Thursday, March 26, 2009
Monday, March 2, 2009
Ash Wednesday - Matthew 6:1-18
Well, what are you doing here? Didn’t we just hear Jesus tell us not to pray or fast or give alms in public ways? Yet here we are, perched at the opening of a season in which we do extra of all those things, and we do them as a community, in a rather public way. In fact, we start off the whole season by gathering here and receiving ashes on our foreheads, so that when we leave here, everyone will know where we’ve been and what we’ve been up to. Most of the time, when we’ve been to church, no one really knows. But on Ash Wednesday, we leave, and we know who has been at church and who hasn’t. We can look around and know just how pious everyone is, because they are wearing it, not on their sleeve, but right there on their forehead! Are we falling into the kind of pious display that Jesus has just warned us about? Why would the church choose to read this text, of all texts, on the one day that we are most forward in displaying our faith for others to see?
Last week, my daughter Grace and I were driving through downtown Minneapolis. At a street corner where we were waiting for a light, there was a man standing, holding a sign. You know what he looked like, though you probably don’t know that particular man. He was wearing several layers of coats and hats and gloves, holding a sign that said, “Homeless, please help. God bless.” His face was expressionless as he watched cars go by, including me, sipping my coffee and listening to the radio, trying to avoid his eye, feeling guilty about how I was not going to give him anything. And from the back seat, Grace piped up. “Mommy, why does his sign say that?” I had forgotten for a moment that my almost 7-year old can read now. “Why does his sign say ‘please help’?” So I explained that he was someone who didn’t have a home right now and he was asking for money to help. “Why don’t we give him some money?” I thought of all the reasons I could tell her, how we give through charities, or how we give some of our time, or how we didn’t want him to use it for drugs or alcohol, but none of that would mean anything to her. What she wanted was a connection with that man standing on the street corner. Grace, my sweet little extraverted girl, wanted to share with him, not with the vast array of people experiencing homelessness. She didn’t see a homeless man standing on the street corner. She saw this man, a man with a story, a story that had led him to ask for our help.
That way of seeing, that way of setting aside the categories and looking to the relationship, is something that gets trained out of most of us by the time we reach high school or early adulthood. Other concerns move in – what do others think of me? How will I take care of my own needs? How can I move ahead? Doing the right thing often becomes something we do for the wrong reasons. Even going to church becomes something that is expected of us.
The gospel lesson today comes to us as a part of the Sermon on the Mount, in which Jesus is talking to his disciples about how to do what is right. In fact, he uses the word “righteous.” Most of us know at least some of the Sermon on the Mount, like the beatitudes, the list of blessings for the poor in spirit, the mourners, the meek, and so on. We may have heard before the section in which Jesus speaks of fulfilling the law, and then gives what seem like more and more things that we ought to do in order to be considered “righteous.” At one point in that section, just a few verses before today’s reading starts, Jesus says, “let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven,” a phrase that we borrow from Matthew when we welcome the newly baptized into the Body of Christ. As we journey through Lent, we will hear a series of sermons from the Longfellow Parish pastors on living the baptized life and letting our light shine before others. But here, in today’s lesson, Jesus seems to contradict himself, telling us not to display our righteousness, but to do what is righteous in private, in secret, so that others will not see. It seems as if Jesus knows us too well.
Because, of course, I want to do what’s right. In Jesus’ day, the assumption was that righteousness meant giving alms, praying, and fasting. For me, those three things still form the cornerstones of righteousness, spiritual disciplines that we try to uphold in our family, though they take different forms today than they might have 2000 years ago. But Jesus knows me well. Do I give because I want others to know how generous I am? Do I pray just to let others know how devout I am? Do I fast so that everyone knows how disciplined I am? Or do I do these things in order to glorify God? Do I do these things in ways that build relationships, that sustain and nourish my neighbor? Unfortunately, as Jesus knows and points out, too often I am the hypocrite. In the Greek, this word, “hypocrite,” doesn’t carry quite the same negative sense that we hear in it. It just meant an actor, someone who hides her true identity behind a mask. And in fact, it’s true, at least I can say that it is true of me, and I would guess that at some level it is true of you as well. Though I sat in the car, trying not to see the man out there with the sign, comfortable and certain that I was doing what was right, I was hiding my true self. Because really, I am just as in need of help as the man out there holding the sign. Though I am not literally homeless, I am often lost, disconnected from my neighbors and from God, and I long to be reconciled. At the heart of all of my prayers are the words of his sign – “please help.”
And Jesus gives us the words to ask for that help. It is interesting that here, in the middle of a passage about giving and fasting and praying in secret, Jesus teaches us a communal prayer. This prayer, the one that is prayed by all Christians everywhere, is a prayer to be said together, even when we are alone. From the first word, this is a prayer of all the people: Our Father, give us this day our daily bread, forgive us as we have forgiven, do not bring us to evil but deliver us. Though we say it so often that we risk it becoming like the “empty phrases” of the Gentiles that Jesus warned against, still, this is a prayer that we share across borders of language, gender, ethnicity and time. Through the generations, this has been the prayer that we say when we cannot think of the words for prayer. It is fitting that it will be the focus of the Lenten devotional series, in a season when we are inclined to focus on individual disciplines. These are the words that Jesus taught us to say when all we can think to say is, “please help.” When we ask for God to bring God’s kingdom, we are confessing that we cannot bring the kingdom ourselves, that we need God’s help. When we ask God to give us today daily bread, we are confessing that all that we have comes from God, and that we need God’s help. When we ask God to forgive us our sins, we are confessing that we cannot free ourselves from the cycles of sin in which we live, we cannot make ourselves righteous, and we need God’s help. I need God’s help, as one person. And we need God’s help, as a congregation, as a community, as a society.
As I sat there at that stop light last week, I remembered something a classmate of mine had said. This was a woman who had spent years working with and advocating for the impoverished in our society. She said, “you either give a dollar or you don’t. when you give a gift you don’t decide how it’s used. You give it, and you let the recipient decide.” So I dug into my back pocket and found a dollar, and I handed it to Grace. She rolled her window down, just as the light was about to change, and she smiled at the man beside the road. And his face lit up, and he limped up to her window and thanked her in the kindest, most sincere way.
Though I do not know what it is to be homeless, I do know how it is to have a prayer answered, to be on the receiving end of a gesture of kindness, and to be reassured of God’s presence in the world through that gesture.
On Ash Wednesday, that gesture comes to us as ashes on our forehead. We do not come to church today to do something, to display our piety for all to see. Instead, we come to receive something, to, as Paul says, “be reconciled to God.” We come to church today to receive the news, in a very tangible, physical way, that “the acceptable time is now…now is the day of salvation!” We come together, gathered as a community, to hear the words at the imposition of ashes: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” These words remind us of our un-righteousness, of our death, of how far we are from being able to pull ourselves up from the dust. These words remind us of our prayer, “please help.” And then we receive the sign of the cross, placed on our forehead today as it was at our baptism. And we remember that death has been overcome for us, that we have already died with Christ, to be raised with him. We remember that God has helped, that God has made us righteous, not through our actions, but through God’s. God has come to us in the flesh, died for us on the cross, and been raised for us from the grave. Through that life, death and resurrection, we have been reconciled to God. We have been made righteous.
And that is why we are still sitting here. It is for this that we have gathered. Not to display to one another and the world how righteous we are, how pious we are, but to display to one another and to the world how called we are. As we walk out of here wearing this dusty cross on our foreheads, we are showing that we are more than dust. We are more than the categories and stereotypes that the world sees. We are the Body of Christ. On Ash Wednesday, we push back against the social propriety keeping us from one another, we push back against the social categories telling us that the man on the street corner is just a homeless man. Marked with the cross of Christ, we are given eyes to see him as a man with a story, a man who is himself marked with a cross, whether he has come to church or displayed his righteousness for all to see. Made righteous ourselves in Christ, we are free to see in this man one who is made righteous in Christ, whatever his situation, a man who is, like me, a child of God.
Last week, my daughter Grace and I were driving through downtown Minneapolis. At a street corner where we were waiting for a light, there was a man standing, holding a sign. You know what he looked like, though you probably don’t know that particular man. He was wearing several layers of coats and hats and gloves, holding a sign that said, “Homeless, please help. God bless.” His face was expressionless as he watched cars go by, including me, sipping my coffee and listening to the radio, trying to avoid his eye, feeling guilty about how I was not going to give him anything. And from the back seat, Grace piped up. “Mommy, why does his sign say that?” I had forgotten for a moment that my almost 7-year old can read now. “Why does his sign say ‘please help’?” So I explained that he was someone who didn’t have a home right now and he was asking for money to help. “Why don’t we give him some money?” I thought of all the reasons I could tell her, how we give through charities, or how we give some of our time, or how we didn’t want him to use it for drugs or alcohol, but none of that would mean anything to her. What she wanted was a connection with that man standing on the street corner. Grace, my sweet little extraverted girl, wanted to share with him, not with the vast array of people experiencing homelessness. She didn’t see a homeless man standing on the street corner. She saw this man, a man with a story, a story that had led him to ask for our help.
That way of seeing, that way of setting aside the categories and looking to the relationship, is something that gets trained out of most of us by the time we reach high school or early adulthood. Other concerns move in – what do others think of me? How will I take care of my own needs? How can I move ahead? Doing the right thing often becomes something we do for the wrong reasons. Even going to church becomes something that is expected of us.
The gospel lesson today comes to us as a part of the Sermon on the Mount, in which Jesus is talking to his disciples about how to do what is right. In fact, he uses the word “righteous.” Most of us know at least some of the Sermon on the Mount, like the beatitudes, the list of blessings for the poor in spirit, the mourners, the meek, and so on. We may have heard before the section in which Jesus speaks of fulfilling the law, and then gives what seem like more and more things that we ought to do in order to be considered “righteous.” At one point in that section, just a few verses before today’s reading starts, Jesus says, “let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven,” a phrase that we borrow from Matthew when we welcome the newly baptized into the Body of Christ. As we journey through Lent, we will hear a series of sermons from the Longfellow Parish pastors on living the baptized life and letting our light shine before others. But here, in today’s lesson, Jesus seems to contradict himself, telling us not to display our righteousness, but to do what is righteous in private, in secret, so that others will not see. It seems as if Jesus knows us too well.
Because, of course, I want to do what’s right. In Jesus’ day, the assumption was that righteousness meant giving alms, praying, and fasting. For me, those three things still form the cornerstones of righteousness, spiritual disciplines that we try to uphold in our family, though they take different forms today than they might have 2000 years ago. But Jesus knows me well. Do I give because I want others to know how generous I am? Do I pray just to let others know how devout I am? Do I fast so that everyone knows how disciplined I am? Or do I do these things in order to glorify God? Do I do these things in ways that build relationships, that sustain and nourish my neighbor? Unfortunately, as Jesus knows and points out, too often I am the hypocrite. In the Greek, this word, “hypocrite,” doesn’t carry quite the same negative sense that we hear in it. It just meant an actor, someone who hides her true identity behind a mask. And in fact, it’s true, at least I can say that it is true of me, and I would guess that at some level it is true of you as well. Though I sat in the car, trying not to see the man out there with the sign, comfortable and certain that I was doing what was right, I was hiding my true self. Because really, I am just as in need of help as the man out there holding the sign. Though I am not literally homeless, I am often lost, disconnected from my neighbors and from God, and I long to be reconciled. At the heart of all of my prayers are the words of his sign – “please help.”
And Jesus gives us the words to ask for that help. It is interesting that here, in the middle of a passage about giving and fasting and praying in secret, Jesus teaches us a communal prayer. This prayer, the one that is prayed by all Christians everywhere, is a prayer to be said together, even when we are alone. From the first word, this is a prayer of all the people: Our Father, give us this day our daily bread, forgive us as we have forgiven, do not bring us to evil but deliver us. Though we say it so often that we risk it becoming like the “empty phrases” of the Gentiles that Jesus warned against, still, this is a prayer that we share across borders of language, gender, ethnicity and time. Through the generations, this has been the prayer that we say when we cannot think of the words for prayer. It is fitting that it will be the focus of the Lenten devotional series, in a season when we are inclined to focus on individual disciplines. These are the words that Jesus taught us to say when all we can think to say is, “please help.” When we ask for God to bring God’s kingdom, we are confessing that we cannot bring the kingdom ourselves, that we need God’s help. When we ask God to give us today daily bread, we are confessing that all that we have comes from God, and that we need God’s help. When we ask God to forgive us our sins, we are confessing that we cannot free ourselves from the cycles of sin in which we live, we cannot make ourselves righteous, and we need God’s help. I need God’s help, as one person. And we need God’s help, as a congregation, as a community, as a society.
As I sat there at that stop light last week, I remembered something a classmate of mine had said. This was a woman who had spent years working with and advocating for the impoverished in our society. She said, “you either give a dollar or you don’t. when you give a gift you don’t decide how it’s used. You give it, and you let the recipient decide.” So I dug into my back pocket and found a dollar, and I handed it to Grace. She rolled her window down, just as the light was about to change, and she smiled at the man beside the road. And his face lit up, and he limped up to her window and thanked her in the kindest, most sincere way.
Though I do not know what it is to be homeless, I do know how it is to have a prayer answered, to be on the receiving end of a gesture of kindness, and to be reassured of God’s presence in the world through that gesture.
On Ash Wednesday, that gesture comes to us as ashes on our forehead. We do not come to church today to do something, to display our piety for all to see. Instead, we come to receive something, to, as Paul says, “be reconciled to God.” We come to church today to receive the news, in a very tangible, physical way, that “the acceptable time is now…now is the day of salvation!” We come together, gathered as a community, to hear the words at the imposition of ashes: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” These words remind us of our un-righteousness, of our death, of how far we are from being able to pull ourselves up from the dust. These words remind us of our prayer, “please help.” And then we receive the sign of the cross, placed on our forehead today as it was at our baptism. And we remember that death has been overcome for us, that we have already died with Christ, to be raised with him. We remember that God has helped, that God has made us righteous, not through our actions, but through God’s. God has come to us in the flesh, died for us on the cross, and been raised for us from the grave. Through that life, death and resurrection, we have been reconciled to God. We have been made righteous.
And that is why we are still sitting here. It is for this that we have gathered. Not to display to one another and the world how righteous we are, how pious we are, but to display to one another and to the world how called we are. As we walk out of here wearing this dusty cross on our foreheads, we are showing that we are more than dust. We are more than the categories and stereotypes that the world sees. We are the Body of Christ. On Ash Wednesday, we push back against the social propriety keeping us from one another, we push back against the social categories telling us that the man on the street corner is just a homeless man. Marked with the cross of Christ, we are given eyes to see him as a man with a story, a man who is himself marked with a cross, whether he has come to church or displayed his righteousness for all to see. Made righteous ourselves in Christ, we are free to see in this man one who is made righteous in Christ, whatever his situation, a man who is, like me, a child of God.
6th Sunday in Epiphany - A Sermon on Mark 1:40-45
Last week here at Christ Church we did something that I found rather remarkable. We held a healing service. This was the first healing service that I had taken part in. I attended one, long ago during my life as a Catholic, but I had never been to a Lutheran service before. During the service, nearly every person in the congregation came forward to receive a healing prayer. As Pastor Carlson, Pastor Farlee and I prayed the prayer, we each put our hands on the person for whom we were praying. For each person, whether I knew them or not, I reached out my hands and laid them on that person’s head, and asked God to drive away sickness, make whole the broken, deliver from the power of evil, and preserve faith. And then I took a little oil, and rubbed it on their forehead, making a sign of the cross.
As I did this, I was reminded of all the people that I don’t touch. I don’t know about you, but I don’t often go around touching strangers. For that matter, I don’t often touch friends. While children will cling to anyone who allows it, as we grow up, we grow invisible shells around ourselves. We stop touching one another, and when we do touch one another, we’re very careful about it. We know instinctively about “personal space,” and we mostly respect it. When I brush up against someone in a crowded store, I apologize, “oops, sorry.” I didn’t hurt that person, I just touched her elbow with mine. What am I apologizing for?
There are other kinds of social space that we are even less aware of most of the time. The space between classes, between races, between religions. These are boundaries that we cross so rarely, and so reluctantly. These social lines control us, guide our actions and our decisions in subtle and surprising ways. Where do we live? Shop? Eat? Exercise? Worship? I tend to go where I’m most comfortable, where I’ll find people like myself. Once upon a time, these lines were clearly drawn by geography, and people rarely chanced coming up against someone so different from themselves. But today, in our pluralistic society, we are confronted daily with difference, and it is easy to feel powerless to reach out across that difference to touch someone on the other side of the boundary. I don’t mean literally – we might bump into someone on the bus or the street – I mean a different kind of touch. It is easy to feel powerless to make a connection with someone who is on the other side of the lines that divide us. And that sense of powerlessness, that inability to connect with others, leads to misunderstanding, hate, even wars.
Jesus lived in a highly pluralistic society, too. With Israel at the crossroads of the Middle East, having been invaded time and again, there were many different races and ethnicities and even religious faiths living side by side. And to intensify the situation, for the Jews at least, there were purity laws that made it clear who was okay and who was not. Who was in and who was out. Any attempt to reach across those boundaries served, not to pull those on the outside in, but to drive those on the inside out. Yet time and again, we hear of Jesus crossing those boundaries, risking becoming an outsider himself, in order to help to draw the outsiders in. He goes into areas where no good Jew would go, like Samaria. He talks to and even eats with people no good Jew should talk to or eat with, like prostitutes and tax-collectors. And he touches people no good Jew should touch. Like lepers.
In today’s gospel reading, Jesus is still in Galilee, where his fame has been spreading as one who teaches with authority and as one who heals the sick and casts out demons. As he goes through Galilee proclaiming the good news of God, proclaiming that the kingdom of God has come near, he is approached by a leper, who says to him, “If you choose, you can make me clean.” As a leper, this man is already breaking the rules. He is an outsider, ritually unclean, and therefore not allowed to approach others. Yet here he comes, breaking those rules, reaching right across the boundaries, in desperation, begging Jesus for some help, some bridge that might allow him to come back to society, to return to the inside, to be whole again, to be free. And in fact, that is what the Greek word that we translate as clean means. It means “to be ritually cleansed,” but it also means “to be healed,” and even “to be set free.” This leper is asking for all of these things – he wants his body to be restored to health, and he wants to be considered clean so that he can return to his life and to the temple. He wants to be set free from the things that are keeping him from living his life, from being in community, from God.
And Jesus replies, “I do choose. Be clean. Be healed. Be free.” But he doesn’t simply say the words. Jesus reaches out and touches this leper. And in touching him, Jesus frees him. Jesus crosses the boundaries, breaks down the walls that divide them, and shows solidarity with this man who is on the outside. And immediately he was made clean. Immediately, when Jesus dared to set aside those social conventions that bind people and separate us from one another, immediately, this man was set free. By touching a leper, Jesus risked becoming unclean himself. But by doing so, Jesus destroyed the power that this label held, the power that separated this man from society. In being willing to become like the leper, Jesus removed broke the power of the leprosy, and welcomed the man back into society. Jesus drew the outside in.
This story at the end of Mark’s first chapter points us to the story at the end of Mark’s entire gospel, the story of Christ’s journey to the cross. In that we will hear of how Christ broke down all the boundaries of sin and even death, how in Christ, God became like us, was murdered on the cross, and endured all the worst consequences of sin. And we will hear about how in Christ, God overcame them, overcame death and the grave, and in doing so, freed us all from the power that they hold over us. In Christ, we have been set free from all of those things that separate us from one another, even death. In the face of that, a simple touch seems so easy.
As I rubbed oil on people’s foreheads last week, inviting them to receive the oil as a sign of healing and forgiveness in Jesus Christ, I also remembered those I have touched. I remembered how that touch affected my colicky baby, the way that rubbing her forehead reassured her and calmed her and let her know that she was not alone, that she was protected and loved. I remembered my patients at Abbot Northwestern, usually at the other end of their lives, fretful and bed-ridden people fighting sickness in their bodies, how a touch on the forehead reminded them that they were not alone, that they were held by God’s embrace. That is the message of the healing prayer, as well. The oil that was rubbed on your forehead last week, was a reminder that your are not alone, that you are protected and loved, that God has broken down the barriers that hold you captive, that you are a child of God. That you are free: to reach across the barriers that Christ has broken down for you, to touch the lives of others, the proclaim the kingdom drawing near.
Alice Tomhave, whose 100th birthday was Friday, spent much of her career reaching across boundaries. Working in social services, she spent her career helping children who might have been on the outside. She reached out to them, helped children in need, and in doing so, demonstrated for them the love of Christ, bringing healing, cleansing, and freedom. Each of us has our ministry, our way of demonstrating Christ’s love. Each of us reaches across the boundaries, breaks down walls. Whether it’s in a personal relationship, or in your career, whether its in a volunteer position, or a ministry. Here at Christ Church, we are looking for ways to reach out. We are trying to start up a ministry of arts for the local schoolchildren, most of whom we are normally separated from by the invisible barriers that rule our lives. It is never easy, and it always involves some risk. But in doing so, we trust that we are living out the freedom that Christ won for us, and we are experiencing the in-breaking kingdom.
I remember hearing a skit on “A Prairie Home Companion” where a husband and wife are debating whether they will go to church on Easter. Finally the husband says, “Well, okay, I’ll go. But if anyone tries to shake my hand, I am out of there!” That is the way that so many of us go through life – in our comfort zones, hoping simply to get through and get home. Yet each week, on our way to Christ’s table, we take a moment to do exactly what that man dreaded – we reach out, and shake hands. As we do so, we say to one another, “The peace of Christ be with you.” And in reaching out in the freedom that Christ has given us, by breaking down again the walls that Christ first broke down for us, by sharing with one another the gift of touch, our prayer of peace it becomes so, and we receive the peace that we share.
There is a reason that we use the laying on of hands in our healing service. Touch is healing. We have been given a gift, the gift of loving, healing, freeing hands. Because Christ has touched each of us through the waters of baptism, because Christ has washed us clean, set us free, reached across the walls that separate us, we are free to reach as well. Those lines of class, gender, race, religion, even sin, do not dictate who we are or what we can do. We are as free as children to touch one another, to offer healing and love. My daughter still comes to me for that reassuring touch. For a long time, when she was anxious or sick, she would come up to me and grab my hand and put it on her tummy, flat with my palm resting on her belly. I suppose that it was a comfort. These days, she doesn’t do that, but she still climbs into my lap whenever she can. She demands her snuggle time. And I see her share that healing touch with others. Like the little boy at the party who was feeling too shy to join in. Grace went up and gently touched him on the shoulder, and invited him, slowly coaxed him into the group. Or the friend who had such a bad day at work, who Grace greeted with a joyful hug, what we call a hernia hug, and a loving welcome. Children have a natural sense of how they are embraced by and free in God’s love, and so they are free to embrace and share it with others. We adults are also embraced, set free.
As I did this, I was reminded of all the people that I don’t touch. I don’t know about you, but I don’t often go around touching strangers. For that matter, I don’t often touch friends. While children will cling to anyone who allows it, as we grow up, we grow invisible shells around ourselves. We stop touching one another, and when we do touch one another, we’re very careful about it. We know instinctively about “personal space,” and we mostly respect it. When I brush up against someone in a crowded store, I apologize, “oops, sorry.” I didn’t hurt that person, I just touched her elbow with mine. What am I apologizing for?
There are other kinds of social space that we are even less aware of most of the time. The space between classes, between races, between religions. These are boundaries that we cross so rarely, and so reluctantly. These social lines control us, guide our actions and our decisions in subtle and surprising ways. Where do we live? Shop? Eat? Exercise? Worship? I tend to go where I’m most comfortable, where I’ll find people like myself. Once upon a time, these lines were clearly drawn by geography, and people rarely chanced coming up against someone so different from themselves. But today, in our pluralistic society, we are confronted daily with difference, and it is easy to feel powerless to reach out across that difference to touch someone on the other side of the boundary. I don’t mean literally – we might bump into someone on the bus or the street – I mean a different kind of touch. It is easy to feel powerless to make a connection with someone who is on the other side of the lines that divide us. And that sense of powerlessness, that inability to connect with others, leads to misunderstanding, hate, even wars.
Jesus lived in a highly pluralistic society, too. With Israel at the crossroads of the Middle East, having been invaded time and again, there were many different races and ethnicities and even religious faiths living side by side. And to intensify the situation, for the Jews at least, there were purity laws that made it clear who was okay and who was not. Who was in and who was out. Any attempt to reach across those boundaries served, not to pull those on the outside in, but to drive those on the inside out. Yet time and again, we hear of Jesus crossing those boundaries, risking becoming an outsider himself, in order to help to draw the outsiders in. He goes into areas where no good Jew would go, like Samaria. He talks to and even eats with people no good Jew should talk to or eat with, like prostitutes and tax-collectors. And he touches people no good Jew should touch. Like lepers.
In today’s gospel reading, Jesus is still in Galilee, where his fame has been spreading as one who teaches with authority and as one who heals the sick and casts out demons. As he goes through Galilee proclaiming the good news of God, proclaiming that the kingdom of God has come near, he is approached by a leper, who says to him, “If you choose, you can make me clean.” As a leper, this man is already breaking the rules. He is an outsider, ritually unclean, and therefore not allowed to approach others. Yet here he comes, breaking those rules, reaching right across the boundaries, in desperation, begging Jesus for some help, some bridge that might allow him to come back to society, to return to the inside, to be whole again, to be free. And in fact, that is what the Greek word that we translate as clean means. It means “to be ritually cleansed,” but it also means “to be healed,” and even “to be set free.” This leper is asking for all of these things – he wants his body to be restored to health, and he wants to be considered clean so that he can return to his life and to the temple. He wants to be set free from the things that are keeping him from living his life, from being in community, from God.
And Jesus replies, “I do choose. Be clean. Be healed. Be free.” But he doesn’t simply say the words. Jesus reaches out and touches this leper. And in touching him, Jesus frees him. Jesus crosses the boundaries, breaks down the walls that divide them, and shows solidarity with this man who is on the outside. And immediately he was made clean. Immediately, when Jesus dared to set aside those social conventions that bind people and separate us from one another, immediately, this man was set free. By touching a leper, Jesus risked becoming unclean himself. But by doing so, Jesus destroyed the power that this label held, the power that separated this man from society. In being willing to become like the leper, Jesus removed broke the power of the leprosy, and welcomed the man back into society. Jesus drew the outside in.
This story at the end of Mark’s first chapter points us to the story at the end of Mark’s entire gospel, the story of Christ’s journey to the cross. In that we will hear of how Christ broke down all the boundaries of sin and even death, how in Christ, God became like us, was murdered on the cross, and endured all the worst consequences of sin. And we will hear about how in Christ, God overcame them, overcame death and the grave, and in doing so, freed us all from the power that they hold over us. In Christ, we have been set free from all of those things that separate us from one another, even death. In the face of that, a simple touch seems so easy.
As I rubbed oil on people’s foreheads last week, inviting them to receive the oil as a sign of healing and forgiveness in Jesus Christ, I also remembered those I have touched. I remembered how that touch affected my colicky baby, the way that rubbing her forehead reassured her and calmed her and let her know that she was not alone, that she was protected and loved. I remembered my patients at Abbot Northwestern, usually at the other end of their lives, fretful and bed-ridden people fighting sickness in their bodies, how a touch on the forehead reminded them that they were not alone, that they were held by God’s embrace. That is the message of the healing prayer, as well. The oil that was rubbed on your forehead last week, was a reminder that your are not alone, that you are protected and loved, that God has broken down the barriers that hold you captive, that you are a child of God. That you are free: to reach across the barriers that Christ has broken down for you, to touch the lives of others, the proclaim the kingdom drawing near.
Alice Tomhave, whose 100th birthday was Friday, spent much of her career reaching across boundaries. Working in social services, she spent her career helping children who might have been on the outside. She reached out to them, helped children in need, and in doing so, demonstrated for them the love of Christ, bringing healing, cleansing, and freedom. Each of us has our ministry, our way of demonstrating Christ’s love. Each of us reaches across the boundaries, breaks down walls. Whether it’s in a personal relationship, or in your career, whether its in a volunteer position, or a ministry. Here at Christ Church, we are looking for ways to reach out. We are trying to start up a ministry of arts for the local schoolchildren, most of whom we are normally separated from by the invisible barriers that rule our lives. It is never easy, and it always involves some risk. But in doing so, we trust that we are living out the freedom that Christ won for us, and we are experiencing the in-breaking kingdom.
I remember hearing a skit on “A Prairie Home Companion” where a husband and wife are debating whether they will go to church on Easter. Finally the husband says, “Well, okay, I’ll go. But if anyone tries to shake my hand, I am out of there!” That is the way that so many of us go through life – in our comfort zones, hoping simply to get through and get home. Yet each week, on our way to Christ’s table, we take a moment to do exactly what that man dreaded – we reach out, and shake hands. As we do so, we say to one another, “The peace of Christ be with you.” And in reaching out in the freedom that Christ has given us, by breaking down again the walls that Christ first broke down for us, by sharing with one another the gift of touch, our prayer of peace it becomes so, and we receive the peace that we share.
There is a reason that we use the laying on of hands in our healing service. Touch is healing. We have been given a gift, the gift of loving, healing, freeing hands. Because Christ has touched each of us through the waters of baptism, because Christ has washed us clean, set us free, reached across the walls that separate us, we are free to reach as well. Those lines of class, gender, race, religion, even sin, do not dictate who we are or what we can do. We are as free as children to touch one another, to offer healing and love. My daughter still comes to me for that reassuring touch. For a long time, when she was anxious or sick, she would come up to me and grab my hand and put it on her tummy, flat with my palm resting on her belly. I suppose that it was a comfort. These days, she doesn’t do that, but she still climbs into my lap whenever she can. She demands her snuggle time. And I see her share that healing touch with others. Like the little boy at the party who was feeling too shy to join in. Grace went up and gently touched him on the shoulder, and invited him, slowly coaxed him into the group. Or the friend who had such a bad day at work, who Grace greeted with a joyful hug, what we call a hernia hug, and a loving welcome. Children have a natural sense of how they are embraced by and free in God’s love, and so they are free to embrace and share it with others. We adults are also embraced, set free.
Epiphany 2009
In the time of King Herod, wise men from the east observed a star rising that they associated with this light. They followed that star and it led them, through some wrong turnings and some danger, to find the child Jesus, who had been born, as they put it, “King of the Jews.” We don’t know how far they came, or how long it took. We don’t know if they found Jesus still an infant, or if they found him a toddler, running around the house and playing with his father’s tools. All we know is that they followed the light, that the star, which they observed rising in the East, came and got them where they were, and led them to Jesus.
I am pretty much in awe of those magi. The idea of dropping everything and following a star across the desert, to a strange country, into a foreign city and up to the palace is, frankly, nuts. If anyone did such a thing today, they would be considered crazy, and they would probably get a book and a movie deal out of it. But beyond the sheer audacity of the journey, what I find really amazing is that the magi did it all to follow a star. I know that scholars tell us that stars and astronomy held a lot more cache back then, but I still think that leaving home to follow a star is pretty awesome. I mean, I’ve done a bit of traveling. In 1996, Nelson and I spent about 5 months total traveling, including 3 months taking trains around Europe. But we followed a guidebook and had Eurail passes. We were not taking our travel advice from a star.
Well, it seems that the magi weren’t exactly following the star, because they did take some wrong turns. The first place they went was to Jerusalem, which did nothing but stir up trouble. I can’t help but wonder, when I hear this story – did the star lead them to Jerusalem? Matthew doesn’t say so. Instead, it says that the star rose, the magi saw it, and they went to Jerusalem. They weren’t actually following the star at that point, they just knew about it. It’s not until they’re on their way to Bethlehem that the story tells us that the star went ahead of them. It seems like maybe they saw the star, and they decided they knew what it meant. They knew that this star was about the birth of a King, the King of the Jews, and so they headed off to Jerusalem. After all, where else would a King be born?
I wish I could say that I had never made a mistake like the magi’s. I wish I could say that I had never followed my own assumptions and prejudices while ignoring the evidence that was standing in front of me. But that is the way we are, isn’t it? A friend of mine, when confronted with the accusation, “You always think you’re right, don’t you?!” replied, “Of course I do. If I thought I was wrong, I’d change my mind, wouldn’t I?” I know from my travels abroad, and even in the US, that it is easy to take along my ideas about how things should be. Whether I’m bothered because the trains don’t run on my schedule, or because the King hasn’t been born in the capital city, my assumptions about how the world should work take precedence.
I am only too aware of all the ways that we assume we know what God is up to. Throughout history, one group or another has taken it upon themselves to be the spokesperson for God, and it usually ends in disaster. The church of the West spent hundreds of years “taking God” all over the world, never bothering to check to see if God might already be there. But the most successful missionaries have always been the ones who stopped to ask, “what has God been up to here? How has God already been made known in this place?”
The star came first to the Magi, they saw it at its rising. God’s light works its way into every time and place, and invites each person to a journey, into a relationship, in a language that they can understand. Of course, they are bound to misunderstand, they are bound to misinterpret. Each of us is bound to take a wrong turn, believing we know how God should be acting. But the star waited for the Magi, so that they were finally able to find their bumbling way to Bethlehem and to the Christ child. And when they left, they went home by a different road. And so the light waits for us. God was born into the world as an invitation to each of us, as a sign that God wants nothing more than to be in relationship with us. And Christ died and was raised as an invitation to each of us, as a sign that God will not abandon us when we take a wrong turn. God’s light waits for us, Christ waits for us, forgiving our mistakes and giving us the chance to start fresh, so that we can continue on our journey by a different road.
We have a little Nativity scene that we bought the year that we traveled so much. That year we spent Christmas in Budapest, Hungary. It is an unusual Nativity crèche for a number of reasons. For one thing, it is all one piece, made of ceramic. It is made from a plain brownish/grayish clay, with a hint of blue paint in spots to it, but unglazed. And it depicts only the holy family with a sheep and a donkey, no shepherds, no magi or gifts, no angels and no stars. It is plain, humble, unassuming, as I imagine the stable itself would be. That is part of what drew me to this little crèche when I saw it in the Christmas bazaar there. But what I like most about it is that, rather than a little straw manger, holding a perfect little baby, there is a candle-holder, and the manger holds a light. Instead of a star shining overhead, in this scene, the star has come to rest in the manger, and it is to that spot, to the light in the manger, that all eyes are drawn as they look at this little Nativity scene.
“Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you…Nations shall come to your light.” The star that led the magi is the same light that leads us. The light comes to us each where we are, so that we can follow it into the world, and find it shining in the most unexpected places.
I am pretty much in awe of those magi. The idea of dropping everything and following a star across the desert, to a strange country, into a foreign city and up to the palace is, frankly, nuts. If anyone did such a thing today, they would be considered crazy, and they would probably get a book and a movie deal out of it. But beyond the sheer audacity of the journey, what I find really amazing is that the magi did it all to follow a star. I know that scholars tell us that stars and astronomy held a lot more cache back then, but I still think that leaving home to follow a star is pretty awesome. I mean, I’ve done a bit of traveling. In 1996, Nelson and I spent about 5 months total traveling, including 3 months taking trains around Europe. But we followed a guidebook and had Eurail passes. We were not taking our travel advice from a star.
Well, it seems that the magi weren’t exactly following the star, because they did take some wrong turns. The first place they went was to Jerusalem, which did nothing but stir up trouble. I can’t help but wonder, when I hear this story – did the star lead them to Jerusalem? Matthew doesn’t say so. Instead, it says that the star rose, the magi saw it, and they went to Jerusalem. They weren’t actually following the star at that point, they just knew about it. It’s not until they’re on their way to Bethlehem that the story tells us that the star went ahead of them. It seems like maybe they saw the star, and they decided they knew what it meant. They knew that this star was about the birth of a King, the King of the Jews, and so they headed off to Jerusalem. After all, where else would a King be born?
I wish I could say that I had never made a mistake like the magi’s. I wish I could say that I had never followed my own assumptions and prejudices while ignoring the evidence that was standing in front of me. But that is the way we are, isn’t it? A friend of mine, when confronted with the accusation, “You always think you’re right, don’t you?!” replied, “Of course I do. If I thought I was wrong, I’d change my mind, wouldn’t I?” I know from my travels abroad, and even in the US, that it is easy to take along my ideas about how things should be. Whether I’m bothered because the trains don’t run on my schedule, or because the King hasn’t been born in the capital city, my assumptions about how the world should work take precedence.
I am only too aware of all the ways that we assume we know what God is up to. Throughout history, one group or another has taken it upon themselves to be the spokesperson for God, and it usually ends in disaster. The church of the West spent hundreds of years “taking God” all over the world, never bothering to check to see if God might already be there. But the most successful missionaries have always been the ones who stopped to ask, “what has God been up to here? How has God already been made known in this place?”
The star came first to the Magi, they saw it at its rising. God’s light works its way into every time and place, and invites each person to a journey, into a relationship, in a language that they can understand. Of course, they are bound to misunderstand, they are bound to misinterpret. Each of us is bound to take a wrong turn, believing we know how God should be acting. But the star waited for the Magi, so that they were finally able to find their bumbling way to Bethlehem and to the Christ child. And when they left, they went home by a different road. And so the light waits for us. God was born into the world as an invitation to each of us, as a sign that God wants nothing more than to be in relationship with us. And Christ died and was raised as an invitation to each of us, as a sign that God will not abandon us when we take a wrong turn. God’s light waits for us, Christ waits for us, forgiving our mistakes and giving us the chance to start fresh, so that we can continue on our journey by a different road.
We have a little Nativity scene that we bought the year that we traveled so much. That year we spent Christmas in Budapest, Hungary. It is an unusual Nativity crèche for a number of reasons. For one thing, it is all one piece, made of ceramic. It is made from a plain brownish/grayish clay, with a hint of blue paint in spots to it, but unglazed. And it depicts only the holy family with a sheep and a donkey, no shepherds, no magi or gifts, no angels and no stars. It is plain, humble, unassuming, as I imagine the stable itself would be. That is part of what drew me to this little crèche when I saw it in the Christmas bazaar there. But what I like most about it is that, rather than a little straw manger, holding a perfect little baby, there is a candle-holder, and the manger holds a light. Instead of a star shining overhead, in this scene, the star has come to rest in the manger, and it is to that spot, to the light in the manger, that all eyes are drawn as they look at this little Nativity scene.
“Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you…Nations shall come to your light.” The star that led the magi is the same light that leads us. The light comes to us each where we are, so that we can follow it into the world, and find it shining in the most unexpected places.
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