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February 19, 2006
John Auer, Pastor
Scripture:
Isaiah 43:18-25, 2 Corinthians 1:18-22, Mark 2:1-12
“Forgiveness: Thanks to the Past, Yes to the Future!”
Singing “He Touched Me” in light of this week of Black History month just prior
to our annual Service of Transfiguration and Healing leads me to part of a poem
by Carolyn Rodgers –
i was not prepared for the Holy Ghost.
i was not prepared to be covered by the / blood of Jesus
i was not ready to be dipped in / the water . . . .
i could not drink the water turned wine.
and so i went back another day / trying to understand the mysteries
of mystical life the “intellectual” / purity of mystical light.
and that Sunday evening while I was / sitting there and the holy gospel choir
was singing / “oh oh oh oh somebody touched me” / somebody touched me.
and when I turned around to / see what it was whoever touched me wanted
my mother leaned over and whispered in my ear / “musta been the hand of the Lord”
Something happened and know I know, he touched me and made me whole – Musta been
the hand of the Lord! In the Black church you always know for sure you have
been to church! You think our service, our preacher, can be long and windy.
The Black church knows the Spirit may blow us all away any time, and we want to
be ready! Ready as we can possibly be. Annie Dillard says about church
– If only we knew, worship’s like handling dynamite! Ushers ought to strap
us down in our pews and issue us crash helmets! Church is about the power!
The power that moves us. The power that shakes us up.
We are not prepared for the Holy Ghost! To turn us upside-down and
inside-out. We are not prepared to be covered – absolved, exonerated,
complaints and charges dismissed – by the blood of Jesus! To be dipped in
the water, and then, the water turned into wine! We are not prepared.
We are not prepared to be touched! When I got to my second appointment to
a church in Chicago, only the men were being asked to serve communion.
They served the congregation seated in the pews. The first Sunday they
brought the elements back to the table, I gave them each a hug! You’d have
thought I invited them quail-hunting! It was the beginning of the end of
some of them serving communion. One of their spouses plaintively told me
later, we don’t even hug at home!
Again. It’s not that we have to do everything we
are free to do just because we can do it. That’s a hard lesson for such a
self-proclaimed “free” people as we. So I do not insist upon hugging. But I
predict, if we come to church often enough, and bring with us all of who we are,
and do not leave any part of ourselves at the door, and offer ourselves
completely in worship and healing to God – then, sooner or later, one way or
another, I guarantee it – Somebody’s going to touch us! And when we turn around
to see what whoever touched us wanted, somebody’s more experienced mother is
going to lean over and whisper to us, “musta been the hand of the Lord!” Musta
been the hand of the Lord.
When Ronald Reagan was president, I heard him on the radio, congratulating a woman
who had just turned 110 years old, I think. She happened to be a Black woman
from the deep South. When the president asked her what he could do to live
that long himself, she answered, in her dialect and her drawl, “Youcain’tdoit, Gawdgottadoit!”
President Reagan said, “Beg your pardon?” “Youcain’tdoit, Gawdgottadoit!”
The president asked her again what she said. He just wasn’t getting it.
She was saying, “You can’t do it, God’s got to do it!” A word we could stand
for more of our presidents (our bishops and all of our CEOs) to hear.
For that is the word about healing, forgiving, restoring this morning. We
can’t do it. God’s got to do it. We offer to help God all that we
can. We share, as we are able, in all that God is doing. We are
co-creators and partners with God, as we are with one another and with all of
the children of God. We may even try to point out to God a little of what
needs to be done as we see it. But God’s got to do it! The good news
especially in these texts this morning is, That is the very nature of God!
That is who God as Jesus knows God really is! God is lover, healer,
forgiver, restorer to right relations of every description! So let us get
out of the way! And let us let God be God of our lives, and our life
together!
We hear Isaiah proclaim of this God, “I am about to do a new thing!” Elsewhere
God puts it, “Behold! I am making all things new!” This God is a new-maker,
an innovator, an upender and an upsetter of things as they have been –especially
as things have been failing to bring forth life and love, justice and peace.
This God tells Moses only, “I will be who I will be!” Ours is not always
to reason why. Ours is simply to follow and die! To lay down our
lives for the other in whom God always is present and calling to us!
According to Isaiah, this God says “thanks” to every past, and “yes” to every
future! This God says “yes” to us now in every last way that God can!
Sometimes, like the Ten Commandments, we divide into those who hear God say
“no,” and those who hear God say “yes!”
And it is true, as earliest Methodist John Wesley reminds us, we have got to stop
doing our harm before we can start doing our good. But I was impressed at
what Margot Chappel said as in-service training with our Sunday School teachers
last week. If we say “yes” to our children, our students, each other –
even to our community, to strangers, to other nations – as much as we possibly
can, then when we have to say “no,” we are much more likely to be heard and be
taken seriously. Margot suggested, and so did the preacher at the mosque
we visited Friday, that God is much more about “guidance” than about
“punishment.” God does not give up on us, on any one of us. So long
as there is life, with God there is hope. Not only hope after death, but
true life and true hope before death! Life and hope here, life and hope
now. Whatever the bondage or prison of our own lives may be, God knows
we’re coming out someday! God is there to guide us.
God’s dealings with us in Christ, says Paul, are never both “yes and no.”
God never gives in to our need to “dualize” everyone – good and evil, weak and strong,
black and white, saved and damned, whatever. God rejects our need to separate
and to label, to divide and to conquer, to see us all this way or all that.
Christ is God’s yes to creation itself, God’s yes to each and every last one of
us creatures – all persons, all peoples, all creatures, all things. Christ
is God’s lens grace and mercy, life and love, justice and peace -- through whom
all things are seen, all things are known and revealed as they truly are.
Christ is our all-in-all! Christ is God’s yes to us, and we, even we, a body
of Christ, a congregation with all that says about us – even we are God’s yes to
all others! Starting right where we are. Blooming right where God has
planted us – at the corner of First and West. God’s gives us resources to
offer – prayer, healing, worship, study, witness, action, money, space, time and
talent – that no one else has to offer quite in the way that we do! That’s
part of what our “Spring Fling” is about!
Mark shows us here, the newness of God may have to bust through a few roofs to
get into our lives! We have to choose – Will we be more concerned with any
damage to our roof than we are with the breakthrough of God? Remember how
some say the glass is half-empty, some say the glass is half-full, and some say,
Who drank my damned water? That’s the church! Who busted our roof?
Being the church according to Jesus may get very messy! God may have to
tear down a few walls, cross a few barriers, bridge a few gaps. God may
even have to overcome a few stereotypes and rescue a few scapegoats.
But God has been known to do so – is that right? God has been known to
respond – even in the midst of worship and preaching, teaching and healing – to
the faith of such friends as bring this man in through the roof! Such
friends as find the audacity, even the arrogance, to crash through and to
interrupt Jesus at work in perhaps in his very own home! Such compassion,
such solidarity, such resistance to norms, and such refusal to take no for an
answer to our need for healing and wholeness – this gets the attention, this
makes an impression on Jesus! We acknowledge, when we think about those
whom we send into combat for us, or for our leaders, that they may routinely
perform with such acts of daring devotion as this. How to put such
dedication to work for justice and peace??
Some say this crowd in this scene is the church – the church on the inside that
so surrounds and so protects Jesus as to cut him off from all on the outside!
The church so routine, even so rigid in ways of worship and fellowship that without
even noticing, much less intending, we force those who need Jesus most to find the
least likely way in -- if at all! No wonder Jesus is struck by these remarkable
friends – that they should care so much to bring the outsider in! Even to
church! In the midst of the service! Perhaps even right in the midst
of the anthem! The word with children! Prayer time or offering time!
Or, God forbid, right in the midst of the sermon!! That they should care so
much to bring in this paralyzed one, this rejected and ostracized one, condemned
for his own condition – This one who undoubtedly always has said of the church,
there is no room for me there! I am beyond life and hope, I am
beyond love and help. I am beyond healing and wholeness, liberation and
restoration to right relations.
I’m thinking of Jonathan Boyd here, as the one in such need, and of Boonie and Chris,
as the ones who let Jonathan come so completely into their lives and their life
together. Just imagine their trip to Bisbee as a metaphor of this gospel –
Saying each mile of the way, Don’t worry! It’ll be all right! We’re
going to make it! We’re going to get you to Jesus! Even if we have to
break into church! Somebody’s going to touch you! To heal you and make
you whole! And see how Jesus receives him -- no matter how rudely Jesus has
been interrupted. “Your sins are forgiven!” Jonathan, friend, family
member, work colleague, congregation, nation, yes – even enemy, so-called “terrorist”
–
Does Jesus ask what the sins are? Does Jesus evaluate them and rank them?
Does Jesus assign any measure of penance, or even know if this man repents?
Does Jesus even care? About anything other than saving? Anything other
than healing? Anything other than setting us free from every oppression?
Making us whole from every separation? Let’s sing it again –
Shackled by a heaven burden! Neath a load of guilt and shame!
Then the hand of Jesus touched me! And now I am no longer the same!
He touched me! O he touched me! And O the joy that floods my soul!
Something happened, and now I know! He touched me and made me whole!
And let the whole people of God say, Amen!
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