Keeping the Season

"Dirty Garden Feet" by jana christy, on Flickr

Reading for the day: John 13:1-17, 31b-35

Washing Feet
by Robert Fawcett

Being thorough, I remove a holey sock
to view a diabetic man’s filthy feet.
I use the time to complete our talk
of what drove him to live on the street
as I wonder how any of this can help.

While he tells me more of his medical past,
I run warm water into a stainless bowl.
I immerse both his feet and begin to ask
myself what good it does for this poor soul
to allow himself to undergo this ablution.

Silently I sluice the water between his toes
and soap the crusty callous at his heel.
I marvel at his arch and notice how closely
it fits my palm. I know he can feel
this proximity too. He shuts his eyes.

Months of useless layers peel away,
revealing layers useless weeks ago.
Removing the tough brown hide of yesterday
yields clean pink skin, but we both know
this ritual will be useless days from now.

Still, this moment may withstand time’s test,
teaching us each lessons unknown before.
I learn the medicine of selflessness.
He learns what medicine is really for–
the hope that basin, soap and touch can bear.

anatomy" by Ben Giles, on Flickr

Acts 3:12–19
When Peter saw it, he addressed the people, "You Israelites, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we had made him walk? The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our ancestors has glorified his servant Jesus, whom you handed over and rejected in the presence of Pilate, though he had decided to release him. But you rejected the Holy and Righteous One and asked to have a murderer given to you, and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses. And by faith in his name, his name itself has made this man strong, whom you see and know; and the faith that is through Jesus has given him this perfect health in the presence of all of you. And now, friends, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers. In this way God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, that his Messiah would suffer. Repent therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out.

1 John 3:1–7
See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God's children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure. Everyone who commits sin is guilty of lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. You know that he was revealed to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. No one who abides in him sins; no one who sins has either seen him or known him. Little children, let no one deceive you. Everyone who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous.

Luke 24:36b–48
[Jesus said,] "Peace be with you." [The disciples] were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. He said to them, "Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have." And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, "Have you anything here to eat?" They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their presence. Then he said to them, "These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you — that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled." Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.
---

So you may have noticed that today’s gospel reading from Luke, on the surface, sounds suspiciously similar to last week’s gospel reading from John. Nope, you haven’t stepped into a weird time warp where you are stuck repeating Easter 2 over and over and over again like the movie Groundhog Day, I promise!

Today, we have another story of the resurrected Jesus showing up among the disciples. Like last week’s account from John, the disciples are gathered together in a room, hidden away. Like last week’s gospel, Jesus shows up among them and says, “Peace be with you.” Like last week’s gospel, Jesus shows them his hands and feet, and the disciples, eventually, come to believe.

What is different between John’s gospel last week and Luke’s gospel today is the question of what the gospel writers were trying to prove about the resurrected Jesus. John, I think, was trying to establish the identity of Jesus post-resurrection. Jesus appeared to the disciples and to Thomas as if to say, “hey look, it’s me, Jesus, and not somebody else!” When Thomas finally gets his chance to encounter the risen Christ, he responds with a declaration of identity: “My Lord and my God!”

Luke’s gospel is less concerned with the identity of the risen Christ, and far more concerned with his bodily reality.

Maybe it’s because tradition says that Luke was a physician that he seems more concerned than the other gospel writers with matters of Christ’s humanity, even from the very outset of his gospel. Luke is the only gospel that gives us a real birth narrative. Luke’s gospel is concerned with establishing Jesus as the real human savior for real human needs like hunger and pain and poverty and oppression. And here, after the resurrection, Luke takes care to establish not just the identity of the resurrected Jesus, but also his bodily reality. For Luke, it is important that the disciples and all of us know that Jesus, who fully died, has been fully raised.

"Why are you frightened?” Jesus asks, “And why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have." And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet.

But even having seen these wounds, Luke tells us that the disciples, even in their joy, were yet also disbelieving and still wondering, and so Jesus takes it one step further: He said to them, "Have you anything here to eat?" They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their presence. Ghosts, spirits, disembodied souls: they do not need to eat. But bodies do.

And so he shows his hands and feet and eats a snack to prove that he is, indeed, resurrected in the flesh, because anything less fleshly would cease to be resurrection and would cease to be salvation.

In the opening stanzas of his marvelous poem, “Seven Stanzas for Easter,” John Updike writes,

Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,
each soft Spring recurrent;
it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled
eyes of the eleven apostles;
it was as His flesh: ours.

The heart of our Christian faith rests upon this truth that Christ was born - really born; body, mind, and spirit - and that Christ died - really died; body, mind, and spirit - and that Christ then rose again - really rose; body, mind, and spirit. He's not a ghost. He is touchable. He is hungry. He has wounds and scars. He - his body - is resurrected from the dead, so that our bodies will also will be resurrected at the end of all things.

Saint Gregory of Nazianzus, writing in the fourth century, said “That which He has not assumed He has not healed; but that which is united to His Godhead is also saved.”

By this he means that Christ had to take on flesh so that we, as children of the flesh, might be redeemed. More than this, the very death and resurrection of Christ’s own body has united us with God and, in the words of 1 John, has made us “children of God; and that is what we are.” 1 John goes on to say that when Christ is finally revealed, “we will be like him.” Just as Christ was raised not on in spirit but also in body, so will we be like him in our own resurrection - raised not only in spirit but also in body.

This is the same message as we get in Peter’s sermon in Acts today. The crowds have just watched the apostles heal a lame man at the entrance to the temple, and they are amazed, so Peter starts preaching. He asks, ”Why do you wonder about this? Is the power to heal bodies not the very power of God, the same power that forgives sins and the same power that raised Christ from the dead?” Peter’s message here is that the power of God to raise Christ in the flesh is the power of God to forgive us and to heal our human bodies and to save our created world.

Even though we live a bodily, earthy, dirty life, I think that it is sometimes much easier for us to imagine the work of God taking place the spiritual realm, the neighborhood of the soul, the purification of minds and desires, than it is to understand the work of God on behalf of bodies, and not just human bodies, but animal bodies and plants and trees and the entire body of creation.

But when we, in our confession of faith, proclaim, “I believe in the resurrection of the body,” we are confessing that we have a God who cares about not just souls, but bodies; a God who cares not just for the heavenly realm, but for the created matter of this universe; a God who cares not just for matters of the spirit, but for matters of flesh, too.

And why is this so very important, that God cares about bodies?

It is important because somewhere, there is a transgender youth who is trying to figure out what to do with a body and an identity that don’t fit together.

It is important because somewhere, there is a 99 year old man whose joints are failing who feels creaky and useless as he waits out his days in a care facility.

It is important because somewhere, there is a 45 year old woman who has been yo-yo dieting since she was 14, who believes that her body will forever remain unloveable.

It is important because somewhere, there is a college wrestler with an eating disorder who believes that his whole worth is tied u pin how well his body can perform.

It is important because somewhere, there is an infertile couple who feel like their bodies have completely failed them.

It is important because somewhere, there is a woman with a physical deformity that makes her feel excluded and invisible.

It is important because somewhere, there is a child with leukemia who has been sick for more days in their life than they have been well.

This is the power of the bodily resurrection: That Christ in his flesh has won for us the salvation of our bodies and the body of this world.

This is the power of the bodily resurrection: That Christ in his flesh has ushered the kingdom of God into our midst as it unfolds here and now and in the real stuff of crumbling housing projects and cancer and the dirty feet of children whose shoes have holes and the sunken faces of families who don’t have enough to eat.

This is the power of the bodily resurrection: That Christ in his flesh empowers us to feed hungry people and clothe naked people and march for justice and weep over prejudice and care for the frail and heal broken bodies; to care about carbon emissions and polluted water and to be conscious of how much trash we generate and which animal habitats we are destroying.

This is the power of the bodily resurrection: That Christ comes to us each week in this holy meal, where we touch and taste his body, and remember with our hearts and our tongues and our bodies and our spirits that Christ is here, among us, and that this bread and wine that we can touch are the elements of our salvation.

Brothers and sisters, just as the disciples touched the risen Christ, in the body, and by touching were assured of their salvation, so also do we touch Christ not only in the elements of communion, but in the body of Christ gathered here. If you were to reach out and touch the shoulder of the person next to you, you would be touching Christ’s body. If you were to clasp your own hands, you would be touching Christ’s body. If you were to plant your feet firmly on the ground to feel the strength of the foundations of the earth below, you would be touching Christ’s body.

Whatever you feel about your body - love it, hate it, whether it is strong or weak, a finished product or a work in progress - your body is blessed and saved and will be resurrected, and it is given the very power of God to be a blessing in the world.

So let us close by blessing these very bodies that God has given us, through which we know God, by which we are called to be a blessing in the body of this world.

You have heard the holy and saving gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now receive the sign of that gospel on your body and in your heart, that you may know the Lord and the power of his resurrection.

As a sign of God’s endless love and mercy for you,
Receive the + sign of the cross on your forehead.

That you may hear the gospel of Christ, the word of life,
receive the + cross on your ears.

That you may see the light of Christ illumining your way,
receive the + cross on your eyes.

That you may sing the praise of Christ, the joy of the church,
receive the + cross on your lips.

That God may dwell within you by faith,
receive the + cross on your heart.

That you may bear the gentle yoke of Christ,
receive the + cross on your shoulders.

That God's mercy may be known in your work,
receive the + cross on your hands.

That you may follow in the way of Christ,
receive the + cross on your feet.

May God bring you in peace and joy to fullness of life in the risen Christ. May the God of all grace, who has called you to glory, support you and make you strong, now and forever. Amen.
(from the ELW “Welcome to Baptism” rite)

"Aesculapius / Äskulap" by Harald Schmid, on Flickr

Numbers 21:4–9
From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; but the people became impatient on the way. The people spoke against God and against Moses, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food." Then the LORD sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, "We have sinned by speaking against the LORD and against you; pray to the LORD to take away the serpents from us." So Moses prayed for the people. And the LORD said to Moses, "Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live." So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.

Ephesians 2:1–10
You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient. All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else. But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved — and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God — not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.

John 3:14–21
And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God."
---

Every hero has a weakness. For Indiana Jones, archeologist and adventurer, his downfall is snakes. He can deal with bugs and with death threats, motorcycle chases and skeletons, gunfights and treachery. But not with snakes.

Unfortunately for him, we start with snakes today, out there in the wilderness with Moses and the Israelites. We are at year thirty-seven of their forty-year wanderings. Most of the old generation has died off. With the taste of milk and honey already starting to entice these wanderers, their dissatisfaction with the current situation grows and grows. "There is no food," they say, " and the food that God has provided is terrible." It's the joke that opens Woody Allen's Annie Hall: “Two women are at a Catskills mountain resort, and one of ‘em says: ‘Boy, the food at this place is really terrible.’ The other one says, ‘Yeah, I know, and such…small portions.’” There is no food…and the food is miserable.

Grumbling becomes anger, and anger becomes rejection of the very God who had drawn them out of their slavery in the first place, and they beg to go back to Egypt because they think slavery is no big deal compared to hunger and weariness. And God, frustrated to high heaven with this ridiculousness, sends the same sort of plague on his own people as he had sent upon the Egyptians. Snakes. Snakes everywhere. Snakes that bite. Snakes that bite with venom. Snakes that kill. Terrifying. I think I'm with Indy on this one...

Hearing the cries of the people, Moses intercedes, and God relents, and tells Moses that he is to fashion a serpent out of bronze, and put it up on a cross-pole, and everyone is to look up at it, and in the lifting of their eyes will come their salvation.

For author and theologian Phyllis Tickle, this story of Moses and the bronze serpent is a formative story in her own faith development. She spends a number of pages in her memoir, The Shaping of a Life, retelling the story and reflecting on it. She points out that God's promise to Moses is that the people will be saved from death when they are bitten…but not that they won’t get bitten in the first place.

She reflects, "Those men and women and children who believed [Moses] and believed in Yahweh's message through him looked up at the pole with its burnished snake and not down at the desert vipers who were besieging them. They elected by a combined act of will and faith to look, not down where the agony was and where the snakes might still be pulled from their bodies and their children's bodies, but up where they might live. And, the story says, some eighteen months later those who had made that choice were those who entered by way of Jericho and its tumbling walls into the Promised Land, the land flowing with milk and honey...."

If you're keeping track of the oddly circular logic in the story, the Israelites are being saved from death by the very image of the thing that is killing them. And at the same time, the Israelites are still navigating a world of snakes, but have in the cross before them a way to make it through the snakes alive.

In our sister story today in John 3, the image of the bronze snake on the cross pole is reimagined as the image of Christ being lifted up on the cross.

In John 3, Jesus is speaking to Nicodemus, a pharisee, a teacher of the law, who comes to him by night, wondering what he needs to do to be saved. Jesus has been teaching many people, many crowds, healing people, doing signs and wonders, that people might see him and believe.

We’ve been spending a lot of time in Mark’s gospel recently, where Jesus keeps shushing people and telling them not to make a big fuss about the miraculous stuff he’s doing, because he wants people to see him first and foremost through the lens of the cross.

But in John’s gospel, it’s all about the signs. Signs and wonders are the way that people come to know who Jesus is and who he came from. In fact, the book is organized around seven signs of Jesus, beginning with his turning water to wine at Cana. John's gospel is all about “seeing-is-believing.”

When Jesus talks about people of light and people of darkness, and how they will be judged for their deeds, he is really lamenting that there are people in his midst who have seen him, have witnessed the signs and wonders, and who still choose not to believe him.

Jesus says to Nicodemus that those who refuse the light, those who see but do not believe, have brought judgement upon themselves, and their judgment is simply this: that they continue to do evil deeds in the dark, which is, as it turns out, exactly what they are too afraid to stop doing.

But to those who believed, to those who followed Jesus around in person, and saw, and saw some more, and chose to step into the light, these words in John's gospel are the assurance that their belief in Jesus isn't worthless, that there is something more that is promised them beyond the joy of following a pretty nifty savior around the world. For God so loved the world that he sent Jesus to bring eternal life. Yes, that's the heart of the matter. For all the signs and wonders and teachings, the bonus is that Jesus has all power to give life.

This is how John's gospel begins. "In the beginning was the Word," that is, Jesus. And "in him was life, and the life was the light of all people…The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness will not overcome it."

And how does Jesus bring this light to us? By being lifted up, just like a bronze serpent. Lifted up onto the cross. Lifted up from death to life on Easter morning. Lifted up from earth to heaven at his ascension.

Yes, at the end of a book of signs and wonders, John’s gospel will be about seeing Christ lifted up on the cross and believing, and it will also be about seeing Christ resurrected and believing, and then, for us, not seeing Christ in the flesh and yet coming to believe.

We live in a world that is full of light and shadows. There are blazing sunrises, but there are also starless midnights. There are good deeds done in the light and there are evil deeds done in the darkness. In ourselves, we know that we have bright sides and shadow sides. The conflict between good and evil, darkness and light, things of God and things not of God is a very real conflict.

We know that there are snakes that bite us as we wander the wilderness of this world, things that nip away at us and destroy our spirits, things that cause us fear and pain, things that sting us and poison us and take all life from us if we let them.

Phyllis Tickle says, “I…know for a hard, enduring fact that life is full of snakes; that they bite fiercely; that they will kill you if you look down and wrestle with them; and that, peculiarly enough, the very act of being wrestled with often is what gives them their potency. I had also learned that, just as the story teaches, looking up doesn't stop the pain immediately, but it does prevent death from it...."

Just as the Israelites were saved from snakes by lifting up a snake, the same is true for us: the remedy for our human brokenness, for the brokenness and sin that bite and devour us and our world, is the lifting up of human brokenness in Jesus on the cross.

The God who delivered the Israelites from the Egyptians, who parted the Red Sea, who gave manna and quail in the wilderness and water from the rock, who worked through Moses and a bronze serpent to offer healing is the same God who delivers and saves us by the cross of Christ. God in Christ gives us the gift of being able to lift up our heads to see God's promises instead of being stuck watching the snakes swirl at our ankles. We affirm a God of salvation who is not apart from the pains of this world, but who offers us salvation even in the midst of it.

And so our faith always puts a choice before us: The choice to step into the light of salvation, or the choice to stay in the dark and do evil deeds that are their own condemnation. In the words of 1 Peter, "To you then who believe, [Christ] is precious; but for those who do not believe...they stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

Paul, in Ephesians, reminds us that we were created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life. These works are a sign of our salvation; faith restores in us the ability to choose deeds of light over deeds of darkness.

Brothers and sisters, God so loved the world that he gave his only Son to give us life when the world gives us snakebites. God did not send Jesus to the world to condemn us, but so that we might believe - that we might have proof! - that there is abundant, eternal life given to us as a gift of faith.

Lift up your eyes and see: there is light, even in shadows. There is salvation to be found. For Christ has been lifted up as a sign of life in the wilderness. And Christ says to each of us, “Walk on with me in this light, for we are about to cross over to the land of milk and honey. Do not be afraid. Lift up your eyes from the ground and live!”

"Together" by Sha Pat, on Flickr

Mark 1:29–39
As soon as they left the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. Now Simon's mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.

That evening, at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. And the whole city was gathered around the door. And he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.

In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. And Simon and his companions hunted for him. When they found him, they said to him, "Everyone is searching for you." He answered, "Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do." And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.

First Coming
by Madeleine L’Engle

He did not wait till the world was ready,
till men and nations were at peace.
He came when the Heavens were unsteady,
and prisoners cried out for release.

He did not wait for the perfect time.
He came when the need was deep and great.
He dined with sinners in all their grime,
turned water into wine. He did not wait

till hearts were pure. In joy he came
to a tarnished world of sin and doubt.
To a world like ours, of anguished shame
he came, and his Light would not go out.

He came to a world which did not mesh,
to heal its tangles, shield its scorn.
In the mystery of the Word made Flesh
the Maker of the stars was born.

We cannot wait till the world is sane
to raise our songs with joyful voice,
for to share our grief, to touch our pain,
He came with Love: Rejoice! Rejoice!

The Spirit of the Lord is Upon Me
arr. Philip WJ Stopford

Commissioned for the Installation of Most Reverend Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap., Archbishop of Philadelphia, September 8, 2011

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor:
He hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliv’rance to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord;
To give unto them that mourn a garland for ashes,
the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness;
That they might be called trees of righteousness. The planting of the Lord, that He might be glorified.
For as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causeth the things that are sown in it to spring forth;
So the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations.
The Spirit of the Lord.

Comfort, Comfort Now My People
Music by Latifah Phillips and David Wilton
Lyrics by Johann Olearius, arr. Latifah Phillips and David Wilton

Comfort, comfort now my people Tell of his peace with no end
Comfort, comfort those in darkness Tell them that God's pardon waits for them

The Glory of the Lord now on earth is shed In deserts far and near he will raise what's dead
His peace has been spoken His word is never broken The Kingdom of God is now here

Straight shall, straight shall be what's crooked Making all the rougher places plain
Let your, let your hearts be humble befitting our god's glory and his reign

Let the valleys rise to meet him the hills all will bow down in praise
Let the valleys rise to greet him the hills bow down in praise
Let the valleys rise to greet him the hills bow down in praise

The Glory of the Lord now on earth is shed In deserts far and near he will raise what's dead
The Glory of the Lord now on earth is shed In deserts far and near he will raise what's dead
His peace has been spoken His word is never broken The Kingdom of God is now here

Comfort, comfort now my people Comfort, comfort now my people

"Floating Lantern Ceremony" by Ron Paul, on Flickr

"Crumbs" by Jonathan Green1, on Flickr

Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32
I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. Just as you were once disobedient to God but have now received mercy because of their disobedience, so they have now been disobedient in order that, by the mercy shown to you, they too may now receive mercy. For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all.

Matthew 15:21-28
Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, "Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon." But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, "Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us." He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." But she came and knelt before him, saying, "Lord, help me." He answered, "It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs." She said, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." Then Jesus answered her, "Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish." And her daughter was healed instantly.

--
The world is heavy these days, my friends. You know it as well as I do.

Conflict continues at the Russia/Ukraine border, as both tensions and weapons mount, and as the world still struggles to piece together an investigation of Malaysian flight 17 that was shot down by rebels.

Conflict continues to shake the Middle East, as Israel and Palestine struggle over the Gaza Strip; rockets are flying, violence continues to put civilians and refugees in increasing danger.

Political turmoil and violence churn in Iraq, as terrorist groups continue to sweep through villages and into the mountains, killing women and children in their wake.

The Ebola virus has claimed more than a thousand victims in west Africa, and the Center for Disease Control has issued its highest alert, confirming the outbreak as a world health emergency.

There has been a surge in the number of unaccompanied immigrant children at our border, children who are making a dangerous and uncertain journey for the hope of a better life as they flee violent or abusive or situations in their home countries.

It has been a week of grief in Ferguson, Missouri, after the police shooting death of Michael Brown, which has given way to protests, violence, curfews, and questions about justice and the reach of law enforcement.

A cloud of suspicion and shock surrounds the death of NASCAR driver Kevin Ward after being hit on the track by rival driver Tony Stewart.

Hollywood and society are shocked and saddened by the untimely death of actor Robin Williams, which has sparked an important national conversation about depression and suicide.

And then, of course, we each have our own personal list of troubles and fears to add to this list. Broken relationships. Illness. Addiction. Food uncertainty. Job uncertainty.

I consider myself an intensely hopeful person; a die-hard optimist. It’s in my nature and in the nature of my faith to see hope beyond despair, to trust the promise of the resurrection. But friends, I’ll be honest. The world outside is dark and heavy right now, and holding on to hope feels a bit like scrambling for crumbs beneath the table.

“Lord, help me,” the Canaanite woman begged.

The woman’s world was dark and heavy. Her beloved daughter was tormented by a demon, and surrounded by the power of darkness. This child was in need of more than healing; she needed salvation.

“Lord, help me,” the woman pleaded to the disciples and to Jesus.

And in what is perhaps the most disturbingly out-of-character moment of Jesus’ whole life, he turns to the woman and dismisses her. “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel,” he says. “I am only for the chosen.”

And just like that, things have gone from bad to worse. The Canaanite woman’s fear for her daughter suddenly becomes fear of being rejected by God himself.

This fear of rejection is also the fear of the Jewish community in Rome to whom Paul is writing in our first reading. They fear that if God, through Christ, has opened salvation to the Gentiles, that it might mean he has rejected - turned his back - on the Israelites, his chosen people.

We can sympathize with these fears that God has turned his back on us. When we see the horrors on the news, and look at a world that seems to be getting worse and not better, it can feel like God has rejected us, because we just don’t know how else to make sense of the darkness and pain that we see.

A friend and colleague of mine has recently been dealing with ongoing relapses with a chronic illness. Earlier this month, she wrote a piece about the difficulty of reconciling faith and hope with the struggles of facing one bad turn after another.

She says,

I don't know where I am on the "how much control does God actually have?" spectrum anymore. I used to attribute every blessing in my life to God. Every good news. Every happy moment. Every joy. Every meaningful coincidence. Every learning opportunity. It was all: thanks be to God. But lately I'm wrestling with how reasonable it is to give God the credit for every good thing but never for the bad things. That's how I've been operating. "Thanks be to God" for the good stuff. But "it's not God's fault...God can't control it" for the bad stuff. [But] It doesn't seem logical [anymore] to try and make a matching pair with those two cards.

This is the struggle of the Canaanite woman, the struggle of the early church in Rome, our struggle: how to deal with the problem of a God who gets credit for the good stuff, and a God who might seem at best, absent, or at worst, at fault for the dark and heavy things in our world.

I don’t think our gospel reading today gives us an answer as to why bad things happen, why it sometimes feels like God has turned his back on us. Our gospel reading is difficult and problematic and forces us to look at a cranky side of Jesus that we don’t quite believe actually should exist.

I could debate with you, as theologians do, about whether Jesus was just testing this woman, or whether he was just grumpy and tired, or whether he really meant it when he said that she wasn’t included in his plan for salvation. I could try to say something clever that would bring a satisfactory resolution to the encounter, tie the story up with a nice, neat bow.

But I can’t do any of that. I don’t pretend to see the obvious moral truth in this story, I don’t know what Jesus was thinking or intending, and all attempts to turn this messy story into something neat and today seem like gloss in the face of a world that appears to be falling apart.

So let me tell you what I do know.

I know that the Canaanite woman had faith. I know that she had heard about Jesus - about his healing power, about his care for the broken and the outcast. I know that she, out of blind faith, chose to believe that there was yet hope for her and for her daughter, even when it looked like the Son of God was going to turn his back on her.

She knew that even a crumb of hope, a speck of healing, a tiny taste of salvation would be enough. Maybe not enough to make everything all better forever and forever, but enough to get her through another day.

When the choice laid before her was hope or despair, she chose hope, and grasped at crumbs, and looked God in the eye, saying “You know that you aren’t in the rejection business. You know that you are in the business of salvation.”

And her reward for having even a few crumbs of hope was receiving wholeness and more hope. Her few crumbs of hope gave way to a giant loaf of hope bread. Because even a little bit of hope, even a little scrap of faith was enough to see through her fear, to see straight into the heart of God’s love, a love that dealt with all of the crap in our world by showing up on earth, in the flesh, and making a beeline for the cross, that we might know that there is no suffering that is unredeemed and no chaos that is beyond reordering and no fears that fall on deaf ears.

I can’t promise you that if you just go toe-to-toe with Jesus you’ll always get what you want. I can’t promise you that if you just pray hard enough, the world will right itself. I don’t want you thinking or worrying that salvation for our broken world somehow depends on how much strength you can muster, because friends, I know how hard it is to keep faith sometimes, and I know that there are days when it takes every bit of energy that you have just to pull yourself out of bed for the day.

But I can promise you that the mystery of God’s love and salvation is brighter than any darkness this world tries to throw at it. And I can promise you that even the tiniest bits of hope and faith will get you through to the other side of this present darkness. I can promise you that God’s gifts and God’s callings in your life are eternal, without strings attached. I can promise you that God hasn’t turned his back on you or the world, even when it really really feels that way.

Because the crumbs of bread that we will share today around this table bind us together in the one hope of Christ, who himself called out from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you rejected me?” but who three days later walked out of that empty tomb, stomping down darkness and death beneath his feet. Christ, our bread of life, knows both rejection and resurrection, and when we eat and drink the bread and wine, we share in that hope that our own fears of rejection will also give way to the promise of resurrection, for ourselves and for our world.

So catch a few crumbs from under God’s table today. Taste the bread and the wine that are sweet with salvation. Let these crumbs sustain you through all fear or despair. Hold onto whatever bits of faith you have. Praise God for the light, even if you do not understand the darkness. Even a crumb of grace and a sliver of faith will be enough to sustain you, for God promises that his hold on you is for all eternity. There will be light. There will be hope. There will be salvation. Thanks be to God for that.

Amen.

"Crumbs" by Lewis Taylor, on Flickr

Matthew 15:21-28
Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, "Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon." But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, "Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us." He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." But she came and knelt before him, saying, "Lord, help me." He answered, "It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs." She said, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." Then Jesus answered her, "Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish." And her daughter was healed instantly.

"The Dark Side of Matter and Energy..." by Tremain Calm, on Flickr

Matthew 10:24-39
Jesus said, "A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above the master; it is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, and the slave like the master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household!

So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops. Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.

Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven.

Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.

For I have come to set a man against his father,
and a daughter against her mother,
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
and one's foes will be members of one's own household.

Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it."
---

In college, taped to the hallway wall outside my husband’s dorm room, was a large piece of brown butcher paper, with a thumbtack in the corner from which hung a pen on a string.

This was the quote board.

Throughout the year, as Matt, his roommate, and their friends said memorable things - whether funny or absurd or eyebrow-raising - they would document those statements on the quote board.

The things written on that piece of paper made the most sense to you if you were there when they happened. It became a fun and funny way to reminisce with one another. But if you read through the quotes on the board without knowing their history or their context, the quote board became something of a puzzle, and an unsatisfying one, at that. It’s hard to read isolated statements, without context, and feel like you can really know what they mean.

I mention this because today's gospel reading reads very much like that piece of butcher paper. When we read this strange list of difficult sayings of Jesus, we have to remember that this section of Matthew’s gospel was likely pieced together from a variety of things that Jesus said in a variety of contexts. Jesus probably didn’t say all of these things right in a row at one moment in time on one particular day to one particular group of people. As Matthew’s gospel was handed down and eventually written down, these independent teachings of Jesus were grouped together, even if they don’t quite fit together, because they all have one thing in common:

All of the statements in today’s gospel point to the truth that being a follower of Jesus is difficult. It will separate you from the world, from those you love, and even from a former version of yourself.

Even though we are joined to Christ in baptism, even though we been gifted the whole of God's grace and mercy, the faith that saves us is also the faith that puts us at odds with the wider world. This is the dark side of our faith.

Even though we walk with Christ to eternal and abundant life, the reality is that there is a cost to putting the demands of discipleship ahead of all the other things that we hold dear. This is the shadow-side of being a Christ-follower.

Jesus says, "What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light."

Most of Jesus' statements in today's gospel are statements about how following him will put us into dark places.

Jesus warns us of the dark of being shunned or even persecuted because we seek justice for the poor instead of rewards for the rich.

Jesus warns us of the dark of isolation when we choose to put the needs of outsiders ahead of the needs of the insiders.

Jesus warns us of the lonely dark of relationships broken over putting God's values ahead of our own.

Jesus warns us of the darkness of conflict that will come when we seek true, lasting peace instead of mere platitudes and preservation of the status quo.

Jesus warns us of the dark night of the soul that comes as we wrestle with the meaning of life and death, of dying to our old selves and rising to Christ; for the breaking open of our hearts, even for Christ's sake, can be a painful process.

What Jesus says to us is that being a disciple is dangerous. That God is dangerous. That discipleship will lead us into the dark, where everything we thought was certain becomes fuzzy around the edges. Where the well-worn paths of our lives become obscured by shadows. Where our worldviews, our perceptions, everything we can take for granted in the light suddenly become veiled as we step into the thick cloud of God's presence. That there is a curious and disorienting fog that comes with leaving ourselves behind to become disciples of the divine.

The writer Barbara Brown Taylor recently released a new book focused entirely on meeting God in the darkness, entitled Learning to Walk in the Dark.

She writes,

[The darkness in which we meet God] is an entirely unnatural darkness - both dangerous and divine - that contains the presence of God before whom there are no others....This thick darkness reveals the divine presence even while obscuring it, the same way the brightness of God’s glory does....While this darkness is dangerous, it is as sure a sign of God’s presence as brightness is, which makes the fear of it different from the fear of snakes and robbers. When biblical writers speak of “the fear of the Lord,” this is what they mean: fear of God’s pure being, so far beyond human imagining that trying to look into it would be like trying to look into the sun....[The church father] Gregory [of Nyssa says that], those of us who wish to draw near to God should not be surprised when our vision goes cloudy, for this is a sign that we are approaching the opaque splendor of God. If we decide to keep going beyond the point where our eyes or minds are any help to us, we may finally arrive at the pinnacle of the spiritual journey toward God, which exists in complete and dazzling darkness. (47-48).

I wonder if Jesus, in all of his difficult statements about the cost of discipleship, is really trying to tell us that there exists a spiritual practice in losing yourself to dark places with the trust that in this dark, you will meet the God who promises you light.

Because at the end of the day, doesn't discipleship ask us to follow Jesus all the way to the darkness of his cross and his death, that in that most final darkness of death, God might surprise us with the light of the resurrection dawn? Isn't discipleship, at its very heart, the practice of walking into and meeting God in the dark places in our world, that we might bring to the world the promise of light?

“What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light,” Jesus says.

What dark places has God called you to in your life? Where are the dark corners to which Jesus has led you? What are the shadowy places in your heart where you feel pain or fear or disquiet? Where are the thick clouds that press in on your soul?

And what might God be saying to you in those dark places? What whispers of hope do you hear? What are you learning about God, about redemption, about yourself and your faith from these dark spaces?

In the last few weeks, God has pushed me into a few dark corners. The clouded work of holding vigil during someone’s last fleeting hours of life. The nightfall of cancer diagnoses. The shadowlands of working with neighbors who need money and food and support systems that they do not have.

And let me tell you. The darkness is not a place that I enjoy being. Jesus certainly isn’t asking us to like the darkness, and isn’t asking us to pursue darkness just so that we can say we are disciples. But Jesus is always helping to redeem our darkness. He gives us the assurance that for as long as find ourselves in dark spaces, God remains with us, and that we will emerge on the other side of the veil changed by the encounter.

So my friends - my fellow disciples - blessings be with you on this journey of faith. Blessings to you in the darkness and in the light. Blessings to you as God gives you the grace to take risks for your faith. May your discipleship be bold. May your faith be strong. May you hear God’s voice even in the darkest night, and may you be bold to proclaim his grace in the morning!

All praise to thee, my God, this night for all the blessings of the light.
Keep me, oh keep me, King of kings, beneath thine own almighty wings.

Now and forever.
Thanks be to God.

Amen.

"Julian of Norwich" by Robert Lentz, posted by Kittredge Cherry, on Flickr

John 10:1-10
Jesus said, "Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers." Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.

So again Jesus said to them, "Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly."

---
Growing up, my dad directed the church choir and my mom sang in it. This meant that every Sunday, my sisters and I would sit by my dad in the front row of the sanctuary, in clear sight of the choir loft and my mom’s watchful eye.

Most of the time, I think, we were pretty well behaved. We’d draw pictures on the yellow children’s bulletins, follow along with the hymns, try discreetly to open up our loud velcro wallets to fish out some change for the offering plate. But there were times that we squirmed. That we squabbled. That we poked each other or got the giggles. And in those moments, from behind the organ in the second row of the choir came the mom cough.

Ahem-AHEM.

I could pick that sound out of a lineup.

The whole congregation could cough and clear their voices for the entire service and we’d never notice, but one stifled cough from mom’s throat, and our eyes would dart up to meet her gaze, and we’d sit up a little straighter in our seats, and we’d quit whatever mischief we were dabbling in.

It’s a peculiar thing, isn’t it, that we know so well the sound of our mother’s voice?

Sam is just getting old enough that he recognizes my voice and responds to it differently than other people’s voices. He can be perfectly content in someone else’s arms, but when he hears my voice, he turns to find me, and lurches toward me, and when I take him, he buries his face in my neck, happy to be reunited with the voice that he knows best.

Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd. My sheep follow me because they know my voice.”

Like a child recognizing the voice of his mother, like a sheep recognizing the voice of its shepherd, we follow Jesus by the sound of his voice. Christ, the shepherd and guardian of our souls calls to us in a voice so recognizable that we can pick it out of the crowd.

And what a crowd it is.

We are pummeled with voices, aren't we? Every day, voices of all sorts call out to us and demand things of us.

We hear voices on the radio and on television and through the internet. Some of these voices speak truth, and some speak untruth, and some speak fear, and some speak hyperbole. We hear voices in politics, and some speak fact, and some speak dissent, and some speak out of both sides of their mouths, and some speak persuasion rather than common good. We hear our own voices, and some speak confidence, and some speak self-reliance, and some speak self-doubt, and some speak self-criticism.

We hear good advice and bad advice, voices that challenge us and voices that enable us. I think about Job, and how his friends all had something to say to him in the midst of his suffering, and the way that their advice always seemed good on the surface, but ended up lacking.

So in the middle of such a cacophony of voices, how do we pick out the voice of Jesus?

Well, for starters, we can remember that the voice of Jesus has particular power to heal and to restore life.

During Lent and Easter, we have read three different stories that reveal the power of Jesus' voice. He speaks words of healing to the man born blind, and his sight is restored. He calls to Lazarus, dead in the tomb, who responds to the sound of Jesus' voice by emerging from the tomb, alive. And he speaks Mary's name in the garden, and it is only at the sound of his voice that she sees him not as the gardner, but as her risen savior.

Jesus' voice is one that always speaks with healing and life-giving power.

Jesus is the one who says, “I am the bread of life. I am the light of the world. I am the way, the truth, and the life. I am the vine and you are the branches. I am the resurrection and the life. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

There's an early American hymn that says:

His voice as the sound of the dulcimer sweet, is heard through the shadows of death.
The cedars of Lebanon bow at His feet, the air is perfumed with His breath.
His lips as the fountain of righteousness flow, that water the garden of grace,
From which their salvation the people shall know, and bask in the smile of His face.

Love sits in His eyelids and scatters delight thro’ all the bright regions on high.
Their faces the Cherubim veil in His sight and tremble with fullness of joy.
He looks and ten thousands of angels rejoice, And myriads wait for His word.
He speaks and eternity, filled with His voice, re-echoes the praise of her Lord.

Yes, we can know Jesus' voice by the things he says, by his enduring words of life piercing the shadows of death, by his sweet song of righteousness and salvation, by the sound of eternal and abundant life. Whenever we hear voices that speak forgiveness and mercy, voices that speak peace and life abundant, these are the voice of Jesus.

And the heart of the matter is that the reason we can listen for and recognize Jesus' powerful voice of healing and new life is because we are in relationship with him and he with us.

I know the sound of my mother's mom-cough, and Sam knows the sound of my voice, and we all know the sound of those dear to us, be they parents or spouses or kindred spirits, living or dead, because of the relationship that we have with each other. Knowing one another deeply, and being deeply known.

Jesus says “I know my own and my own know me.”

What a beautiful statement. It's a two-way relationship. One of the failings of popular Christianity is that it overemphasizes our responsibility to come to know Jesus, and underemphasizes Jesus' desire to know us.

But think about the woman at the well, who had no inclination whatsoever that she was speaking to Jesus, and didn't particularly care about knowing the stranger sitting next to her. Jesus was the one seeking relationship. She is amazed that this man, "knew everything I've ever done." Jesus is the first to initiate relationship, and only later does she respond in faith.

Jesus seeks to know us even as he seeks for us to know him. And out of this relationship, we are able, more and more, to hear his voice ringing through this earth, in every song of hope and healing.

The medieval mystic Julian of Norwich describes God in Christ as the one as intimately connected to us as the very mothers who gave us birth:

[Christ] is our Mother in human nature in our essential creation. In Him we are grounded and rooted, and he is our mother in mercy by taking on our fleshliness....In Mother Christ, we benefit and grow, and in mercy He redeems and restores us....This fair lovely word 'mother' is so sweet and so kind in itself, that it can not truly be said of anyone nor to anyone except of Him and to Him who is true Mother of life and of all. To the quality of motherhood belongs natural love, wisdom, and knowledge - and this is God. (from Revelations of Divine Love)

As a mother protects and nurtures her children, so Christ protects and nurtures us whom he loves.

Jesus has put himself into relationship with us, into close kindred with humankind, having himself put on human flesh. He joins us to himself in baptism, in our dying and rising through those waters. He joins us to himself in the bread and wine, as we do something as scandalous and intimate as taking his very body into our hands and hearts and bodies.

He is the good shepherd, leading us beside still waters, along paths of righteousness, through the darkest valleys, to eternal and abundant life. He knows us and we know him, and we hear his voice calling to us, saying to each of us,

"Come to me, all you who are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. I am your resurrection, and I am your abundant life."

"And now for something completely unPuerto Rican" by Jodie Dobson, on Flickr

---

Multum Dilexit
by Hartley Coleridge

She sat and wept beside His feet; the weight
Of sin oppress’d her heart; for all the blame,
And the poor malice of the worldly shame,
To her was past, extinct, and out of date:
Only the sin remain’d,—the leprous state;
She would be melted by the heat of love,
By fires far fiercer than are blown to prove
And purge the silver are adulterate.
She sat and wept, and with her untress’d hair
Still wip’d the feet she was so bless’d to touch;
And He wip’d off the soiling of despair
From her sweet soul, because she lov’d so much.
I am a sinner, full of doubts and fears:
Make me a humble thing of love and tears.

"Raising of Lazarus" by Jason Watson, on Flickr

John 11:1-45
Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, "Lord, he whom you love is ill." But when Jesus heard it, he said, "This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God's glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it." Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.

Then after this he said to the disciples, "Let us go to Judea again." The disciples said to him, "Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?" Jesus answered, "Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble, because they see the light of this world. But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them." After saying this, he told them, "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him." The disciples said to him, "Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right." Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly, "Lazarus is dead. For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him." Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, "Let us also go, that we may die with him."

When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. Martha said to Jesus, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him." Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again." Martha said to him, "I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day." Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" She said to him, "Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world."

When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, "The Teacher is here and is calling for you." And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there. When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, "Where have you laid him?" They said to him, "Lord, come and see." Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, "See how he loved him!" But some of them said, "Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?"

Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, "Take away the stone." Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, "Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days." Jesus said to her, "Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?" So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, "Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me." When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!" The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, "Unbind him, and let him go."

Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.

"Jesus heals a man born blind" by Peter, on Flickr

John 9:1-41
As [Jesus] walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" Jesus answered, "Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God's works might be revealed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world." When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man's eyes, saying to him, "Go, wash in the pool of Siloam" (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see. The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, "Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?" Some were saying, "It is he." Others were saying, "No, but it is someone like him." He kept saying, "I am the man." But they kept asking him, "Then how were your eyes opened?" He answered, "The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, 'Go to Siloam and wash.' Then I went and washed and received my sight." They said to him, "Where is he?" He said, "I do not know."

They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was a sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. Then the Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight. He said to them, "He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see." Some of the Pharisees said, "This man is not from God, for he does not observe the sabbath." But others said, "How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?" And they were divided. So they said again to the blind man, "What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened." He said, "He is a prophet."

The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them, "Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?" His parents answered, "We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but we do not know how it is that now he sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself." His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. Therefore his parents said, "He is of age; ask him."

So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him, "Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner." He answered, "I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see." They said to him, "What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?" He answered them, "I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?" Then they reviled him, saying, "You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from." The man answered, "Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing." They answered him, "You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?" And they drove him out.

Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and when he found him, he said, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?" He answered, "And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him." Jesus said to him, "You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he." He said, "Lord, I believe." And he worshiped him. Jesus said, "I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind." Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, "Surely we are not blind, are we?" Jesus said to them, "If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, 'We see,' your sin remains.
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Today’s gospel is one of my favorites. I have a soft spot for Bible stories that make me chuckle. Here we have a man, healed of blindness, and nobody believes him. They pass him back and forth amongst themselves, and they even go visit his parents to double check if he was really blind, and the Pharisees and crowds make him tell his story over and over again, and in a moment of exasperation, the man asks, “Why do you want to hear this again? Do you want to be disciples too?”

It is a story of sight, but it is really a story of people seeing past each other, and people whose sights are set on the wrong questions.

For as many times as I’ve read this passage in my lifetime, I noticed something new in the text as I prepared to preach it. For the first time, I noticed just how preoccupied everybody seems to be with seeing sin.

From the very beginning of the passage, the disciples set the tone when they ask Jesus, “Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” See, in Jesus’ time, there was the belief that sin came with real, physical consequences. Physical ailments and deformities were believed to be God’s punishment for something that you or someone before you did. So to be born blind must have meant that God was pretty unhappy with you.

And then the Pharisees are in rare form in today’s gospel. They reject the healed man’s testimony, writing him off as a sinner. They also call Jesus a sinner for healing on the sabbath. The question of whether Jesus is a sinner is really a question of whether he is doing God’s will or not. The Pharisees believe that they are doing God’s will, upholding the law and being piously religious in all areas of their lives. The Pharisees know that Jesus is not like them, and in fact routinely criticizes them. So in their eyes, only one of two things can be true. Either a)They are doing God’s will, which means Jesus is not, which means that he is a sinner for healing on the Sabbath, or b)Jesus is doing God’s will, which means that they are not. So they are quick to write off Jesus as a sinner, because they are afraid.

And then, finally, the crowds. They, too, are used to seeing this man for his limitations and shortcomings. When his eyes are opened, the crowds don’t recognize him anymore. People in the village ask each other, “Doesn’t he remind you of the blind man who used to sit here and beg?” When they can no longer see him for his limits, they don’t see him at all.

I mean, my goodness! Instead of rejoicing with a man who had been handed back his life, everyone around him reacts with fear, suspicion, and judgement. They are so preoccupied with seeing sin and limitation that they are blind to the beautiful, amazing, limitless work of God in Christ.

And then I turn on my radio and listen to news stories about political scandals, and I think about our media obsession with negative celebrity gossip. I think about how society’s knee-jerk reaction is to blame people for their troubles. I think about our own tendency to jump to the worst conclusions about each other, especially in the midst of situations that challenge us, scare us, or disagree with things that we hold dear. I think about the ease with which each of us can pick out our own faults, failings and shortcomings, how we don’t know how to receive compliments well because we are by nature self-conscious of the ways that we don’t live up to our own expectations.

We aren’t that different than the crowds and disciples and Pharisees, are we? We, too, are in the sin-seeing business. It is far easier for us to see limits than it is to see and rejoice over the good work that God in Christ is accomplishing in our world.

There are two people in today’s gospel, however, who see clearly, who see possibility rather than limit.

The first is Jesus. Jesus looks at the blind man standing before him and doesn’t focus on his limitations, his sinfulness, or his worthiness. Jesus looks at the man born blind and sees in him a man who can be healed. Jesus looks at the man born blind and sees a medium through which the glory of God can be revealed.

Jesus looks at us the same way. He says at the end of today’s reading that his judgment is not for those who know their own sins and limitations, but for those who don’t see their brokenness. Friends, how many of us know too well the places in our lives where we don’t measure up, where we are broken and in need of forgiveness!

And so Jesus looks at us with eyes of compassion. He doesn’t define us by who we are not, by what we can’t do, by what we’re ashamed of, by what limits us. Jesus sees in us, just like in the man he healed, the immense possibility that the glory of God might be revealed in and through us.

And the second person who sees rightly in today’s gospel is the man who once was blind, who now can see. Healed by the man who saw in him the image of God, the once-blind man sees Jesus for who he really is: the Messiah, the Son of God, the Savior. And having seen Jesus, he wants others to see Jesus, too. He shares his testimony, and he sees the Pharisees and villages with eyes of patience and compassion. Even as they continue to pester him and challenge him, he yet responds with words of praise for the God who has been revealed in the regaining of his sight.

Knowing that Jesus sees us and loves us for who we are and for who we may yet become, Jesus empowers us to look out at our world with his eyes of forgiveness and love.

You might now the adage, “Love the sinner, hate the sin.”

This isn’t what Jesus calls us to do. We are not called to see others for their sin and then love them anyway. Jesus simply calls us to see his possibility where the world seems limitation. We are not called to judge, but to show mercy. We are called to rejoice with the triumphs of our brothers and sisters instead of worrying about whether they are deserving. We are called to love our neighbor as ourselves. We are empowered by our own encounter with Christ to look for ways that God’s glory shines in one another and in our world.

It has been nearly two weeks since the death of Fred Phelps, the founder of Westboro Baptist Church, a small congregation infamous for holding anti-gay protests at military funerals, celebrity funerals, and other public, media-heavy events. While some, even (or especially) in Christian circles saw his passing as a relief, a “good riddance” to a man full of spite and hatred, others chose to see him with different eyes.

Many Christians, of all stripes, prayed for his peace and comfort in his last days of life, and prayed for his family and his congregation.

Even more striking was an episode that took place two days after his death.

Westboro Baptist set up a protest outside of a concert in Kansas City, Missouri. They stood on one side of the road with signs telling people that God hates them, that they are sinners, that they are doomed to God’s wrath.

Across the street, a surprising counter-protest emerged. Concert-goers had organized themselves to counter negative messages with positive ones. They held up signs and banners expressing messages of love and compassion, including a big banner that said, "Sorry for your loss.”

Where it would have been so easy to see sin in those who carried on a legacy of seeing and judging the perceived sins of others, this small group across the street chose to see their Westboro brothers and sisters with the eyes of compassion, grace, and love.

My prayer for you and for me today is that we might see our world through the eyes of Christ. That we might look at ourselves with grace and that we might look upon our neighbors with mercy. That we might look for God’s possibility instead of human limitation. That we might seek out loveliness in our world and in one another.

Madeleine L’Engle wrote a poem about the man who received sight, the song that she imagined was on his hear and lips. It praises God for all of the beauty and possibility that he sees around him:

Song of Blind Bartimaeus After His Healing
All praise to thee, my God, this night
for all I see, both night and day.
All praise for loveliness of things!

During the shadows of un-sight
you kept the raging fears at by.
All praise to thee, my God, this night

for all the blessings of the light,
for sand and sun and eagles’ wings,
all praise for loveliness of things!

Praise for sandals, garments white,
for children’s faces, eyes alight,
all praise to thee, my God, this night.

All praise for butterflies in flight,
for work-worn hands, for golden hay,
the purple shadows evening brings,

for brass and copper polished bright,
for lifting light that shows the way,
all praise to thee, my God, this night,
all praise for loveliness of things!
(from The Ordering of Love)

May God empower you, this day and always, to see the loveliness of things, of all that he has made, and may your eyes be blessed by the sight. Amen.

"Cleaning mud out of her eyes" by Neil, on Flickr

John 9:1-41
As [Jesus] walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" Jesus answered, "Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God's works might be revealed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world." When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man's eyes, saying to him, "Go, wash in the pool of Siloam" (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see. The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, "Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?" Some were saying, "It is he." Others were saying, "No, but it is someone like him." He kept saying, "I am the man." But they kept asking him, "Then how were your eyes opened?" He answered, "The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, 'Go to Siloam and wash.' Then I went and washed and received my sight." They said to him, "Where is he?" He said, "I do not know."

They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was a sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. Then the Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight. He said to them, "He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see." Some of the Pharisees said, "This man is not from God, for he does not observe the sabbath." But others said, "How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?" And they were divided. So they said again to the blind man, "What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened." He said, "He is a prophet."

The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them, "Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?" His parents answered, "We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but we do not know how it is that now he sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself." His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. Therefore his parents said, "He is of age; ask him."

So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him, "Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner." He answered, "I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see." They said to him, "What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?" He answered them, "I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?" Then they reviled him, saying, "You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from." The man answered, "Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing." They answered him, "You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?" And they drove him out.

Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and when he found him, he said, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?" He answered, "And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him." Jesus said to him, "You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he." He said, "Lord, I believe." And he worshiped him. Jesus said, "I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind." Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, "Surely we are not blind, are we?" Jesus said to them, "If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, 'We see,' your sin remains.