It is easy to see the world and despair, or fear, or do nothing. But take courage, God is with you, and you will be strengthened to be a part of God’s healing.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary 32 C
Texts: Haggai 1:15b – 2:9; 2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17; Luke 20:27-38

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

They couldn’t see how to restore what was once so beautiful.

The Jewish exiles returned home from Babylon to disaster. Jerusalem’s walls broken, homes burned, and, worst of all, God’s Temple destroyed. Being home was wonderful, but what now? How can they imagine starting over?

The Thessalonians couldn’t see a possible future. First, they’d become terrified when their loved ones still died as they had before, even after believing in Christ. So Paul had to reassure them. Now apparently they got another letter, claiming it’s from Paul, warning them that the end of the world was at hand. How do you live with that fear hanging over?

The Sadducees couldn’t see the hope Jesus offered. They didn’t believe in resurrection, and Jesus, like the Pharisees, did. In spite of his wisdom, his teaching, his acts of divine power and mercy, they couldn’t see anything in Jesus except someone to be mocked, someone to be trapped into saying something ridiculous, if possible.

So the Judeans turned inward; they took care of themselves.

They rebuilt their homes, started picking up rubble, made a life in the midst of devastation. But as we hear Haggai speak, 18 years have passed since their return, and the Temple still lies in ruins. They haven’t rebuilt their house of worship, the house of God.

The Thessalonians fell into frightened inactivity. If our loved ones are dying, what’s the point of faith? If the world’s going to end, what’s the point of doing anything? Some apparently stopped doing work entirely.

And the Sadducees respond to their inability to see what God is doing in Christ with cynical baiting. They make up a horrible story based on Jewish law that mocks anyone who believes in the resurrection from the dead, trying to trick Jesus. They don’t seem to want enlightenment, just entertainment. Or worse, evidence for a trial.

Sometimes our readings seem to speak directly to our situation. Today is such a day.

The Church has long ended the Church Year with readings about the end times, apocalyptic Scriptures. Today, that seems fitting. The anxiety of all these people feels like our own.

We haven’t returned from exile, but as we look at the state of our beautiful earth, how we’ve destroyed it, how so much is in ruin, we despair. Even if everyone in this country agreed to start working on ending our contribution to climate change, even started trying to reverse it, finally joining the rest of the world in this task, we have no idea if we’re too late. We don’t know if we’ve ruined our home permanently and irreversibly. And we still can’t even get everyone to agree it’s a disaster.

Our cherished institutions of democracy and government seem to be on the verge of failing, too. Things we took for granted – rule of law, decency, the idea that there are facts, truths, that exist beyond personal opinion – we seem to be in danger of losing forever. We don’t know if we can restore any of this, even if we could get others to agree it needed to be restored.

So, like the exiles, we are tempted to despair at the sheer amount of work to be done, and turn inward, taking care of our own needs. Like the Thessalonians, we are tempted to do nothing, to sit out all these problems. If it’s all crashing down, what’s the point? And we are tempted to take the Sadducees’ path, mocking what we don’t understand, hiding our anxiety behind cynical criticism, pretending we’re not worried or despairing.

But did you hear what else was in our readings? Did you hear God’s voice?

God speaks in all these readings with hope and promise in the midst of the despair, the fear, and the feigned indifference.

Jesus – the Triune God’s Word in the flesh – ignores the cynical question and goes straight to reassurance: the point of resurrection, Jesus says, is that it is God’s life that makes you alive. You are children of the resurrection, children of God. What life after death will be like, don’t worry about that, Jesus says. Just know that right now, already, you are resurrection children, God’s life in you.

And that, Paul says, is where your hope comes from. God “loves you and through grace gives you,” Paul says, “eternal comfort and good hope.”

And Haggai brings it all together: “take courage,” he says three times, “take courage, says the Lord, for I am with you. My spirit abides among you; do not fear.” I am with you. My spirit lives in you. Don’t be afraid. That’s God’s answer to your despair, your fear, your confusion, even your inability to act.

And that’s not an empty promise. God’s Spirit is in you. You are not alone. That means things can change.

Paul says that the God who “loves you and by grace gives you eternal comfort and good hope” will also now “comfort your heart and strengthen it for every good work and word.” All this Christ-work, this servant work we’ve heard Jesus call us to this summer and fall, all that is ours to do, but it’s ours to do with the comfort and strength of God in our hearts.

So, Haggai says to his people, you can rebuild the Temple. God will be with you, and it will happen. Paul says to the Thessalonians, you can do your calling as followers of Christ, get out of your idleness, step up and be Christ, because you are not alone, God is with you. And Jesus’ calling to you and to me is grounded in our reality of being resurrection children. As Paul said to the Ephesians last week, the same power that raised Jesus from the dead now works in you.

And that’s how this world will be changed. That’s how God will restore all things.

It’s all about the heart, it turns out.

“Take courage,” Haggai says. Courage, literally heart-strength. That’s God’s gift to you. And that’s good news to all who suffer from injustice and oppression, all who despair over the devastation of this world, all who are torn from their families by our own indifferent and wicked leaders, all who struggle to be heard and seen for who they are, all who in any way wonder where God is, and whether God sees any of this, and whether God is going to do anything. God says, I am here. You are not alone. And in these my children – in you, God means! – I am bringing healing and life.

Dear friends, God is with you, giving your heart courage, and you are needed to make a difference. If God can raise Jesus, God can bring life to anything that is dead. And you will be a part of that. And so will I, and all God’s children, until the whole creation sings again.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

 

https://youtu.be/GulMuNVSeEI

The church, full of beloved saints, is the living body of Christ, called to God’s mission in the world.

Vicar Bristol Reading
All Saints Day
Texts: Ephesians 1:11-23; Luke 6:20-31

Beloved saints of God, grace to you and peace, in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The closest I have ever been to the body of Christ was at the place where that body died, Calvary, the site of Jesus’ crucifixion.

In Jesus’ day, Calvary was a rocky hill just outside the city gates of Jerusalem, where criminals were put to death. Today, it’s buried underneath an enormous, ornate church in the Old City. When you visit Calvary, you wait inside that church for hours alongside hundreds other religious pilgrims from all over the world. One by one, you kneel beneath the lavish gold altar that has been constructed over the spot. You have to get down on your hands and knees and actually crawl underneath it, and then you reach your hand into a hole in the floor under the altar, and at the bottom of the hole, you can touch stone, the ground that was beneath the cross of Christ.

You have traveled for days and waited for hours, but your chance to touch this particular stone lasts for only a few seconds. And, if you’re like me, you spend those few seconds trying to imagine that this very stone that you are touching with your body was once touched by the body of Jesus. You try to feel some kind of physical closeness to Christ, to reach underneath everything that humans have piled on over the years. And you think, “Maybe Jesus was here, right here. Maybe his feet, his hands, his blood touched this stone. Maybe this is the closest I’ll ever be to the real body of Christ.” And then your turn is over and you move on so another pilgrim can reach the very ground touched by God.

While I was away visiting the place where Jesus died, back home in Chicago my seminary advisor died.

Gordon was my wise teacher and trusted friend, an encourager and confidant in my journey as a ministerial leader. His death was unexpected, and it was jarring to receive this news on the other side of the world. The last time we’d spoken, neither of us had known he was sick, so we hadn’t said goodbye. For months after, it felt surreal that he was really gone, and I struggled to say out loud that he had died. But this morning, almost exactly ten months since his passing, I am ready to hear it out loud. I added Gordon’s name to the Book of Saints, so he will be lifted up in prayer, alongside all the precious ones we remember today.

There are countless stories about who these saints were and the impact they had on your lives. There are countless memories – of joy and sorrow – that fill this room as their names are read. We speak their names because there is power in naming. There is power in remembering. We remember the saints who have gone before us because their faithfulness inspires us to live faithfully. The way they embodied Christ to us, moves us to embody Christ in the world now.

We call these departed siblings in faith “saints,” not because their lives were flawless but because their lives were beloved.

They were – and are – loved by you, and they were and are infinitely loved by God. Sometimes we fall into the trap of thinking that one has to earn the designation of “saint,” by living a perfect life of selfless service. But in our tradition we name all the faithful as saints, knowing that we are all imperfect and we are all forgiven. Certainly we should do our very best to embody God’s compassion in our actions. Jesus tells us more than once that we are all called to care for any who are in need and to love even our enemies. But –   it is not human actions that make saints. It is God’s action: God’s boundless love, God’s unlimited mercy, that’s what makes saints of us all. Each life, marked by both weeping and laughter, is seen and valued by God. Every person, simultaneously saint and sinner, is held in God’s grace forever. No life is too broken, too painful, too sinful for God to be fully present. Everyone, no matter their circumstances, can be transformed by the Spirit for the sake of the Gospel.

Jesus’s words in Luke are a reminder of this; Jesus says that those who suffer are the inheritors of the riches of God’s kingdom.

Those who are poor, hungry, and excluded are called “blessed” in God’s reign. Blessing, then, doesn’t always entail feeling good or avoiding struggle. Blessing doesn’t equate to worldly success. If you measure the value of a life by what the world considers successful, you will miss the ways God’s spirit is at work in all people, no matter how successful they look according to the world’s standards. When we name and remember the saints who have gone before, we don’t remember their worldly success, we remember their faithfulness to God. Likewise, when we name and celebrate the saints who are newly baptized, we don’t claim for them the gift of wealth or comfort, but the gift of God’s Spirit and the call to God’s mission. The true blessing that is given to all the saints is the gracious love of God, abundant in this life and the next. An inheritance that is sure. A treasure that is eternal. It cannot be undone or taken away, not by hunger, not by poverty, not by suffering, not by death – thanks be to God!

And because that inheritance is sure and that treasure is eternal, you are freed.

You are freed by love of God, and freed to love your neighbor. You are sent out to proclaim the Gospel, the good news, with your words and with your deeds. And the good news is this: Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again. Resurrection is the good news! God makes life possible where life seemed impossible. Christ’s death on the cross at Calvary was not the final word.

So the place where Jesus died was not the closest I’ve ever been to the body of Christ, because Christ’s body is not there on that rock of Calvary, because Christ’s body is not dead.

God’s resurrecting power is stronger than death, and has redeemed all of creation. And Paul tells us that the very same power that raised Christ from the dead is still at work in the world… in you. You are the living body of Christ. You, the saints of God, the ones marked with the seal of the Holy Spirit, the ones sent into the world to serve, you are Christ’s body. The body of Christ is here, right here, alive in the faithful saints of God: saints that have passed into eternal life, saints that are living out the mission of the Gospel right now, and saints that are being baptized into new life every day. The church, full of beloved saints, is the body of Christ that is being made new again and again. That is the power of resurrection, and that is the power of God in you.

Amen.

Life in Christ is abundance and blessing, even in this frightening world, and it is freedom: freedom to truly live, and freedom to help others also find life and freedom in Christ.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Sunday of the Reformation
Texts: John 8:31-36, with references to much of John’s Gospel; Jeremiah 31:31-34

Note for online readers: This sermon came on the heels of doing a five week Bible study on John’s view of salvation – life in Christ in God’s reign – and John’s theology, along with Jesus’ words in John, were fresh in my mind as I wrote. But the sermon was written out of John 8:31-36 (with brief note to Jeremiah 31:31-34), the text for the day. There was so much in this brief Gospel reading that resonated in my heart with the rest of John’s Gospel, after being so immersed in it for two months. This wasn’t an exercise in fitting in Scripture quotes, in other words; I simply wrote the sermon I felt God was calling out. But after Sunday’s liturgy, I was curious to see if I could track all the references in the whole of John that ended up in this sermon, so I went through and noted them. (There are a couple instances of repeat references I didn’t include.) In hopes that it might be helpful for those who read the sermon online to look up things for themselves, for further study, I offer them here. If they’re not needed, try to ignore the footnote markers! I think they’re a little distracting to reading and to flow, so you could also simply watch the video and avoid them. – Pr. Joseph Crippen

 

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

“If you continue in my Word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”¹

Try to grasp what Christ Jesus is offering you: “If you remain in my Word, that means you are, in truth, my disciples, and in that reality, you will also know the truth, and in that knowing, you will be made free.”²

We know these beloved words well. Yet we often seem to just admire them and regularly miss the profound, life-shaping gift Jesus offers in them. Do you ever experience it?

That’s John’s question in writing this Gospel.³ John believes if you did realize just what Jesus was offering you, you’d have an abundant life,⁴ a life that experiences light in the darkness of this world,⁵ a life that quenches your deepest inner thirst,⁶ a life that feeds and satisfies you like nothing else you know.⁷ A life where you are truly free.⁸

If such a life sounds wonderful to you, then listen to Jesus’ words today and consider whether you can trust him.

The path to trusting begins with remembering: Jesus is the Word.⁹ Jesus is the truth.¹⁰

“Remaining in my Word” simply means living life connected to the very life of Christ, God’s eternal Word in the world.¹¹ It’s God’s Word written on your heart, as Jeremiah promises.¹² It’s being joined to the Vine that fills you with life, as Jesus says later in John.¹³ “Knowing the Truth” is simply knowing Jesus,¹⁴ God-with-us,¹⁵ the Word-Made-Flesh,¹⁶ and as Jesus repeatedly says in John, that means knowing God,¹⁷ through life in the Spirit.¹⁸

So Jesus says: stay with me, connected to me,¹⁹ and you will know God’s intention for you and the creation – God’s Word – and you will know the very heart of God for you and for the creation – God’s Truth.

That’s how you find light in the darkness, by trusting in Jesus and holding tight.²⁰ That’s how you are quenched to your very core, by trusting in Jesus and being filled.²¹ That’s how your deepest hungers are met, by trusting Jesus and taking him into your deepest center.²² The Meal of Life we celebrate each week is a real eating and drinking of Christ’s life into you. But this connection with Christ is also available to you always through the Spirit,²³ not just at Holy Communion. God’s very Word²⁴ and God’s very Truth²⁵ – Christ Jesus – in your heart. That’s where you find true freedom.²⁶

And Jesus’ promise assumes that this Truth, this Word, are given you because this world is frightening and challenging, to help you live freely in it.

In John, Jesus offers life to a foreign woman, estranged from her community, and fills her with conviction of God’s love and welcome, even in her challenging circumstances.²⁷ Jesus heals a man blind from birth, but more, is God’s presence with him, changing this man’s life.²⁸ Jesus offers himself to Mary and Martha and they know him as God’s living, resurrection life, even in their grief, and even before he raises Lazarus.²⁹ Again and again, knowing and trusting Jesus in John doesn’t always change people’s outer circumstances.³⁰ But they find freedom and joy and hope in God’s new birth³¹ that trusting Jesus gives them. They live in God’s Word, they know God’s Truth, and they are changed.

Listen to what Jesus promises you and the world:

I am the Light of the World, Jesus says.³² The world is still filled with darkness, but you can see when you hold on to me.

I am the Bread of Life, Jesus says.³³ You might still have physical pain and difficulty and needs, but if you hold me within you, I will satisfy you fully.

I am the Gate of the sheep³⁴ and I am the Good Shepherd,³⁵ Jesus says. Even with the wolves of fear and doubt threatening and the beasts of hatred and oppression crushing so many of God’s children, I will be with you and all my children, always.

I am the Resurrection and the Life, Jesus says.³⁶ So even if you die, you will live, and better, if you trust in me now, remain in me, you’ll find life in God now that will change you forever.

I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life, Jesus says.³⁷ Holding on to me, you’ll find your way in this world, you’ll know the truth that God loves you and all things, and you will have life within you, no matter what happens to you.

And I am the True Vine, Jesus says.³⁸ Stay connected to me, which means you’re connected to God, and the life that I flow in you will produce the same sacrificial love that I have for the creation that will save all things.³⁹ Your love will be a part of saving all things for God, too.⁴⁰

This is true freedom, freedom indeed, that Jesus offers you.⁴¹

Freedom from anxiety and worry: you belong to God and no matter what happens, God will always be with you, in life or in death.⁴² Freedom from fear of your sinfulness and flaws: you are loved forever by God and your sins are forgiven, forgotten.⁴³ Freedom from the possessions that claim ownership of you: you have the life of Christ in you, and are free to let go of these false gods that can’t truly satisfy you.⁴⁴ Freedom from blindness to your privilege and power: you are a branch of the Vine of love that gives up all power and privilege, even divine life, for the sake of love of the other,⁴⁵ and you are free to love in that same way.⁴⁶

This is the freedom Jesus offers you. Freedom indeed, true freedom to live, no matter what the circumstances of your life might be.⁴⁷

And living this is true discipleship.

Because knowing this freedom makes you Christ, like Jesus.⁴⁸ You become a servant:⁴⁹ a washer of feet,⁵⁰ a bringer of light to others’ darkness.⁵¹ You become someone whose vulnerable, sacrificial love fills up others in their deepest need,⁵² quenches the thirst of a world longing for justice.⁵³ You become a shepherd who not only works to protect others from the harm of this world but who works to change this world so that all might find green pasture and clean water, hope and life.⁵⁴

When you are free in Christ, you not only know the abundant life Jesus longs for you to know.⁵⁵ You become a sign of that resurrection life in the world, so others might be drawn to the love of God in Christ and be free indeed themselves.

“If you remain in me,” Jesus says, “this is what will happen to you, and to the world.” ⁵⁶

So where else would you want to remain, to be, to live?

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

Note: Scripture footnotes are below the video.

 

Scripture references:
[1] John 8:31-32
[2] John 8:31-32
[3] John 20:31
[4] John 10:10
[5] John 1:3-4; 8:12; 9:5; 11:9; 12:46
[6] John 4:13-14; 6:35; 7:37-38
[7] John 6:27, 33, 35, 50-51
[8] John 8:36
[9] John 1:1, 14
[10] John 14:6
[11] John 1:1-2
[12] Jeremiah 31:33
[13] John 15:4-5
[14] John 14:6-7; 18:37
[15] John 1:1, 18
[16] John 1:14
[17] John 1:1-3, 18; 5:19-23, 37-38; 7:28-29; 8:18-19; 14:7-9; 15:23
[18] John 3:5-8, 34
[19] John 15
[20] John 1, 8, 9, 11, 12
[21] John 4
[22] John 6
[23] John 3
[24] John 1
[25] John 14, 18
[26] John 8
[27] John 4
[28] John 9
[29] John 11
[30] Sometimes it does – Cana, a man healed on Sabbath. Sometimes it doesn’t – the woman caught in adultery. Sometimes it takes time for people to trust Jesus for life because of their circumstances – Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea – but they come around. And sometimes there’s faltering in the trust – the disciples on Thursday through Saturday of Holy Week, including Peter and Judas – but they are welcomed back into trust, forgiven, loved (which would have included Judas had he lived, I’m convinced.)
[31] John 3
[32] John 8:12; 9:5, 39; 11:9-10; 12:35-36, 46; 16:1
[33] John 6:35, 48, 51, 53-58
[34] John 10:7-10
[35] John 10:11-18
[36] John 11:25-26
[37] John 14:6-7
[38] John 15:1
[39] John 15:5, 9
[40] John 15:16-17
[41] John 8
[42] John 10:11-18, 27-29
[43] John 3:16-17
[44] John 6:27, 49, 58, 63, 66-68
[45] John 3:14-15; 8:28; 12:31-32; 15:13, 20
[46] John 13:12-16, 34-35
[47] John 8
[48] John 17:18, 21
[49] John 13:16
[50] John 13:12-15
[51] John 12:36
[52] John 13:34-35; 14:21; 15:12-14
[53] John 4
[54] John 21:15-17
[55] John 10:10
[56] John 8:31-36

You belong to God, and you are God’s justice answer to the world.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary 29 C
Texts: Jeremiah 31:27-34; Luke 18:1-18; 2 Timothy 3:14 – 4:5

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

“They will be my people,” God says.

That’s God’s new promise Jeremiah declares today: God will bring all God’s people together and start over. “I will write my law on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they will be my people,” God says. “Everyone will know me.”

And God means everyone. Twice God says that this new covenant, this new promise, will be made with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. All God’s people, all the chosen ones, are included.

It’s hard to imagine the impact of this promise. If Judah had little hope in their own return from exile, they certainly had long since abandoned any hope for their siblings and cousins to the north, lost for 150 years by this time. But God says, “I know where everyone is, and I’m blessing them all.” Everyone will be God’s people again.

This new promise is fulfilled in Jesus, God-with-us, the Anointed of God, and in Christ we see the true breadth of the Triune God’s promise: it is for all people, the whole world, all God’s children. Everyone is now chosen, everyone now belongs.

You belong. You are God’s. So, Jesus tells you, pray always.

That’s why he tells this story.

Jesus says, “If someone as corrupt as this judge finally gives justice because he’s tired of all the asking, how much more will your God give justice to God’s chosen ones? That is, to you, to everyone.

So don’t lose heart, Jesus says. You matter. You can pray and God will hear, God will answer. If this widow doesn’t give up trying to connect with this wretched public official, who doesn’t care for God or for people, don’t give up trying to connect with the God who loves you and wants justice and mercy in this world. God will not delay in giving help.

This prayer Jesus talks about is an invitation to trust that you are God’s beloved and God wants to talk with you, listen to you, help you. It’s an invitation into a relationship with God just like Jeremiah says God promises.

Prayer for Jesus is living into a life of trust in God. It’s not words to operate a divine vending machine.

God’s voice in Jeremiah says, “They will be my people, and I will be their God. They will all know me. My words, my law, will be written on their hearts.”

God gave the chosen people the Torah, the written law, and again and again they failed to follow it. Everything they needed for life was there, and yet they went their own way. But now, when half of them seem lost forever and the other half are stuck in exile, God says, “let’s try again.” This is God’s answer to our inability to follow the written law of God: I’ll just put it inside you, so you know it by heart. This is the whole point of Scripture, Timothy says today, to “equip those who belong to God to be proficient for every good work.”

So God comes in person, in Jesus the Christ, to do this. To meet us face to face. To place in our hearts, through the Holy Spirit, the love of God and love of neighbor that is the backbone and heart of God’s law. As you live into the life of the Triune God, and know God’s love and grace, God’s Spirit changes your heart into God’s heart.

That’s where you hear God’s answer to your cries for justice, to the world’s cries for justice.

It’s always been God’s answer. But now, in relationship with God, changed in your heart, you can hear it. God says, “I will quickly grant justice. Come, let’s do it together.” God can only make the justice and mercy God dreams for the world through your hands and mine, your hearts and mine.

So persistently pray for justice, Jesus says. Just be ready for God’s answer: “you’re with me; let’s go do this.” God’s justice answer to the world is a changed you, a changed me. A changed everyone who belongs to God. This isn’t individual salvation. God needs widespread heart transformation, millions of children of God with God’s love and grace written on their hearts, living God’s justice, knowing they belong and that all belong.

This is the faith Jesus wonders if he’ll find when he returns.

He wonders if he’ll find people who live in trusting relationship with God, knowing they are loved and forgiven. People who are transformed in their very hearts to love and care for the world as God does. To hear all the cries for justice, and to answer with their bodies, their voices, their hearts, their love.

Given how we’ve tended to pray for God’s justice and expected God to do it, Jesus’ concern is valid.

But it needn’t be. You belong to God. You are loved and forgiven always, your sins wiped away and forgotten in the Triune God’s sacrificial love. You are God’s chosen one. You can live in trust with God through Christ Jesus, and have your heart changed. You can expect to work with God for justice in this terrifying and toxic world we live in. This is God’s dream for you. And the world.

Ponder this deeply. Because there’s another possibility to this parable.

Maybe Jesus looks at us sometimes and sees the unjust judge. Acting as if we don’t fear God or respect people. Closing our ears to the cries of those crushed by this oppressive world we’ve built, our hearts to the pain of anyone who isn’t us. It’s not how we always are; but it can be. Keep this corrupt official in mind when you consider sitting out an issue, or avoid looking for ways to make a difference, or are tempted to resist the sacrifice God’s justice for all will mean for you.

The artist Sara Bareilles has a breathtaking new album about living in the midst of the chaos of these days, where she sings, “Be the hand of a hopeful stranger, little scared, but you’re strong enough. Be the light in the dark of this danger, till the sun comes up.” ¹

That’s God’s dream for you, beloved child of God. You are God’s answer to the cries for justice. God says to those who cry out: Have you met my child, my light, my beacon of hope? They will hold out their hand to you, and help you find a safe place to be.

So, my friends, do not lose heart. Pray always. And let God’s love move you as God’s hope in the world.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

¹ Sara Bareilles, in “A Safe Place to Land,” on Amidst the Chaos, 2019, Epic Records

 

God’s abundant healing is available to all people, in all places, and can be experienced through worship.

Vicar Bristol Reading
The Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary 28 C
Texts: Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7; Luke 17:11-19

This Gospel story about the ten lepers reveals so much about who God is in Christ – a powerful, compassionate, healing God.

The divine power in Jesus is so evident to the lepers, that they recognize it the minute they see him coming. Even from afar, they can tell that this is someone who can do miraculous things. They call out to Jesus, asking for mercy, and calling him “Master.” This term of respect acknowledges Jesus’ authority in a particular way: In Luke’s Gospel, the title “Master” is used by Jesus’ closest disciples. These ten sick people are strangers to Jesus, but they can see him for who he truly is. They know Jesus acts with the power of God.

And what does this one with divine authority do? He heals. He heals not just one of these people, not a few of them, but all ten – at once, with barely more than a word. It’s almost as though healing just overflows from who Jesus is, and it is generous enough to reach all ten of these people. There is no scarcity here. In the presence of Christ, there is healing in abundance.

And there is acceptance and mercy for people who have been marginalized.

Leprosy was, and still is, a disfiguring and stigmatized disease. Any illness was significant and dangerous in the ancient world, but a chronic, infectious illness like leprosy, would have been especially disruptive to the rhythms of work and family life. Lepers could end up isolated and shunned by others. But Jesus is willing to go to them and heal them.

And to really underscore that this is a display of radical compassion on Jesus’ part, Luke adds one more twist in the story. All ten lepers are healed and sent on their way, healthy, presumably able to be reintegrated into their community. But one leper has a particularly transformative experience and returns to praise Jesus. That leper, the text says, was a Samaritan.

This is a moment in the story at which the audience can gasp in surprise. Samaritans are classic outsider characters in Gospel stories. This man wasn’t just an outsider because of his illness, he’s twice an outsider because of his identity as a Samaritan. Even Jesus goes out of his way to mention that this guy is different. He asks, “Was none found to return and praise God except this foreigner?”

Now Samaritans weren’t from some distant region; Samaria was next to Galilee, where Jesus was from. But Samaritans had a different ethnic background, practiced different religious rituals, and acknowledged a different temple. This had caused centuries of conflict with Israelite Jews. So when we hear that, of all the healed lepers, it is this political, ethnic, and religious outsider who comes back to fall at the feet of Christ, it’s a surprise!

And it’s a reminder of how often Jesus crosses traditional boundaries to show compassion and mercy to all people, even people with whom he shouldn’t be interacting, even people who have long been considered foreign enemies. Luke wants us to hear that Christ’s healing is so abundant that it extends to everyone, even Samaritans.

Jesus says to the Samaritan: “Your faith has made you well.” In the narrative of Luke, Jesus says this phrase to people who are treated by society as outsiders, but who are healed and loved by God. He says it to a woman who was labeled “sinful” for her lifestyle, and scandalous for anointing Jesus’ feet with her hair. He says it to a woman who has been bleeding for more than a decade and can do little more than reach to touch the hem of Jesus’ cloak. He says it to a blind beggar who waits at the city gates, dependent solely on the assistance of passing strangers. And he says it to a Samaritan leper: “Your faith has made you well.”

Jesus doesn’t this to the disciples, or the temple priests, or the theological experts, or the patrons of the synagogue… But to the people who are sick or poor, people who are often invisible. But they’re not invisible to Jesus. Jesus sees them, and loves them, and makes them well, because the healing power of God is abundant towards all people.

This doesn’t just mean physical healing of illness or injury. There can be a soul-deep, transformative healing.

When the Samaritan leper came back to fall at the feet of Jesus, he had already been cleansed of his illness. And yet Jesus tells him his faith has made him well. His act of gratitude and praise before Christ brings an even-deeper degree of wholeness and wellness than the physical healing he has already experienced. Who can know what more needed healing in him? The burdens that other people bear are not always easy to see. But he knew, and Jesus knew. And something about being in a posture of worship made him more than clean… it made him well.

Perhaps you have experienced something like that: Being made well by a close encounter with God. Worshiping before the living God doesn’t necessarily take away bodily pain and illness, but entering into a sacred space, into loving community, into song and silence and prayer – that can be a balm for a weary and wounded soul. Some people describe worship as entering a “thin place.” This is an idea from Celtic Christian tradition that describes a time or space where the boundary between the physical and the spiritual is especially thin, a time or place where you can experience the holy, where you can draw close to God.

Of course, thin places aren’t always churches – and too many times, churches have been places of harm rather than safety. Churches have, unfortunately, come in between people and God’s abundant healing. But God’s presence extends far beyond the walls of any one church, just as God’s healing and compassion extend far beyond any one particular group of people.

No one is an outsider to the healing love of the Triune God, and no one can ever be outside that love.

There is nowhere that is so far that you can’t experience it. Even if you end up in Babylon, like the ancient Israelites to whom Jeremiah was writing. The prophet encourages the Israelite people to make a life in Babylon, a place that is far from their homeland. They are not there by choice but in exile; they are the foreigners. Still, Jeremiah says they should be as present as they can in that place. They won’t be able to go to their familiar places of worship, but God’s spirit is still with them right where they are. They can still worship, and they can still pray.
Jeremiah even tells them to pray for their new neighbors, to seek the welfare of their former enemies. Jeremiah understood that God’s love could extend even to people like the Babylonians, and God’s healing could be found even in a place like Babylon. God’s compassion is just that abundant: it is for everyone and in every place.

So if you are feeling far from home, lost and confused, remember that Holy Spirit is present with you right where you are. If you are feeling like you have been made an outsider, remember that Christ will cross boundaries to come close to you. If you are feeling like your soul is weary and needing rest, remember that you can always come into the healing love of God and be made well.

Amen.