United and Healed

by the Rev. Jim Gilman

This sermon is based on Luke 13:10-17.

Many of you know that this Wednesday, August 28 is the 50^th anniversary of the March on Washington. In fact, some of you like me are gray-haired enough to remember the original event; perhaps some were even there. It was a big step in the journey of racial healing in this country. It contributed to the passage of the Civil Rights bill and the Voting Rights act in the mid-60s. But that journey of racial healing is not yet complete and indeed is proving to be rough and precarious.

Our gospel lesson from Luke is a story of healing. It is a story about two people who are crippled by two different kinds of ailments. The crippled woman suffers involuntarily a physical ailment from which Jesus sets her free. The leader of the synagogue is crippled voluntarily by a spiritual ailment: legalism. Jesus offers to heal him and the congregation to “untie” or set them free from the suffocating prison of legalism

“Untied” and Healed

            The context of Luke’s story is a journey Jesus takes through Samaria up to Jerusalem. Along the way Jesus stops to teach. In our episode, he stops at a synagogue in Samaria. As he is teaching, a woman appears who is in bondage to a crippling disease. Jesus sees her in the congregation and immediately his teaching turns into an invitation. “Come here,” he says to her; and she comes. What happens next is miraculous and amazing to everyone: As Jesus lays his hands on her he says “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” You can just imagine people gasping as the woman feels strength surge through her bones, feels her broken, bent body straighten. At one moment she is in bondage to a crippling disease and the next moment her body is liberated and she is “set free”. Wow!!

            Well, you might think that would be the end of the episode; but not when there are clergy around; we didn’t go to seminary for nothin’. So, the leader of the synagogue has his say. He’s “indignant”, Luke says, not because Jesus heals the women, but because he heals her on the Sabbath instead of one of the other six days of the week.  Of course, the leader did not think to ask the woman what she thought of being healed on the Sabbath. But Jesus speaks up for her. He is a practicing Jew and not against Sabbath regulations; he is only against the abuse and misuse of them. In this case, the leader of the synagogue suffers from a spiritual sickness—legalism; he is misusing Sabbath regulations by trying to use them to dominate Jesus and manipulate a situation that he feels is getting out of his control. He doesn’t seem to care at all that the woman is healed or not. But Jesus has none of it; he is not about to allow the leader to misuse Sabbath rules to suppress compassion and healing. He is not about to allow the power of love to be in bondage to anger and legalism. Recall what Jesus says: “You hypocrites!” You untie your ox and donkey on the Sabbath and lead them to water so that they can live well. But you say I can’t untie this woman and heal her of her disease on the Sabbath.  Come on! That’s hypocritical.……………Well, that kind of shut the opposition up.

            Jesus offers moral and spiritual healing to the synagogue leader and the congregation. He rejects the fear and suspicion that misuses Sabbath regulations to try and dominate and intimidate. He demonstrates that “untying” and setting free from fear and suspicion heals and is always a good thing in God’s Kingdom.

Application

            Luke’s gospel is filled with stories of compassion and healing. Compassion and healing never go out of fashion. Luke’s lesson is our lesson; Jesus comes to “untie” us from the bondage of whatever ails us. Not only as individuals but also as a society, we are in need of healing, in need of being “untied” from the bondage of certain collective diseases.  

One social ailment that is on my mind these days is disease of racial fear and mistrust, represented specifically by the Trayvon Martin tragedy. The need for the March on Washington and the demand for racial healing is as urgent today as it was then; our society suffers from the disease of racial fear and suspicion and mistrust. Some say justice was done when George Zimmerman was acquitted. I don’t thinks so, even though procedural rules were followed as strictly as Sabbath regulations. Our society is still bound by the injustice of racial fear and suspicion and mistrust. For example, if it was my white son who was walking to the store through the same neighborhood as Travyon, George Zimmerman would barely have noticed him let alone fear him and hold him in suspicion. If it was my white son he would not have stopped his car, he would not have gotten out and followed him; he would not have engaged him in a tragic encounter; he would not have shot and killed him. This tragedy happened because racial fear and suspicion still plague our society For all the good rules and regulations do, for all the great progress in civil law and human rights we have made in this country, we still suffer from a disease of racial fear and suspicion that leads to discrimination and injustice. Indeed, the “stand your ground” law in Florida was misused, like Sabbath rules, to try to control and intimidate Trayvon; and it ended in tragedy. 

Christians need to constantly reform the church as a power that heals and sets free—in this case from the disease of racial. As Christians we carry in our spiritual blood a mission of mercy and freedom and justice, a mission that has the power to heal and transform racial fear and injustice.  

There is today still a lot of racial mistrust and injustice in Staunton, in our neighborhoods, in our public schools, in our courts and justice system, in our homes and even in our churches. Trinity’s challenge, from Luke’s gospel, is to follow Jesus in giving voice to the voiceless, to those that live in the shadow of racial fear and suspicion; to untie our society from its racial fear and mistrust; to offer to what Jesus offers, the healing of God’s love and mercy and reconciliation.  Jesus is here amongst us today to heal our racial fears and suspicions; he unties the church from that bondage of mistrust so that we can live fully and freely with all races.

The church’s challenge today is to continue to fulfill the promise of the March on Washington. It needs to be on the frontline of the March, offering racial healing, overcoming racial mistrust, injustice and indifference. Compassion and healing are always in fashion for the church and for society, even on the Sabbath. May God empower us as a community of mercy and justice to heal others just as Christ has healed us.

Fire

by the Rev. Dr. Paul S. Nancarrow

This sermon is based on Luke 12:49-56. 

Jesus said, “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!"

I have to confess, I find these words from today’s Gospel to be ambiguous at best, and downright frightening at worst. This image that Jesus uses, this image of fire, has always had a double edge, it has always signified both positive and negative realities.

On the positive side, in the biblical tradition, fire has been used as a powerful sign of the presence and the power of God:

• Moses saw God in a bush that was on fire but was not consumed.
• The People of Israel were led out of bondage in Egypt by God in a pillar of fire.
• The prophet Isaiah had a vision of God when he was burning incense in the Temple, and the flames on the incense altar became fire angels, seraphim, who called to each other “Holy Holy Holy is the Lord of Hosts” — and whose song we repeat in every Eucharist.
• The prophet Jeremiah said that the Word of God was like a burning fire which breaks through dreams and lies and deceit and brings the uncompromising truth of God.
• John the Baptist promised that after him was coming one that was mightier than he, who would baptize with fire.
• When the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples in the upper room at Pentecost, it appeared as flames of fire dancing on their heads.
• And we continue to echo that biblical symbolism in our own religious practice today:
  • We put candles on our altars, so that the fire can remind us of God’s presence with us in worship.
  • We keep a single candle, an eternal flame, burning above the aumbry, to signify the presence of the consecrated sacrament within.
  • At the Easter Vigil we kindle a new fire — and it's usually a big, bright, roaring blaze — as a symbol of the light of Christ's resurrection bursting forth from the night of the tomb.

Throughout the Bible, fire is used as a sign of the presence of God.

And fire can be a very positive thing in our ordinary, not-especially-religious experience, too:

• When I was younger, my family used to take camping vacations — it was a great way to go new places and see new things relatively inexpensively for a family with two adults, three kids, and one St Bernard. One of my favorite parts of camping was of course the nightly campfire, where we'd gather round, toast marshmallows, make s'mores, watch the flames dance over the dark shapes of the logs, see the glowing embers emerge from the grain of the wood. There was something kind of primal, even primally reassuring, about acting out that ancient human scene of a family gathered in the light and warmth of the fire, our backs turned outward to the deep and mysterious dark.

Time and time again for us, fire is a sign of the creating, inspiring, empowering, reassuring presence of God.

But fire is unquestionably also a destructive force. In the Bible:

• God responded to the sinfulness of Sodom and Gomorrah by raining down fire and brimstone to destroy them.
• The prophet Elijah called down fire from heaven to burn up the soldiers of the king who had come to take him captive and punish him for speaking the word of God.
• John the Baptist warned that the axe was laid to the roots of the trees, and every tree that did not bear good fruit would be cut down and thrown into the fire.
• The seer of the Book of Revelation saw that those who rebelled against God would be ultimately confined for eternity in a lake of fire.

And we experience fire as a destructive force in the world, too:

• While we had a very wet spring and early summer here in the Valley, elsewhere n the country there has been extreme drought this summer, especially in the west, and that has contribited to wildfires burning out of control – at last count, three dozen major fires in five states, including one that claimed the lives of 19 firefighters in Arizona in June.

We know very well, in religion and in life, how destructive fire can be.

And Jesus said, “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!” What is ambiguous about these words is whether Jesus means to bring the fire that destroys, or the fire that creates.

Or perhaps Jesus means both. The positive and negative, the destructive and creative sides of the fire symbol come together when fire is a sign of transformation, when fire is a sign of renewal, when fire purifies and tempers and strengthens:

• Job in the midst of his suffering remembers the legend of the phoenix that dies in fire and is reborn from its own ashes.
• The prophet Zechariah says that God will refine the holy people as silver is refined in the fire.
• St Paul says that all our life’s works, all that we’ve built on the foundation of Christ, will be tested with fire; the hay and the straw will be burned, but the gold and silver and precious stones will be made pure.

And we see that in the world, too:

• When there is a fire in the forest, new life colonizes the burned area almost at once — there are even certain plants and trees whose seeds can only open up and sprout in the heat of a fire: without fire, they don’t come to life — and the new plants move into the burned area start turning the ash into usable nutrients for the next generation of forest.
• Years ago I heard the story of a church that burned down — and as the congregation rallied around rebuilding their building, they found it was also an opportunity to renew their sense of being church. As they thought about what they wanted their new building to look like, how they wanted it to function, how they wanted to use their building, that made them stop and rethink their sense of mission, the ministries they felt their congregation was called to do. As they thought about their worship space, that made them think about what kind of relationships they wanted to cultivate among worshipers. As they thought about their meeting and educational space, that made them think about wanting to spend more time studying the Bible together, dwelling in the Word together, learning about their gifts for ministry and releasing their passions for mission together. As they thought about making their building feel welcoming to visitors and newcomers, that made them think about what they could do to be a more genuinely welcoming and hospitable congregation. In ways both small and large, the project of rebuilding their building after the fire became a call to renew their congregation.

And there's no reason why that same fire of Christ cannot be kindled in other congregations — even our own congregation — and we don't need to wait for the building to burn down to get that started!

Because it is that kind of fire, that fire of transformation, that Jesus promises in the Gospel today. Jesus’ words to us today are frightening, but they are also full of promise. Frightening, because the fire of Christ will burn us, it will hurt, as it burns away our impurities, as it gives us light to interpret the signs of this difficult present time, as it enlightens us to see things that, perhaps, we would be more comfortable not seeing — things like our complicity in injustice, our perpetuation of racism, our environmentally unsustainable practices, our failure to commend the faith that is in us. Jesus’ words about fire can be frightening. But Jesus’ words today are also full of promise, because the fire Jesus brings is the fire of God’s own love, the fire of God’s transformation, kindled in our hearts, warming us and enlightening us and changing us and radiating out from us to bring new life to the world.

The Good News of this Gospel today is that, although it may be painful to burn away the obstacles that keep us from drawing closer to God, nevertheless, the pain of that fire is worth it for the joy that is set before us, the mission God inspires in us, for the passion the Spirit ignites in all our hearts.

Jesus said, “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!"

Let it be our prayer today that the fire of Christ may indeed be kindled now, here, today, in us. Amen.

Up Close and Far Away

by the Rev. Dr. Paul Nancarrow

This sermon is based on Luke 12:32-40. 

It's good to be home! Lee and I had the kind of vacation where it was good to be away, good to be going where we went and doing what we did; but now it's good to be home, too, back in our community and back in our church.

A few days ago, though, I was sitting on a rock in Acadia National Park in Maine, with the Atlantic Ocean and the Maine coastal islands spread out in front and to the right, and to the left and behind the rocky hills and headlands of the Acadian coast. As I was trying to drink in the entire place, I noticed my attention kept shifting. For a little while I'd look at the rock and the waves right in front of me: I'd watch the shape of the water as it flowed around the edges of the rock; I'd notice the tiny shells and the fronds of seaweed that showed how deep the water would be when the tide was fully in; I'd see how each wave seemed a little higher because the tide was rising; I'd catch the sunlight glinting off each wave in a unique pattern because no two waves flowed quite the same; I'd realize that each wave was its own tremendously complex individual reality. Then after a few moments watching the waves I'd lift my eyes up to take in the horizon: the whole sweep of the bay; the shapes of the hills that almost looked like waves made of rock themselves; the wind that ruffled the surface of the water yards away until it came ashore and ruffled my hair as I sat there. I kept alternating between trying to focus in detail on what was right there in front of me, and trying to connect that detail to the whole wide world spread out before me. I realized those two beauties were intertwined: the beauty of each wave depended on the beauty of the bay; and the beauty of the bay was expressed and brought home by the beauty of each wave. I had to keep looking at both to see the beauty of the whole.

And it occurred to me as I was doing this that it was a good metaphor, it was an active example, of the spiritual life. The life of prayer, the practice of the spirit, is a kind of alternation between paying very careful attention to what is right there in front of us, and trying to connect that to the bigger picture, the wider horizon, of God's mystery and God's creativity and God's work of love in the world. The work of prayer is to develop a kind of binocular vision, where we can really see things as they are in themselves, and at the same time see all things as they are in God. We have to look at what's in front of us, and we have to look toward the horizon, and we have to look at them both if we are to see the beauty of the whole.

I think Jesus is telling us something like that in his sayings recorded in our gospel reading today. Jesus says: Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom; therefore be like slaves who are doing their tasks, alert for their master to return from the wedding banquet. Jesus says here it is God's will to give us the kingdom: it is God's good pleasure, it is God's great joy, to catch us up into the work of justice and peace, right relationships for mutual well-being, that is the way God rules in the world. God's reign of love is not yet complete, of course; there is much injustice and disharmony in the world we experience. But the reign of God's love has come to us in Jesus, and it is alreading expanding into the world through the Spirit, and it is God's joy to make us part of that expanding of love through the works of love we do in our daily lives here and now.

The reign of God in creating love in the universe is a pretty big horizon. It encompasses everything from the way the stars move, to the evolution of planets and ecosystems, to the big ideas that can transform societies, to the mysteries and joys and sorrows of births and deaths. Learning to see the big sweep of God's reign of love through creation and history and theology is why we read the Bible and why we study science and why we watch the world around us through the eyes of prayer. We need that big horizon to know that God's love is always already at work no matter where and when we are.

But the big horizon alone is not enough. Jesus says we should be like servants alert at their tasks, we should be doing things close at hand, focused on details, making love manifest, creating justice and peace and communion in the basic actions we take with the people and things around us. Like each wave on the rock was an expression of the entire bay, each wave of activity and response and reflection that comes to us in life is a chance to be part of God's entire reign of love right here and now.

And the work of prayer, the discipline of spiritual growth, is to learn how to see both of them together, both the horizon and the detail, both the great vast reign of God and the task of service here immediately at hand. Like me trying to drink in the scene at Acadia, in the spiritual life we need both the up close and the far away in order to realize the whole beauty God wants for us. We act in the moment with an eye toward eternity; and the eternal ideals of God's reign are made actual in the details of the moments we live. Do not be afraid, Jesus says, God is giving you the kingdom; therefore work the kingdom out in every service you do.

And among the best prayer tools we have for developing that binocular vision of the spirit are the sacraments. The work of a sacrament is to take a simple, ordinary, here-at-hand thing – washing with water, anointing with oil, sharing a taste of bread and wine – to take an ordinary thing and situate it, set it in a context, that allows us to see through that thing to the great horizon of God's reign of love. The work of a sacrament is to take the good news that God's love reigns, that God's life-giving creativity is what rules the world, despite all temporary appearances to the contrary, to take that good news and make it now it in the simplest, most undeniable experiences of taste and touch and togetherness. That's what we're doing for Victoria here in her Baptism today: the whole vast cosmic drama of creation and redemption and sanctification is gathered up and brought together and played out for Victoria – all of it for Victoria! – in this simple gesture of water and oil. That's what we're all doing in this Eucharist today: the entire mystery of the creative Word of God made mortal flesh in Jesus is gathered up and brought together and committed to us – all of it for us! – in this blessing and sharing of bread and wine. The sacraments teach us how to use the binocular vision of prayer in all our experiences. The sacraments teach us to see the eternal in the moment, and the moment in eternity, to see the kingdom in the task and the task in the kingdom; and because we see, then we can do, with fearlessness and compassion and faithfulness and joy.

Jesus teaches us to be mindful of the great vast reign of God in every simple work of love we do. I caught a glimpse of that sitting on a rock on the shore of Acadia Park. We are offered that vision in our sacraments today. Where will you carry that vision with you in the week to come?

Hosea 11:1-11

by the Rev. Allison Liles

This sermon is based on Hosea 11:1-11. Click here to listen to an audio version of this sermon. 

About this time last year I was in Chicago at the Cenacle Sisters Retreat Center empowering and training young adult peacemakers. That’s what I was technically doing, anyway. What I was really doing was being totally transformed by the Reverend Becca Stevens, our retreat’s keynote speaker and facilitator. Becca is known around her hometown of Nashville as the patron saint of last chances thanks to a three-part story on NPR’s Morning Edition in 2011. She was ordained a priest in 1991 and has served as chaplain of St Augustine’s Episcopal Chapel at Vanderbilt University since 1995. But the reason why President Obama named her one of his Champions of Change is because of her work with Magdalene and Thistle Farms.

Becca founded Magdalene in 1997 as a free two-year residential program for women with a history of prostitution and drug addiction. She created this community to offer women a safe, disciplined and compassionate place to recover and heal from their histories of sexual abuse, violence and life on the streets. But then she soon found out that when the women graduated from the program, they didn't have marketable skills to earn an “honest” income. So Becca’s dream of a non-profit business run by the women of Magdalene became a reality and Thistle Farms was born. Women create natural bath and body products that are sold online and in over 200 businesses around the country. Every product is created with the belief that freedom starts with healing and love can change lives. 

Hearing the Old Testament reading last week from Hosea stirred up all of my encounters with Becca, the women of Magdalene and my two visits to Thistle Farms. If you weren’t here last week or if you don’t remember the short reading it recalled the moment during the 8th century BCE when God calls upon the prophet Hosea to marry Gomer, whom Hosea delicately refers to as “a whore.” God wants Hosea to marry this woman of ill repute to symbolize the covenantal relationship between the always- faithful God and the continually unfaithful Israelites. And God doesn’t just tell Hosea to marry Gomer once, God pleads with Hosea multiple times in the first three chapters of this book: “The Lord said to me again, ‘Go, love a woman who has a lover and is an adulteress, just as the Lord loves the people of Israel, though they turn to other gods.” Israel has become the promiscuous woman who violates her marriage vows. For three chapters Hosea describes Israel’s behavior as his wife, the streetwalker, who searches high and low for her next sexual partner as if she yearns for this adulterous behavior.

But what Becca Stevens has learned about these so-called “whores” is that they are victims. Becca says she’s has yet to meet a prostitute who was not sexually abused as a child -- most of the women at Magdalene started being sexually abused between ages 7 and 11. 7 and 11. They’ve never known a true, authentic love and therefore keep circling in the same destructive patterns. Women today are treated just like Gomer in the 8th century BCE. Property to use and toss, use and toss. A clergy colleague wrote this week that “we don’t sit down and listen to Gomer enough” to hear her side of the story. And when we add today’s reading from Hosea’s chapter 11 I feel like we’re just rubbing salt in her wounds. 

 
Chapter 11 begins with God’s mothering acts on full display: “I loved … I called … I taught … I took them up … I healed … I led … I bent down … I fed.” All the attributes Gomer is denied as a woman described as choosing promiscuous sex over nurturing her own children. While we’re told Gomer loved earning her pay as a prostitute on the threshing room floor (9.1), the Lord is described as loving Israel above and beyond anything else. “When Israel was a child, I loved him,” God says, “and out of Egypt I called my son.” God speaks of calling to the child, begging the child to come home, but the child resisting, going away. “Yet,” God says, … it was I who taught [my child] to walk, I took them up in my arms; but they did not know that I healed them. I led them with cords of human kindness, with bands of love. I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks. I bent down to them and fed them (11:3-4).

While I think this metaphor is incredibly insensitive to Gomer, I find it helpful for you and me who are all children belonging to somebody. Perhaps in this day and age, when a father is just as easily likely to be the primary caregiver for a young child, these words in chapter 11 don't have the same impact on us. But for Hosea's original hearers, make no mistake: these were the actions of a mother. Verse after verse, line after line, the motherly love of God is related. But Israel proved to be a wayward child despite the attentive nurture and loving care of the faithful parent. According to the Torah, rebellious sons are to be stoned to death (see Deuteronomy 21:18-21). As for Israel, it deserves destruction but God can’t bring Godself to follow through with what is deserved. In response to what sounds like a suggestion that this loving mother simply give up on her incontrollable child, God replies with perhaps the most comforting words in all of scripture, “How can I give you up…? My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender…” [Hosea 11:8].

It’s clear to me from last week’s text describing a one-sided marriage and this week’s recollection of a wayward child and devoted mother, Hosea employs the most viscerally-experienced relationships and all of their emotions to paint the picture of what it must be like for God to suffer such unrequited love. One of the ways we understand our relationship with God is through the lens of our own human relationships. Every metaphor has its limits, and this one in chapter 11 is no exception. There are wonderful mothers who cannot save their children from unendurable pain, and there are dreadful mothers whose children overcome abuse and neglect and thrive later in life. There are mothers like Gomer who appear to choose infidelity over parenthood; like women in the Magdalene community who chose to feed their addictions rather than their children’s rumbling tummies.

But, shortcomings aside, if we embrace these metaphorical words from Hosea about God as Israel’s mother we learn that it is God who brings us to birth, who knits us together in our mother’s womb. It is God who holds us, who nourishes us. It is God teaches us the basics of what we need to know. It is God who heals us, holding us in the divine embrace…even when we disobey God, God loves us. Even when we fall victim to other gods, and cause God to pain and suffering, God never stops loving us. 

 
Hosea gives us peek at God’s suffering love when we go astray in verses 8 and 9:

My heart recoils within me;
my compassion grows warm and tender.
I will not execute my fierce anger;
I will not again destroy Ephraim; (11.8-9)

In English we have turned the word “heart” sentimental and soft, but in Hebrew the word translated “heart” contains layers and layers of meaning, including the “inner person,” the “mind,” the “will.” This word indicates something fundamental about one’s very being. And the heart of who God is does not will punishment or suffering on God’s children. “I am God and no mortal, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath,” says the Lord (11.9b).

We come to the table today perhaps with many memories of dinners prepared by our mother—or maybe our father. This table before you is hosted by our heavenly parent - -- God is the provider of this meal, the founder of the feast. God has prepared this life-giving bread and wine out of genuine love for us. There is nothing we can do to earn that love. And there is nothing we can do that will cause us to lose that love no matter how out of control or promiscuous our life may be. We are loved, completely, perfectly, passionately, by God. And so we come to the table for the meal given to bring us life and strength, and we can trust that this motherly love of God will continue to touch us and heal us and make us whole. Becca Stevens understands the power of this transformational love. She knows that God’s love can heal even the most broken and scarred members of society. The Holy God who is just and righteous is, above all things, compassionate. As the anger subsides and the love is rekindled, God finds a way for grace to prevail and calls us back to this table. And to that I say, Thanks be to God. Amen.