Ambition vs. Aspiration

 

Mark 10:35-45

Proper 24 / Year A

“I want it so bad I can taste it.”  “Who’s better than me?”  “I deserve it.”  “I’ll do whatever it takes.”  Naked ambition offends our moral sensibilities.  We don’t like people who want “it” too much (whatever “it” might be for them) and we don’t like people who take shortcuts to underserved success and we certainly don’t like people who feel entitled.

James and John exhibit all of this in today’s Gospel reading and, to make matters worse, they do it in a religious context.  They are drawn to Jesus by what?  Is it his charisma?  His authority?  His spirituality?  Something else?  Whatever it is, they want it for themselves.  They mistakenly believe it simply can be conferred upon them; like a title of nobility.  Jesus sets them straight: “If you want to be like me then you must act like me.  I am a servant to those around me and a at the disposal of all.”  His final comment, “giving my life as a ransom for many”, highlights how servanthood is a tough, life-giving business.

Do you really want to sit next to Jesus?  If so, then you may want to ponder today’s reading from Isaiah and then think twice.  Early on, the Christian Church saw the life of Christ in Isaiah’s figure of the “Suffering Servant.”  Those whom God ‘lifts up’ to ‘exulted’ places are destined not for fame and glory and power and honor, but rather for affliction and suffering and hardship and death.  Jesus (and all true servants of God) is the one who ministers on the edges of the brokenness of the world and there is no way to minister on the edges of brokenness without becoming broken yourself.  This is how Isaiah understood the roll of the Suffering Servant, it is how Jesus understands his own ministry, but it is certainly not what James and John are seeking.

Today’s story gets told differently by the Gospel writers.  Mark reports James and John ask Jesus directly if they can sit by his side in glory.  Matthew tells it a little different.  He writes their mother comes to Jesus and makes the request on behalf of her boys.  Luke suggests all of the disciples are arguing as to who among them most deserves the seats of honor.  These variations suggest we should not reserve all of our distain for James and John because their mother and (in fact) all of the disciples are preoccupied with the same ambition.  If it was just James and John, we might be tempted to point a finger at them and say they have a spiritual problem, but because it is all of them, we might want to take a closer look at ourselves.  The drive for easy and unearned affirmation pulls at all of us.

There are many official steps on the road to the ordained ministry in the Episcopal Church.  Initially, if you are interested in testing a call, and if the bishop concurs, you are made an “Aspirant” – a term drawn from the word ‘aspire.’  There is a significant and spiritual difference between aspiration and ambition.  While it is good to have aspirations, too much ambition is often seen as a negative thing.  The word ‘ambition’ comes from a Latin origin and means “a going about.”  It was used most often to describe Roman politicians who went about soliciting the votes of individual citizens.  ‘Aspire’, also a Latin word, means “to breathe upon.” 

Going about and breathing upon are two very different images.  A going about, such as a politician soliciting votes, is a clear enough idea.  It brings to mind such expressions as “drumming up business” and “beating the bushes.”  It is work you do to get what you want.  You define the desired result.  Every person, every thing, every vote (to draw on the image of the politician) is a means to an end; nothing more than a stepping stone to help you achieve your ambition.

A breathing upon is a more difficult image to get your head around; especially in this time of pandemic when we are doing everything possible not to breathe on other people.  In Scripture, one image of the Holy Spirit is the Breath of God.  In Genesis, God’s Spirit/Breath moves over the chaos and begins the creative work of bringing order and goodness to creation.  In John’s Gospel, Jesus breathes on his followers and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”  In both instances, the breathing upon is not a means to an end, but rather a creative and life-giving gift.  To aspire/breathe upon you must be in close relationship with another, you must give of your self, and you must be willing to let your breath take on a life of its own in others. 

The ambition of a going about conjures up for me the image of a busy-body; a person who is in constant motion, thinly connected to others, and typically concerned only with one’s own concerns.  When it is expressed through parenthood, it looks like adults desperately pushing their children to achievements in a misguided attempt to feel better about themselves.  The aspiration of a breathing upon is one of self-emptying; giving that which is in you to others in order that they may have life in themselves.  When you empty your life by breathing upon/giving to others, it is absolutely essential to learn how to breathe/inhale life; to receive from the riches and mercies and grace of God in order to be sustained by a breath from above so that you may continue to breathe upon someone else.

In this sense, was Jesus ambitious?  Absolutely not!  Did he have aspirations?  Most certainly.  He aspired to love and to serve and to give in the Name of the Father.  Did James and John, or their mother, or the other disciples understand what Jesus was all about?  Not at all, at least initially.  And lest we be too harsh on them, let’s admit we too struggle with this.  If you want to find God, Jesus says you must lose yourself, perhaps through the act of breathing upon others. 

Where is your struggle?  Is it rooted in the struggle between ambition and aspiration?  Perhaps you do not believe there is a breath inside you that matters.  Maybe, as you exhaust your breath on others, you need to develop practices and habits which allow God to breathe into you.  Where are you in all of this?

What Do You Lack?

 

Mark 10:17-31

Proper 23 / Year B

In the bible, most often when a person approaches Jesus and asks a question it is to test or to trap him.  This morning, however, he meets a person who is a genuine seeker.  Mark does not tell us anything about the man at the outset of the encounter (Matthew tells us he is young, while Luke lets us know he is a “ruler” – perhaps a person with administrative authority of some sort).  Still, we learn a lot about him when he kneels before Jesus and addresses him.  He is sincere and he is reverential.

“Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”  It is an interesting question and an interesting way to ask it.  Why is a young person concerned about eternal life?  And why does he want to “inherit” it?  Typically, you only inherit something when someone else passes away.  We might expect him to ask “what must I do to earn eternal life or to merit eternal life or to be rewarded with eternal life.”

In his answer, Jesus takes the question in this direction.  “You know the commandments…”  It is as if Jesus is saying “Be a good person and you will receive eternal life.”  You can almost sense the man’s relief, “I have kept the commandments since my youth.”  Now he can check off the box about receiving eternal life and go about his business in peace.  His spiritual worries now are behind him.

Except two things happen.  The text tells us Jesus looks at the person and loves him.  He sees the man for who he is and loves him deeply.  And because he loves him, Jesus wants more for the man than eternal life in the great by-and-by.  Jesus wants him to experience the fullness of life in this life in the here and now.   He invites him to become a part of the Kingdom of God by following him on the way.

“There is one thing you lack,” Jesus says to him.  “There is something holding you back.  Go and sell all you own, give the money to the poor so that you might build up treasures in heaven, and come follow me.”  Think about it.  If the man accepts he will become the thirteenth Apostle.  The only thing standing between him and sainthood is a yard sale!  But he is at a point in life where he values accumulating and retaining.  He is nowhere near ready to let go and to pass on.  The text tells us he goes away “grieving” because he has many possessions.  How ironic that had he been willing to die to self he would be celebrating, but because he clings to his present life he is distressed.

A colleague of mine posted this quote of Archibald Macleish, the American born poet of the last century:

Religion is at its best when it makes us ask hard questions of ourselves.  It is at its worst when it deludes us into thinking we have all the answers for everybody else.

Can there be a more challenging question than “What do you lack?”  What is holding you back from participating fully in the life God offers to you.  Jesus sees you and Jesus loves you and because he sees and loves you he invites you to be all in.  What is holding you back? 

Maybe you are like this man and are too invested in what you have to let go.  Perhaps you are so over-committed, there simply is no way to fit anything else into your already crammed calendar.  I suspect some of us see ourselves as unremarkable or unworthy and doubt Jesus could ever use us to do anything of merit or value.  Maybe you think you are too old, or in bad health, or not possessing enough education.

I suspect something holding back many of us is that we have not heard Jesus invite us to follow.  And the invitation is different for each of us.  Years ago I heard God invite me to the ordained ministry.  It is not a better calling than yours, just different from yours.  The group who is participating in the Women’s Bible Study spends over an hour a day doing reading and homework.  Each has responded to an invitation to deeper knowledge and understanding.  Some of you have responded to Jesus’ invitation to service in our community.  Do you lack a sense of what God is inviting you to do?

Think about the people Jesus met.  He does not ask the Samaritan woman at the well to follow him.  Legion, the man released from many demons, wants to follow Jesus, but is directed to remain in his hometown, perhaps as a witness of healing and new life.  The person we meet today is invited to follow Jesus on the way and thus must take extraordinary measures to comply.  And what the invitation requires of him he is unwilling to do.

What is Jesus’ invitation to you at this point in your life, what does it require, and what is holding you back?

 

Ezer Kenegdo

 

Genesis 2:18-24

Proper 22 / Year B

“It is not good for the human to be alone.” 

This morning we hear one of the best known stories in the bible, which is also one of the most misunderstood.  Even if you have never read the bible or attended a church service you know God creates Eve (the woman) out of Adam (the man) to be his “helper” or “helpmate.”  And most likely you interpret this in some form or fashion to mean Eve is created as subordinate to Adam.  This is the part of the story most everybody knows and it is also the part everyone gets wrong.  Allow me to explain.

“It is not good for the human to be alone.” 

After each the creative acts in the first chapter of Genesis, God looks at what has been brought into being and evaluates it as being good.  But here, in the beginning of the second chapter, God identifies a problem.  The first human is alone and this is not good.  God recognizes the human needs an ezer kenegdo, a Hebrew phrase translated most often in this text as “helper”, but this translation is a bit misleading because it tends to imply inferiority.  Ezer kenegdo is used most often in the Old Testament to describe God… “the Lord is my helper” (ex: Psalm 54:4).  Ezer kenegdo conveys the notion of deliverer, rescuer, and even life-saver.  The problem God sees is not that the human is lonely, but that the human is lost, isolated, and lacking the kind of relationship necessary to become complete and whole. 

God’s initial solution to this problem is to parade every created animal before the human to see if one will suffice.  Again, if companionship is the problem, most likely a dog or a cat or a horse would suffice.  But no creature can bring about the completeness God sees is lacking.  So God does a remarkable thing.  God causes the human to enter into a deep sleep and removes part of the human’s side to make another human. 

Again, the textual translation of “rib” is a misleading because the Hebrew word suggests “side” as a more accurate rendering.  What is removed from the human becomes a female.  What remains becomes a male.  And if you have been paying attention, up until now I have referred to first person as “the human” because in a strict sense this person was both man and woman.  With the separation of genders each person now has an ezer kenedgo – a person who enables them to grow into the fullness of human potential. 

Most often we see this special relationship being manifested in a marriage.  We had a wonderful wedding here yesterday and at it I read the familiar words of the liturgy:

The union of husband and wife, in heart, body, and mind is intended by God for their mutual joy [and] for the help and comfort given one another in prosperity and adversity.

And we prayed this for them:

Give them wisdom and devotion in the ordering of their common life, that each may be to the other [note the sense of mutuality] a strength in need, a counselor in perplexity, a comfort in sorrow, and a companion in joy.

This is the ezer kenegdo found in marriage.  Each partner helps the other to live into the fullness of God’s intention for him or for her.  And this simply is not possible if we are alone/isolated.  

But is ezer kenegdo specifically reserved for matrimony?  Does this mean those of us who are not married or divorced or widowed are alone in the sense God deems to be not good?  Note how the text says “For this reason a man shall leave his parents and ‘cling’ (or ‘cleave’) to his wife.”  This fierce connection and loyalty appears to be a prerequisite for ezer kenegdo.  Elsewhere in the bible we find the same word “cleave” used to describe the relationship between Ruth and her mother-in-law Naomi.  Ruth and Naomi become each other’s helper, each other’s ezer kenegdo.

Think about the relationships you enjoy in your life.  They come in many different shapes and sizes.  Some are more superficial than others.  Some are more important to us than others.  And my guess is you have a few relationships marked by ezer kenegdo; a person who may be a mentor or a confidant or a gentle corrector or a shoulder to cry on.  It maybe someone you talk with multiple times in a day or someone you see only a couple of times a year.  It may be a spouse or a sibling or a childhood friend.  The handful of people who fill this role in your life share one thing in common: each helps you to realize you are not alone in this world.  And this is God’s deep desire for you and it is God’s gift to you.

Who Gets the Credit?

 

Mark 9:38-50

Proper 21 / Year B

President Ronald Reagan kept a plague on his desk in the Oval Office with this inscription on it: “There is no limit to amount of good a man can do or where he can go if he does not mind who gets the credit.”  This quote, whose original source may have been Ralph Waldo Emerson, has inspired presidents, generals, and titans of industry.  The second rector I served as an assistant, who didn’t have a jealous bone in his body, embodied this wisdom.  He delighted in every accomplishment made by a person on his staff.  Surely you have known people like this in your life.

I appreciated his approach and did not take it for granted because the first priest I served was the exact opposite.  I came to realize if I did something well-received by the parish on a Sunday I was going to be taken to the woodshed over another matter by the following Wednesday.  It is such an interesting (and perplexing) mindset: What lifts you up diminishes me and in order for me to be built up you must be torn down.  John the Baptist famously said of his role, “I must decrease that Jesus might increase.”  Well, this was the reverse of that: “I can only increase if you decrease.”  Sadly, I suspect each of us has had to deal with a person or two who operated in life like this.

More and more, it seems to me our national political debate is about who should get the credit for something that goes well and who should take the blame for something that does not.  If that plaque on Reagan’s desk was right, does it follow there is a limited amount of good you can do if you constantly argue about who deserves the credit?  At the very least I think explains in part the gridlock paralyzing our country’s elected officials. 

Two of this morning’s readings remind us this dynamic neither is new nor unique.  Our first reading finds Moses overwhelmed by the task of meeting the needs of the people as they languished in the wilderness.  God instructs him to select seventy individuals – elders and leaders of the people – and have them gather in the tent used for worship.  In this setting God takes some of the spirit placed on Moses and transfers it to the larger group, which they manifest initially through the act of prophecy. 

All is well and good until two people not a part of the seventy – Eldad and Medad – begin to prophecy out in the camp.  Who do you think is going to get the ‘credit’: those officially ‘sanctioned’ who did their prophecy in the privacy of the tent or the two upstarts carrying on in public?   “Moses, stop them!”  His response: “Why are you jealous for me.  I wish all God’s people were prophets.”  Moses does not feel diminished as Eldad and Medad are celebrated because he recognizes everyone benefits from the fruit of their ministry… and isn’t this the goal.  There is no limit to the amount of good a person can do if you don’t care who gets the credit.

A similar dynamic plays itself out in the Gospel reading when the disciple John (who is a part of Jesus’ close inner circle) alerts his master someone outside their group is invoking his name to cast out demons.  “We tried to stop him,” John reports, “because he was not following us.”  Jesus, in no uncertain terms, rebukes John for trying to hinder a person seeking to do good.  And then, in his teaching on this matter, Jesus concludes by saying “Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.” 

At least one scholar calls this the most ‘enigmatic’ of Jesus’ expressions, but, given the context, I think it makes perfect sense.  Salt had many purposes in ancient Palestine.  Its most important involved its ability to draw out the blood in meat, thereby preserving the meat for an extended period of time.  When Jesus says, “Have salt in yourselves,” he is saying have confidence in yourself, recognize your purpose, and value your contribution.  Know who you are, believe in what you do, and understand you add something significant to the greater whole.  No one else’s success can change this.  Have salt in yourself.  You are necessary and what you contribute is enough.

And when you have this kind of salt in yourself you can be at peace with one another because their success will not threaten you and how you see yourself.  You can celebrate the achievements of others without being threatened or jealous.  You will be grateful every time the community is blessed – even and especially if you are not the source of its blessing – because your ultimate goal and highest good is to have the community be blessed and you know you can’t do it alone. 

I think one of the real strengths of St. Paul’s is how so many people contribute to who we are what we do and no one is competing for the credit.  Each of you has salt in yourself and is at peace with everyone else.  Again, don’t underestimate the value of this because I have served in parishes where the desire for credit was immense and the need to assign blame almost unbearable.  Still, there is no telling how much good a parish do and how far it can go when its members don’t care who gets the credit.

 

The G.O.A.T.

 

Mark 9:30-37

Proper 20 / Year B

If you listen to Sports Talk Radio, as I do, you know often there is a debate about “the G.O.A.T.”  Now, it used to be a goat in sports referred to a person who lets down the team; like the batter who strikes out with the bases loaded or the kicker who misses a game winner.  Well, this usage largely has disappeared and a new meaning has emerged.  G.O.A.T. now is an acronym signifying “Greatest of All Time” - the best player ever at his or her sport or position.  Tom Brady is the G.O.A.T. of NFL quarterbacks.  Novak Djokovic had an opportunity to become the G.O.A.T. of men’s tennis, but failed to win the US Open last week.  And nothing stirs up impassioned debate like arguing who is the G.O.A.T. of basketball – Michael Jordon or LeBron James.

Sports lends itself well to this kind of discussion because it has so many measurables: wins, batting average, championships, points, and so on.  Most occupations lack these concrete elements.  How would you determine which teacher is the G.O.A.T.?  By comparing students’ SOL results?  You could determine the G.O.A.T. of realtors merely by calculating volume of sales, but isn’t there more to the profession than this?  And how in the world could you ever figure out the G.O.A.T. of preachers?  Most parishioners in the pews or fewest people who fall asleep or something else?

I suspect most of us are not driven to be the G.O.A.T. at what we do.  We want to be the best we can possibly be, but recognize ‘greatness’ is awfully difficult to obtain.  When we say (for example) “Jan Gates is so great at flower arranging” we are highlighting a particular skill or ability.  We intend it to be a compliment, but is not an indication she is the G.O.A.T of all flower arrangers who possesses an exalted position of over everyone else.  St. Paul’s is blessed to have several people who excel in this area.  We appreciate their contributions.  We don’t attempt to rank them.

Well, hopefully all of these musings help you to grasp the absurdity of what the disciples discussed amongst themselves in today’s gospel reading: Which of them is the G.O.A.T.?  Umm, the fact they are asking the question suggests the answer is this: None of them!  Can you imagine walking into a Vestry meeting and finding our elected parish leadership arguing about who of them is the greatest?  Could anything be less Southern!  I can’t even begin to imagine the criteria the disciples draw on to justify their self-importance.  Number of converts?  Most “you have answered correctly” responses from Jesus?  Longest beard?  It is just unfathomable.

Jesus, as he so often does, defines kingdom living and kingdom behavior by reversing norms and expectations.  “Whoever wants to be first must be last and a servant to all.”  And then he enacts a parable by taking a child into his arms and saying “Whoever welcomes a little child welcomes me.”  In other words, your greatness manifests itself in how you treat the least, the last, the lost, and the lonely.  You manifest greatness not by mastering a particular skill or craft, but by being mindful of others… especially those people who don’t seem to matter in the eyes of the world.

Since we’re talking sports, when LeBron James came back to the Cleveland Cavaliers several years ago he had one goal: to bring a championship to the people of Northeast Ohio.  In order to accomplish this he knew he had to be more than the G.O.A.T. on the basketball court.  He had to show every member of the team and the organization what it takes to be a winner.  One night in the locker room after a game, James noticed how all of his multi-million dollar teammates left their sweaty uniforms and wet towels in piles on the floor for the lowly laundry boy to pick up.  LeBron called the players together and told them they would never be champions until they recognized and valued the contributions of each and every person in the organization.  “Champions,” he said, “put their dirty clothes in the laundry basket as a sign of respect for the person who does the laundry.”  “And,” he told them, “they know the name of the person who does the laundry and each and every day they thank him (by name) for what he contributes to the overall effort.” 

Jesus reminds us greatness is about how you give yourself to others.  You can measure which pop star sold the most records in a single year, but you can’t measure how he, she, or anyone of us values another person.  Still, we all recognize when we see it the kind of greatness which Jesus admires.

I love this morning’s first reading from the Wisdom of Solomon.  It contains such wonderful, evocative language as it describes what happens if you attempt to hold yourself to a high standard… there will be plenty who wait anxiously to cheer your fall.  Solomon is looking at the same thing Jesus is –greatness – only from a different vantage point.  From where he stands, greatness involves attempting to know “the secret purposes of God.”  It is about “hoping for the wages of holiness”, which I suspect won’t help your credit rating but will make you a more loving, caring, and thoughtful person.  And it is about discerning the “prize” that awaits for “blameless souls”, which may be eternal life, but even more I think in means you can look at yourself in the mirror with as little a sense of shame or regret as possible.

So, we live in an era obsessed with G.O.A.T.s.  This morning’s reading invites us to ponder what it means to be Great as God Estimates (G.A.G.E.).  While I don’t think G.A.G.E. is going to replace G.O.A.T. in our cultural lexicon anytime soon, nor will it even approach the stratosphere of W.W.J.D. (What would Jesus do?), it is worth considering.  What makes a person great: Nailing the championship-winning three point shot with seconds left on the clock or saying to the laundry boy after the game “Richie, thanks for everything you do to help us be a better team?”  What makes a person Great as God’s Estimates?

Let Go & lean In

 

Mark 8:27-38

Proper 19 / Year B

I don’t know how many of you journal, but it can be a wonderful spiritual exercise.  The process has a surprising way of allowing clarity to emerge.  Such a moment happened for me on Thursday as I engaged in the weekly discipline of writing my portion of Friday’s e-news.  Sometimes I enter into this chore well-aware of where Sunday’s sermon is heading.  Other times I am lost at sea.  In moments such as these, just opening myself to whatever is buried, but stirring, provides for me some direction.  Last Thursday these words transmitted themselves from somewhere inside me, through a keyboard, and onto a computer screen:

More and more, as our world increasingly grows more complicated and our attempts to master it feel increasingly futile, it is worth coming back to the question of who we say Jesus is and what we believe Jesus calls us to do. 

For me, at least, this brought into focus so much of what has been weighing on me and weighing me down over the last few weeks…

·    A pandemic raging out of control.

·    A 20-year-long war coming to an inglorious end.

·    A nation divided.

·    An economy which feels like it is teetering on a precipice of disaster.

·    Half of our country is on fire and half is under water.

More locally…

·    Our church, like almost every congregation everywhere, struggles to find a way to move forward in these unprecedented times.

·    Our members continue to grapple with setbacks, crisis, and heartbreak while we are so limited in our ability to express compassion.

·    We struggle to find ways to respond to the needs of our neighbors, such as the folks who used to live in the Suffolk Tower.

And me personally… well, none of you came here this morning to listen to me drone on about the burdens I carry.  Let’s just say pretty much every day this week I had to muster every ounce of energy and every pound of motivation just to get out of bed each morning and face the day.  I am keenly aware I am not in a place all that different from many of you. 

This morning we hear Jesus pose what is the single most important question in human history: Who do you say that I am?  Peter famously answers, “You are the Messiah.”  He is right, of course, but misunderstands exactly what this means.  Consider the context.  Jesus’ older cousin (John the Baptist) has been brutally executed.  Jesus knows he is next and says so plainly.  Peter, thinking a messiah can just snap his fingers and make all the world’s problems evaporate, openly rebukes what Jesus says: “This will never happen to you.” 

Apparently Jesus as Messiah is not in a position to make life problem free – not for himself and not for us.  What he is able to do is show us how to walk in midst of a troubling world.  The pathway looks like this: “Deny yourself, pick up your cross, and follow Jesus.  If you want to save your life you will lose it, and if you lose your life in pursuit of the Gospel you will find it.  What will it profit you to gain the world if you lose what is most important in life in the process?”

This, I think, is the heart of Jesus’ teaching.  It is a two-part process: let go and lean in.  Let go of living for yourself alone and lean in to those around you by drawing in on God’s power of love to work in and through you.  

We are blessed to have an example of what this looks like here with us this morning as we welcome Michael Cantrell as our Interim Music Director.  Michael works full-time as a physical therapist and to the best of my knowledge was not seeking to get back into church music at this point in his life.   But one of his patients is a local clergy person and Michael happened to tell him about his music ministry in a Chicago area church prior to relocating to Hampton Roads.  When my colleague learned we needed a person to fill in while we conduct a search, he shared Michael’s contact information with me.  When I reached out I suspect the last thing this young man expected when he answered his phone was my request to help us here at St. Paul’s.  It would have been so easy for him to decline, to say he was not interested, or to say he is not yet settled enough to add something like this onto his plate.  But he let go and he leaned in and we are grateful.

This weekend, as we pause to remember the events of twenty years ago, we remember the heroes who responded, some of whom made the ultimate sacrifice on behalf of others.  They let go of their own personal safety and leaned in to save as many as possible.  Those who participated in the massive search and recovery effort risked much in order to save a few and to bring as much dignity as possible to the remains of the dead.  They too let go and leaned in.  And in our world today, we think about our first responders and frontline workers (such as health professionals, teachers, and people employed in the service economy) who accept the risk of contracting the Covid virus simply by doing their jobs.  They are letting go and leaning in every day!

In the years that have passed since 9/11 we have erected memorials and rebuilt with steel and stone and glass, yet it feels like we more are spiritually impoverished now than we were on that dreadful day.  We have not learned how to love our enemies and to pray for those who seek to do us harm (as Jesus teaches).  By demonizing the other, we have invited a poison into our own society.  Our country is fractured and furious and unable to look at the face of another with the humanity necessary to see not just a child of God, but even a fellow citizen.  We are feverishly holding on to everything we can and leaning away from anyone and anything that does not reinforce who we are and what we believe.  What has it profited us to gain the world but to lose the core sense of who we are as a people? 

During my family research I came across a memorable story from the life of William Cochran, Jr., a Pennsylvania and decent person who was one of my Great-great-great grandfathers.  It seems two of his neighbors got into a quarrel.  One neighbor had an counted on using an access road that ran through the property of another neighbor.  Well, the man owning the vital property, fenced in the land, thereby making it impossible for the other to get off his own land.  You can imagine how tense things must have been.  Well, Grandpa Will/Willie/Bill/Billy/William or whatever he was called, did the only thing an 85-year-old man living in 1886 could do.  He picked up an ax and worked tirelessly to hew a new path through his own property to provide for the hemmed in neighbor a new access path to the outside world.  Let go and lean in, allowing God’s power of love to work in and through you!

When I think about the mythology of what it means to be an American (let alone a Christian), William Cochran’s witness is one of so many examples that come to mind.  With such inspiring models to emulate, why do I want to pull the covers over my head each morning in an attempt to create a safer, saner space?  Well, over the last twenty years, the American spirit, which once found strength in diversity, mustered compassion for the needy, and honored virtue and self-sacrifice as a way to create a better world for all, has become meaner, pettier, more selfish, and more agnostic.  As our world increasingly grows more complicated, our attempts to master it feel increasingly futile. 

I recognize I am just one person with one voice being heard by only a couple dozen people, so most likely not much will come from what I say today.  However, Jesus was one person with one voice and in today’s reading it was heard by just a dozen people.  But he lived out what he taught and they learned to live it out too.  And here we are 2,000 years later, listening to what Jesus said and wondering how we might live out its wisdom in our day and age.  Of what are you being challenged to let go and where are you being called to lean in by allowing God’s power of love to work in and through you?  

The Powerlessness of God's Love

 

Mark 7:24-37

Proper 18 / Year B

School is back in session and with it comes… as every student will tell you… homework.  Years ago one of the first assignments given to my older daughter was to interview me.  I recall how, after a series introductory questions, she started to probe the topic of religion.  “Do you believe God has the power to heal people?” she asked.  “Yes, I do.”  “Well then, why do you think God doesn’t do it all the time?”  “That,” I remember answering, “is a very good question.” 

It is a good question.  I have to admit it crosses my mind every time I prepare a sermon on one of the healing stories in the Gospels.  If Jesus had the ability to restore hearing and to remove speech impediments, as our reading this morning asserts, and if Jesus had the power to perform all other sorts of healings, then why is there suffering?  Why is there sickness?  Why is there disease?  Why is Covid lingering?  Why is there death?  These are the questions I want to help us think through this morning.

Most people, whether or not they believe in God, have an idea of God which tends to center on power: God is omnipotent… all-powerful; God is in charge of everything; God is like a king or a domineering father or the Lord of all.  This is how most people tend to think of God.  And if this is who God is then our dismay at God’s unwillingness to use this power for our benefit and well-being is all the more justified.

The Christian Gospel starts its understanding of God at a very different place than this.  To read the biblical narratives is to encounter a God who is first and foremost characterized by love.  And love involves not power, but a willingness to risk because when you reach out in love the other’s response is not guaranteed.  Love offered may be met, matched, returned, and cherished.  It can also be rejected, abused, betrayed, and taken for granted.  To risk love is to be vulnerable… even to the point of suffering.  The suffering may come from rejection or it may take the form of witnessing the pain of another.  To love is to be vulnerable, not powerful.

Because God is love, God must allow for freedom.  If the person who loves can compel the object of love to love in return, then the response is not true love.  A response that is coerced or compelled is not love.  So each one of us is free to respond to God’s love however we see fit.  One theologian describes God as being “weak in power but strong in love” because God is willing to be vulnerable to pain in the freedom of love.  Allowing for freedom limits power and implies even greater vulnerability. 

What does all of this say to us about Jesus?  To be sure, Jesus heals and performs other signs of power, but he silences those he has healed, almost as if the act were one of shame.  But why?  A professional wonder worker should know how to milk the dramatic moment, but Jesus seems to keep undercutting the impact of his actions. 

How basic is this to Jesus’ ministry?  Well, the Gospel writer Mark never even uses the Greek word for “miracle” to describe even one of these events.  In fact he often portrays these episodes as doing more harm than good to Jesus’ mission.  They prohibit his ability to move freely throughout a town.  They raise the ire of the authorities.  They motivate people to focus only on satisfying their physical needs while ignoring their spiritual hunger.  And perhaps most important, if God is indeed primarily love offering relationship, then the miracles distort the true nature of God by focusing people’s attention on God’s power rather than on God’s love.

It is as if Jesus is trying to get us to shift our focus on these stories from what they say about his power to what they reveal about his love.  It is tempting to try to frame this love in nice, comforting, benign images… such as Jesus tending to the dainty needs of his wounded sheep.  But the narratives paint for us a very different picture.  Jesus does not heal from a distance, but in the most intimate ways imaginable.  He touches lepers and spits on the tongue of a deaf man.  In the eyes of his contemporaries, the very forms these healings take are both ritually polluting and physically disgusting.

When an important leader of a synagogue begs Jesus to heal his daughter, Jesus delays in order to tend to a nameless women suffering from menstrual hemorrhaging; thereby transgressing important cultural and religious taboos related to gender and status.  If the miracles are intended to show off power, it would have been better to emphasize raising from the dead the daughter of a local dignitary.  But since they are demonstrations of love, the healing of the anonymous woman provides an even more accurate rendering of God’s nature. 

Perhaps the healing stories confuse us because we focus on the outcome and lose sight of the risk, the vulnerability, and the love evidenced in and through them.  These stories point not to power, but to compassion.  The Greek word for compassion is used just 12 times in the Gospels and refers exclusively either to God or Jesus.  The root part of the word compassion is the same word used to describe the part of our anatomy we refer to as our “guts”… the place where we feel most intensely the physical symptoms of emotion.  One theologian says this:

…the Hebrew word for compassion… refers to the womb of Yahweh.  Indeed, compassion is such a deep, central, and powerful emotion in Jesus that it can only be described as a movement in the womb of God… When Jesus was moved to compassion, the source of all life trembled, the ground of all love burst open, and the abyss of God’s immense, inexhaustible, and unfathomable tenderness revealed itself.

My experience, both as a person and through my pastoral ministry, has been when a person comes before God demanding a cure, the outcome is uncertain.  A cure… the complete restoration of health… may happen or it may not.  When it happens the person may give credit to God… but somehow is never moved closer to God through it all.  But when a person opens him/herself to the immense, unfathomable love God risks to offer, some kind of healing always happens.  Keep in mind a healing is not always the same thing as a cure.  But to know God’s love for you is to be healed.  This I believe is the point of the healing stories.  They are invitations not so much to turn to God when we are in need of a physical cure, but to seek God in all times in order to be in a relationship of love.