For Nothing in Return (Luke 6:27-38)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on February 24, 2019, Seventh Sunday after Epiphany)

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Balancing the Accounts

Growing up, I learned to love a good deal.  From the stories I’m told, this trait traces back to my grandfather, who after living through the Depression would buy bulk quantities of whatever was on sale at the grocery store and then stockpile them in his basement.  My family didn’t have a basement, so there was no room for stockpiling.  But my dad still loved a good deal.  I remember many an impromptu turnoff to Big Lots on our road trips.  And when I began my student internship here at Gayton Road Christian Church, I think any reservations he might have had concerning my departure from the Baptist church were quickly assuaged by the church’s prime location behind a Dollar Tree and across from an Ollie’s.  He is, of course, a member of Ollie’s Army.

According to today’s scripture, it’s not just my grandpa or dad who loves a good deal.  It’s all of us.  Today’s scripture is all about giving and getting.  Jesus makes it clear that we all love a good deal.  We all love to give as good as we get, and get back for whatever we give. 

Consider for a moment how the world teaches us to respond to our enemies, the persons who curse us, the persons who mistreat us.  “I don’t get angry,” some people say, “I get even.”  Others call it payback.  Whatever we call it, the principle is good economics: it’s balancing the accounts.  I’m going to give as good as I get.

And consider too how the world teaches us to relate to our loved ones, our friends, our acquaintances.  Just over a week ago, on Valentine’s Day, couples all over the world were worrying about the value of the gift that they would give their Valentine, lest they should give more or less than they receive and appear either noncommittal or overly committed.  More regularly, we see this in our coffee or meal outings with work friends, where we quietly keep a careful count of who’s paid what, making sure we stay even.  We see this, too, around Christmas time and in the perennial exchange of birthday gifts.  As with our enemies, so with our friends.  The operative principle is about good economics: it’s about balancing the accounts.  We give what we expect to get.

Abundant Life Is Not in a Balanced Account

It’s easy to see that Jesus would make a poor businessman.  With regard to the way of the world, the way of giving back to our enemies what we get and giving to our friends with the expectation that we will get something in return—where’s the life in that, he asks.  That’s just business as usual.  Even the sinners do that.  That just preserves the present order.  That just keeps the old life in circulation, rather than welcoming the new life God has for us.

We know exactly what Jesus is talking about.  Talking with my coupled friends about Valentine’s Day, I often hear a strong sense of disenchantment, as though the day has become more of a chore than a joy.  No wonder.  Nothing kills the mood like the feeling that it’s just a transaction, just a cold, calculating balancing of the accounts.  Similar feelings abound for some of us around Christmas time, as we rush about in obligation, driven to gift-giving not out of love but out of the demand to balance the accounts. 

Abundant life isn’t in good economics.  It’s not in a balanced account.  It’s in what exceeds that economy of exchange.  I have a feeling that middle school teachers know this the best.  For if they lived their lives by the calculating standard of giving as good as they get, then class rooms would look more like warzones than places of learning.  In my brief semester’s experience as a secondary school teacher, I heard and saw more than I was prepared to see and hear: pencils thrown, insults hurled, dark rumors passed underneath the desks.  Imagine if a teacher responded to his students in kind. 

But the good teachers don’t.  They do good to the students who give them nothing but trouble, they bless those from whose mouths they hear curses, they love their “problem-children” (even if they don’t like them).  They do this not because of anything they will get back from the students, nor for the simple payoff of a good feeling, nor (obviously) for their paltry paycheck.  They do it, year after year, for no good reason.  Their service to the students cannot be contracted into a why or a wherefore.  They do what they do for nothing in return.  That phrase—“for nothing in return”—is shorthand, of course, for love.  Which is what exceeds our economy of exchange.  Which is where new life happens.

Couples in committed relationships know this.  Maybe not on Valentine’s Day, when love is so often contracted into the cold calculation of a balanced account, but perhaps on a routine Tuesday in the middle of a busy month, when one makes a gesture for the other not because he has to, not because of the good feeling he will get, but for no good reason.  “For nothing in return.”  Which is to say, for love.  Which exceeds our economy of exchange.  Which is where new life happens.

Parents know this too.  Not when they raise their children with an investment mentality, with the hope that they will carry on a particular tradition or make the family great, but when they care for their children without any conditions, when they give themselves to their children “for nothing in return.”  Which is to say, for love.  Which exceeds our economy of exchange.  Which is where new life happens.

The Life of the Church

This week in your bulletin, you’ll see some information from the Operations Team about the church’s budget.  There is genuine cause for concern there. 

Our scripture today suggests, however, a deeper cause for concern.  It cautions us against living life with an investment mentality, looking for a return on investment.  It reminds us that life happens not in the balancing of accounts, the business as usual of our world.  That might be where survival happens, but not the life of faith, not the life of death and resurrection. 

Life happens where we do things “for nothing in return.” When we deliver D. D.’s Bears, as much as we might hope that folks remember our name and pay us a visit, that is not the reason we visit them.  We visit the sick and hurting to give ourselves to them for nothing in return.  To love them and to pray for them, so that even when they’ve forgotten our name they might remember they are held in our love and God is with them.  And when we welcome the AA folks next door, as much as we might appreciate the extra security that they bring to our property, that is not the reason we embrace them.  We embrace them for nothing in return.  We welcome them so that even if we don’t receive a single benefit, they might know the saving love of God who meets us in our powerlessness and delivers us from death.  When we host our yard sale, as much as we might hope that we make a great profit, I would like to think that is not the only reason we do it.  On a deeper level, I would like to think we are doing it for love of our neighbor, giving of ourselves for nothing in return; that we are giving good deals that will enrich our neighbors’ lives whether or not we ever see them again. 

All of that is to say, our life is not found in the business as usual of building a name (or “brand”), maintaining a building, or making a profit.  The life of faith, the life of death and resurrection, is found not in a good return on investment but in what we do for nothing in return.  Teachers know this, lovers know this, anyone who does what they do not for the money for but no good reason knows this.  May we know it too.

Prayer

Merciful Father and Mother of us all,

Whose indiscriminate love

Reaches out to us all

For nothing in return:

Wherever an investment mentality

Threatens to derail our faith,

Return us to the heartbeat of life,

Which is your love:

Embolden and encourage us

To seek first your kingdom,

Trusting that abundant life

Will be ours and others’ to share.

In Christ who gives himself: 

Amen.

Where the Blessing Is (Luke 6:17-26)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on February 17, 2019, Sixth Sunday after Epiphany)

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Desperate for Touch

In the ancient world, miraculous healings were nothing new.  For every story of Jesus healing the blind and the lame, there are stories of Babylonian and Roman healers who do the same.  I tire quickly of the game to claim power, to maintain that Jesus could perform miracles greater than the other leaders of his day.  What interests me is not the greatness of the miracle, or whose touch bore more power, or whose words could accomplish more.[1]  Let the historians squabble over the veracity of the accounts, if they want to.  I’m just grateful that people have experienced healing that leads to new life.  Everything good is from God, as James says.  Far be it from me to draw boundaries for God’s power. 

What interests me is what any of this means for us today.  I’m less interested in what happened in the ancient world than in what happens in our world today, in my life and yours and others’.

Luke tells us, “All in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them” (6:19).  These were people, Luke says, who had diseases and were unclean.  In other words, they were folks whom normal society would have looked down upon, whom in some cases normal society would have excluded.  Here we see them reaching out to Jesus, desperate for touch.  And Jesus welcomes them, embraces them.  Time and again, we see Jesus receive their touch and reciprocate it.

I wonder if it could it be that simple.  When Luke says, “Power came out from him and healed all of them,” I wonder if that power could be as simple as a loving touch, as the touch of love?

“Which Is the Greater Handicap?”

Jean Vanier tells a story from his early days directing L’Arche, which is a community of friendship between persons with intellectual disabilities and “normal people,” as our world calls them.  Vanier relates:

A man came to see me when I was director of the L’Arche community.  He was a man with many problems and a very sad person.  I suppose he was somebody very normal. I don’t like the word ‘normal’ but if anyone was normal, it was this man.  While he was sharing his sadness with me there was a knock on the door, and before I could answer it, Jean Claude was in my office and laughing.  Some people call him mongoloid or Down’s syndrome but we just call him Jean Claude.  He is a happy man, he likes to come by my office and shake my hand.  And that is what he did. He shook my hand and laughed.  Then he shook the hand of Mr. Normal and laughed and he walked out laughing.  Mr. Normal looked at me and said, “Isn’t it sad that there are children like that?” … You couldn’t find anyone more relaxed and happy than Jean Claude.  When people start lamenting because there are people with handicaps in our world, the question is whether it is more sad that there are people with handicaps or that there are people who reject them.  Which is the greater handicap?[2]

When I hear about Jean Claude and how he would frequently stop by Jean Vanier’s office in order to shake his hand, I think too of the multitudes who reach out to Jesus.  Both are seeking touch.  Connection.  A sign that they belong, that they are beloved, that they are blessed. 

And I think of what Jesus says immediately after this moment, immediately after he has touched the dirty and the diseased, when he proclaims that it is these very people who are blessed.  The poor and the hungry are blessed.  The tearful and terrorized are blessed.

It makes no sense in the world of Mr. Normal, who looks upon these people and shakes his head, saying, “Isn’t it sad?”  What Mr. Normal does not see is that like Jean Claude these are the people who are looking for touch, who are in touch with their need for love, who seek not power but friendship.  They know where the blessing is. 

The Woes of “Mr. Normal”

But Mr. Normal does not know where the blessing is.  Instead Mr. Normal is on an ambitious quest for power, possessions, prestige.

My brother tells me the story about when he first moved to Waco.  A deacon from his church gave him a tour of the town.  When they got to the street lined with the biggest houses, the street where Mr. Normal had achieved his dreams, the deacon pronounced a verdict that I imagine could be delivered of many such streets across the United States: This street, he said, is one of saddest streets in town.  Underneath the gleam and the glitz lay broken families, addiction, and violent disputes.

Mr. Normal’s children are not faring much better.  We are receiving more and more reports that the present generation of our youth is the loneliest generation on record.  They are more connected than ever through the internet.  But that connection is leaving them hollow.  It is not friendship that they find on their phones, but an impossible contest of pretense and posturing: endless pictures of other people living the perfect life. 

In a tragic twist, when Mr. Normal seeks relief from all the energy expended it takes to get ahead, he flips on the television.  The average American household watches nearly 8 hours per day.  But even as the television relaxes Mr. Normal, so it further isolates him from the world of relationship.  Worse, it glorifies the values that fuel his ambitious quest in the first place: power, possessions, pleasure.  Is it any wonder that the world of Mr. Normal becomes more like the fantasies he watches on television, ravaged by violence, divided into us versus them, worried more about winning than about relationship?

The “woes” of Jesus are not pleasant, but they are pertinent.  They point out how far our world is sometimes from the blessing of God.  Judgment has a place in our Christian doctrine, and this might be a helpful way to understand it.  Because the woes are not about a vengeful God.  They are not about a God who punishes us for our wrongdoing.  The woes are about what happens when we look for blessing not in the love of God but in the promise of strength, success, or security. 

The Blessing of God Is Needing Others

Recently the Operations Team has met and discussed some of the challenges that our congregation faces.  You’ll be hearing more about these soon.  As we begin reflecting on what these challenges mean for us, I would like to begin reflecting on how the Word of God within the words of scripture might offer guidance for us.

For today, I will offer only this.  The blessing of God is not in security or strength.  The blessing of God is not a building nor is it a burgeoning membership roll.  The blessing of God is needing others.  It’s the loving touch, the touch of love, that fills that need.  Where I feel this blessing most strongly is in Sunday School or small groups—or I know this happens in choir too—in moments where people can actually be broken with one another, and love can actually be shared.  Where I feel this blessing most strongly is across the street, where the memory care residents light up in the presence of visitors, where they eagerly welcome us at the table and hungrily share communion with us.  Where I feel this blessing most strongly is in Valentine visits to Stuart and Marion, June and Bubba.

There’ll be plenty more to talk about in the days and months to come.  But for now, I would only offer for our consideration what Jesus offers in his striking reversal of our world’s priorities: the blessing of God is needing others. 

Prayer

Strange God,

Who calls us

From the deathly existence

Of what is normal,

Into the new life

That is born

When in our weakness or need

We reach out for touch—

Attune our hearts

To where the life really is,

And guide us there,

In our personal lives

And as a church.

In Christ, who reciprocates our touch

And gives new life:

Amen.

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[1] To me, this kind of debate is but a variation of my, “My dad could beat up your dad,” which is just another way of expressing our family loyalty, our tribal identity.

[2] Jean Vanier, Images of Love, Words of Hope (Hantsport, Canada: Lancelot, 1991), 94-95.

"If You Say So..." (Luke 5:1-11)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on February 10, 2019, Fifth Sunday after Epiphany)

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Love Comes First

When I read today’s scripture, there lurk in the back of my mind a couple of the scriptures that we read back in January: Jesus’ baptism and his water-into-wine wonder at the wedding at Cana.  For me, those two scriptures proclaimed loud and clear: God’s love is the beginning of the story. 

In the story of Jesus’ baptism, we begin with a Jesus who hasn’t healed a single person, hasn’t taught an inspiring lesson, hasn’t preached a great sermon.  In the gospels’ account of things, he’s done practically nothing at this point.  But even so, he hears the voice of God proclaim, “You are my son, the beloved; with you I am well pleased.”  Whereas the world preaches that hard work and achievement come first, and only afterward affirmation and love, we see the opposite in the life of Jesus.  The love of God is at the beginning of the story when he hasn’t done a thing.  The love of God is what begins the story.  It’s only after Jesus hears these words of love and blessing from God that he embarks on an unforgettable three-year adventure that will forever change history.

In the story of the wedding at Cana, we see Jesus enact this same truth in the lives of his disciples.  His first act with them is not to teach a foundational lesson or train them in a fundamental spiritual discipline.  It is to take them to a party, to a celebration of love, because for Jesus, love is what begins the story.  If there is no love, there is no life.  Love comes first.

Original Shame

What a contrast to the thinking of our world!  In some ways, it is even a contrast to the thinking of the church.  For many Christians, the traditional doctrine of original sin suggests that the beginning of the story is not God’s love but our shame.   Some Protestant Reformers thought rather imaginatively of human nature as “a pile of manure covered over with Christ.”[1]  I wonder if this accounts, in part at least, for the world’s growing resentment toward the church.  Just as any child would resent a parent who begins with rejection or shame, so also our world distances itself from a religion that would appear to preach the same.[2]

I don’t know if Augustine, who introduced the idea of original sin, intended to suggest that shame is the first step in our faith journey.  I would like to think not.  But I don’t think it’s any surprise that over time that is what the doctrine came to mean.  Because I think “original shame” is a doctrine much older than the church, deeply ingrained in our historical and cultural DNA.  In a world that has long adored success, shame is a natural starting point for many of us.  In a world where being “a successful human being means making straight A’s, keeping a well-paid job with good benefits, staying happily married to an attractive person, raising well-adjusted children, and not gaining too much weight,” who among us can keep up?  Of course, the shame of our world is not always obvious.  In an effort to hide our shame, many of us adopt the persona of what was called in our middle and high school years “being cool.”  “Being cool” means putting up walls, not caring, appearing certain of ourselves and in complete control at all times.  Being cool is a form of self-protection.  I’ll just do what I do, and let no one in.  I’ll keep the shame buried deep within.

The church did not invent the idea of original shame.  It tragically inherited it.  It has unconsciously subsumed it.

Our Shame Holds No Currency Before God

But the Bible itself resists the idea of original shame, time and time again.

Consider today’s scripture, where Jesus borrows the boat of the fisherman Simon in order to teach a crowd of people on the shore.  When he finishes his lesson, he turns to the fisherman Simon and invites him to put his nets down.  The scripture doesn’t tell us Jesus’ motivation, but I imagine his concern is other-oriented, as it usually is.  “I’ve borrowed your boat for hours now.  Don’t let me interrupt your work any more.  Why don’t you let your nets down again?”

Simon responds, “Master, we’ve worked all night long but have caught nothing.”  I’m suspicious that behind these words lurk shame and self-doubt: I’m a failure of fisherman.  If I were better, I’d know the currents, I’d know where and when to cast my net.  As it is, I’m about to be exposed in front of this great rabbi, who’ll know me for who I really am. 

The pivot of the story comes in Simon’s next words: “Yet if you say so.”  On the one hand, I hear self-defeat in these words.  You asked for it.  You’re about to see my failure.  But on the other hand, whether Simon means it or not, he is also declaring the gospel truth: You have said so.  In other words, even if I don’t believe in myself, you do.

Of course, what happens next is something of a miracle.  The net catches so many fish that Simon’s boat and his partners’ boat both begin to sink under their weight.  I worry, though, that their success in this moment covers over a deeper meaning.  For even if their nets were to come up empty, I believe that the miracle in story has already happened.  When Jesus says, Go on, do your thing, and Simon oscillating in his shame says, If you say so—this is where we see the good news on display: Our shame holds no currency before God.  That is the real miracle.  Paul puts it this way in his inspired song on love: God’s love believes in us, it hopes the best for us, it bears with us (cf. 1 Cor 13).

Love Lifts Us Up

The good news, though, is hard for Simon to swallow.  Immediately after the catch that nearly sinks the boat, Simon himself sinks onto his knees before Jesus and cries, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.”  As though to say what we all say in our shame: I’m not worthy of this company, of this love, of this joy.  As though to say: If you really knew me, what I think, what I do, how wrong I get it sometimes, how hard I fail sometimes, you wouldn’t stand near me.

The good news, of course—which will take Simon a lifetime to learn, which is a lifelong journey for all of us I think—is that God knows all about our failure and our frailty, our sin and our shortcoming, and God loves us all the same.  Love is not a thing we earn or deserve.  God’s love comes first.  Not only that, but it is precisely in our failure and our frailty, our sin and our shortcoming, where God’s love finds a way into our lives and lifts us up.  At exactly the place where we feel shame, God’s love embraces us and believes in us and draws us into new life.  When Paul discusses his repeated struggle, what he calls the “thorn in [his] flesh,” he says that God responded with these words: “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor 12:9). 

This sounds nice of course, but what does this actually look like?  In my own experience, it has been in my flaws and frailty that I am invited to learn and to grow.   And it is through my weakness and my inability that I am drawn into meaningful relationships, where God’s love lifts me up.  I think about our brothers and sisters next door, whose confession of powerlessness against addiction brings them together week after week.  I think of the needful on the streets and the persons of disability who gather in L’Arche, all of whom are looking not simply for help but just as importantly for friendship.  I think of the experience of moving to a new place, of being a stranger, which invariably invites us to reach out and make friends and become a part of a community.  I think of things as simple as moving house, where we cannot do it all on our own and must call for a helping hand, and through that call friendships grow.

Shame and its cousin, “being cool,” are forms of security.  We limit ourselves.  We say in our hearts, I can’t do that, I’m not worthy of this.  The gospel is God’s response: “I love you.  I believe in you.  I’m calling you to do something important for others, whether you think you can do it or not.”  The point is not our success but our acceptance of this love and our faithfulness to it.  Indeed, this is how are failures, our faults, and our loss miraculously lead us—and others—into new life.  In our vulnerability, in the chinks in our armor, the love of God steals in and lifts us and others up. 

Simon Peter was not a perfect person by any stretch of the imagination.  He misunderstands Jesus’ teaching and tries to replace the way of the cross with the way of conquest.  His faith falters memorably as he walks toward Jesus on the sea, and he sinks.  He goes missing in Jesus’ darkest hour and denies him three times.  But none of that matters in the end.  Because in the end, what matters is what’s in the beginning: God’s love, for Simon Peter and for all of us.  It is not something we achieve, nor is it something we work hard for.  It is a gift.  It takes us just as we are—in all our weakness and needfulness—and from there it raises us and others to new life.

Prayer

O God who is Love,

How well Peter speaks

For us all when he says,

“If you say so….”

Help us to hear your call in our lives,

That you indeed say so:

By your love,

Lift us up

Right where are;

Inspire us in our daily lives,

That we might not cast our net

Doubtfully or in shame,

But in a manner that rejoices in your love

And yields abundant life for others

And ourselves.

In Christ who calls to each of us: Amen.

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[1] Richard Rohr, “Original Shame and Original Blessing,” https://cac.org/original-shame-original-blessing-2016-07-01/, accessed February 5, 2019.

[2] Rohr, “Original Shame and Original Blessing.”

An Unfamiliar God (Luke 4:21-30)

(Guest Homily for Springfield Christian Church's Worship on February 3, 2019, Fourth Sunday after Epiphany)

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Overfamiliarity

There is a story that is told every year in my family around the time of Thanksgiving.  It is the story of my father’s cousin, Sandy, and it has entered into the ranks of family folklore. 

Early in Sandy’s marriage, she assumed the responsibility of cooking the Sunday pot roast.  Growing up, she had never cooked the pot roast herself.  But she had studiously observed her mother’s technique.  And her mother’s pot roast had always come out of the oven succulent and savory.  She felt confident that she could replicate the achievement.

But her first pot roasts were disasters.  They kept coming out dry, their appearance drab, their flavor dull.  Her husband knew better than to say anything, but finally after a few years he could not hold it in any longer.  He had been observing her technique and simply could not understand why she cut off the ends of the roast before placing it in the oven.  When he questioned why she did this, she responded: “That’s how Mom always did it!”  But the seeds of doubt were planted in her mind, so she went back to her mother with the same question: why cut off the ends of the roast before putting it in the oven?  Her mother looked at her quizzically and said: “What else could I have done?  The pan wasn’t big enough!  The roast wouldn’t have fit otherwise.”

Normally we would think that the familiarity of a routine is a good thing.  When we fly, we want our pilots to be familiar with the process of landing.  When we go to a restaurant, we want the chefs in the back to be familiar with the process of cooking.  But familiarity can cut both ways.  Sometimes familiarity can diminish our awareness.  Sometimes we become so fixated on the “what” that we forget the “why.”

I’d imagine that most churches are no stranger to this danger of familiarity.  From my pastor friends, I’ve heard horror stories of board meetings that drag on for hours and hours, debating the bake of the communion bread, the color of the carpet, the placement of historical heirlooms, the display of honorary plaques.  There is a place for such conversation, to be sure, but left unchecked this kind of conversation risks becoming so insular, so focused on what is familiar and near and dear to our hearts, that it forgets the “why” of church.  The church isn’t just about bread.  It’s about hungry hearts finding nourishment at a Table that breaks down our division.  It’s not just about carpet.   It’s about strangers from different walks of life (carpeted and not) gathering in the same room as part of one body.  It’s not just about our own illustrious history.  It’s about the God who makes history, and not in the shape of our achievement but in the shape of our surrender and transformation.

Fixating on the What, Forgetting the Why

What we see in today’s scripture is little different from what we see today in many churches.  Jesus has just read from the scroll of Isaiah at the synagogue.  He has just proclaimed the good news: release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, freedom to the oppressed.  Luke says that after this proclamation, “all spoke well of him” (4:22).  So far, so good.  Everyone’s on board with the good news, apparently.  They’ve probably heard that scripture read hundreds of times.  They were probably nodding their heads in approval as Jesus read the words.  If Jesus had just stopped then while he was ahead, they could have all left the synagogue and gone home in peace to enjoy their Sunday dinner.  But as you know, he doesn’t stop, and soon his hometown has him on the edge of a cliff.  I guess maybe it’s a good thing that the lectionary, the church calendar, has scheduled this scripture for a Sunday when I’m not preaching at my home church.  Hopefully as a guest preacher I’ll be afforded a more favorable reception than Jesus received in his hometown!

I wonder why Jesus doesn’t stop after his initial warm reception.  Luke doesn’t tell us.  But I have a guess.  I imagine that as Jesus surveys the assembly, he sees that they are all too familiar with the scripture.  They know all about the story of release from captivity, freedom from oppression.  That’s their story!  Every year at Passover, in a national celebration not unlike our Fourth of July, they would remember how God delivered them from slavery in Egypt.  They knew the what.  But as Jesus could see, they had lost track of the why. 

So he continues.  He tells the stories of two famous prophets: first how Elijah visited a widow and miraculously her jar of flour and jug of oil were replenished day after day; and then how Elisha cleansed a leper.  By itself, these two stories aren’t all that shocking.  I imagine his audience is familiar with them too and in other circumstances would have appreciated them as tales of God’s power.  It’s how Jesus tells these stories that scandalizes the synagogue.  For he reminds them that the widow and the leper were not Israelites but foreigners.  Not only that, Jesus goes a step further and suggests that the grace of God had skipped over a host of eligible widows and lepers in Israel before touching the lives of the Canaanite widow and Syrian leper. 

It’s almost as though Jesus is saying that the Israelite widows and lepers missed out on God’s grace for the same reason that the synagogue in front of him might miss out on God’s grace: because they were too familiar with it.  Because they had confused God with their own rituals and traditions and history.  Because they had forgotten the “why” that had inspired all those rituals and traditions in the first place, namely, a God who hears the cry of the captive, a God who lifts up the lowly, anywhere. 

Hasn’t God Always Been a Bit Unfamiliar?

Years ago, I had the opportunity to mentor a high school student, a refugee orphan from Burma.  I met him his first week at Godwin High School.  He had a shaved head and was still wearing the orange robe that he had worn as a Buddhist novice monk.  He spoke a very broken English, and it took several months for the counselors to locate a dictionary that translated from his dialect.  He had no family and no friends at the time.  That was about ten years ago. 

Today Asein is an elementary school teacher at Greene Elementary School in Richmond.  When he shares his life story, he remarks on the many helping hands that accompanied him on his journey: foster parents, teachers, classmates, neighborhood friends.  Now, he wants to be a helping hand to others.  At Greene Elementary, where the majority of students are Hispanic, Asein not only teaches.  He establishes relationships and gives students and parents a sense of connection and belonging to the community.  He helps them on their journey.

Although Asein is not a Christian, I cannot help but observe how an amazing grace has changed his life, and how that same grace now reaches out through him and changes the lives of others.  But should I be surprised?  Hasn’t God always been a bit unfamiliar, traveling about in places that are unmarked by the name of God, moving about where the name “God” isn’t spoken?  Is this not the same unfamiliar God that visited the Canaanite widow and the Syrian leper?  The same unfamiliar God who cares less for the “what” than for the “why,” who responds not to names and bells and smells, but to hungry hearts and lonely lives and cries for help?  The same unfamiliar God that scandalized that Nazarene synagogue so set in its ways? 

Looking Beyond the Name of God

Perhaps the good news is also scandalous news.  For the more comfortable we become with the name of God, the more that we confuse “God” with our experience and our way of doing things, then the greater chance that God will scandalize us.  Perhaps this is precisely why it’s good news.  It cannot be tamed.  It cannot be domesticated.  It will always chase after hungry hearts and lift up the lowly from different walks and resurrect the receptive who say, “Here am I,” whether a Christian or a Canaanite widow, a Syrian leper or a Burmese Buddhist. 

What does this mean for us as the church?  What does this mean for me—someone who uses the name of “God” so regularly, how can I not become familiar with it?  How can I stay on my toes and recognize more willingly the unfamiliar God across my life?  One really simple practice that I’ve taken up is this: sometimes, I try to say things without the name of God, without all the familiar religious words that can easily turn the world into Christian and non-Christian, that can serve as boundaries, as lines in the sand, demarcating what is of God and what is not.  By using other words—by talking about helping hands and transformed lives, for example, instead of grace and resurrection—I can sometimes begin to see that God is working far beyond my little world of the church, in people like Asein, for instance.  It is for me a humbling and hopeful reminder that even as the church might struggle, Christ is alive and well, his helping hand still reaching out—sometimes incognito—in all the world. 

Prayer

Loving God,

Whose love knows no bounds,

Neither death nor difference:

Give us eyes to recognize your helping hand

In unfamiliar places;

Hearts to welcome you

In unfamiliar guise;

And hands to join your ministry

In unfamiliar ways.

Raise us all

To a new, and perhaps unfamiliar, life.

In Christ, whose love is untamable.  Amen.