Deacon Ed Shoener,
5th Sunday of Lent, Year A
 

“Untie him and let him go”.  Jesus loved Lazarus and raised him from the dead.  But apparently the people around Lazarus were so frightened by him and did not know what to do with him that Jesus had to tell the people to untie him and bring him back into the community.

The people in the community must have seen Lazarus as something different from them.  He was dead; as Martha said to Jesus he was in the tomb for four days and his body smelled.   They did not want to be near him.  They didn’t want to touch him or untie him. 

And what about Lazarus, how did he experience this?   Remember, when this happened very few people thought that Christ was God.  So would people believe Lazarus and understand what happened to him?  Would he be called crazy or worse?  Would Lazarus be shamed?  Would he have to fight the stigma of being so different?

Can you think of a similar situation today? Can you think of a situation where a person is loved by Christ but needs the help of the community to feel free?   When people in the community are afraid of a person and don’t understand their situation?  Where the person feels shamed and stigmatized?

I am sure everyone here today knows someone who is living in a Lazarus kind of situation.  If you know someone who is living with a mental illness, then you know someone who is living in such a situation.  Up to 20% of the people in this country experience mental illness.

Christ wants us to untie them and welcome them into our community.

In today’s bulletin there is this insert that announces a new Mental Health ministry in Scranton.  This ministry will provide a safe, supportive space for individuals in our community who are experiencing mental illness. The parish communities of the Cathedral, Immaculate Conception and Mary, Mother of God are participating in this ministry.

This ministry is needed because far too many people with a mental illness live with shame, they live with stigma and they live without the support and love of our community. Like Lazarus, they are treated as if they were dead and in a cave and when they come out people are afraid of them.

We are offering a spiritual support group open to anyone experiencing mental illness.  Our first meeting will be on Saturday April 8 at 10 AM in the Bishops Hall in the rectory.  We will meet the second and fourth Saturday of every month.

Our goal is to ensure that no one feels alone in his or her struggle. Sharing each other’s stories can be a liberating and welcome break in the silence that often surrounds mental illness. The support group will be a place to speak out and be heard in a safe, confidential, and non-judgmental environment, where isolation and stigma dissipate as a supportive community is created.

The spiritual support group is not group therapy but a ministry in which members seek to help support others during their time of need and to grow spiritually in their relationship with God. 

The meeting will open with a prayer. This is followed with individual sharing and support by group members. Group members are encouraged but not required to share experiences. The second half of the meeting will be spiritually based with reflections on scripture and spiritual readings along with prayer.

If you have a serious mental illness such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, clinical depression, severe anxiety or similar illnesses please come to the meeting - you will be welcomed.  And if someone you love has such an illness, please encourage them to come to the support group meetings.

You know, people with a mental illness are some of the most courageous and brave people I know.  They carry a cross that is so much heavier than most of us here will ever fully understand – but Christ understands.

Christ was mocked and reviled and laughed at.  All too often, people with a mental illness are mocked and reviled and laughed at.  Pray that God will forgive us for the times when we knowingly or unknowingly ridiculed, looked in disgust, neglected or discriminated against those who have a mental illness.

So often people who have a mental illness are known as their illness. People say that "she is bipolar" or "he is schizophrenic."  Please do not use that phrase. People who have cancer are not cancer, those with diabetes are not diabetes.

The way we talk about people and their illnesses affects the people themselves and how we treat the illness. In the case of mental illness there is so much fear, ignorance and hurtful attitudes that the people who suffer from mental illness needlessly suffer further.

Our society does not provide the resources that are needed to adequately understand and treat mental illness. Even the best medical care available is all too often not enough. Someday a cure will be found, but until then, we need to support and be compassionate to those with mental illness, every bit as much as we support those who suffer from cancer, heart disease or any other illness.

So, we can reflect on the story of Lazarus and realize that even a person raised from the dead needed the help of the community to be unbound and freed.  Our prayer today can be to ask the Lord to show us how we can help those who are struggling with a mental illness be freed of the shame and stigma that bind them.

We pray to God, the Lord of Mercies, to comfort and relieve those who are troubled in mind and spirit because of a mental illness. Bring them hope.  Bring them peace and bring them the consolation of a loving community. Amen