Welcome to Issue #12 of Biblia Luna! In this weekly newsletter, I share a few things each week related to mental illness and faith.
Suicide & Sin - A Special Essay
A few months ago, I presented a talk about faith and mental illness at my congregation. A video of it is here, if you’re interested. In one draft, I had a section about suicide, but I ended up cutting it out of the final script. I thought it might be an interesting essay here.
Now I am not calling people with mental illness sinners. At least no worse sinners than the rest of us! Sin means being in a state of separation from God, and we all fit that description! We are all desperately in need of Christ’s forgiveness. But while I’m talking about sin, I should take a moment to address one particular thing that people sometimes wonder. Many people who have lost a loved one to suicide wonder if God can have mercy on them. Is suicide a sin? And can someone who dies by suicide be forgiven?
I am convinced that the answer to that is a resounding “yes,” and here’s why:
Some people call suicide a selfish act. I disagree. It is an act of desperation. Suicide is the act of someone so desperate, so hurting, that no other option seems livable. An act of a mind that is confused and in pain, that is looking for release. People take their own lives because they are hurting so much, and they believe that death would be preferable to the pain. Suicidal ideation and suicide attempts happen when the amount of coping skills a person has is outweighed by the pain they’re experiencing.
Suicide is not selfish, but desperate. Now, yes, I would say that suicide is sin. But listen to why I say so. Sin is the state of being separated from God’s will. Sin is anything that takes us away from God’s loving plan for us. And it is not God’s loving plan that we take our own lives. And what’s more, it’s not God’s loving plan that we are in such pain that such an act feels like comfort and release.
But the God we see in scripture is a God who has already forgiven all sin on the cross. And a God who continually shows mercy to the desperate. Even if someone this desperate cannot see the mercy in this life, I remember the words of St. Paul in Romans 8: “Neither death nor life nor anything in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." Not death. Not life. Not even ourselves. Nothing separates us from God’s love. We may not always feel it, that’s for sure. But God will never, ever stop loving us. Suicide can not stop that.
The pain of losing someone to suicide is so much that we need not add to it by wondering if God has mercy on that person’s soul. Of course, God has mercy on their soul. Our God is a God of mercy, a God of grace.
This is one thing the church can do, that all Christians can do. Share this news, the news that God’s love is always, always, always there. That God’s mercy and God’s grace are always, always, always there. Even in the midst of mental illness. Even in the aftermath of a death by suicide.
Crazy Lectionary: Reformation Day
Many congregations, particularly Lutheran ones like mine, will celebrate Reformation Sunday on October 30. For those who celebrate Reformation, the first reading will be Jeremiah 31:31-34. I want to quote the whole thing here, because this passage is really powerful:
The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more. (Jeremiah 31:31-34, New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition)
This is a monster of a promise. The people Jeremiah wrote to were in exile, fearing that God had abandoned them, fearing that they had earned God’s abandonment, fearing that they would never be able to fulfill the calling God had given them. And this promise says: “Not only will I forgive you. Not only will I return you to your own land. Not only will I heal you. But I will give you a new heart, a heart that is pure and faithful and holy. A heart that will know me. A heart that will not be tempted. A heart that will always trust me.” And that is huge. God promises that one day, we will not need to teach one another about God – because we’ll already know.
I hear this as a promise to those of us with mental illness as well. I do not want to equate mental illness with sin, but there is something in common between them. Just as sin is anything that takes us away from God’s love and God’s vision for us, so mental illness is something that takes us away from our own best selves, and our own vision for ourselves. Mental illness is not our fault, but it results in an estrangement from ourselves, and often from others and from God. And I wonder if the promise in Jeremiah 31 is good for us as well. Could this promise be saying that our brains will one day be healed? We’ll no longer have to teach one another coping skills and mindfulness? We’ll no longer need medicine and therapy, because we will already know wholeness?
Hard to believe this could ever happen in this world. But that’s the way God promises – there is always hope, there is always life.
Helpful Resource
Last week, I attended a conference in Bethlehem, PA called “Harvest Full of Hope.” It’s been held annually in the Lehigh Valley for over twenty years. The day was filled with keynotes and workshops led by local leaders in mental health. There were also dozens of vendors there, agencies and ministries and providers who offer help and support. It was a very positive and uplifting day, and I think it would be beneficial for both consumers and mental health professionals alike. If you live in or near the Lehigh Valley, I’d highly recommend it in future years. You can also view videos from past conferences at their website. For more information, go to their website.
Darkwater Update
At Harvest Full of Hope, I had the opportunity to meet with the director of the Lehigh Valley chapter of NAMI’s FaithNet program, which provides programs for places of worship. It’s my hope that I can network with her in the coming months, and hopefully do some speaking in the area.
Biblia Blessing
The waters closed in over me;
the deep surrounded me;
weeds were wrapped around my head
at the roots of the mountains.
I went down to the land
whose bars closed upon me forever;
yet you brought up my life from the Pit,
O Lord my God.
As my life was ebbing away,
I remembered the Lord,
and my prayer came to you,
into your holy temple.
— Jonah 2:5-7 (New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition)