The concept of this sermon is heavily extracted from “The Lectionary Lab” for Proper 5, Yr C . Direct Quotations are marked by brackets.(http://lectionarylab.blogspot.com)
+A friend posted a cartoon on Facebook this week:
On top was a banner reading: As a disciple it wasn’t easy to sneak away from Jesus for a day of golf.
Below that was a drawing of the disciple saying to Jesus. “can’t join you today, boss, I’ve got a cold.” Jesus, looking sufficiently disgusted replies, “You’re healed.”
Jesus, as a few middle-schoolers I know so aptly stated, had some “MAD healing powers” and in today’s Gospel he performs the ultimate healing by reviving a corpse.
Two of today’s readings deal with returns from the dead. Outrageous, unbelievable, fantastic stories of people being brought back to life through the power of God. Both stories also have a widow, an only son and an act of utter compassion by a prophet, a “person of God.”
As I mentioned in my Thursday email blast, I’ve struggled with what seems to be the randomness with which Jesus offers healing. Whenever one of these stories comes up in the lectionary I wonder how these seemingly arbitrary healings affect those of us who’ve lost loved ones to disease. Why are some healed and not others?
And then it hit me--on just about every occasion, [Jesus is attracted to the person in need of help and in spite of all cultural norms, reaches out for them. It’s as if he can’t help himself. As one commentator puts it:
Throughout his ministry, opportunities for healings came to Jesus, but he didn’t go looking for them. Every time he worked a miracle it happened because of those three little words: “he had compassion.”
Time after time in the Gospels, Jesus’ compassion and love spills over and he breaks all sorts of rules and does a miracle for someone in need.]
But again, why only some? Why not all?
Well, if we reflect on the beginning of Jesus’ ministry there’s a clue:
[After his Baptism, the Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by the Devil. One of his struggles was to resist the temptation to use his powers to fix the world’s physical problems; represented by turning stone into bread to feed the world.
There in the wilderness, Jesus realized that fixing every human hurt was not his mission; indeed that miracle working and signs and wonders would be a diversion from his primary calling; which was to proclaim the Kingdom of God.] So, he purposely held in his power, restrained himself so that we, his followers, wouldn’t just stand on the sidelines but jump in and being moved to compassion like he was, get involved and make a difference in the world. He doesn’t want us to look at him as some kind of magic maker, he wants us to look at him as a difference maker. And then he wants us learn from him and follow in his footsteps. For Jesus, I think, his ministry wasn’t about how many people he could help as much as it was about how many people he could change.
[This is why he often told people, after he’d healed them, “all right now don’t TELL ANYONE I did this, ok?” Scholars call this the Messianic Secret]…that somehow Jesus thought he could keep his identity as the Messiah from going viral. You see Jesus did not want people following him for what they could get out of it, for the supposed material benefits of being “Jesus people,” instead, Jesus really wanted people to get excited about giving their life to God, about being committed to peace and love and justice.
Jesus wants us to take charge and bring peace to this earth by following his lead, by living a life of love and light and hope. Jesus was afraid that miracle-working and faith-healing would get in the way of us realizing that the way to bring the Kingdom of God to this world will be accomplished by God through US, not by God alone. For that is God’s purpose in living among us as one of us, isn’t it? That we partner with God, that we act as God’s hands and feet, eyes and ears right here on earth.
To do this, we must believe, we must have faith. Yet, sadly, the world is full of people who don’t accept or believe that God is love, that God is forgiving, that God is merciful, that God is kind. Too many people in this world believe instead that God is eager to punish us.
In today’s reading about Elijah, the woman assumes he’s been sent by God to punish her: “What’s gone wrong between us, man of God? Have you come to me to call attention to my sin and kill my son?”
And in the Gospel, after Jesus has performed his miracle the crowd’s immediate response is to be afraid -- the text says “Fear seized all of them . . .”
[We live in a world full of fear. People are afraid of terrorism,] of losing their jobs, of illness, of hurricanes, tornadoes, forest fires, building collapses and a rotting infrastructure. We’re afraid. Very afraid.
And in the midst of this all, there are people who are afraid of God, people who believe that God is indifferent to the human plight, people who believe there is no God to help us.
[In this bog of sadness, sorrow and unbelief we’re called to be like Jesus and break the world’s rules and sometimes our own in order to shatter this cycle of fear and violence with words and deeds of compassion and healing.] For when we do that, instead of watching the mad healing powers of this man of God, this man who is God from the sidelines, we get into the game, and become Christ’s body in this world. The ministry of Jesus, the ministry which is the legacy Jesus has left for us is not nor shall it ever be, a spectator sport. +
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