not expected to survive.  They have sent her to the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan to try something to buy her more time.  I was stunned.  I felt like an idiot for commenting on her short hair earlier.  I then stumbled through words and told her about my own father’s victorious battle with advanced colon cancer and how he is alive and well and happy this day, and she told me that she was not in the mood for any miracle stories, and while we are at it, she didn’t want me to tell her God was good or that this must have really have helped her prayer life.  Ditto for the one about how much better off she will be in heaven than the rest of us.  For two hours Eve and I wrestled with cancer and with God, and she said I could share her story if it would help someone, and I am here today to boldly suggest that the someone it has helped the most so far is me. 

            She did say that she did believe in God, that God would be there for her when all was said and done, but that she had many issues with her faith.  I told her I did as well and that if I didn’t know anything else I did know for a fact that God was OK with that very fact.   I also told her that she, as well as I and everyone else, only die one day in our entire life, only one day– and that every other day, every single one of them is a living day.  And today is a living day for all of us, and Eve as well.

            So Eve’s faith is being transformed, she has not thrown out the baby with the bathwater, and in the process I think mine will be transformed again as well.  We will talk more and I will probably cross a personal and professional emotional boundary by caring for Eve like I have no one else since I did for that teacher in 1982.   I asked her why she came to see me that day of all people, and she said that she did not know.  I am scared to death that she came not because she needed to for her, but for some reason she came there for me and that God is about to work me over again.   Eve and I will meet again when she returns from New York where she is slated to be in the hospital for a month with liver surgery.

            So what about the bent over woman?  Her story ended well because she got a miracle that she didn’t even ask for. Hardly seems fair, does it?  I am sure the lady was miserable, but a bent over back is not cancer is it?  Why doesn’t God speak to Eve?  Why doesn’t he send a miracle her way?  The bent over lady probably wasn’t even sick enough for those hard-hearted rulers of the synagogue to be impressed very much.  But Jesus did his thing anyway.

            So whose faith was transformed in this story? The ones who should have their faith transformed by this encounter is us, the hearer, the reader.  Because we are all bent over by something.  We all have God figured out as to how he intersects with the human predicament, and I am here to tell you as that bent over woman could tell you and as Eve could tell you that whatever we think, it is probably wrong.  He is about healing alright, but he was more about spiritual healing and healing our broken images of God.  He came to change, to revolutionize, to transform society and structures, one person at a time.   And maybe turning things upside down or perhaps right-side up again includes healing a few people we would not expect, and maybe not healing a few that we do.

            Because the truth is, from Augustine’s Confessions to Ignatius of Loyola’s Desolation, to John of the Cross’ Dark Night of the Soul, there is a whole body of Christian literature that sounds exactly like Mother Teresa’s and sounds like the life story of any of us Christian skeptics who have been slapped around by life on planet earth. What this literature shows is that real believers don’t claim to “know” God. That’s why they are called “believers.” To be a believer means, “Even though I do not know, I have faith.” Nor do believers, however devout; experience God on a constant basis. There is a big chasm between the terrestrial and the transcendental, and a terrible silence usually separates the two. A glimpse or foretaste of eternity, this is all that we get, if we’re lucky.

            Eve and I will keep believing in God, period.  I am convinced of that, miracle or not.  The greatness of Mother Teresa is that even when she was deprived of the spiritual satisfactions of feeling God’s presence in her life she did not waver, she soldiered on. She was not deterred in her mission. And what she didn’t have by way of feeling, she compensated for by way of will. In doing so she teaches us all something about love: it is not merely a sentiment to be set aside when feelings come and go, but rather a decision of the will. That she did what she did in exchange for the love of God is astounding enough. That she did it all even when this love was invisible to her–if this does not constitute saintliness, I don’t know what does.  And that view of sainthood is going to make some people hoping mad. But for others it will sound strangely like some very Good News indeed.  Thanks be to God! Amen.