“Be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.” James 1:22
Our September lectionary readings have ended their detour into John’s Gospel, to return to the Gospel of Mark. In our readings from Mark chapters 7-9, we see Jesus during some key transitions in His earthly ministry – rejection of the Pharisees’ “tradition of the elders,” an expanding mission to the Gentiles, and discussion of Jesus’ identity and impending death.
Our September Epistle readings come from the letter attributed to James, the brother of Jesus, who was leader of the followers of Jesus at Jerusalem. The Epistle of James offers a wealth of advice on practical Christian living, and provides a corrective to overly “spiritualized” interpretations of Paul’s writings about “salvation by grace through faith alone.”
An old sermon illustration may provide some insight into the Epistle of James. A spectator at the circus was approached by one of the performers, whose “act” was riding a bicycle for two across a tightrope. The performer asked the spectator, “Do you believe I can carry you across this tightrope?” The spectator, wanting to be polite, said, “Yeah, sure.” The performer responded, “Then climb on board!”
As Christians we profess faith in Jesus. Is our faith only a matter of intellectual assent, a “head trip” with no practical effect on our daily lives. James reminds us, “You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe, and shudder.” (James 2:19) Or is our faith such that we will stake our lives on it? In our faith life, are we spectators or performers.
Jesus invites us on a lifelong journey of discipleship. There will be hazards and times of great danger. Sometimes it will feel like we’re riding a bicycle across a tightrope, not daring to look down. And we will make this precarious journey bearing the weight of the cross of discipleship. But we are promised great reward if we remain faithful.
Do you have faith? Then climb on board!
Showing posts with label Faith. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Faith. Show all posts
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Persisting in Faith
The Gospel for June 28 (Mark 5) builds on the theme of the miracles of Jesus that we began last week with Jesus calming the storm. In today’s healing of Jairus’ daughter and the woman with the hemorrhage, Jesus heals not only physical disease, but also social ostracism.
Last week, we watched Jesus calm the storm while he was crossing the Sea of Galilee. He was crossing from the Jewish side of the sea – the area where his community of faith lived – to the Gentile side, where non-Jews lived. On the Gentile side of the Sea of Galilee, Jesus healed the demon-possessed man who lived among the tombs – and greatly upset some pig farmers whose livestock ran wild off a cliff. He then re-crossed the Sea of Galilee back into Jewish territory. By including all this crossing and recrossing in the story, Mark is making a point – not subtly either, but practically highlighting and underlining it and drawing arrows around it – that Jesus’ ministry was to both Jews and Gentiles. The culture of the time dictated strict boundaries between Jew and Gentile, but Jesus crossed those boundaries repeatedly – literally crossed them by sailing back and forth from the Jewish to the Gentile communities that were divided by the Sea of Galilee. We’ll see him crossing other boundaries in today’s Gospel.
Anyway….so Jesus is back on the Jewish side of the Sea of Galilee, back in familiar territory. He’s accosted by Jairus, leader of the local synagogue. Jesus was already drawing negative attention from many of the religious leaders, so Jairus was risking his standing in the community by approaching him –but his 12-year old daughter is dying, and he’s desperate, so he’s willing to put his reputation aside to save his little girl. Desperation has forced Jairus out of his comfort zone. And so Jesus begins the walk to Jairus’s house, with a crowd gathering as he proceeded.
On the way, Jesus is quietly approached by another desperate woman, one who has been afflicted with continual hemorrhages for 12 years. We’re told that she spent everything she had on physicians, but was worse rather than better for the effort. Imagine how exhausted and drained this woman would have felt after having been ill for so long. Remember that according to the purity guidelines of the day, she would have been considered ritually unclean – by the guidelines, should have been isolated from the rest of society - and would have ritually contaminated everyone she inadvertently bumped into as the crowd jostled its way along. Given her status, obviously she did not want to draw attention to herself. “If I can just touch his clothes, I’ll be healed,” she thinks. So she touched his cloak, and was healed immediately. Jesus felt healing power going forth from him, and asked, “who touched me.” The disciples responded “what do you mean, ‘who touched you’; the whole crowd is jostling against you.” But the woman approached him in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told Jesus what she’d done. Jesus took the time to face her and say, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.” And she was healed, not only of her physical illness, but of the ritual uncleanness and isolation that had come with it. It was a holy interruption to Jesus’ journey, a holy interruption that forever changed the course of this woman’s life.
Good for the woman. At first glance, not so good for Jairus. While all this is going on, he tries to maintain his composure while becoming more and more frantic for Jesus to get to his home and heal his daughter. And then messengers come from Jairus’ house with the dread words, “Too late! She’s dead.” In his frantic effort to seek healing from Jesus, he had apparently missed the last, precious moments of his daughter’s life, had been away from her bedside during her last conscious moments.
In the midst of Jairus’ grief, Jesus responds with what one writer called his shortest sermon – “Do not fear. Only believe.” They arrived at the house, where the hired mourners are holding forth. Jesus asks why all the commotion: the little girl is not dead, but sleeping. The mourning turns to bitter laughter, and so the paid mourners are put outside. In the presence of Peter, James and John, Jesus calls to the little girl, “Little girl, get up.” The girl begins to blink her eyes and look around, and Jesus asks the family to get her something to eat.
Two women, nearly cut off from community by illness. Two desperate seekers for healing. In both cases Jairus and the anonymous woman crossed boundaries of ritual purity to reach Jesus, Jesus crossed boundaries of the ritual purity laws in order to heal each woman, and in both cases the healed women were restored to their communities. In these stories, healing is not just the removal of illness, but the wholistic restoration of wellness and right relationship in all aspects of life.
There are a number of ways of looking at this Gospel. One of the more traditional is to lift up the persistence of each of these seekers. Both had to go out way of their comfort zones to seek after Jesus; both had to overcome significant obstacles and great discouragement in their respective quests for healing. In effect, both through faith sought a “way out of no way,” sought the proverbial window of faith that opens when all doors have been slammed shut. Both refused to let those around them discourage them – remember the crowds that blocked the woman from easy access to Jesus, and the hired mourners who laughed at Jesus - and both were rewarded for their faith.
The difficulty comes when we think our prayers can control God – if we just pray enough, or fast enough, or believe enough, or tithe enough, God will give us the desire of our hearts. This mindset very nearly reduces faith to a commercial transaction – God, I’ll send up x number of prayers, and you’ll send down our heart’s desire. At the bottom of this type of thinking is fear, fear that God really doesn’t desire our good, fear that God needs to be bribed somehow by our prayers to act. Yet Jesus said, “Fear not; only believe.”
Along with the lesson of persistent faith, this Gospel teaches that God is always in control. Faced with Jairus’ request, Jesus moved with steadfast purpose. The anonymous woman’s interruption provided another opportunity to glorify God, but it did not deflect Jesus from his original purpose. Faced with the desperate anxiety of Jairus, the curiosity of the crowds, the perplexity of the disciples, the mockery of the professional mourners, and the apparently hopeless state of Jairus’ daughter, Jesus moved forward with purposeful, unhurried steps. And so it is with God’s response to our prayers. I believe God answers all prayer – sometimes yes, sometimes “not yet”, often, “no, but here’s something better.” God can see past our limited vision, the advertising and culture-induced wants that masquerade as needs, our sin that prompts us to ask for that which would hurt us, in order to give us what we truly need.
Jesus told Jairus – and tells us – do not fear; only believe. Fear not, though the wind and waves may come. Fear not, though life’s circumstances may leave us feeling depleted and alone. Fear not, though it seems all our efforts have come to naught, and our journey of faith has brought us to a dead end. Fear not. God has not left the building – indeed, God is waiting to do amazing things still, if we’ll get out of the way with our need for control. Despite all appearances, it is the God who loves us and loves our neighbors who is in control. Fear not. Only believe.
Last week, we watched Jesus calm the storm while he was crossing the Sea of Galilee. He was crossing from the Jewish side of the sea – the area where his community of faith lived – to the Gentile side, where non-Jews lived. On the Gentile side of the Sea of Galilee, Jesus healed the demon-possessed man who lived among the tombs – and greatly upset some pig farmers whose livestock ran wild off a cliff. He then re-crossed the Sea of Galilee back into Jewish territory. By including all this crossing and recrossing in the story, Mark is making a point – not subtly either, but practically highlighting and underlining it and drawing arrows around it – that Jesus’ ministry was to both Jews and Gentiles. The culture of the time dictated strict boundaries between Jew and Gentile, but Jesus crossed those boundaries repeatedly – literally crossed them by sailing back and forth from the Jewish to the Gentile communities that were divided by the Sea of Galilee. We’ll see him crossing other boundaries in today’s Gospel.
Anyway….so Jesus is back on the Jewish side of the Sea of Galilee, back in familiar territory. He’s accosted by Jairus, leader of the local synagogue. Jesus was already drawing negative attention from many of the religious leaders, so Jairus was risking his standing in the community by approaching him –but his 12-year old daughter is dying, and he’s desperate, so he’s willing to put his reputation aside to save his little girl. Desperation has forced Jairus out of his comfort zone. And so Jesus begins the walk to Jairus’s house, with a crowd gathering as he proceeded.
On the way, Jesus is quietly approached by another desperate woman, one who has been afflicted with continual hemorrhages for 12 years. We’re told that she spent everything she had on physicians, but was worse rather than better for the effort. Imagine how exhausted and drained this woman would have felt after having been ill for so long. Remember that according to the purity guidelines of the day, she would have been considered ritually unclean – by the guidelines, should have been isolated from the rest of society - and would have ritually contaminated everyone she inadvertently bumped into as the crowd jostled its way along. Given her status, obviously she did not want to draw attention to herself. “If I can just touch his clothes, I’ll be healed,” she thinks. So she touched his cloak, and was healed immediately. Jesus felt healing power going forth from him, and asked, “who touched me.” The disciples responded “what do you mean, ‘who touched you’; the whole crowd is jostling against you.” But the woman approached him in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told Jesus what she’d done. Jesus took the time to face her and say, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.” And she was healed, not only of her physical illness, but of the ritual uncleanness and isolation that had come with it. It was a holy interruption to Jesus’ journey, a holy interruption that forever changed the course of this woman’s life.
Good for the woman. At first glance, not so good for Jairus. While all this is going on, he tries to maintain his composure while becoming more and more frantic for Jesus to get to his home and heal his daughter. And then messengers come from Jairus’ house with the dread words, “Too late! She’s dead.” In his frantic effort to seek healing from Jesus, he had apparently missed the last, precious moments of his daughter’s life, had been away from her bedside during her last conscious moments.
In the midst of Jairus’ grief, Jesus responds with what one writer called his shortest sermon – “Do not fear. Only believe.” They arrived at the house, where the hired mourners are holding forth. Jesus asks why all the commotion: the little girl is not dead, but sleeping. The mourning turns to bitter laughter, and so the paid mourners are put outside. In the presence of Peter, James and John, Jesus calls to the little girl, “Little girl, get up.” The girl begins to blink her eyes and look around, and Jesus asks the family to get her something to eat.
Two women, nearly cut off from community by illness. Two desperate seekers for healing. In both cases Jairus and the anonymous woman crossed boundaries of ritual purity to reach Jesus, Jesus crossed boundaries of the ritual purity laws in order to heal each woman, and in both cases the healed women were restored to their communities. In these stories, healing is not just the removal of illness, but the wholistic restoration of wellness and right relationship in all aspects of life.
There are a number of ways of looking at this Gospel. One of the more traditional is to lift up the persistence of each of these seekers. Both had to go out way of their comfort zones to seek after Jesus; both had to overcome significant obstacles and great discouragement in their respective quests for healing. In effect, both through faith sought a “way out of no way,” sought the proverbial window of faith that opens when all doors have been slammed shut. Both refused to let those around them discourage them – remember the crowds that blocked the woman from easy access to Jesus, and the hired mourners who laughed at Jesus - and both were rewarded for their faith.
The difficulty comes when we think our prayers can control God – if we just pray enough, or fast enough, or believe enough, or tithe enough, God will give us the desire of our hearts. This mindset very nearly reduces faith to a commercial transaction – God, I’ll send up x number of prayers, and you’ll send down our heart’s desire. At the bottom of this type of thinking is fear, fear that God really doesn’t desire our good, fear that God needs to be bribed somehow by our prayers to act. Yet Jesus said, “Fear not; only believe.”
Along with the lesson of persistent faith, this Gospel teaches that God is always in control. Faced with Jairus’ request, Jesus moved with steadfast purpose. The anonymous woman’s interruption provided another opportunity to glorify God, but it did not deflect Jesus from his original purpose. Faced with the desperate anxiety of Jairus, the curiosity of the crowds, the perplexity of the disciples, the mockery of the professional mourners, and the apparently hopeless state of Jairus’ daughter, Jesus moved forward with purposeful, unhurried steps. And so it is with God’s response to our prayers. I believe God answers all prayer – sometimes yes, sometimes “not yet”, often, “no, but here’s something better.” God can see past our limited vision, the advertising and culture-induced wants that masquerade as needs, our sin that prompts us to ask for that which would hurt us, in order to give us what we truly need.
Jesus told Jairus – and tells us – do not fear; only believe. Fear not, though the wind and waves may come. Fear not, though life’s circumstances may leave us feeling depleted and alone. Fear not, though it seems all our efforts have come to naught, and our journey of faith has brought us to a dead end. Fear not. God has not left the building – indeed, God is waiting to do amazing things still, if we’ll get out of the way with our need for control. Despite all appearances, it is the God who loves us and loves our neighbors who is in control. Fear not. Only believe.
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Wings
Today’s Old Testament reading from Isaiah 40 says, in part, “Those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk, and not faint.” Today’s Gospel (Mark 1:29-39) gives us one of Jesus’ secrets for how he was able to deal with the demands of the crowds who came to him for healing and help. Mark 1:35 says, “In the morning, while it was still very dark, [Jesus] got up and went to a deserted place, and there he prayed.” For Jesus to help those who came to him, he needed regular quality time in prayer to God.
Communities of religious – monks, nuns – maintain a balance between prayer and work, or in Latin, ora et labora. Both are necessary for spiritual balance and growth. They drew this model from the life of Jesus, who would periodically draw away from the crowds to draw near God in prayer. Both are needed – constant activity that’s not spiritually grounded can run itself into the ground with exhaustion; constant meditation exclusive of service can easily become a head trip, pie in the sky fantasy and self-indulgence. We might think of the two arms of the cross, the vertical and the horizontal. True connection with God – true vertical connection – will inevitably lead us to make a true horizontal connection with neighbor. Ora provides the grounding for labora.
At a time when I was feeling burned-out by work and church demands, I went to a conference sponsored by my denomination. The keynote speaker told the story of her conversation with a volunteer who complained of feeling burned out. The keynote speaker told the volunteer, “You’re not burned out. You haven’t even caught fire yet.”
The way to catch fire and keep the flame burning bright is to go regularly to God in prayer. Prayer is how we keep our ears open and pay attention to the direction in which God is calling us. Prayer is how we keep our eyes open to catch the vision of how our individual lives and the life of Emanuel Church fit into the larger life of the Kingdom of God. Like Jesus, we must come away from the crowds and our workaday lives, to spend time in prayer with God. Empowered by God in prayer, we, like Jesus, can then return to the crowds and our daily tasks, can go back to our places of ministry renewed, refreshed, and ready to soar with wings like eagles as we serve our loving God.
Communities of religious – monks, nuns – maintain a balance between prayer and work, or in Latin, ora et labora. Both are necessary for spiritual balance and growth. They drew this model from the life of Jesus, who would periodically draw away from the crowds to draw near God in prayer. Both are needed – constant activity that’s not spiritually grounded can run itself into the ground with exhaustion; constant meditation exclusive of service can easily become a head trip, pie in the sky fantasy and self-indulgence. We might think of the two arms of the cross, the vertical and the horizontal. True connection with God – true vertical connection – will inevitably lead us to make a true horizontal connection with neighbor. Ora provides the grounding for labora.
At a time when I was feeling burned-out by work and church demands, I went to a conference sponsored by my denomination. The keynote speaker told the story of her conversation with a volunteer who complained of feeling burned out. The keynote speaker told the volunteer, “You’re not burned out. You haven’t even caught fire yet.”
The way to catch fire and keep the flame burning bright is to go regularly to God in prayer. Prayer is how we keep our ears open and pay attention to the direction in which God is calling us. Prayer is how we keep our eyes open to catch the vision of how our individual lives and the life of Emanuel Church fit into the larger life of the Kingdom of God. Like Jesus, we must come away from the crowds and our workaday lives, to spend time in prayer with God. Empowered by God in prayer, we, like Jesus, can then return to the crowds and our daily tasks, can go back to our places of ministry renewed, refreshed, and ready to soar with wings like eagles as we serve our loving God.
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