“The Body Keeps the Score,”: Sermon for 2/22/23 by Rev. Dr. Pamela Dolan

The Body Keeps the Score

A Sermon for Ash Wednesday, 2/22/23

February 22, 2023

The Rev. Dr. Pamela Dolan

Isaiah 58:1-12

“The body keeps the score.”

           That phrase is the title of a book—a book that, to tell the truth, I haven’t read yet—but it’s also a phrase that resonates deeply with me this Ash Wednesday.

           Over the centuries, some Christians have practiced our faith as if the body doesn’t matter, as if it is a husk or shell whose only important function is to contain our souls. Others have over-emphasized the body, but in a purely negative way, thinking of it as the source of all evil, corruption, and sin. Those Christians have worked to discipline and even punish the body, treating all of its needs and desires as bad and wrong

           Still, whether we ignore it or discipline it, the body keeps the score.

           Contemporary culture has its own ways of misunderstanding and mistreating the body. It is a source of constant anxiety, distrust, and discontent. One of my older relatives used to say you can never be too rich, too thin, or too young. The body is a status symbol, but only if it looks a certain way, conforming to impossible standards. We push our bodies to their limits in order to be able to share an Instagram-worthy selfie, or to prove how productive and hard-working we are. Sleep is for sissies. Food is fuel. Every blemish, every bulge, every illness, or disability is a source of shame. We treat our bodies as machines and expect them to keep running at all hours, through all sorts of conditions, without thought to natural rhythms of activity and rest, work and play, fasting and feasting, cooperation and isolation.

           And still, through it all, the body keeps the score.

           Ash Wednesday is a day when we get to step back from whatever lies our culture or our religious upbringing has told us about our bodies, or about other people’s bodies. The truth is so simple—we are all dust and to dust we will all return. This does not mean that our bodies are worthless; far from it. We are beloved dust! Our bodies, with their miraculous complexity and adaptability, were created by God and continue to be known and loved by God. And yes, they are fallible, vulnerable, and finite—which simply makes them all the more precious.

           Kate Bowler calls Ash Wednesday the day when “reality is smeared across our forehead.” She writes, “We live in a culture that tells us we are #blessed when we are independent, perfectible, and have it all together. But on Ash Wednesday, we practice the opposite. Today, we proclaim that blessed are the fragile. Humans in their very nature are dependent and imperfect with broken bodies and sometimes broken spirits.” I would add that it is our very fragility and brokenness that binds us all together. For all of our surface differences, we all inhabit bodies made of the same stuff, with more or less the same expiration date. None of us gets out of this alive.

           I do not think it is a coincidence that many of the countercultural practices that are good for our bodies are also good for our spirits, our communities, and for the planet we inhabit. Think about a day spent walking to the farmer’s market and buying local food that you cook yourself, taking an afternoon nap, and then inviting over friends and family to enjoy a meal. Maybe some of that food you even grow yourself, in a little backyard garden. Walking instead of driving, growing vegetables instead of lawn, eating locally and low on the food chain, sharing what you have with others, spending time in the kitchen instead of online or at the office—these activities do little to enhance the country’s GDP or your own financial security. But what a life, what a world you are creating! Your body makes everyone of those activities possible, and every one of those activities is good for your body, and for the planet, and for building up the relationships that are the fabric of a healthy community.

           This Lent, I hope we will remember that our bodies are good and holy and not in need of fixing. Lent is so often turned into another opportunity for treating our bodies as self-improvement projects. We give up chocolate or carbs or whatever because we think it will be a good way to encourage self-control and discipline—and wouldn’t it be great if we lose a little weight in the process, too? What if instead we chose practices that gave us time and space to appreciate our bodies, treat them a little better. Maybe spend more time meditating or doing yoga or dancing. Maybe take more naps! Hug your loved ones more, or spend more time cuddling your favorite pet. Remember the wise words of Mary Oliver: “You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.”

           Whatever else they may be, our bodies, dear ones, are how we encounter God. Our eyes and ears and brains help us encounter the Word of God. We taste and touch God through our mouths and our hands in the Holy Eucharist. We experience God’s healing power as we are washed in the waters of baptism. Our skin soaks in the oil of anointing and we are marked, physically as well as spiritually, as Christ’s own. We see God’s features reflected back at us in the faces of strangers and loved ones alike. The body is how we live out the call to justice. Sometimes, the hungry person you need to feed is your neighbor. Sometimes, though, it’s you.

           With all this in mind, listen again to the words of Isaiah, remembering that they are not just words for the people of Israel, but words being spoken to you, personally, right here and now.

The Lord will guide you continually,
and satisfy your needs in parched places,
and make your bones strong;

and you shall be like a watered garden,
like a spring of water,
whose waters never fail.

Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt;
you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;

you shall be called the repairer of the breach,
the restorer of streets to live in.

Amen.

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