Squeamishness and Holiness

What makes you squeamish? What grosses you out? What disgusts you so much it leaves you without words?

Jane (see the previous post) wasn't the only one to be hit by a nasty virus recently. It happened to me. It happened fast. At the time I was in church walking in a solemn procession being led by Bishop Gayle chanting the Great Litany. I remember thinking to myself, "oh no, why this long white robe? why not a black cassock today? easier to clean." I was getting ready to be grossed out by my own "gastrointestinal malfunction."

Before long all my concerns about disgust were forgotten. If I had any thoughts at all, they were along the lines of "Lord, have mercy." When the disease was over, my disgust was washed away, replaced with relief and gratitude.

Last summer in worship we read the account of the Hebrew midwives Shiphrah and Puah. You may recall they were told by the King of Egypt to murder all the Hebrew boys at birth. The words of Exodus (1: 17-21 NRSV) continue:

"But the midwives feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live. So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them, "Why have you done this, and allowed the boys to live?" The midwives said to Pharaoh, "Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them." So God dealt well with the midwives; and the people multiplied and became very strong. And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families."

Those two tough women harnessed the king's sense of disgust at another bodily function and turned it to a holy and life-giving purpose. Can't we imagine them saying, "O King, let us tell you how the Hebrew women come to be so strong at childbirth?" We can imaging the King getting all squeamish, clapping his hands over his ears, and saying, "never mind, it's OK, forget it, I don't want to hear it, get out of here!"

My point is this: squeamishness (mine and Pharoah's) is strong and leaves us speechless. Many disputes in our churches and our culture are aggravated because we're squeamish. The priest and the Levite were grossed out by the half-naked, half-dead mugging victim on the road to Jerusalem. They didn't just ignore him, they stayed as far away from him as they could. They didn't want to be contaminated. We all do things like they did. We treat strangers differently from people we recognize. We stay away from food we're not used to. We recoil from signs of our mortality (like my intestinal malfunctions and the messiness of birth).

Shiphrah and Puah turned this squeamishness upside down and made it life giving. So does Jesus, in the Holy Eucharist. He radically welcomes all his disciples, even the one who would betray him. He holds up the signs of his own mortality, his body and blood, and invites us to eat them! In the Eucharist Jesus directly confronts our squeamishness, and changes it into holiness.

And, by teaching us to embrace and own all our squeamishness, he prepares us to do the messy and hard work of building up the realm of God.

(I'm grateful to Richard Beck for his book Unclean and his blog Experimental Theology.)

Peace and blessings,

Ollie Jones+