Have you
ever wanted to be set free from what ails you?
All of us suffer--sometimes acutely, sometimes chronically, sometimes
both. When we suffer, we seek to have
our suffering ended. We seek a cure for
our ailment. In modern times we do not
view suffering as a punishment for our sinfulness. But we seek the cause of our ailments in
hopes of discovering a cure to end our suffering.
If we cannot
solve the puzzle of what is causing our suffering, we hope for a miracle. And here's where it gets tricky for modern
people, often we view certain folks as deserving a miracle. An unexplained cure should come to those who
have lived righteously or to those who have a strong faith or to those who have
been prayed for by many people. But
miracles, unexplained by definition, are more often than not shrouded in
mystery. People who receive them appear
no more worthy than someone who does not receive them--sometimes less worthy,
even.
The
idea of mystery as pervading both our spiritual and physical lives can be seen
in our scriptures for today. "You
have not come to something that can be touched . . ." begins the passage
from the Letter to the Hebrews. The holy
mystery we believe surrounds our sacramental actions, such a being baptized or
receive holy communion, have both outward signs which we can see--water, bread
and wine--but also an inward and spiritual grace--an action God takes to draw
us into the life God intends for us.
The
woman in the story we heard from Luke's gospel today was weak and bent
over. Jesus' words that declared her
"set free" and his laying hands on her are outward signs of an inward
transformation that allowed this daughter of Abraham to lead the healed life
God intended for her. Yes, for her the
miracle of no longer suffering--Luke calls it being "cured"--meant a
freedom she had not felt in eighteen years.
All that time her ailment made her unclean and allowed her community to
consider her a sinner bound by evil she or an ancestor had committed. After Jesus touched her, the community that
witnessed this rejoiced, according to Luke.
Rejoicing
in the miracle also means celebrating the mystery of how God draws us to God's
self. Today we are rejoicing in the
miracle of M--'s birth and his family's love for him. More than that we are rejoicing in and we are
naming God's action in M--'s life and in L--'s and R--'s lives--and in the
lives of M--'s family and friends who have gathered here today. Our prayer book
in the prayer of "Thanksgiving over the Water"--which you will hear
in a few minutes--declares how God acts in this moment: "In it (the water)
we are buried with Christ in his death.
By it we share in his resurrection.
Through it we are reborn by the Holy Spirit."
The
mystery of new birth in Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit is what we are
declaring in M--'s life today. From this moment on, no matter how well his life
goes, no matter what wonderful or difficult moments it contains, M-- will be
marked as Christ's own forever. God will
be ever reaching out to him through the community of love--his family and
friends--that surrounds him this day and which will nurture him in the days to
come.
The
Letter to the Hebrews expresses this mystery of new life as God's shaking the
earth and being a "consuming fire.
These are images that our scriptures often associate with the end of
time, images of God's revealing God's self to redeem creation from whatever
separates us from God, which our theology calls “evil.” Yet they are also images of transformation and
new life for which we should give thanks: "Therefore since we are
receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us give thanks, by which we
offer to God and acceptable worship with reverence and awe."
Although
we understand God's grace to be a source of comfort and strength--and it
is--both our scripture and our theology contain images of God's grace in
transforming us that are frightening: being "buried" in the water of
baptism, being shaken to remove what is unworthy, and being refined by fire of
our evil tendencies. These frightening
images, metaphors for what we experience in life, show the tension that we
enter when we become part of Christ's body through baptism.
M--,
through his parents' promises, and we, through our renewal of the baptismal
promises, willing open ourselves to God as God reaches out to us in the tension
between love and transformation. So let
us rejoice; let us offer to God acceptable worship with reverence and awe; let
us allow God's love to transform us and sustain us, as God draws us closer and
closer to God’s self and to the healed and redeemed life God intends for each
of us.
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