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“Free Working Radars”
Jeremiah 1:4-10; Psalm 71:1-6; Hebrews 12:18-29; Luke 13:10-17
Rev. Sandy Nuernberg
Oakland-Cambridge Presbyterian Church, Cambridge, WI
21st Sunday in Ordinary Time -
Youth in the Church & World Sunday
August 26, 2007
Please pray with me, O
God, as you have made us a great nation and people on earth, and we are
blessed, pour out your Holy Spirit on our flesh, that we are not bent over,
BUT that your old ones will dream dreams, and your young ones shall see
visions, and your sons and daughters shall prophesy. AMEN.
Sometimes, I think the media, television, magazines, newspapers, and yes,
the Internet, might follow our Christian lectionary texts! This week is a
case-in-point; our scriptures in Luke and Hebrews are of the power of God’s
healing love revealed by Jesus Christ in our lives. God is always with us.
Deeper, though, in reflecting and pondering our texts theologically, is the
theme of our not refusing God’s speaking to us, and God’s offer in calling each
of us to be set free in bearing witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
For many of us, it seems that
healing stories in scripture are hard to understand and accept in today’s world.
Really, for me, the text in Luke is much deeper for our thinking than a woman
healed of her ailment. It is about our awakening from a darkness to new life; a
sending, a listening and receiving of God’s word, a kind of working radar and
our acceptance of the outcome, whatever that might be for us. We are
misunderstanding this text in Luke if we expect that in our not being cured, in
our not being healed, in our thinking we are doing something wrong, there is no
God, or that Jesus does not love us. Our God is not a God of magical results,
but a God of steadfast love setting us free, always with us; all we need do is
not escape or refuse our God who is speaking to us, as Hebrews tells us..
I’ve read and seen in the media,
as have some of you, the articles and pictures of Mother Teresa, or the “Saint
of the Gutters,” her missions to the poor, now deceased ten years, and those
wishing for her recognition to sainthood. But what caught my ear and eye was the
similarity of this physical image in Luke, ‘a woman with a spirit that had
crippled her for eighteen years, bent over, unable to stand up straight
(v. 11),’ and Mother Teresa. Remember her,
short in stature, in sandals and blue/white sari getting her Nobel Prize in 1979
in the winter cold in Oslo, Norway? She was a woman in the ‘spirit’ for more
than sixty years in the slums of Calcutta, a world where her work was to be her
fame.
In our text, Jesus, seeing the
woman, we don’t know her name, brought her to him and spoke to her; “Woman, you
are set free (KJV; loosed ) from
your ailment.” And she stood up and praised God! Jesus’ healing in loving words
reveals Jesus’ nature at work anytime, not just the Sabbath. Yes, it is an
immediate healing by Jesus’ words; yet, we also know that in Jesus’ day persons
were thought to have demons in their illness, literally Satan in them. They
lived long lives with ailments, and disease, and minds that were not right. They
lived in spiritual darkness then, just as many do today; depression, loneliness,
bitterness.
Today, we know of Mother Teresa‘s
healing power in her calling; her presence and words, her love and compassion
for others in those many lives whom she touched. In her inner life and against
Mother Teresa’s will and wishes, however, perhaps because of her own spiritual
darkness, even in spite of it, her church has provided information, letters,
comments published in a book, Mother Teresa, Come Be My Light,
(Doubleday, 2007), where she admits, in more than forty correspondences,
not experiencing the presence of God in her life. She actually lived in
‘spiritual pain’, in loneliness, darkness, and torture, she says, and had a
smile to mask her real self. She said, “If you were there you would have said,
‘What hypocrisy!’” Sounds like our text, huh?
Jesus calls his church officials
that come and question his healing on the Sabbath, ‘ you hypocrites,’ and
reminds them that, contrary to the law and rules of the day, even they take care
of their animals; wow, perhaps could they find it in their hearts to be kind,
welcoming to the woman as well? We do know today, if we were honest with
ourselves, we expect immediate healing; if we are diagnosed with cancer, broken
in depression, experience a sudden death of a loved one, need a pastor or doctor
on a Sunday or in the night, or receive a disappointment we can’t overcome, we
want Jesus’ hand placed upon us and to be cured; we aren’t willing to wait in
time. As time passes we feel stuck, NOT free!
Yet I believe it to be more
gradual in the idea of Jesus’ healing, for the woman, for Mother Teresa, and for
us today. The woman came to the synagogue to hear Jesus’ Word of God, his
teachings; Mother Teresa came to the ghettos of Calcutta to be a teaching
missionary for more than sixty years (1948-97).
When asked of me, I tell those inquiring, my call to ministry was gradual, even
if they don’t see the color of my hair!
We are called to come as disciples
of Christ and to speak and to act in accordance to God’s teachings, as the
beautiful text of Hebrews tells us, “See that you do not refuse the one who is
speaking (v. 25).” The specific image
here is of our God as a consuming fire, not like Mt. Sinai where Moses was
blinded by the blazing fire and if touched it brought death, but by the heavenly
kingdom that can not be shaken (Mt. Zion),
to give thanks and to offer God our reverence and awe. God is the living God,
judge of all, and speaks that we might not refuse but accept God’s calling of
us.
After the General Assembly of our
denomination, the PC(USA) had met last summer in Birmingham, Ala., the
Covenant Network annual convention met in Columbus, Ohio in the fall
(Nov. 10, 2006). They discussed living in
these days in what we are called to be and do as the church. Cynthia Campbell,
President of McCormick Theological Seminary who was here just one year ago at
our church, said at this conference, one way we demonstrate the gospel of God’s
love for all of creation is by our commitment to unity and community and
fellowship. She also said that many contend in today’s world that our religion
in general and Christianity in particular, are forces for division, destruction,
and evil.(http://covenantnetwork.org/sermon&papers/Campbell-Nave.htm)
I simplify it more in something a dear pastor friend told me long ago,
“Christianity is wonderful if it were not for the Christians!”
At this convention, Doug Nave, a
member of 5th Presbyterian Church in New York City, was with Cynthia
talking about the unity of the church. He caught my attention though when he
said that as a lawyer, he got to bring things down to a level of understanding
for us, specifically our understanding of the Theological Task Force’s report on
Peace, Unity, and Purity, that report of almost five years of work. What he said
was that in our understanding of this report and the ‘forgotten four’
recommendations; we stay together, build community together, find common ground
in our nature of faith and the role of Christ in our lives, and pursuing
dialogue in joint discernment together, we must figure out how to be ‘working
radars.’
Instead of being a community of
believers in one another, he admits we get in rooms for debates and holler at
each other and become dysfunctional radar, sending signals or transmitting
disgust, but not very many of our radars are receiving any information of trust
and love and hope. It reminded me of our individual calling, for sure. We must
ask ourselves, who are we and what is the purpose of our lives, what is Christ’
purpose in us for our lives?
As God has set us free in our
creation, our baptism, our life in Christ, the gospel for us is that we realize
God calls us just as those before: Abraham, Moses, Jacob, Joseph, Jeremiah,
Samuel, Saul, David, Paul, and us, ALL in their/our weaknesses. God, in
creation, consecration, and calling, sends us forth in God’s image: to be the
embodiment of Christ, as we are shaped, molded into the work of the Holy Spirit,
what God intends us to become. As Children of God, we are spoken to, all we need
do is listen.
We are set free, we need be
working radars, transmitting and receiving the love of Christ in plucking up,
pulling down, and building to plant. Our God is a consuming fire, and in that
Spirit a God who leads us in life and where we receive a heavenly kingdom that
cannot be shaken. How are we set free? The word of God is healing for us, like
the woman bent-over and set free; the genuine love and compassion for each
other, like Mother Teresa, sets us free; we as the community of believers in our
churches in unity, community, and fellowship, are acting as instruments of the
Holy Spirit in helping to set ourselves and others free. Let it be so.
Thanks be to
God. AMEN.
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