Good morning. We have a funny gospel text today. It is actually really funny. It is a story about a man who is accused of being a poor manager. His master, his boss got word that he was squandering money and not acting reputably or appropriately. We don't really know what he was doing wrong but he was doing something wrong so he got fired. Really he was given notice. Tie up all of your affairs and get out, he was told.
And oh boy did he tie up affairs. He called in everyone who owed his master money and he reduced their debt. He just cut their debts in half or took quarters off. Leaving himself with some good friends and his master with some happy clients, if a little less money that he would have had.
Now I don't really recommend this type of business operation. I think it might lead to some litigation and and certainly some complications but it leaves us with some interesting things to think about.
The master in this situation might be the most interesting character in the whole story. I think it is fair to say that he wasn't holding up his end of the deal very well either. He didn't know for quite a while that his accounts were being handled poorly and once he found out he fired the man who was the problem who then proceeded to give a bunch of his money away, what does he do next? He commends the manager, the man who had done a poor job, the man who had been fired and the man who gave away money that wasn't even his to give in the first place.
Something strange is happening here, a few things don't really seem to add up but I wonder if maybe the master learned something from the manager. You see the manager seemed to know something that his master didn't. He knew that the master didn't really need all of the money and goods that were owed him, that he would be just fine, maybe better than fine without them, otherwise he would have called his debts in long before. He also knew that everyone involved would do be a lot better off if the wealth was spread around some. He knew that those people who owed the master very desperately needed a hand, needed a little bit of relief and so he offered that to them. He also knew that these debtors would hold both him and the master in high regard if their debts were lowered. They would be more inclined to have positive dealings with them in the future. So in a sense he made friends for life for both himself and the master and helped out some struggling people in the community and I think this is really what the master was commending him for doing.
He did a nice job of working for and finding forgiveness in all kinds of unlikely places. And so the master learned from this steward about building community even in the midst of sacrifice and change. That, I think is why, even though this is a strange story for Jesus to be telling, he tells it because through sacrifice and change the characters end up at grace and forgiveness.
It is good for us to see how community sustains us during times of transition, especially when the outcome is grace and forgiveness. It is good for us here today especially because there is some change going on...
It is a good time for us as a community to talk about sacrifice and change on your first Sunday with a new pastor!? In a lot of ways today is even more than that. Not only do you have a new pastor, in a lot of ways this is the first Sunday that you are truly in fellowship with your sister church St. Stephens. What a day filled with blessing and meaning and yes, maybe even some sacrifice and certainly some change.
Our texts today concludes by saying that those who are faithful in very little are also faithful in much.
I know this has been a long road for you but I think you did it faithfully. I suppose it started the day Pastor Jim announced that God was calling him to do ministry somewhere new. There must have been great sadness here when that happened but you faithfully sent him off to his new work. And God was calling you to change your ministry too. So faithfully you figured out how to handle the little things, faithfully the church kept going, kept praying, kept worshipping kept hoping. Then you learned that the synod had some plans for new partners in your ministry and faithfully you entered into an agreement with St Stephen's. Did all this faithful work require some sacrifice? Of course it did, it is hard to grow and to change but from where we all stand now it is clear that the changes were filled with grace and faithfulness. The church who is faithful in very little is also faithful in much.
I know this has been a long road for you but I think you did it faithfully. I suppose it started the day that your last pastor left and you came to realize that God was calling you to new types of ministry as you learned to make the church run during a time of vacancy. So faithfully you figured out how to handle the little things, faithfully the church kept going, kept praying, kept worshipping kept hoping. Then you learned that the synod had some plans for new partners in your ministry and faithfully you entered into an agreement with Trinity. Did all this faithful work require some sacrifice? Of course it did, it is hard to grow and to change but from where we all stand now it is clear that the changes were filled with grace and faithfulness. The church who is faithful in very little is also faithful in much.
This has been a long road for me too. Literally it has been a long road, a long road from Washington to here and a long road before that form college to seminary off to internship, back to seminary and then waiting and praying for just over a year before I heard about you folks and started to think about the ways that we might fit together. Faithfully people all around my home synod prayed for you here in New York and faithfully we started conversations about working together.
And so finally today here we are Pastor Amber and Trinity and St Stephens and we have just begun to change. It is great to be here and to see a congregation full of faithful people who have been worried and excited, exhausted and renewed by this call and transition process. And I can tell, just by your presence here today that you have been faithful in the little things. we are the church, we are called and baptised children of God. So here was are called to be stewards of word and sacrament and together we will share these gifts from God with one another, with our brothers and sisters at St. Stephens and with the people around us.
Our texts today says that those who are faithful in very little are also faithful in much. Just as we have been entrusted to be faithful in the everyday things we are also entrusted with the gifts of the kingdom, with grace and forgiveness and life everlasting.
Together as a community we will continue to be faithful in the little things, in sharing the peace with one another, in sharing our skills for ministry, in reaching out to those who have wandered off, reminding one another over and over again that we are here because we are called here and that we will always be called, in coming to the font to make baptismal promises, in coming to the table to receive the great gifts of God's mercy and forgiveness and through these things it will be clear that we have been entrusted with so much more and that we are truly promised a place in the kingdom and that we are the body of Christ in the world. And we will act as the body of Christ as a new community and as part of the community that we have always been a part of together with all the saints and the whole catholic church. This is good news. Thanks be to God
Amen
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Pentecost 18 C
The final words of the gospel lesson for today are a bit frightening, Jesus tells a parable about Lazarus and a rich man. The rich man gets a pretty hard time in modern discussions for being rich but his real problem is that he hasn't gotten the message that he is called to be faithful to God. He spends his whole life seemingly unaware of even his closest and most troubled neighbors. He walks by poor starving, dying Lazarus everyday without offering any help or, maybe even worse, without even a kind word, without ever acknowledging that he and Lazarus are made in the image of the same God, that they are both beloved children of God.
Well the as the story goes, because of this, he ended up in Hades. He ends up tormented in flames while Lazarus who suffered at his gate is received by Abraham into a pleasant and rewarding afterlife. Once it is clear to him that he can never be freed from this fate the rich man, maybe for the first time ever, thinks of someone other than himself. He thinks of his brothers. He asks for someone to warn them to be faithful.
The answer he gets is troubling: even if one were to return from the dead the brothers would not believe or change their ways. How terrifying. First of all I get the sense that we are the brothers in this story and we have had someone return from the dead, have we changed our ways? do we believe now? Are we safe from Hades?
I think that in the response to this question there is some good news and some bads news and then maybe even some very good news.
The good news is that for the most part, as individuals we respond to God's love, as a congregation we respond to God's love, as a church we respond to God's love and we earnestly try to help those in need, the hungry, the homeless and the spiritually poor.
The bad news is that what we do is limited by our fears and our prejudices and our greed and it falls short, it is impossible for us to fix all of the problems of the world. And this is frustrating and hurts.
I want to tell you a little bit about what I did yesterday because I think it relates to this good news/bad news discussion. Yesterday I attended the Hudson-Mohawk conference assembly.
Part of the business before the assembly was to pass various budgets. And there was some great news, this conference does some great ministry and has some very capable partners in ministry. There seems to be a special emphasis, just like the bible calls for in taking care of those in need and in nurturing young people in the word of God.
Some other good news is that the conference is dedicated to helping fund these ministries and has some funds set aside to help. It is great to see us, the church able to give to programs that we know work and to people that we know God loves.
The groups that are active in this area doing great things in the name of God keep growing too. The special stipulation on the bequests is that they be used for developing ministries, like seed money. They can also be used to expand and diversify work. For example a shelter down in Rensselear that helps women and children to move into safer, more permanent housing but now that they have helped so many of them move into their own hosing and start getting on their feet it is clear that they need a new branch, they need someone who can work with these mothers as they continue to reintegrate into society, someone who can be a career counselor and help locate child care options.
This is a great program and would have been a great place to send the $5000 that they asked for.
There are also several campus ministry programs, they nurture young people as they move away from home, as they plan for their futures and even as they consider roles as leaders in the church. These would be great places to send the several thousand dollars that they requested.
Ah but here we start to get at the bad news side of the coin.
The fund had 16000 in requests from about ten ministries. The fund has just under 7000 to give away this year, sure there is other money in the conference budget but it was needed elsewhere. Some great ministries will get some help from the churches in the Hudson Mohawk conference. No ministry will get as much as they asked for. They will have to turn their backs on some people, they will have a hard time loving each of their neighbors as they are commanded. Just as we as a conference do.
The good news here is that we have heard the gospel and we have been responding in loving and amazing ways. We have cared for the children of God in some wonderful and effective ways.
The bad news is neither the assurance of the gifts of salvation nor any kind of warning seem to have made us able to solve all of the local problems with hunger, disease, violence and poverty much less those farther afield. As hard as we work it seems like there is always more to fix. there are always more people to feed. We always have other responsibilities that keep us from fully committing ourselves and our resources.
This is what makes the words of the parable so worrisome. How much faithfulness is enough? How many Lazaruses do we walk by each day?
The rich man begged for someone to warn his brothers to respond to God's love in the ways he never did, with awe and reverence and generosity. And he heard Abraham say that nothing, not even someone raised from the dead to warn them could save the brothers.
But remember I said that the good news and bad news were followed by some very good news. So here you are.
We are loved and redeemed even though we fall short. This is very good news. Martin Luther called us simultaneously saints and sinners. This means that we are at once and always part of this the world, stuck here in the brokenness of humanity while at the same time sparkling clean, loved redeemed and forgiven children of God. This relates to the work that we do for our brothers and sisters in the world. We believe that we are drawn to care for all of creation as a response to Christ's love and our state of forgiveness but we know that we are beloved and redeemed children of God
So we know that even in the very midst of sin, of brokenness we are not the ones who have the last word.
We work to get the world a little bit closer to the vision of the kingdom of God. We are called to do all we can but our work has nothing to do with whether or not we receive salvation. Abraham was right the brothers on earth couldn't earn their own salvation but the story leaves out the ending. The one who did come back from the grave. The Triumphant resurrection of our Lord.
The one who was raised from the dead for us came to lead us and guide us and to do the work that we could never do. Certainly he was raised to do so much more than just give us a warning.
The really good news is that the one who returned from the grave for us was not Lazarus, he was not simply a messenger. The one who returned from the grave for us came back to offer us the promise of salvation. To strengthen us to do new work in the kingdom while assuring us that we are never alone or abandoned by our God.
We should work for all of the people of God we should support those wonderful ministries that the conference lifts up. We should faithfully feed, clothe and pray for all of the children of God. We should certainly love one another here within these walls and we should find ways to create peace in the world.
And as we do so, knowing that we live in the kingdom of god and we look forward to the kingdom to come, let us never ever forget that the one who returned from the grave for us came back to assure us that as saints and even as sinners we are loved and forgiven, made clean through the sacraments and welcomed to the fold of Jesus. This is good news.
Amen
Pentecost 19 C
In our text today Jesus is giving his disciples some instruction. If you read further you find out that when this happens he is on his way to Jerusalem where he will be tried and executed so he is really giving instruction for how the disciples should act and live once he is gone. As you might imagine this instruction is intense. It is overwhelming to the disciples and so they ask Jesus to increase their faith. Well, the response that they get isn't what they wanted or expected. Jesus doesn't say he won't or can't do that, he doesn't say that they are wrong for asking but he seems to tell them that that isn't what they need. That they have already been given faith and the amount doesn't matter, there is no amount of faith that is less powerful or more powerful than any other amount.
What Jesus says is this. "If you have faith the size of a mustard seed it is enough to say to that big tree over there, be uprooted and go plant yourself and grow in the middle of the sea and it will".
Does Jesus mean here that faith can move trees? When Matthew tells a similar story he says faith can move mountains.
Imagine enough faith to tell the giant maples and oaks around us to move and they will, enough faith to tell them go grow in the middle of the Atlantic and they will. Or someone telling mount Everest that it better get out of the way. Imagine that happening...Now if you really imagine it you get a kind of odd scene. What a silly picture!
And why would we want this, what good would this do us? Would it increase your faith, would it feed your family? Would it bring peace and prosperity to the people of the world? No, it would just move some things around, so maybe this isn't exactly what Jesus meant in the first place.
I wonder if maybe the language here is a bit unconventional because faith is a bit unconventional too and because we just can't think about it in exactly the same way that we think about other forces. Sometimes trees grow in impossible places and mountains move in ways that are more subtle at first but more revolutionary in the end.
This week the Lutheran Church in America is asking us to lift up and learn about the Lutheran World Federation, an organization that includes our ELCA here in America as well as hundreds of other Lutheran churches throughout the world. The LWF works to relieve hunger and create sustainable water systems and farms throughout the world as well as to improve the quality of life in developing countries in many ways. On their website I found a story about a man who either needed to move a mountain or make some trees grow in some very unlikely places indeed.
Julio lives just outside of Cajamarca, Peru, in the upper central region of the country. His father had been considered a serf under the old hacienda system, someone who is very poor and basically works as a slave for the owner of the hacienda.
His family owned nothing and they were forced to work the land. His only Christmas gift was permission to kiss the hand of the hacienda owner. [He was what we think of as an indentured servant, not quite a slave but something close.]
[Then something hopeful happened, the control of the government changed and the sort of indentured work that he was doing was outlawed. So he was free and even better he was given some land by the government! This was great, all of sudden there were seeds in his life. Little tiny rays of hope. But this hope was complicated because he was given only dry mountainous land to farm. He either needed land that was flat and easier to water or he needed crops that would miraculously grow without water...In this situation the family was lucky to squeeze out one harvest a year if the rains would come–not enough even to feed them.
As a result, adults and children in the family wove straw mats and Julio sold them as a wandering peddler in the coastal cities. He was separated from his family for many months each year and still barely made enough for them to live on. The children, who often went to bed hungry, faced a grim future of begging for food on the streets...or worse.
But through a great gift of faith the mountain was moved and trees began to grow in the most unlikely of places.
The thing about faith that we need to remember here is that we don't work for faith, we don't accrue faith we can't even force faith to grow. Faith is a free gift from God. Faith is given to us. And so it is a great ending to Julio's story that gifts were given to him through faith and by faith and from other people of faith.
Through Lutheran World Relief, Julio received training in earth-friendly agriculture. This is the part where the mountain moves and it wasn't quite as easy as just a command. Starting at 4:00 every morning, Julio began to carry boulders up 45-degree slopes to build terraces on his land. and with the small purchase of a $150 gravity pump that brought water up the steep slopes Julio is now able to harvest crops three times a year.
The seeds that he was storing up, hoping that someday they would bear fruit finally had moist healthy land to grow in, the dry mountain side was now a fertile farmland with the soil gaining nutrients all the time. Julio had a shed full of seeds and some faith to work, the people who came to teach him had knowledge of farming and the faith to train him. Now finally and for the first time in any of their memory, there is enough to eat and sell, for Julio, his family and their community. Julio has great hope and big plans for the future but his joy lies primarily in his daughter, Elena, who is not only attending but also excelling in school. Now Julio looks proudly at his daughter and thanks God for how far he and his family have come. “We have moved from a life of hand-outs,” he says, “to a life we [can] hardly imagine.”
Is this what Jesus had in mind when he said that faith the size of a tiny seed could move mountains and make trees grow in impossible places? Maybe not but he was sure that even little bits of faith when treated with the same type of hope that a starving farmer might treat a seed with could certainly do amazing things.
Our text today commands us to do some pretty though things as followers of Jesus. We are asked to forgive people for their sins and trespasses and insults and carelessness over and over again. Up to seven times a day we should forgive them and I would wager even more often than that. and then at the end of the day when we have done these wonderful Holy and Christian acts of faith, love and forgiveness we are told that we should expect no reward, no one to pat us on the back and thank us for our work.
We shouldn't expect even the smallest but thanks but instead because we have been given the great gift of faith to be children of God, we shall live in the kingdom of God. In the Old testament the prophet Habbakuk is told that this is so very true that he should write in out so that even someone running past could read it. God says if you aren't sure you believe, make a billboard to remind yourself.
There should never be any doubt that the kingdom of God is truly yours when your faith feels smaller than a tiny seed and when you see faith bearing beautiful fruit all over the world. It might not happen just like you think, but faith moves mountains and commands the trees to grow! This is good news. Thanks be to God!
Amen
What Jesus says is this. "If you have faith the size of a mustard seed it is enough to say to that big tree over there, be uprooted and go plant yourself and grow in the middle of the sea and it will".
Does Jesus mean here that faith can move trees? When Matthew tells a similar story he says faith can move mountains.
Imagine enough faith to tell the giant maples and oaks around us to move and they will, enough faith to tell them go grow in the middle of the Atlantic and they will. Or someone telling mount Everest that it better get out of the way. Imagine that happening...Now if you really imagine it you get a kind of odd scene. What a silly picture!
And why would we want this, what good would this do us? Would it increase your faith, would it feed your family? Would it bring peace and prosperity to the people of the world? No, it would just move some things around, so maybe this isn't exactly what Jesus meant in the first place.
I wonder if maybe the language here is a bit unconventional because faith is a bit unconventional too and because we just can't think about it in exactly the same way that we think about other forces. Sometimes trees grow in impossible places and mountains move in ways that are more subtle at first but more revolutionary in the end.
This week the Lutheran Church in America is asking us to lift up and learn about the Lutheran World Federation, an organization that includes our ELCA here in America as well as hundreds of other Lutheran churches throughout the world. The LWF works to relieve hunger and create sustainable water systems and farms throughout the world as well as to improve the quality of life in developing countries in many ways. On their website I found a story about a man who either needed to move a mountain or make some trees grow in some very unlikely places indeed.
Julio lives just outside of Cajamarca, Peru, in the upper central region of the country. His father had been considered a serf under the old hacienda system, someone who is very poor and basically works as a slave for the owner of the hacienda.
His family owned nothing and they were forced to work the land. His only Christmas gift was permission to kiss the hand of the hacienda owner. [He was what we think of as an indentured servant, not quite a slave but something close.]
[Then something hopeful happened, the control of the government changed and the sort of indentured work that he was doing was outlawed. So he was free and even better he was given some land by the government! This was great, all of sudden there were seeds in his life. Little tiny rays of hope. But this hope was complicated because he was given only dry mountainous land to farm. He either needed land that was flat and easier to water or he needed crops that would miraculously grow without water...In this situation the family was lucky to squeeze out one harvest a year if the rains would come–not enough even to feed them.
As a result, adults and children in the family wove straw mats and Julio sold them as a wandering peddler in the coastal cities. He was separated from his family for many months each year and still barely made enough for them to live on. The children, who often went to bed hungry, faced a grim future of begging for food on the streets...or worse.
But through a great gift of faith the mountain was moved and trees began to grow in the most unlikely of places.
The thing about faith that we need to remember here is that we don't work for faith, we don't accrue faith we can't even force faith to grow. Faith is a free gift from God. Faith is given to us. And so it is a great ending to Julio's story that gifts were given to him through faith and by faith and from other people of faith.
Through Lutheran World Relief, Julio received training in earth-friendly agriculture. This is the part where the mountain moves and it wasn't quite as easy as just a command. Starting at 4:00 every morning, Julio began to carry boulders up 45-degree slopes to build terraces on his land. and with the small purchase of a $150 gravity pump that brought water up the steep slopes Julio is now able to harvest crops three times a year.
The seeds that he was storing up, hoping that someday they would bear fruit finally had moist healthy land to grow in, the dry mountain side was now a fertile farmland with the soil gaining nutrients all the time. Julio had a shed full of seeds and some faith to work, the people who came to teach him had knowledge of farming and the faith to train him. Now finally and for the first time in any of their memory, there is enough to eat and sell, for Julio, his family and their community. Julio has great hope and big plans for the future but his joy lies primarily in his daughter, Elena, who is not only attending but also excelling in school. Now Julio looks proudly at his daughter and thanks God for how far he and his family have come. “We have moved from a life of hand-outs,” he says, “to a life we [can] hardly imagine.”
Is this what Jesus had in mind when he said that faith the size of a tiny seed could move mountains and make trees grow in impossible places? Maybe not but he was sure that even little bits of faith when treated with the same type of hope that a starving farmer might treat a seed with could certainly do amazing things.
Our text today commands us to do some pretty though things as followers of Jesus. We are asked to forgive people for their sins and trespasses and insults and carelessness over and over again. Up to seven times a day we should forgive them and I would wager even more often than that. and then at the end of the day when we have done these wonderful Holy and Christian acts of faith, love and forgiveness we are told that we should expect no reward, no one to pat us on the back and thank us for our work.
We shouldn't expect even the smallest but thanks but instead because we have been given the great gift of faith to be children of God, we shall live in the kingdom of God. In the Old testament the prophet Habbakuk is told that this is so very true that he should write in out so that even someone running past could read it. God says if you aren't sure you believe, make a billboard to remind yourself.
There should never be any doubt that the kingdom of God is truly yours when your faith feels smaller than a tiny seed and when you see faith bearing beautiful fruit all over the world. It might not happen just like you think, but faith moves mountains and commands the trees to grow! This is good news. Thanks be to God!
Amen
Pentecost 20 C
We have a gospel lesson today that I think a lot of you might recognize from Thanksgiving. It is the text that we often use at thanksgiving time. The reason it is a thanksgiving text is because it tells us that God does great things for us, it asks us what do we do in response to those good things and it makes sure that we know the answer should be that we offer praise, in all kinds of ways and in all kinds of places with our bodies and with our minds and with our hearts and souls and thoughts and prayers and actions.
So we start with a story about Jesus healing ten lepers of their disease. He heals them and sends them away so that they can be part of society again. And of the ten one comes back and he thanks Jesus, he kneels at Jesus' feet and he praises what Jesus has done for him.
Jesus responds lovingly to the man, telling him to go, his faith as healed him but he wonders where the other nine who were healed went. Why didn't they come to thank him. We never know, we don't hear in the story.
But imagine you were one of the ten lepers. you have a terrible disease, you are cast out of your home, your town maybe even your country to live outside of the community without contact with the people you love, not allowed to go to the temple or the market or even the local well. You are completely an outcast and the only way that you can survive is to beg on the streets out of town.
This is where the lepers in our story today are. As they see Jesus approach they call out in loud voices to him for mercy. Loud voices because they are not allowed to be close to him for fear the disease will spread and mercy because they need money to live and food to eat. Instead of responding to this plea for money though Jesus takes away their need to be beggers.
So, say you're one of the ten you have been made clean, given a second chance. A new lease on life. What would you do? What did the ten from our story today do?
A couple of them must have had families. When they came down with leprosy they were forced away, first for fear they would infect their loved ones and then by the rules of the society that said you must not be around healthy people if you are sick. I Bet these people ran home without missing a beat, straight to their families. Scooped up children and wives or husbands and wept with joy. I think many of us might react in this way to being healed.
Others must have had good jobs, they made money and were successful and they were filled with shame when their bodies betrayed them and they were deemed sick, unclean by those over whom they had once had power. They were made to ask for handouts from people who used to pay for their services. I bet these people went back to the office, straight back without missing a beat to try to rebuild the empires that they had controlled.
There may have even been a priest in their midst, someone who had spent his time in the temple offering sacrifices and following all of the commandments for how to praise God. He had been filled with shame and hurt when he had to leave the temple, had to be separated from the God he had served. So as soon as he was shown to be clean he slipped back into the temple, into his comfortable life, knowing that he was chosen by God, why God had even healed him. I bet he made a sacrifice to God in Thanksgiving.
So as these people all went their own way, back to how life had been I wonder if they said goodbye to one another, planned to keep in touch, perhaps they had bonded over their common exile. And I wonder if they noticed one missing from the group. Already well on his way back to Jesus. I wonder if they chased after their fellow from Samaria to ask what he was doing.
If they had they might have realized that there was something different about him. That he seemed to be changed. Not only was he healed, they all were, but he, he was determined. He ran back to Jesus and fell at his feet and said I know that you are the one who healed me. You are the one who gave us the strength and will and reason to go to the temple, to show ourselves to the priests. to reclaim our lives.
The scripture lets us know that this man, the one who ran back to Jesus is the one who got it. The only one one who got it. He understood that he had been healed. He knew that something great had happened. He was more than just happy to have his old life back, he realized that he had just been part of a group of people who had been given new life. And he was thankful. How amazing this life was going to be be because it was given with such grace and trust and so little expectation.
After thanking Jesus did this man who understood return to his family and his job? I'm sure he did, back to the life he had left, but not back to his old life. He returned a new person, a clean whole child of God, filled with thanksgiving.
I'll bet he never stopped telling the story for the rest of his life of how without even asking for it he had been healed and I'm sure that through him maybe without his even knowing it great things happened.
What would you do if you were given new life? If suddenly you were made completely whole? Would you run toward the source of healing proclaiming loud thanksgivings? Is that why you are here today?
I was talking to a member of the congregation this last week who is need of some great healing herself. I was there to pray with her and her family. But in the midst of explaining to me how and why she needed to be healed she was constantly turning to the people in her family who had been healed and cared for so many times and who are great sources of joy and healing to her now.
Even while sick she is filled with thanksgiving, she knows that she has already been given new life.
What do you do knowing that you have been given new life? Can you talk even in the midst of great doubt about the Lord who heals you?
Yesterday we were given a new life, we were formally commissioned by some official people with some official words to be a family together. To be a new configuration of the body of Christ. In a lot of ways yesterday was a little bit like a reaffirmation of baptism for us all. We were reminded that we are called, claimed and sealed children of God and that as a community we have been pulled together out of brokenness and to proclaim our faith and thanksgiving.
But yesterday didn't change anything. Yesterday just reminded us that we are already changed, we are already new. We already belong to God, we are already living new lives baptised and claimed by a risen saviour. Yesterday just posed the question again:
What are we going to do with this new life?
Will we go back to our comfortable habits? Or will we run toward its source proclaiming our thanks in a loud voice?
Will we quietly keep to the business we generally do here? Or will we tell the story over and over throughout our community?
Will we look like just the same people, people who might go to church on Sunday but nothing much seems to happen there? Or will we become a new creation in response to our new life?
I have great hope that we will remember, each day that we spend together, that in Baptism we were given new life and made a new family and we will make our thanksgivings known!
I don't know what the right kind of thanksgiving will look like for us. I don't know what we can do here that is equivalent to running and falling at Jesus' feet. Do you?
What are we going to do with this new life?
Whatever it is, whatever we do, let us always be proclaiming the good news with great thanksgiving!
Amen
So we start with a story about Jesus healing ten lepers of their disease. He heals them and sends them away so that they can be part of society again. And of the ten one comes back and he thanks Jesus, he kneels at Jesus' feet and he praises what Jesus has done for him.
Jesus responds lovingly to the man, telling him to go, his faith as healed him but he wonders where the other nine who were healed went. Why didn't they come to thank him. We never know, we don't hear in the story.
But imagine you were one of the ten lepers. you have a terrible disease, you are cast out of your home, your town maybe even your country to live outside of the community without contact with the people you love, not allowed to go to the temple or the market or even the local well. You are completely an outcast and the only way that you can survive is to beg on the streets out of town.
This is where the lepers in our story today are. As they see Jesus approach they call out in loud voices to him for mercy. Loud voices because they are not allowed to be close to him for fear the disease will spread and mercy because they need money to live and food to eat. Instead of responding to this plea for money though Jesus takes away their need to be beggers.
So, say you're one of the ten you have been made clean, given a second chance. A new lease on life. What would you do? What did the ten from our story today do?
A couple of them must have had families. When they came down with leprosy they were forced away, first for fear they would infect their loved ones and then by the rules of the society that said you must not be around healthy people if you are sick. I Bet these people ran home without missing a beat, straight to their families. Scooped up children and wives or husbands and wept with joy. I think many of us might react in this way to being healed.
Others must have had good jobs, they made money and were successful and they were filled with shame when their bodies betrayed them and they were deemed sick, unclean by those over whom they had once had power. They were made to ask for handouts from people who used to pay for their services. I bet these people went back to the office, straight back without missing a beat to try to rebuild the empires that they had controlled.
There may have even been a priest in their midst, someone who had spent his time in the temple offering sacrifices and following all of the commandments for how to praise God. He had been filled with shame and hurt when he had to leave the temple, had to be separated from the God he had served. So as soon as he was shown to be clean he slipped back into the temple, into his comfortable life, knowing that he was chosen by God, why God had even healed him. I bet he made a sacrifice to God in Thanksgiving.
So as these people all went their own way, back to how life had been I wonder if they said goodbye to one another, planned to keep in touch, perhaps they had bonded over their common exile. And I wonder if they noticed one missing from the group. Already well on his way back to Jesus. I wonder if they chased after their fellow from Samaria to ask what he was doing.
If they had they might have realized that there was something different about him. That he seemed to be changed. Not only was he healed, they all were, but he, he was determined. He ran back to Jesus and fell at his feet and said I know that you are the one who healed me. You are the one who gave us the strength and will and reason to go to the temple, to show ourselves to the priests. to reclaim our lives.
The scripture lets us know that this man, the one who ran back to Jesus is the one who got it. The only one one who got it. He understood that he had been healed. He knew that something great had happened. He was more than just happy to have his old life back, he realized that he had just been part of a group of people who had been given new life. And he was thankful. How amazing this life was going to be be because it was given with such grace and trust and so little expectation.
After thanking Jesus did this man who understood return to his family and his job? I'm sure he did, back to the life he had left, but not back to his old life. He returned a new person, a clean whole child of God, filled with thanksgiving.
I'll bet he never stopped telling the story for the rest of his life of how without even asking for it he had been healed and I'm sure that through him maybe without his even knowing it great things happened.
What would you do if you were given new life? If suddenly you were made completely whole? Would you run toward the source of healing proclaiming loud thanksgivings? Is that why you are here today?
I was talking to a member of the congregation this last week who is need of some great healing herself. I was there to pray with her and her family. But in the midst of explaining to me how and why she needed to be healed she was constantly turning to the people in her family who had been healed and cared for so many times and who are great sources of joy and healing to her now.
Even while sick she is filled with thanksgiving, she knows that she has already been given new life.
What do you do knowing that you have been given new life? Can you talk even in the midst of great doubt about the Lord who heals you?
Yesterday we were given a new life, we were formally commissioned by some official people with some official words to be a family together. To be a new configuration of the body of Christ. In a lot of ways yesterday was a little bit like a reaffirmation of baptism for us all. We were reminded that we are called, claimed and sealed children of God and that as a community we have been pulled together out of brokenness and to proclaim our faith and thanksgiving.
But yesterday didn't change anything. Yesterday just reminded us that we are already changed, we are already new. We already belong to God, we are already living new lives baptised and claimed by a risen saviour. Yesterday just posed the question again:
What are we going to do with this new life?
Will we go back to our comfortable habits? Or will we run toward its source proclaiming our thanks in a loud voice?
Will we quietly keep to the business we generally do here? Or will we tell the story over and over throughout our community?
Will we look like just the same people, people who might go to church on Sunday but nothing much seems to happen there? Or will we become a new creation in response to our new life?
I have great hope that we will remember, each day that we spend together, that in Baptism we were given new life and made a new family and we will make our thanksgivings known!
I don't know what the right kind of thanksgiving will look like for us. I don't know what we can do here that is equivalent to running and falling at Jesus' feet. Do you?
What are we going to do with this new life?
Whatever it is, whatever we do, let us always be proclaiming the good news with great thanksgiving!
Amen
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
