Who is healed?

Inner Struggle by Armando Almedar Ara
found at www.gxgallery.com

     I love this time in the church year because we are now officially 'ordinary'.  The Sundays between Holy Trinity and Christ the King (with the exception of a few special festival days) are considered ordinary time, or Sundays after Pentecost, or for many Lutherans, the Sundays when it slows down.  Perhaps the slowness of summer is what makes the Sundays seem ordinary, perhaps it is because on any given Sunday many families are out of town on vacation or summer visiting somewhere, but whatever the reason the Sundays are aptly named.
     However ordinary the Sundays are, the texts each week are anything but.  We are in Luke for most of the summer, slowly and steadily making our way through the portions of the gospel that we have not yet heard.  We begin in chapter 7 with a story about healing.  At first glance any story about healing with Jesus involved does not seem too out of the ordinary.  He does, after all, heal most people with whom he comes in contact.   Stories of healing and miracles often fall upon our ears like the fat, splatty rain drops we've been seeing lately - they hit and trickle right off.  Yet in this story there are a few things that strike me as out of the ordinary:

• There is the healing itself.  Jesus heals a man who didn't ask for it (his owner asked for it on his behalf) and Jesus wasn't in the man's presence when he was healed.  
• The man who asked for the healing of his slave wasn't Jewish but when he 'heard about Jesus' he sent some Jewish elders to ask on his behalf.  Yet when the elders prevailed and Jesus was on his way the man changed his mind, sent more emissaries and told Jesus not to bother.
• Jesus was 'amazed at [the man]' and praised his faith as that which he hadn't even found in Israel.

     Any one of these turns in the plot make the story more than ordinary, and with all three the story is elevated (at least in my own mind) to that of the extraordinary.  The story which on its surface is about a sick slave who is healed turns out to be about much and more.  It is a story about faith of a Roman centurion, it is a story about worthiness and value and what it takes to be there, it is a story about Jesus' mission and ministry.
     To me the question of worth stands out the most.  It comes from the Jewish elders whom the centurion sent when they approach Jesus and say, "He is worthy of having you do this for him, for he loves our people, and it is he who built our synagogue for us."  In the eyes of the elders it is the centurion's love and work that make him worthy of Jesus' favor and healing.  Yet, in the second set of messengers the centurion sends he himself says, "Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof."
     It seems that there is a deep and tearing inner struggle with this centurion who values his slave so much he is willing to go to an outsider for help yet who simultaneously believes himself unworthy of such a miracle.  One of the aspects that makes this story so delicious is that we don't know what message the centurion gave to the Jewish elders to give to Jesus.  Did the elders voluntarily tell Jesus about the worth of the centurion because they respected him or was that something the centurion asked them to say?  My hunch is that the centurion simply figured Jesus would be more likely to listen to elders from his own religion and faith and didn't tell them anything except to ask Jesus to heal his slave.  But in the end it doesn't matter because in the end, unless you are a narcissist we are all the centurion.
     We all know our own faults, our vices, our bad habits, our sins, our shortcomings; every negative thing about us - we know.  And we know them well.  So when it comes to having Jesus' attention and favor, we all might get a little squeamish.  Not because we don't want it, but because we have a hard time believing Jesus wants to give it to us.  For free.  With nothing in return.  The inner struggle of knowing our faults yet wanting to be whole and healed is a cosmic battle of our saint/sinner baptized self.
     And it is because of this inner struggle the centurion has that I wonder what Jesus means when he says he has never seen such faith?  Is it faith that Jesus can heal his slave?  Is it faith that he believes the healing can happen by Jesus' words alone?  Or is it, rather, faith that acknowledges unworthiness and asks anyway?
     The writer of Hebrews tells us that we can 'approach the throne of grace with confidence' and that is exactly what this centurion does.  He knows what he wants, he knows he is not worthy of it, and he asks anyway.  And in the healing, I think, Jesus shows that man that he is indeed worthy.  It is, in essence, Jesus' way of saying that in order to be worthy you need not be Jewish, it matters not what you have done or not done, and your position of power or lack thereof has no impact.  You are worthy if you simply believe.  And since, in the man's floundering and wondering Jesus affirms him with a wholehearted 'yes', I am pondering the mystery of healing.  Who was healed in this story?  Obviously the slave was brought from his death bed back to health, which is an amazing tale of healing and miraculous even by today's standards of modern medicine.  However I wonder at how the heart of the centurion was changed by this encounter.
     What must it have been like to know that Jesus accepted you even without seeing you?  What must it have been like to receive a final and tangible 'yes' to the inner struggle of his sense of self-worth?  What must it have been like to receive healing when he didn't even know he needed it?

Biggest mystery of all?

     Nothing like a little dose of reality to stop your worrying about silly things, huh?  After the news from Oklahoma, coupled with significant damage to the home of some faith family members I am done worrying about the mystery of the Trinity.
     It is, after all, Holy Trinity Sunday coming up this week.  The Holy Trinity is always celebrated the week after Pentecost and when it comes to the mysteries of faith, I'd say the Trinity is up there among the most mysterious.  It is the three-in-one, one-in-three that do not function as complete individuals, but in total and perfect union, each living and dancing in the relationship that gives life to the world.  Yet it is not like each 'person' of the trinity has their own jobs, either, because that is not an accurate portrayal of the three-in-one and one-in-three.  But, since this is a mystery and life is happening, I think I'm going to focus on the second lesson for the week, which is from Romans 5.
     This text is chosen because it mentions God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, and is one of the key scriptural texts that forms the foundation of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity.  And I have chosen to go with this one because it talks about peace, hope,  suffering, endurance, and character.  If there is anything that comes out of natural disasters and suffering, it is endurance, character, and hope. 

we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us

Boast is an interesting word here, especially as it falls upon these Mid-west, Norwegian/German-rooted ears.  Boast?  Even if it is about suffering, it is still boasting and as we who grew up with this heritage know, God will burn our souls if we even think about boasting, let alone actually do it.  Yet I think this is not a boasting in the typical way we think of the word, this boasting is a witness to our faith and our hope in Jesus Christ.
     This is a boasting spoken not with our words, but with our lives.  The type of boasting that gets up after a tree falls on your house and starts the clean-up and putting back together.  The type of boasting that hears the news of deadly tornadoes and prays and prays and sends relief.  The type of boasting that knows the important things in life aren't things, but the real treasures are the people of God in Christ Jesus.  And even if the suffering includes the loss of life, the witness is hope of one day being reunited with the whole people of God in life eternal.
     Suffering does indeed produce endurance and endurance character and character hope - because even in the face of the most painful suffering we know what comes next.  Joy comes with the morning, resurrection comes with the dawn.  In the darkness of storms, suffering, and despair, the light of Christ always shines brightly. 
     And because of the Holy Spirit, that light and love is poured into our hearts because of the unity we have with God in Jesus Christ.  His suffering, his own night of sorrow and despair, his own joy of rising with the resurrection dawn, has connected him with humanity forever.  Flesh and bone, every strand of muscle and DNA is connected to the Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
     Thus we have come full circle - the mystery of the Trinity is engrained in our DNA, and we live the mystery with each breath.  We may not always think about it, or for that matter even care about it.  But thankfully for us our interest or knowledge is irrelevant to God's grace poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.  And so we continue to live the mystery of faith: the Holy Trinity, three-in-one and one-in-three creating, sustaining, and redeeming with each breath.

    

Living in to live out?

     We are coming up on perhaps the second most important celebration in the church, but one that is often overlooked and forgotten - PENTECOST!
     The coming of the Holy Spirit: the wind and fire the blew into the room of disciples, the continuing force the teaches, corrects, and renews in each of us.  We read the account of Pentecost in Acts 2 and from it gather that whenever the gospel is being proclaimed around the world it is because of the Spirit.  When it comes to proclaiming our faith, and even to faith itself, the Holy Spirit is the most important part (well, in addition to Jesus Christ and his life, death, and resurrection and God, who orchestrated the whole thing...) of coming to believe in the first place.  As Martin Luther wrote in the Small Catechism so many centuries ago:

From www.laboringinthelord.com

I believe that by my own understanding or strength I cannot believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to Him; but instead the Holy Spirit has called me through the gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, made me holy and kept me true in faith, just as he calls, gathers, enlightens, and makes holy the whole Christian church on earth and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one common, true faith.  Daily in this Christian church the Holy Spirit abundantly forgives all sins - mine and those of believers.  On the Last Day the Holy Spirit will raise me and all the dead and will give to me and all believers in Christ eternal life. This is most certainly true.*

     Faith is a gift - given by God through the Holy Spirit, who dwells in each of us.  Jesus makes this promise in John 14, and we read in Romans 8 that the Spirit bears witness with our own spirit.  And because we are unified, or in communion with, the Spirit, Jesus promises that we will do greater works even than he.  Greater even than Jesus.  Wow.
     Do you know what this means?  This means that the feeding of the 5,000 will look like child's play.  This means that the healing of the paralytic, the blind, the soul-starved will be so commonplace it won't seem like miracles.  This means that the world had better be prepared for the amazing miracles that will happen through the disciples of Christ who live in the Spirit. 
     Wait - am I describing sometime in the future or now?  We don't think anything of it when a country experiencing famine or the homeless population in our town gets a meal.  We don't think anything of it when an amputee regains use of the lost limb through the use of a prosthesis, or when the blind can see with laser surgery or corrective lenses.  We don't think anything of it when someone makes a great breakthrough with their therapist and lives a more whole life.
    Why not?  Because Jesus has done greater things than these through us.  So much so that we have gotten to a point where we forgot who it came from in the first place.  So what is the aid worker is an atheist?  So what if the doctors, engineers, and therapists don't claim to be working for Christ.  God's love and miracles continue to happen under our eyes.  My question in all of this comes from that last part - how come, if all of these awesome miracles are happening daily, people aren't more excited about Jesus and the life he offers?
      Perhaps it is because, as I said at the outset, that people don't celebrate the Holy Spirit anymore.  Perhaps it is because we, like the rest of the world, have become so used to stories of healing that we, too, have forgotten the true source of it all.  Or maybe we chalk it up to science, or modern medicine, or being nice. 
     Yet where does any of this come from but God?  How else would the engineer have come up with a prosthetic unless they saw a vision of a world where war veterans and accident survivors could return to some semblance of a normal life?  How else could the researchers have developed new vaccines and medications unless they dreamed of a cancer-free world?
     Each of us see visions and dream dreams of a world that looks a little more like God's kingdom, and each of us have gifts and treasures that, with the inspiration of God's Holy Spirit, can change the world.  And the best part of all is that this vision and dream starts with God.  It is God's vision and God's dream of a kingdom where love and peace reign and where wholeness and justice are the reality for all.  Nowhere do we see this more clearly than gathered together in worship.  Each of us, differently gifted, gathers together to live out God's vision of a world where all are fed, where everyone can experience peace, unconditional welcome, forgiveness, and love.  And in this we are living in the Spirit so we can live out our mission.  It's all about living in to live out.
     I don't know about you, but just writing this makes me excited to go share with someone how awesome God is.  Wow!  What an amazing gift we have!  I have been the grateful and humble recipient of God's grace and love and now am called by the Holy Spirit to get it out of myself.  Living in to live out.  The mystery this makes me ponder is how others have experienced the living in of the Holy Spirit?  How has God in you made a difference in your own life?  How has the Spirit lived in you so you can live out your calling in the world?

*Martin Luther, The Small Catechism, in The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, edited by Robert Kolb and Timothy Wengert (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000), 355-6.

Worship - beyond speech?

     I must admit that sitting in my office this morning, with the window open, the birds singing, and the construction crews outside, it is difficult to concentrate on the task at hand.  It would be so much better to just leave now and go for a walk beside Lake McBride, or on the Hoover Nature Trail, or just go work in my yard.  In those places I can drink in the sun, witness the beauty of God's creation, and enjoy the many ways in which I can feel God's presence.
     Which, as a matter-of-fact, is the theme for Sunday!  In our penultimate week of the worship assessment, we are focusing on how worship is "Beyond Speech."  This seems obvious, that everything about the worship space involved worship - the sanctuary or place of worship itself, the artwork, the use of media, body language, and all other forms of non-verbal communication.
     In our scripture texts for Sunday there are two examples of how the use of things other than words convey the love and miraculous grace of God: one from a prison cell and one from a dining room.  Now, if there is one thing we have been saying throughout this whole series, it is that worship is not about us, but it is about God and God's faithfulness to us.  So, when it comes to talking about how worship goes beyond speech, the line gets a little blurry.
     Looking back into the history of the church, most people were aware of the biblical story and witness precisely because of these non-verbal worship accoutrements.  In a church where the spoken language was Latin and the vast majority of people couldn't understand, it was the stained glass, it was the incense, it was the awesome cathedrals that spoke about what God was all about. 
    In a world vastly changed since the time of Christendom, many traditions have forgotten about the many and various ways in which God's grace is present during worship.  In our Acts text for Sunday, Paul and Silas are worshiping God from a prison cell in Philippi, singing songs when an earthquake breaks the foundations of the prison and the fetters of the prisoners.  In our John text for Sunday, Jesus is gathered with his friends around the dinner table when Mary anoints Jesus' feet with fragrant nard and washes them with her hair. 
     If nothing else, these texts remind us that worship is a full-body, all-sensory act.  We hear the words, yes, but we see, we smell, we taste, we touch.  As God came to earth in Christ, to hear, see, smell, taste, and touch, so our worship encompasses all that it means to be human.  Think about those Sundays when the communion bread is especially tasty, or those spontaneous moments when children break into dance during a fun song, or those times when you have seen artwork that pulls you into worship and awe at God's gifts, or sharing the peace and greeting others with handshakes and hugs.
     Worship is a total-body experience in which every fiber of our being engages in love and praise of the God who created, renews, and brings us into life.  At the youth gathering in New Orleans this summer, we were able to experience this kind of worship each day, and it was amazing.  Lights, dancers, balloons, song...all used to draw us into a place of worship.  I have shared a clip with you, so that you can, at least in video, get a taste of what we experienced.

     The question and mystery I am pondering now, however, is how we experience God with our bodies.  How do we see, hear, taste, and smell God?