I invite you to go to the Emmanuel YouTube channel to see this sermon delivered live at the 9:30 am service.
En el nombre de Dios, que nos ama, nos sana, nos valora y se conecta con nosotros...
In the name of God who loves us, heals us, values us and connects with us. Amen.
Our gospel today invites us to notice an important shift in divine action. In the chapters ahead of this gospel, Jesus is traveling around the region teaching, healing, and proclaiming the good news that the kingdom of God is at hand, right here – right now! The people were responding with so much joy and devotion that the religious leadership tried to claim Jesus was healing by the power of the evil one – not God.
Throughout his earthly ministry, Jesus demonstrated that our wholeness, our fullness of life, depends on connection – with God and one another. Science supports that.
I have been a vehicle for God’s healing power many times, affording me the privilege of witnessing God do miraculous physical and spiritual healing in people and in churches. When these healings happen, it isn’t because I did anything other than show up and let God work through me… and that’s the point: God is alive and at work as much today as when Jesus walked the earth, and every time we participate with God our lives and the lives of those we serve are transformed by the shared experience of the powerful love and presence of God drawing near. (Image source: StudioACE)
As we look at the last sentence in this gospel, we need to remember that Jesus is saying this at the beginning of their ministry – not the end of it. This is not an apocalyptic prediction. It’s a statement of their new reality as vessels of God in Christ’s healing power. As they go, they will become aware of the presence of the Spirit of Jesus, who is the Son of Man, coming to them and working through them.
Despite the religious leadership's best efforts, the people connected to Jesus in droves. Huge crowds were gathering to receive what he was giving: hope, healing, a sense of value, and connection.
Wherever he went, Jesus connected with the people he encountered, allowing himself to share the pain of their suffering – which is what compassion is. He got his hands dirty, touching the ritually unclean and the actually unclean. Then he healed them – sometimes in their body, but always in their hearts and souls, and restoring them to their communities.
In our gospel today, Jesus is taking the divine action already working through him in the world and shifting it to his disciples. The power to heal remains God’s alone, but now the disciples are also vessels through whom God’s healing power acts in the world. As one of our Bible studiers said, they can’t heal except by the Spirit of Jesus in them.
This a remarkable shift not just because of what is happening, but also because of when it happens. As we heard last week, Jesus has just finished calling his disciples, so this gospel story comes at the beginning of their ministry together.
Throughout his earthly ministry, Jesus demonstrated that our wholeness, our fullness of life, depends on connection – with God and one another. Science supports that.
In 2023, our then Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, reported that in the US, loneliness, that is, separation from one another and social community, adversely affects both our bodies and our society.
“[Loneliness], Dr. Murthy said, is associated with a greater risk of cardiovascular disease, dementia, stroke, depression, anxiety, and premature death... [As for] the harmful consequences [to our] society... [he says] we will continue to splinter and divide until we can no longer stand as a community or a country.”
Connection, on the other hand, is healing. I’ll never forget the day in 1987 when Princess Diana visited a
person with HIV/AIDS in the hospital and held his hand. No gloves. No masks. Two years later, she cradled and comforted a baby with HIV.
person with HIV/AIDS in the hospital and held his hand. No gloves. No masks. Two years later, she cradled and comforted a baby with HIV.
Her simple, loving, unguarded touch helped calm the storms of fear and fiction about the transmission of HIV/AIDS and showed the world what it looks like to love and serve everyone with dignity and compassion. Diana’s touch may not have healed their bodies, but it certainly healed their souls, and the souls of all those who suffered from being exiled, judged, and demeaned for what the world called their sin, and the souls of all of us who witnessed it.
The phrase our Scripture translates as “cure the sick” means more broadly: notice those who are weak, who need strength in body or spirit. Jesus’ instruction is to identify the powerless and bring them the power of God’s healing love, which we embody, saying to them, “the power of God, the realm of God has come near to you.”
St. Francis of Assisi once said, “We have been called to heal wounds, to unite what has fallen apart, and to bring home those who have lost their way.” If I could be so bold as to re-state what Francis said, I’d say: We have been called to be vehicles through whom God heals wounds, unites what has fallen apart, and brings home those who have lost their way.
It’s important to remember that the choice to be reconciled, to receive God’s healing love, always belongs to the person. If they choose not to accept it or to ignore or demean it, walk away, shake the dust from your feet, and leave the rest to God, whose steadfast love will continue to act to redeem beyond our efforts.
A short note on the Old Testament reference Jesus used in this gospel: Sodom and Gomorrah. What divided that community from God and one another was a failure of hospitality, of connection. Victorious soldiers raping vanquished men, women, and children was and is a common wartime practice. We also hear about it in prisons, detention centers, schools, and churches. Rape is about power, not sex - the coercive use of power by one person or group to force another into submission. That is the sin Jesus is referring to in this gospel.
Being a vessel of divine action is our vocation, our mission. Our Prayer Book tells us that the Church pursues its mission by prayer and worship, by proclaiming the Gospel, and by promoting justice, peace, and love... God’s justice, peace, and love - which are not the same as ours. (p. 855)
Human judgment seeks to separate, isolate, and punish sinners – a category of persons we define differently in each age and culture. God’s justice, revealed to us in Jesus, seeks to rescue, reclaim, and reconnect – which is what salvation means - all whom God created, just as God created them.
All of the categories that divide us were made up by us: gay, straight, non-binary, black, white, brown, alien, native, immigrant... We made them up because we feared what we didn’t understand. We feared that we might not survive or thrive unless we took more for ourselves, even though it meant there would be less for someone else. In order to do that without guilt, we had to dehumanize or demean them, make them less than the dominant “us.”
You can’t kill children unless you categorize them and choose which category you value and which you don’t: Jewish or Palestinian, alien or “illegal.” You can’t destroy clean water sources for people until you categorize those people as undeserving because of their country of origin.
Claiming God’s sanction on the divisive categories we create is a lie we perpetrate. That so many fall into lockstep with them reveals a truth about us as a people, not God.
Jesus sends the disciples out to serve as vessels of God’s loving, healing power, telling them to be “wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” It’s important to note that in ancient Israel, the serpent represented healing and divine power as well as temptation and chaos. This is how it was used in the creation story in Genesis, and as Moses' staff in the Book of Numbers.
(Image: the caduceus used in the US as a symbol for medicine, healthcare, hospitals, and pharmacies)
Being a vessel for divine power can devolve into a power trip unless we are innocent as well. To be innocent is to be pure in intent (meaning in line with the will of God), to be guileless, and to do no harm.
When you go, Jesus says, know that those with earthly power will try to stop you, and the status quo will be protected even by those who don’t benefit from it. You will be shocked by who will betray you, even those closest to you, but keep going. If they persecute you in one town, go to the next.
As we serve in our various ministries, it is the same Spirit, the Spirit of God in Christ, who acts through us, therefore we, too, must be wise as serpents and innocent as doves, so that faithful connections are made, no harm is done, and God is glorified by us. Then the people we serve will receive from us what Jesus was giving in his time: hope, healing, a sense of value, and connection.
Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment