The 7th Sunday after Pentecost - Healing

The Vestry voted a while back to have healing services on the fifth Sundays, which means they come four times a year.  Sometimes the readings for the day and the time in the life of this congregation does not lead me to preach about healing, but today both of these things lead me in that direction.

To say I've been in hospital and rehab settings quite a bit in the last couple of months would be a fair statement.  And our lesson from the book of Genesis speaks about an incident involving an unusual healing.

But before I talk about them, let me clarify something that we all know, but need to think about occasionally, whenever we pray for healing for others or for ourselves.  To be healed is one thing; to be cured is something else.

One type of cure results from a diagnosis of a disease or dysfunction followed by treatment to get rid of the disease.  Modern medical care can do amazing things to cure us from various serious diseases.  Miraculous cures happen when a person with a disease that can't be treated by medical means is cured anyway, by means that science or medicine cannot explain.  These may have happened to people you know—maybe even to you.  These are what we desperately pray for when doctors tell us there is nothing more to be done for someone we love.

We human beings are mortal. Our life spans can be very short or very long or somewhere in between.  We may deny our mortality—most of us do at some point or another—but our mortality need not prevent us from receiving healing.

Prayer for healing does not take the place of medical treatment; the two work together. Being healed through prayer means being given the power to live life as fully and abundantly as possible, no matter what our physical or emotional circumstances.  Healing can occur over and over again as our circumstances change, because we need help from our Creator to live fully in those new circumstances. Yet sometimes we find what ails us (or someone we love) is stronger than our bodies and our minds can handle.  Then healing must take place in the loving arms of God—for we believe that our lives will continue after our earthly ones.  Now let us examine the reading from Genesis to see what it tells us about healing.

Jacob had much to be anxious about.  About 20 years before, he had cheated his brother Esau out of his birthright.  He had manipulated his father-in-law, Laban, to allow him to leave and return to Canaan with his wives, his children and a goodly portion of Laban's flocks, herds and camels. Now he was afraid as Esau came toward him with 400 men.  He had taken measures to protect his family and property by sending them away from him.  As night fell, Jacob was alone.  He encountered a man whom he understood to be a divine being.  The two wrestled and Jacob's opponent dislocated Jacob's hip.  Holding on to his opponent and refusing to allow him to depart, Jacob demanded healing though a blessing.  He received that blessing and a new name to signify what had happened:  “ Israel. . . you have striven with God and with humans and have prevailed.”  Esau and Jacob were reconciled, and Jacob continued to prosper.  Yet in his old age he and his family had to face more difficulties.  We will hear about these in the coming weeks.

Jacob's story reassures us that our healing does not depend on our worthiness.  His healing appeared to depend on his desire to live fully in a relationship with God—even when that relationship involved struggle.  We may expect connection with the Holy One to be easy, because we know we are beloved by God.  Yet Jacob's experience may be more typical than we would like to think.  Of all the words I might use to describe my eight days of retreat this month at the Jesuit Center, “easy” would not be one of them.  “Struggle” would be more accurate. However, by the end—although I don't think it's complete—I could describe my time there as a healing time.  Our healing by God may, indeed, take our entire lives and, as I said earlier, even our lives to come.

Some folks will come forward this morning to the altar rail to be anointed and to receive prayer for healing—for themselves or for someone else.  Some will remain in their places where they will be praying for themselves and for others to be healed.  Some may simply pray without words—in effect asking the Holy Spirit to pray in their stead “with sighs too deep for words.”  This time may be a time of peace for you, or it may be a time of struggle.  In whatever state your find yourself, offer it to God.  The Holy One became present to Jacob when Jacob needed even more than he even knew how to ask for.  The Holy One met Jacob where he was, as he was.  The Holy One will become present to you, will heal you, and will give you wholeness and life more abundant.  Just ask, as you are—and then receive!

The 6th Sunday after Pentecost - Do What for God's Kingdom??

“I want to tell you about something wonderful.  Well, it's kinda like a weed—you go to plant some good seed and you didn't realize that mustard seed was mixed in with it—but when things start growing that mustard plant, that weed—well it's more like a tree it's so big—so big even the birds can nest in it.  What d'ya think?

Well, it really is wonderful.  Well, it's kinda like when a person makes bread.  What if she was making about 100 loaves for a great feast, how much of that yeasty starter do you think she'd need.  I know it looks yucky—but she only has to take just a tiny bit makes all that bread rise perfectly.  Don't you think I'm telling you about something wonderful?

It's so wonderful that I'll bet you'd sell your house and your car and your hi-fi system and your computer—make that both your computers and both your cars—to get enough money to buy it.

And by the way, those who don't get on board with my fabulous offer—it's gonna be just too bad for those jokers!  They will be so angry—they might even cuss you out—when the time comes and they see what you have is so much more wonderful than anything they could ever hope to have.  You will be livin' well.  They'll be suffering!

Do you understand?  Are you with me? This will be so wonderful—so wonderful—it's like brand new—but still as wonderful as what you've always liked, but even better.  Are you with me here?”

I'm not sure Jesus' descriptions of the “kingdom of heaven” really worked to convince his listeners they should sign on.  He's comparing it to a weed and to yeast which people considered necessary, but “unclean.”  And would you be ready to give up everything you have to be part of the kingdom?  If not, he ends with a bit of a warning.  The righteous ones will be included in the kingdom where they will have both tradition and something new as well.  Unlike today, back in New Testament times, new ways were not automatically considered better.

Perhaps Jesus wanted to bring up short those who chose to follow his call and be his disciples. Perhaps he wanted them to think about what being his disciple meant for their lives.  The people for whom Matthew was writing certainly had to decide whether believing in the Good News Jesus taught and died for was worth the risk.  Was believing that God had done something entirely new and wonderful in Jesus worth enduring persecution and possibly death?  Jesus' resurrection and his teaching meant that nothing could ever be the same for those who believed that Jesus was the Messiah.  It meant that believers should live as though the world could end tomorrow.  The writer Annie Dillard says we should be wearing crash helmets in church when we pray for God's kingdom to come, as we do every single Sunday!

The world hasn't come to the end of time yet.  Most of us don't expect that it will anytime soon. And we live in a country where we will not be arrested and killed for our Christian faith. Nevertheless, these parables still have a message for us in the 21^st century in our relatively safe and relatively prosperous environment.

How do these images in these kingdom parables speak to us?  What challenge do they offer us?

We have to begin by thinking about what Jesus meant by the kingdom of heaven and then we have to decide whether we can commit ourselves to working for the spread of God's kingdom. The kingdom of heaven is not something that will only come when the world ends.  From the evidence in all four Gospels we believe that the reign of God in the world began with Jesus' being born as a human being and was confirmed by his resurrection.  To most of the world it was barely noticeable, like the mustard seed of the parable, but it had begun.  Jesus taught about the nature of the reign of God in his preaching and his teaching. In the gospel of Matthew we can hear it most clearly in what we call the Sermon on the Mount, reported by Matthew in Chapters 5, 6 and 7 and in Jesus' teaching about the righteous life in the last part of Chapter 25.

In these passages Matthew showed Jesus as encouraging his listeners to love peace, to be merciful, to care for the poor and downtrodden, to go beyond the moral behavior prescribed by the Ten Commandments, obeying the spirit of them as well.  He taught to give without desiring recognition and to practice our piety with humility as well.  He gave what we call “The Lord's Prayer” as the prayer all disciples should not only say, but also live by.  We should pray for the coming of God's kingdom.  We should practice forgiveness, in the same way God has forgiven us.  The need for God's forgiveness rings true, because we will fall short of the mark as we try to live as Jesus taught.

Is this way of life such a treasure for us that we commit all that we have and all that we are to the work of the God's kingdom?  Some folks did decide to do so and lived in a way that we honor and admire today.  We call them, “Holy Women, Holy Men,” and we are encouraged to remember their lives on their special days.

But what about our lives today here in Brookside and Newark and Bear and Glasgow and Wilmington?  What about our lives as we live in our Christian community called St. Nicholas?  The legends about our patron—and legends are all we have because neither he nor a contemporary wrote about his life—emphasize his generosity and his concern for the poor.  I believe we as a church do respond when we have events like our auction, our soup sale and our yard sale to raise money for worthy causes in our community. Our contributions of food and volunteer work in our food pantry show our commitment to the spread of God's kingdom as well.  As individuals and families, we also give our time, talent and treasure to support works of mercy in the communities where we live.

These parables commend these choices, but they also challenge us to continue.  For indeed we are to be like the “scribe trained for the kingdom of heaven.”  Jesus compares that scribe to a householder who will bring out new treasure for the kingdom.  Let us continue to act in ways that offer new treasure, something we have not offered before—something that we may not have realized was needed—to support the spread of God’s kingdom.  

The 4th Sunday after Pentecost - Blessing & Fruitful Soil

The gospel reading we heard this morning is often called the Parable of the Sower, but it could be called the Parable of the Four Soils or the Parable of the Miraculous Yields as well.  For many folks it lends itself to an allegorical interpretation, for example:  the sower is God, the seeds are God's Word, humanity contains different conditions for responding to the Good News preached by Jesus, and we'd better work to be good soil—if possible the highest yielding soil.

This interpretation might lead us to believe that being a good person, or a good church, will make THE difference in the arrival of God's reign.  That, of course, would not square with the faith expressed in the Nicene Creed: “We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ . . . For us and our salvation he came down from heaven . . . He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.”  It does not square with St. Paul's understanding of God's acting to save us from the bondage of sin and death.  In the passage we heard from the eighth chapter of Romans, Paul said:  “There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.  For the law of the Spirit of life in Jesus Christ has set you free from the law of sin and death.”  God has acted through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ to create fertile soil in the human heart—to free us and to save us.  All we must do is open our ears, our eyes and our hearts to receive God's gift of grace.

Perhaps a descriptive interpretation would lead to a more “fruitful” understanding. Is Matthew simply reporting Jesus' words as describing the world as it is or the human heart as it is?  Perhaps God's word will take root and with some people in some places, but not in other people or in other places.  Perhaps the different types of soil are all contained within each of us at different times in our lives. Some people live lives that could be described as downtrodden or rocky or full of weeds or thorns.  At different times in our times we may have felt that God has allowed life to become too difficult, so our faith begins to waver or almost dies. Someone as saintly as Mother Teresa wrote that she felt God had abandoned her spiritually.  At other times we feel blessed and close to God, touched by God's love and grace. In those moments we feel ready to be God's heart and hands in the world, acting mercifully, showing compassion, witnessing to our faith in God.

Yet even this approach does not do justice to the complexity of this parable and the complexity of our lives in Christ.  Matthew reported that Jesus first spoke the parable to a great crowd, but later addressed the disciples privately when they asked him why he spoke in parables. This section of chapter thirteen is never read on Sunday, so we never get to hear Jesus tell his disciples:  “To you it has been given to know the secrets [sometimes translated “mysteries”] of the kingdom of heaven . . .blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear.”  Then Jesus gives the disciples the explanation of the parable we heard in the second part of the reading from Matthew.

Jesus' interpretation of his parable is allegorical, but he does not prescribe what our response should be.  In fact, the way he interprets the parable appears to encourage us to ponder the mystery of the kingdom, the mystery of God's coming reign: “ . . .blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear.”  Your eyes . . . your ears.  Is Jesus asking the disciples to take the risk of trusting their own experience of God—their experience of God revealing God's self through the teaching of Jesus?

My experience of this passage today can be “blessed” by its asking me to marvel at God's work of salvation in me and in each of you.  It may be “blessed” by my learning to place more trust in what God is doing here at St. Nicholas' and less in my own efforts to be your pastor.

Let me say how grateful I am for the support of each person at St. Nicholas’ today.  This community is blessed by you.  I am also grateful for those who worship here regularly, but who are not with us today.  They are away on vacation—or they’re taking care a family matter—or some other important reason draws them away.  We are blessed by them.

Let me say how grateful I am that this community is a haven for folks who show up to worship and are welcomed, some for a season and some simply passing through. We are blessed by their presence.  Then, let me say how grateful I am for the support we give each other every Sunday, so we can go back to our everyday lives with renewed strength and hope through Jesus Christ our Lord.  We are blessed by each other.

Indeed this parable forces me to ponder the mystery of how God is working here.  Were I to make a suggestion to God, I would suggest that our chairs be filled a little more every year.  I am not praying for explosive growth.  I am praying that gradually more and more people would come to know Jesus through our community here at St. Nicholas'. I pray that we who belong to this community would become so fired up in the Spirit that we can hardly bear to miss Sunday worship here—50 Average Sunday Attendance becomes 52 then becomes 54 and so on.  Right now I have faith God is working out God's purpose for us here at St. Nicholas.'  Yet I find this process mysterious.  Do you?

What should we pray for then?  We should pray that our eyes, our ears and our hearts will be both opened and blessed by our experience with Jesus Christ in this community.  May God scatter the seed of God's word among us.  May God enrich the soil of our hearts and minds right here, right now.  May we ponder the mystery of this parable and then trust in the fullness and fruitfulness of God's grace to lead us as we live into the promised kingdom, the reign of God.