Fable and Fact - Distorted Reflections and Truth

John 6:56-69

In the nineteenth century lived a great Hindu saint who told this fable about a motherless tiger cub who was adopted by goats and brought up with them to speak their language,

            eat their food, and emulate their ways.

In general, this tiger cub grew up to believe that he, too, was a goat.

Then one day a king tiger came along,

          and when all the goats scattered in fear,

                   the young tiger was left alone to fend for himself.

When he heard the king tiger approaching, he stood like a goat, rooted in fear, prepared to confront him, afraid and yet somehow not afraid.

The king tiger asked him

          what he meant by this seeming masquerade,

                   but all the young one could do in response

                             was to bleat nervously

                                      and continue nibbling at the grass.

So the tiger king carried him to a pool of water

          where he forced him to look

                   at their two reflections side by side

                             and draw his own conclusions.

When this failed, he offered the cub his first piece of raw meat.

          At first the young tiger recoiled from the unfamiliar taste of it, but then as he ate more and began to feel it warming his blood, the truth gradually became clear to him. Lashing his tail and digging his claws into the ground, the young beast finally raised his head high, and the jungle trembled at the sound of his exultant roar.

Frederick Buechner writes that despite all the profound differences between Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, and Islam,

                   they agree with each other

                             and with Christianity by and large,

                                      on one very basic point:

                             human beings as they usually exist in this world

                                      are not what they were created to be.

The little goat in the story is not really a goat at all—he is really a tiger—

          except that he does not know that he is,

          with the result that for the time being, he is, in a sense, really not a tiger.

“We were created in the image of God,” says Buechner,  “but something has gone awry.

                   Like a mirror with a crack down the middle,

                             we [reflect] back an image that is badly distorted.

                                      We were created to serve God

                             and each other in love, but each of us chooses instead to serve himself as God,               and this means wrenching ourselves out of the kind of relationship with God and [humankind] that we were made for.”

The scriptures tell us that we are, indeed, made in the very image of God. And yet, like the tiger cub,

our understanding of who we are and who we belong to often becomes skewed.  

We forget whose image it is we were made to reflect, if we ever knew it in the first place. We forget whose life, whose love, and whose ways we were made to emulate.

Instead, we follow the ways of the world around us. Rather than seeking godly justice, peace and love, we reflect the worldly qualities of greed, jealousy and thirst for power.

Rather than follow Jesus’ voice, which calls us to be God-bearers in the world, all too often we follow the voice and path of least resistance. We buy into a culture that tells us that we should strive for its version of success, happiness and virtue – that our main goal in life is to pursue and command physical beauty, wealth and power – as the world defines these things. And, for a while at least, we forget both our creator and who and what we were created to be.

The hard truth revealed in our gospel text, both for the first century disciples – and for us, today – is that Jesus, the bread of life provides the only food which truly nourishes. Jesus feeds us the bread of recognition and transformation.

Jesus gives us his own self, his own flesh and blood, to sustain us on our journey, and without this food –– we cannot have true life; the life of abundance he offers; eternal life. These are hard words, hard to hear, hard to comprehend, hard to believe.    

We can hardly blame the disciples who struggled, who just couldn’t fathom this business of fleshly consumption.

Even for those of us who can see past the literal and understand that Jesus is talking about something much deeper, this command is a game changer—one that can indeed offend.             

Because the truth is, many of us doubt that we have        what it takes to be a disciple of Christ. Jesus is all about love and kindness, generosity and forgiveness. But we know, deep down, that when we look at our own reflection, too often, love, kindness, generosity, and such are far from what we see.

I know, for instance, that anger and frustration can too often get the best of me. Sometimes I say things that hurt other people. I can be unrepentant when I think I am in the right in a disagreement – no matter how wrong I am. I don’t always pay attention to the needs of the people around me. Greed, envy and jealousy threaten to take up residency in my heart on any given day.

I, for example, can be stubborn, and impatient. It is hard for me to remember Jesus command to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself,” let alone to act on it. I know that I am in good company.

But that doesn’t stop God from claiming us as God’s own, just as that king tiger claimed the baby tiger as his own. And God doesn’t stop at claiming us as His own, God works to transform us into God’s image through the promise of this holy eating and drinking, where Jesus comes to us, abides in us, and promises abundant life to those who follow him. Jesus’ abiding presence reminds, accompanies, strengthens us and transforms us, more and more into the image of God.

The book of Exodus tells us that long ago, God sent heavenly food to provide for God’s people. Yet the efficacy of the food didn’t last. Initially satisfied with full bellies, it didn’t take long for the Israelites to return to grumbling and to their old ways of idolatry and sin. And the wage of sin is death.

Today, Jesus gives this promise, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me.” This is the central point of the Bread of Life discourse of Jesus’ we have been reading here in church for the past five weeks.

For all its loveliness and the promise of relationship and presence with Jesus that this reading provides, there is something else in the promise of Jesus.

What we learn from this discourse, is that Jesus is truly “all in” when it comes to giving himself for the sake of the world, and that Jesus also expects us to be “all in” when it comes to being his followers.

Jesus offers us real life without end. Yet for all those reasons listed earlier, being a faithful disciple is tough because it is incredibly countercultural and can exact a pretty high price.

While most of us will not likely be called to die for our faith, it is probable that we will be called to make some tough choices about everything from the way we spend our time and money, to how we vote for elected officials, and where we stand on potentially divisive and polarizing issues. After all, being a follower of Christ is a 24/7/365 kind of lifestyle rather than a one-hour duty to which we submit on Sundays or when it’s convenient.

This week, a week in which we learned of the cancer diagnosis of President Jimmy Carter, he was quoted as saying: “My faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I am, whenever I can, for as long as I can, with whatever I have to try to make a difference.” When we walk in a similar way, we will know that we are surely not goats, but disciples, beloved, gathered, called, fed, and sent to be God’s hands and feet in the world.

Buechener writes, “the self each of us has to live with day in and day out under the most intimate circumstances possible is not entirely the self that we would have chosen to be tied to on such a long-term basis. Or, to return to the language of the fable, if the tiger who thinks he is a goat could really be a goat, then he would not have this problem. But fortunately or unfortunately, there is still enough of the tiger in us to make us discontented with our goathood. We eat grass, but it never really fills us. We bleat well enough, but deep down there is the suspicion that we were really made for roaring.”

Thanks be to God, then, for the bread and wine which truly fill us.

At the end of our reading today, Jesus finally turns to the twelve and asks them if they will stay or go the way of the crowd. Peter answers him rightly. “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”

God created us in God’s image, to be imitators and mirrors of Christ. God claims us and equips us through this holy meal, and through the gift of the Spirit stirring in our midst. May these promises strengthen, encourage, and sanctify us as we grow in our lives of discipleship.

The Promise

John 6:51-58

“Cross my heart and hope to die.”

            As a child, I could not make a more serious qualifier to a promise. I don’t’ know if kids these days use that phrase anymore. As an adult I no longer even think in those terms. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

            Perhaps it is because I have become jaded – I’ve seen too many promises made and broken. I’ve failed to live up to quite a few myself. What is a promise, after all, but words,

just words, even when spoken with the most sincere and genuine of hearts and the purest of intent?

            Perhaps my reticence to use those words arises from the hope that a promise made today will make a difference. That this time, I’ll be able to honor and keep a promise I make; that the kind of wisdom spoken in the Proverb we read this morning is the wisdom attained through age and experience; “Lay aside immaturity, and live, and walk in the way of insight.”

            Maybe, the tenor of a promise, has become, “Cross my heart and hope to live.”

            Promises are important things.

            Promises can create change in the giver and receiver of the promise – both gain in a promise kept – despite the cost also connected to it.

            In today’s gospel, Jesus makes a bold, life-giving promise. “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day.” And later, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me.”

            Jesus promises to provide food for the life of the world, his flesh and blood. Jesus, the perfect promise-keeper promises that whoever eats his flesh and drinks his blood already has eternal life, and will be raised up on the last day.

            Jesus promises to nourish the world with the gift of himself. For the “flesh” and “blood” of Jesus, his incarnate life and very real death on the cross, have become life-giving food for the world.

            In, with, and under the bread and wine of Holy Communion, which is nothing other than Christ’s body and blood, Jesus lives out this promise to nourish faith, forgive sin, and empower us to be witnesses to the Gospel. Jesus gives us life and feeds the life within us.

            Because of Christ’s promise of mutual abiding, he in us and us in him, life is renewed.

            Throughout this sixth chapter of the Gospel of St. John, Jesus has tried to help us embrace God’s wisdom – wisdom which is not so much knowledge to be grasped and claimed and explained as much as it is a relationship to be trusted.

            It is a relationship desired by God, a relationship that God yearns for so deeply that God will go to any length to secure it – even to sending this Bread of Life, Jesus himself, to feed us, to abide with us, to strengthen us, and to forgive us. This, my friends, is a promise we all need to hear.

            It is certainly a promise I needed to hear this week, a week in which both my 87 year old father and a little 4 year old girl, Josie, both of whom we have long been praying for, were among those who through death, joined the choir of saints and angels surrounding the throne of our Lord.

            We have all had those experiences of loss – those which are sudden and those which were drawn out. And, though death constantly surrounds us, Jesus’ promise of eternal presence with us, of life-after death, of resurrection gives us the assurance that while death has taken loved ones from our view, death does not have the final word.

            The promise of Jesus that those who believe abide in Jesus and Jesus abides in them always and eternally, allows us to trust that in the holy spaces where heaven and earth meet, God’s love surrounds, protects, and guides our loved ones safely home. In those holy spaces God accompanies those who watch and wait. In love, in joy, in grief and sorrow, God feeds us and abides with, in and around us. We are reminded at times like these that God’s holy abundance is contained in the promises Jesus makes.

            Living in Christ, there is abundance – more life than you could ever hope for or imagine; you seek heavenly manna? Jesus says, I am that manna – I am the food you need. I am bread from heaven, for you, come down so that you may not only live, but that you may have life. I am life for you. Right here. Right in front of you. Believe in me and be nourished.

            Jesus stresses that life in him does not come because we understand correctly or believe all the right things – the doctrine and theology with which we adorn ourselves. Instead, life comes through the promise of the one who is the Bread of Life.

            Jesus promises that eternal life comes through being in close communion with Jesus himself.  Eternal life is to remain in Jesus and to have Jesus remain in us. As we eat and drink, we take Christ’s body and blood into our mouths, into our stomachs, into our bodies, Jesus promises to abide in us, strengthening, renewing, and making his love both felt and known.

            Through this holy meal, Jesus Christ, Bread of Life, himself delivered unto death upon the cross and raised to eternal life, moves us closer to himself. Christ moves us closer to reflecting the very image of the living God in our own lives.

            Through this meal, we are as intimate with Jesus, the Bread of all Living, as the Father is with the Son. This is Jesus’ promise to us not only every time we receive this precious meal, but every day of our lives, in our living and our dying, in our care of others and in our being cared for.

            While the gracious promise of God includes inviting us into the resurrection and life after death, we are mistaken if we view “eternal life, or “life everlasting” as referring only to that kind of life.

            Let us remember that while certainly, Jesus’ promise of eternal life is laden with the assurance that we will join him in the resurrection when this life is past. Eternal life reflects the reality that lives are changed in the moment of our baptism as we receive the promise of new life – a life which begins in that moment, and then carries us throughout our earthly existence and beyond.

            The eternal life begun in baptism is the gift of abundant living in relationship with Jesus, a relationship Jesus nurtures and feeds by every means possible, including the most visceral feeding through his holy presence at the table. The invitation to this meal is far more dependent on the relationship created and driven through the love of God that it is on our own action or understanding. It is available to us through God’s expansive love shown to us through Jesus Christ.

            Jesus’ promise of eternal life and of his abiding is an essential, life-giving promise which supplies hope to us in all our journeying on this earthly plane.

            The past couple of weeks, I have been made more aware than ever of the promise of life that Jesus makes. I witnessed Jesus dwelling in, with and around us through nurses and doctors, friends and coworkers, through you, through the prayers that were prayed, through the gathering of family, through the care given and received as my father and Josie moved closer to that holy place where heaven and earth meet, through the omnipresent Spirit which surrounded us. The strength we drew came from knowing the peace and promise of Jesus that nothing in heaven or on earth could separate us and our loved ones from the love of God through Christ Jesus. Through the Bread of Life, God’s eternal promises are true.

            In a few moments,

we’ll celebrate Jesus’ presence among us in Holy Communion. 

Our voices will blend with those of the angels around God’s throne as we sing

“Holy, Holy, Holy.”

            The great prayer of thanksgiving that we lift

will be the prayer of voices living and voices dead. 

            Heaven and earth will touch here,

and Christ will be present in the bread and the wine

in ways too wonderful to understand. 

And this is what is at the heart of our meal:

a common loaf of bread,

and a simple cup of wine,

both containing the promises of Jesus; together, the sign and the reality of how much God loves us. 

God has promised unparalleled blessing in this bread and this cup,

this meal through which God dwells in us and we dwell in God.

This I firmly believe, and pray that you do, too. Cross my heart and sure to live.

Don't Confuse Me With the Facts!

Mark 6:1-13

“Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government,” Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1789. And who doesn’t like to be informed, right?

I know I do. I read the news from more than one forum and in several different forms – newspaper, cell phone, computer and iPad; occasionally television, and news magazines. My books line and overflow bookshelves both here and at home and there boxes and boxes of books I haven’t even managed to unpack yet. Audiobooks and podcasts have extended opportunities and times for my information gathering to my drive-time and other times as well. 

Breaking news headlines are delivered straight to my phone and computer and I listen to the radio as well. Most of us probably seek information in numerous ways. We like to know what is happening in the world, and we like to be well-informed; except for when we don’t; like when information threatens the things we know.

Democratic political processes like those we celebrate this Independence  Weekend depend on the validity of the notion about which Jefferson wrote. Belief underlying his statement inspires everything from political pamphlets to presidential debates to the very notion of a free press; for better or worse, for the one seeking to be well-informed, there is no shortage of sources for information.

Jefferson felt that if people are furnished with the facts, they will be clearer thinkers and better citizens. If they are ignorant, facts will enlighten them, if they are mistaken, facts will set them straight. Therefore, by virtue of access to information, the “truth” and “what is ‘right’” will always win out, won’t it?

I was surprised to learn that this might not always be the case. Political scientists have discovered a human tendency deeply discouraging to anyone with faith in the power of information. It’s this: Facts don’t necessarily have the power to change our minds. A series of studies by researchers at the University of Michigan revealed just the opposite; they found that when misinformed people were exposed to corrected facts in news stories, they rarely changed their minds. Don’t confuse me with the facts!

Instead, when confronted with corrected facts they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs, digging in their heels and becoming entrenched in arguments to defend their point of view.

This bodes ill for a democracy, the study concluded, because most voters — the people making decisions about how the country runs — aren’t blank slates. They already have beliefs, and a set of facts lodged in their minds.

The problem is that even when the things they think they know are proven by objective means to be false, even in the presence of the correct information, people can react very, very differently than their counterparts who were merely uninformed.

If you’ve ever argued or debated with a teenager, a stubborn parent, that very opinionated person who lives down the block from you, or even another member of the church, you know what I mean. Perhaps you have even been the one who could not be persuaded from what you absolutely knew to be true despite evidence to the contrary.

“The general idea is that it’s absolutely threatening to admit you’re wrong,” says the lead researcher on the Michigan study. The phenomenon — known as “backfire” — is “a natural defense mechanism to avoid that cognitive dissonance.” I wonder if it was this kind of “backfire” that Jesus was up against when he returned to Nazareth. Perhaps it was avoidance of cognitive dissonance that made the people react the way they did to Jesus’ words and actions.

Jesus teaching his disciples
James Tissot c. 1890

Jesus had been performing miracles. He had raised Jairus’ daughter from the dead, calmed a stormy sea, healed others along his journey, and they had heard about these things. Jesus had been teaching – with authority. He had been preaching and the crowds around him gathered and grew.

Yet, despite the news that was circulating around about Jesus, these hometown folks likely thought that the man who had returned to Nazareth, this man who they would encounter at the synagogue that day would still be just like them.

They knew who he was – they could still remember the time he fell out of that tree and skinned his knee. They had heard about the time he went missing and worried his poor parents so. Yes, they knew him - a lowly carpenter – and that was all the information they needed to know.

So convinced are the hometown people that they know who Jesus is, that their “knowledge” of Jesus kept them from truly accepting what he had to say about the radical nature of God. Rather than hearing about the far-reaching love of God that includes all people and not just the People of Israel, the people ask, “Where does he get all this?”

Rather than believing that God will challenge preconceived notions and understanding about grace, they wonder, “what wisdom is being given to him?”

Rather than understanding that God’s power and presence are at work in Jesus, the hometown crowd turns on him.

They see Jesus as “just” one of those siblings; they remember that Jesus was “just” the son of Mary; they still find his birth story suspicious anyway. In a culture where people knew everything they needed to know about a person based on social class which was determined by your placement on the honor-shame continuum, the citizens of Jesus’ hometown have determined that this carpenter is nobody important, nobody worth listening to, nobody to bother bringing their sick for healing. Don’t confuse them with the facts; they know what they know.

Yet, into that culture Jesus steps, consistently challenging preconceived notions of who is in and who is out. Jesus tells the truth about God’s love which is expanding the traditional understanding of grace and faith and how God works in the world.

Jesus is speaking with authority, telling the truth in wisdom about the new world order in the kingdom of God. That is what prophets do. And as they hear this prophetic voice coming from one they thought they knew, from one they thought was safe, they felt threatened. They felt threatened by the things he did that messed with their understanding of who he was and how things in God’s kingdom worked.

That threatening feeling, that cognitive dissonance, created a tension in them that scared them. So they dug in their heels, and became more entrenched in ideas that felt safe in their familiarity. They reduced the messenger, Jesus, to a simple carpenter, with questionable origins – because those are the facts they know and can handle.

David Lose writes, “All too often, we are tempted to do the same, reducing someone who challenges us to a single attribute about that person – whether skin color or age or orientation – in order to dismiss them, and thereby fail to receive the totality of the person God has created and redeemed and offered to us as a gift.”

The thing is, we understand that dissonance now perhaps more than ever before. Huge, divisive, painful issues confront us daily.  There is information overload, and the information we receive conflicts with other pieces of information and in many cases, conflicts with what we know... I know what I know. Don’t confuse me with the facts!

What does Jesus do in response to the rejection and fear of the Nazareans? He reaches out and cures a few people, because that is what God does, and when he finds he is unable to do any great work of power because they don’t want anything he has to offer, Jesus calls his disciples and he commissions them and begins to send them out.

Commissioning the twelve apostles
Domenic Ghirlandaio, 1481

He sends them out two by two so that they will never be alone in their work to tend to this mission announcing the kingdom and sharing God’s love. “Because this mission as it turns out, will take more than just one miracle worker, it will take a team of people empowered, equipped, and sent to witness to God’s grace, justice, and mercy.”

As disciples of Christ, we have a role to play in continuing to share Christ’s identity and his mission through revealing God’s love and peace to a broken, mixed up, heels-dug-in, conflicted world.

As disciples of Christ, we turn to the one who knew and experienced firsthand that the message of God’s unfathomable grace is not always well-received, that for those who dig in their heels, even his deeds of power would be rejected. As disciples of Christ we follow in the footsteps of the anointed one.

The thing is that Jesus knows it won’t be easy, that there will, in fact be failure. Jesus advises his disciples to shake off the dust of those whose dug-in heels keeps them from understanding the gospel message, because the truth is, the gospel message we need to share will not always be well received. There will be those who can’t hear it because it challenges their expectations, their judgments and their modes of operating in the world.

There will be hostility, at times, to the counter cultural message of a God who subdues the powerful and lifts up the lowly, a God who truly sees us all as equals to one another, regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, socio-economic status or background. Not recognizing that God, there will be some who cannot hear the message of love, mercy and grace for all who believe.

Through faith, the Holy Spirit of God leads us into the sheer possibility of living in the light of God’s love even in the face of rampant cognitive dissonance, resistance and rejection. Jesus sends us out to share the prophetic message of grace.

Through Word and Sacrament we are strengthened to become the kind of inviting, caring, loving church that God is calling us to be. Faith is more than an act of sheer desperation, that go-to place where we come to admit the limitations to our power, or seek solutions to our problems.

Faith is knowing that though Word and Sacrament, God can affect change in us, can inspire us, empower us, and lead us into true mission. God can reveal to us who God really is, not who we might want to make God to be. 

Jesus Christ invites us into the living faith, where God is ever surprising us, ever inviting us. Faith invites us to see that our participation does make a difference in the way that the kingdom of God is seen, experienced, and makes known God’s will and work in the world.

Two for the Price of One

Mark 5:21-43

        Who doesn’t love a good bargain? I know I certainly do. When I see the advertisement, “Buy One, Get One Free” I just have to stop and take a second look. And if one item is 50% off, I figure that means if I buy two at 50% off each, I’ve just saved myself some money, right? – Well, only if I need two, I guess.

        Today’s gospel delivers two healing stories – two miracles of Jesus, within this one text of Mark’s. I was going to post “Two for the Price of One” as the title for my sermon today. But advertising a sermon with a  title like that on a church website might be a little counterintuitive.

        While we could all probably use a double-dose of God’s grace most days, what you probably don’t want is a 90 minute sermon.

Healing of a Bleeding Woman,
Peter Marcellinus Catacomb

        All kidding aside, our God is a gracious and generous God whose love is transforming and healing, whose grace, freely flowing through Jesus, brings us new life.

        Today’s gospel texts contain stories of that grace demonstrated in Jesus performing miraculous healing, taking power from death and giving new life and transformation to those who suffer.

        Most of us have some personal experience with healing, be it physical, emotional, spiritual, or relational. Some of us may even have stories of miraculous healing – healing that we ourselves experienced or healing that has occurred to others we know.

        Maybe there was a restoration to health that could not be explained any other way than, “miracle”; healing that took place which was out of proportion to anything that was expected, or a cure that took place where none was expected at all.

        I think that most of us probably know that there are times when healing comes with a cure, and times when a person is cured of a disease but still consumed by demons of another kind.      

        All of us could probably tell the other kind of stories as well – the stories of those who prayed, or for whom we have prayed, where there was no cure, and no apparent healing.

        We admit that the ways of God are both mysterious and challenging.

        This truth, however, often makes healing stories like those in Mark’s gospel this morning difficult for us to comprehend, and difficult for us to hear, reminding us of those other stories from our own experience as they do.

        We don’t fully understand why some people are healed or cured and others are not. There are those who laugh us to scorn for faith in the power of God to heal, especially when healing doesn’t happen the way we want it to.   

        Today we have these two-for-one healing stories in our gospel narrative. Each of these stories presents healing a little differently, each includes a miracle, each exhibits the twin forces of fear and faith which often seem to go hand in hand.

        What these stories do NOT teach us, is that if we simply have enough faith, miracles will happen, healing will automatically occur, and we will get whatever we ask.

        This gospel does not say that illness is a test of faith or that with the right kind of faith we automatically get our wish and receive a cure when we pray.

        Instead, what these stories testify to is the transformational presence and power of God, working through Jesus Christ. These stories invite us to take all the fear, sadness, grief and pain we feel in the face of our brokenness, our illness and even death itself and turn them over to God. And God, who promises to accompany us through the chaos and turmoil of our human finitude will transform our fear, giving us faith, strength, and yes, healing.

        In our text today, Jesus has once again crossed the sea, returning from the Gentile side where he has just cast out demons from a Gerosene man. The sea, figuring prominently in the gospel, reminds us of the powers of chaos and darkness, a boundary Jesus not only crosses but ultimately overcomes.

        We remember last week’s gospel story of the calming of the storm at sea which illustrated for us how Jesus brings calm to the turmoil and chaos of our world and our lives.

        As Jesus reaches the shore in today’s text, a huge crowd assembles around him and follows him, pressing him in on all sides. There is something symbolic in the way that Jesus stands between the people and the depths and chaos of the sea.

        What follows is this two-for-one story.

        First, we have Jairus – well connected, Jewish, but vulnerable to losing the daughter who is so dear to him. He may be used to getting what he wants – he is a man of power and prestige, after all. He may not really know what to think of Jesus but he’ll try anything to save his daughter. He calls out to him, revealing for all to see, his deep vulnerability and need.

        Then, we have the unnamed woman – she has lost all status and whatever money she may have had during the twelve long years of her affliction. She doesn’t have a thing going for her except for her faith.

        She is desperate too. Like Jairus, she may not know exactly who this Jesus is or how he works, but she has heard the healing and teaching stories and believes that there is something about him, some way that God is working through him. And so, she presses through the crowd.

Can you feel the bodies pressing against her from all sides? Can you see her stretch out her hand, reaching, reaching, and then finally touching just the fringe of Jesus’ clothing – the only thing she dares touch, and even that in secret.

She likely fears that if she calls out to Jesus and asks him to help her, the crowd, thinking she is out of her mind, will laugh her to scorn, will chase her away – or worse. Her bleeding has left her ritually, sexually and religiously unclean.

        Finally, there is the little girl, Jairus’ precious daughter, standing at the gate to adulthood, soon to reach what would have been an age of marriagability. On her own she has no status, no wealth, and no power, as she hovers in the threshold between life and death.

     As Jesus and the others reach her home, they are told that it is too late. She has died.

Resisting the people’s call to turn back however, Jesus proceeds to enter the home, allowing only the girl’s parents and his most trusted companions to come with him. The people in the crowd laugh. They think he is out of his mind.

     They laugh him to scorn at the suggestion that he can do anything to help her now. They laugh him to scorn at the suggestion that there is any power greater than death.

     As we move with these characters through this narrative, we see the power of God moving people from death to life, transforming fear into thanksgiving through faith, turning vulnerability to vindication through the power of Jesus’ touch.

     Jairus may not have been a believer when he first caught Jesus’ attention; hope was all he had, but the restoration of his little girl to life moved him to faith, made him a believer.

        The woman experiences immediate healing and more – she who was once nameless and without status is given a name by Jesus – “Daughter,” he calls her – and then lifts her up as the epitome of faith. “Your faith has saved you.” She is not only healed, but restored to community.

 The Raising of Jairus' Daughter
George Percy Jacomb-Hood, 1895

        And the little girl? Her role foreshadows Jesus’ own resurrection, revealing God’s power over even the darkness of death.

        Experiencing God’s power is overwhelming. It is easier to believe that the trusting, hopeful, believing ones are “out of their minds”.

        These days, fear, turmoil, chaos and death are evident every way we turn. So many people in the sphere of our lives are touched by cancer, other incurable illnesses, addiction and brokenness beyond belief. Terrorism, mass killings, systemic conflict and ills infect every corner of the earth. Perhaps you or someone close to you can identify with one of the characters in this Gospel account – desperate, vulnerable, hopeful, or feeling hopeless.

     Maybe you are the person who has it all together but then, through illness, job loss, a broken relationship, or some other storm suddenly finds himself vulnerable and desperate?

Or perhaps you’re the one who has endured so much challenge or adversity over time that, like the bleeding woman you haven’t much else to lose. Perhaps you are ready to dare to reach out, wondering if just maybe Jesus might be able to heal you.

     Maybe you find yourself the helpless one like Jairus’ daughter, utterly dependent on others to pray for you, to lift you up, to fight for you?

      Whichever you are, whoever you are, this gospel message is for you. God’s abundant love displayed on the cross will show you power that is stronger than death, and love that is stronger than any brokenness or ill.

     We believe in a God who heals, and keeps right on healing because our human nature leaves us vulnerable to illness and pain and loss. Through the power of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God, we can learn to trust God’s “I love you,” and to hear God’s “I know you,” claims made manifest in Jesus Christ.

     It is in community that we ourselves can begin to become God’s vehicles of compassion, comfort and healing for others. Perhaps the two-for-one good news of this gospel is that whether you have a strong faith or whether you struggle to believe, or fall somewhere in the middle, God walks alongside you as Jesus walked along the sea, holding back the chaos, and through Jesus overcoming the powers of evil and sin. This gracious and generous God is transforming doubt into hope, hope into faith, and bringing healing to all. Thanks be to God.

Crossing to the Other Side

Mark 4:35-46

        In the Gospel text today, we see the revelation of Jesus Christ as God’s power and authority in our world. Jesus is God’s abiding presence in the life of the kingdom of God – this life into which God is inviting all people. Jesus is God with us and in our gospel we see God’s power and authority at work as Jesus stills the storm on the Sea of Galilee.  

        In the wake of the events of this week, in the pain and turmoil, chaos and storm stirred up by the massacre that took place in Charleston, Jesus’ words, “Peace. Be still!” are words we desperately need to hear. We need to know that Jesus can and does still the chaos in our broken, terrified hearts. We need to hear that the power of God is still at work, can and will defeat the powers of evil.  

        We need to hear that in the midst of the maelstrom of our world and our lives, Jesus is the power and presence of God; God with us, withstanding and controlling the crashing of the seas and the deafening roar of the wind and finally, stilling them.

        We need to know that when the storm strikes, God remains faithful, eternally walking with us, and beside us, surrounding us with love and even, with peace.  

        Jesus isn’t just asleep in that boat. Jesus, God with us, is inviting us to a sense of calm. Jesus invites us to believe that he is the source of all peace for us, and that God is powerfully present in the midst of whatever storm may strike. Even the most terrifying.

        The name of the historic church in Charleston where such horror and tragedy unfolded this week is Emanuel.

        Emanuel – which means - “God with us.” Despite the way the events of this week brought yet another reminder of the deep brokenness in our world, there were also signs – so many signs of God’s presence – of the ways that God is with us still – in the outpouring of love and support, for instance; in faith communities across the country praying in solidarity with our AME brothers and sisters; in flowers and notes left at the church; in the outrage poured out against all forms of racism and bigotry.

        We were also reminded of how much work is yet to be done in this kingdom of God.

        The shooting this week brought a searing reminder that racism and hatred are powerful conditions of sin and evil that are fed by an increasingly broken and hostile society.

        This is a society in which you and I are members and, like it or not, we must admit our own complicity in the ills of prejudice and intolerance. Forgive us, Father, for the things we have done and left undone.

        We acknowledge that we benefit from the systemic illness of a world in which the divisions between rich and poor, black and white, Christian and any other group, are widening at an astonishing rate in our polarized culture. If nothing else, we begin by admitting that we don’t stand up fiercely enough, loudly enough or often enough – to speak against the daily hurts and assaults various groups in our world endure.

        My brothers and sisters, we not only live in a society in which these things take place, and are beneficiaries of the injustices, but we also participate in activities that influence the systemic ills infecting our world.

        More than ever before, the media, entertainment outlets, and the very rhetoric that surrounds us daily and in which we often engage, profit by images and language promoting violence and racism.

        Think of the last five movies you’ve seen or the last five television programs you watched, the last five books you read. Think of the images, the way certain groups of people are portrayed. Reflect deeply on the language and rhetoric which occurs on the nightly news program you may watch.

        Consider the inflammatory language and images that cross your computer screen, whether you read them or not. What happened the last time you were in a group and someone used derogatory imagery, language or characterization of African Americans or Muslims for instance? Did any one stand up and say that it was wrong? Did you?

        We live in a culture that is increasingly divided racially, economically and politically, though we would like to ignore that fact, or deny it, or hide it, sweep it under the banner of “look how far we’ve come.”

        Eventually, when the tensions and the truth explode in images and actions we cannot ignore, can no longer hide, and we are overwhelmed, the boat of our complacency becomes swamped, and we cry out in horror and fear as the disciples did that day, “Lord, do you not care…that we are perishing?”     

        This week, another senseless shooting, and this time, in a Christian church, right here in America, with brothers and sisters in faith cut down following a bible study and time of prayer with the shooter himself. Incidentally, they were shot and killed - by another Christian. An ELCA Lutheran, (that’s our denomination) in fact. Let’s let that fact sink in.

        Another act of hatred. Another list of names of those who, whether they were 26 years old or 87 years old, were taken far too soon.  “Truly,” we think, “our boat is going down.”     

        And yet, in the midst of this storm, I wonder if you heard what I heard? God with us.  Did you hear the sound of reason, the voice of peace, from what we might think would be the most unlikely of places? Did you hear God’s message of love and unfathomable calm in the midst of the storm as, one after another the families of the victims spoke up?

        They each testified to the deep pain and bewilderment that has overtaken them since Wednesday night. God with us. They each spoke to the searing sense of loss and grief that is, at times overwhelming. But there was also something else that they spoke to: that though they truly walk through the valley of the shadow of death, they will not let evil win the day. God with us.

        They spoke of forgiveness – for the shooter. They spoke of the light of Christ that is abiding with them, the LORD who is walking beside them. Many of the family members – the mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, sons and daughters and even grandchildren of the victims testified to their conviction that they would not meet evil with evil, hatred with hatred, but instead would turn to Jesus for their strength both to forgive and to find meaning and healing in their staggering losses.

        There is no going back to the way things were Wednesday morning. The lives of so, so many people are irrevocably altered.  Acknowledging that change, these disciples of Christ extended forgiveness, perhaps as an act of hope – connected to the grace of God they themselves have received at the foot of the cross.

        This kind of forgiveness points to the Word of Jesus from the cross itself. In the cross, this incredible act of evil and hatred is met with love. In the cross of Christ, ironically, we find our peace. God with us.

        Jesus and his disciples are in “the boat” – when Jesus says to his disciples, “Let’s go on, across, to the other side.”

        Crossing to the other side with Jesus is transformational. It means being aware of the conditions in the world around us and committing ourselves to the kingdom work of expanding God’s loving justice, as Jesus himself did.

        Jesus calmed the storm on the Sea of Galilee that day.

        Filled with awe and wonder, the disciples asked, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” We know the answer – God with us.

        God will not be shaken by any storm. Jesus is God’s peace in the midst of the storm. The wind and seas recognized God with us and obeyed his command. Now, in the midst of our storm, Jesus issues the invitation to discipleship, calling those who follow him to go where he has called, confident that he is with them, confident that no evil will truly overtake us when he is at our side.  

        With Jesus Christ, God with us, let us commit ourselves to crossing the racial divide in our land, the widening economic divide between rich and poor, and all divisions in our socio-economic landscape. Crossing to the other side can raise up storms and risk danger, even unto death, especially because people will get stirred up, but let us not fear, but hope, because Jesus is God with us.

Amen.

                

Big things in small packages

Mark 4:26-34

Follow the Yellow Brick Road! Follow the Yellow Brick Road! One of my favorite movies when I was growing up was the Wizard of Oz. Lying on the floor of our darkened living room, mesmerized by the sights and sounds of this story about a girl from Kansas, her little dog, Toto, and the ruby slippers that sparkled and shined, it was easy to be transported to the land of Oz.

One of the first times I can remember watching The Wizard of Oz was soon after my parents had purchased our first color television set. I was able to witness the transition from black and white to color, and the story seemed to take on a whole new depth and meaning.

Technicolor added visual depth to an already unusual story. I especially remember the visit to Emerald City, and the “horse of a different color.” But most of all, I remember the element of fear that runs like a thread through the story.

Every time they turned around, Dorothy and Toto, and their new friends were faced with some terrifying situation or another. Despite their fear, however, somehow, some way, they hung on to a semblance of hope, and this hope kept them going; it kept them moving onward even when things seemed hopeless.

Alone, any one of these characters may have given up and given in to hopelessness and despair. But together, they faced their fears; together, hope kept them moving forward, facing the next challenge, giving it their all, because they trusted that if they faced their fears and persevered in following the Yellow Brick Road, their hope would be realized.

They just might reach their destination, and that indeed, hope would win the day over seemingly overwhelming fear.

A few decades after our friends made it out of Oz another blockbuster film hit the scenes: the Hunger Games. Like Dorothy searching for the wizard, the main characters in this film are up against seeming impossible odds.

At one point, the mastermind of the situation declares “Hope is the only thing more powerful than fear." But for that very reason it is as perilous for a dictator as it is useful: "A little hope, is effective; a lot of hope is dangerous."

Looking at today’s scripture texts, it is this characteristic of hope that Jesus points us to.

Jesus has been speaking in parables to explain the kingdom of God is like; In this kingdom, hope wins out over fear. In today’s text, Jesus likens the kingdom of God, the kingdom in fact inaugurated with the coming of Jesus himself, to the tiny mustard seed.

I would hazard a guess that mustard is not a seed or plant common to most of us here today. Living in the Mid-Atlantic when I think about mustard, I think about all the wonderful varieties that come in jars in the grocery and gourmet   cooking stores. We don’t really think about the nature of the plant this condiment comes from. But this was a plant people of Jesus’ time would know about.

Jesus tells them that the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed, sown upon the ground, the smallest of seeds, yet when it grows up it becomes so large that it is able to shelter birds as they nest in its shade.

We might think this would be a good thing, right?  Yet, the original listeners to this parable might think Jesus is joking. Mustard was a pesky, even somewhat dangerous plant. It wasn’t the kind of seed you would want to sow in your garden. In fact in some places it was even outlawed.

A few years ago I was in Southern California during the late spring, and the hillsides were positively covered with the shining yellow heads of millions of wild plants bobbing in the wind. As it turned out, it was, you guessed it, mustard; Tenacious, hardy, extremely prolific, mustard.

It was like an invasion of dandelions, or kudzu, or wild grape – or any other invasive plant you can think of – begun somewhere as a single plant that wantonly spread its seed all across the field, and then, greatly multiplied.

It was this kind of mustardly behavior that threated crops and vineyards of Jesus’ time; for these are plants quickly take over and choke out other, preferred, plants.

According to the parable, what else is this plant good for? Sheltering birds. That’s a good thing, right? But if we look back to the parables before this one we will find birds picking off the desirable seed that one might want to sow.

It makes you wonder what on earth Jesus was saying when he compared the kingdom of God to a plant that takes over where it is not wanted, gets out of control, and attracts those who are not necessarily welcome!

This, Jesus says, is what the kingdom of God is like. And yet, we are encouraged to welcome, to promote, to embrace the kingdom of God as if it’s a good thing! Holy Flying Monkeys, what is Jesus thinking?

Like the mustard plant, the kingdom of God can’t be controlled. The kingdom of God comes about at God’s will and God will not be contained or controlled by any other powers, and especially not by any powers on earth.

The kingdom of God will draw in and shelter those that might be considered undesirable–

the outsider,

            the powerless,

                        the addicted,

                                    the HIV infected,

                                                the abused,

                                                            the convict,

                                                                        the uneducated,

                                                                                    the starving,

                                                                                                the poor and needy

                                                                                                the sinner – all of us.

The kingdom of God has come to take over, to overturn the status quo, to transform the kingdoms of the earth. For those who benefit from the status quo, this is not good news.

But for the first listeners of these words, many of whom were outsiders in their own communities, many of whom were ostracized in their own community, many of whom were disenfranchised, this is very good news. For the early church, struggling through fear, this gospel was good news.

For us, today, who sometimes feel beat up, like outsiders, like pretenders, this is likewise very good news.

This is news that gives us cause to hope. These are words that we can trust, sent by Jesus to invade the 

scariest,

            darkest,

                        most isolated,

                                    loneliest,

                                                most shameful,

                                                            most fearsome corners of the world

                                                                        and of our very lives.

The kingdom of God conveys hope; the only thing more powerful than fear.

           A little hope is effective;

                    a lot of hope is dangerous.

                               Jesus gives us is maximum hope.

Yet we might ask, how is it that this hope is as perilous as it is useful? Who is it dangerous to?

The hope Jesus offers is dangerous to the powers that subjugate the marginalized; that benefit from the exploitation of the powerless; for those who enslave the weak and overpower the poor.

The hope Jesus offers is dangerous to those who deal in fear-mongering, like unscrupulous leaders, drug lords, terrorists, both domestic and foreign; like those who promote fear and hatred toward targeted groups of people; like corrupt officials in public and private arenas.

The good news of this gospel, my friends, is that even more than the mustard plant is hard to control, the kingdom of God cannot be controlled. It cannot be restrained. It cannot be contained.

We may sometimes look around us and feel discouraged. Starting right here in the church, we look around, and we see a lot of empty seats here. We feel fear.

We turn on the nightly news or pick up the newspaper, or turn on the internet and we feel fear. We fear for the future of the church, for the future generations, for the future of our country and world. Such fear can bog us down, can keep us from moving forward.

If our friends from Oz had given in to hopeless despair however, they never would have kept going, overcoming the obstacles in their way, defeating the darkness in their world. They never would have discovered the gifts they had already been given.

The good news in this gospel is that God is already growing, spreading, exercising, and God is giving and will continue to give each of us the gifts we need to anticipate, participate in, and to offer hope in this kingdom of God.

We see some of these gifts in food that is gathered to share with those who need it; this week, a young family, whose father was sidelined by an injury and the family car lost in an accident, were fed and given assistance by the donations you have brought here to Grace.

The kingdom is at work in quilts that are made for Lutheran World Relief, change that is collected to bring life to dead places of despair, mosquito nets that are being provided to help prevent and treat malaria, and homes being built for the homeless.

As disciples of Christ, when we share the love

            that God first showed us in Christ,

                        we participate in the kingdom work,

                                    sharing hope in the world.

The kingdom of God is spread through soup kitchens, through blood that is donated, through prayers said for loved ones and strangers alike each week here and worship and daily, by many of us, in our personal times of prayer.

The kingdom of God is at work when we share a smile and a kind word with the lonely, send cards to the homebound and reach outside of our church community sharing a caring touch, prayer or word of encouragement. Kingdom work is being done when we mentor a youth whose life is filled with uncertainty, give generously of our time, our talent and our treasure, because we are so very grateful for all that God has given us.

Where have you seen the kingdom of God at work, and where have you participated in sharing the hope of the kingdom with others?

When we live in hope, we get things done. When we live in hope, we are able to reach out in joy to help those who need to experience the love and joy of this kingdom work. When we remember the indiscriminately shared, sheltering love of God demonstrated in the example of a simple, small seed, we learn what it is to live in hope, trusting that God will grow the kingdom as God has always done.

We share hope that is stronger than fear, driven by the grace of God, who frees us to turn the black and white of the status quo into the brilliant, life-giving, life-sustaining colors of the kingdom of God. God will continue to scatter seed, continue to invade the dark and stormy places of the world.

May God grant us each hope stronger than fear, more powerful than any power on earth, and more dangerous than we can dare to imagine.