What can we say June 11? 2nd after Pentecost

    {Check out my 28 minute talk, "Hope as Arsenic," which I was supposed to give in Minneapolis for the Festival of Homiletics, but due to my hospitalization and the doctor grounding me, it's on video now for their video package - and for you to view too!}

    Genesis 12:1-9 is a great text, one of the key turning points in the Old Testament – or we should say in God’s history with the world. First, there’s a call. Abraham is called (how did he hear??) to go – where? “To a land I will show you.” Which would be…? Like the disciples who drop their nets and traipse off after Jesus: not knowing where they’re going, what the strategy is, what safeguards there might be, how it will all turn out, etc. They just go. Abraham just goes, uprooting self, family, and not heading a few miles away like the disciples, but to a genuinely foreign land, knowing nobody, strange language and customs. Walter Brueggeman names this as “a call for a dangerous departure from the presumed world of norms and security” – which is preachable.

   Interestingly, we tend to delve into the psyche/self of the one called (or not called). Am I called? Or even Is he or she called? But a more intriguing question is What is God doing? Why does God call – in generally, and specifically now, and here? Russ Reno gets inside God’s head: “Because the children of Adam and Eve are beholden to the lie that worldly life can satisfy our desire for rest, God must interrupt the cascading flow of time, tear out a family from the drumbeat of the generations, in order to cut to the joints and marrow of human history.” Eloquent. And pinpointing God’s motive: to rescue all of us from what is really a lie. And already, so early in humanity’s history!

   So there’s the call, and then the buttressing promise. Reno links call to promise, underlining the context – that this call is right on the heels of the catastrophic Tower of Babel story: “Now God promises to give Abraham-in-particular what humanity-in-general sought to achieve by its own hands when it gathered to build a tower to heaven: a place, a nation, and a name.” I do like that Reno suggests that instead of rejecting the false hopes of the Babel generation, God rather redefines them!

   And so the promise really is for a place, a nation, a name. This threefold promise seems lovely, even powerful – until we consider the dreadful consequences throughout history of the children of Abraham fighting to fulfill that promise. So many horrific episodes through history, the Crusades, the 7-day War, and ongoing Israeli-Palestinian violence get traced back to the idea that “This land is my land!” – and claiming the divine imprimatur of Genesis 12. Not what God had in mind…

   I recall sitting in intro Old Testament in seminary and hearing Prof. Lloyd Bailey explain the dynamic of the “blessing” portion of this promise. God will indeed bless this people – but not so they can be special to the exclusion of anybody. They are blessed to be a blessing. Sounds trite – but it is God’s call to Abraham’s descendents – and fits the summons of the church to be, not a club of the blessed, but those who go out to the highways and biways to be the gifts of God in the world.

   Romans 4:13-25. I find Paul’s intricate theological arguments difficult to refashion into a sermon; even Fleming Rutledge skips this passage in her great collection of sermons on Romans (Not Ashamed of the Gospel) – but I am a bit tempted to try after reading Michael Gorman’s thoughts in his new commentary. He points out how “cryptic” verse 16, verbless in Greek, is, sort of “Therefore, from faith, so that by grace.” The foundation, the basis, the cause isn’t faith, but grace – so important for us Protestants who unthinkingly turn “faith” into the work, the only work but no less a work. Paul’s focus is on Christ’s faithfulness, not ours.

   He goes on to notice how translations of verse 18 (like the NRSV) “may hide what Paul actually means: ‘not to those who adhere to the law alone but rather to those who share the faith of Abraham’” (his translation). He calls Abraham’s “a kind of proto-Christian faith.” Justification is what the Creator and Resurrector does. I love his plunge into the bleakness of Abraham and Sarah’s situation. Her womb isn’t merely “barren”; the Greek nekrosis conveys “the stench of death.”

   Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26. Jesus keeps calling people, almost raising the ante by calling ever more unlikely and unliked people. Now it’s Matthew – the tax collector? A hated man in Capernaum. Not our tax auditor types or the one that threatens to garnish your wages. Matthew probably threatened to break your knees if you complained about him gouging you for too much money – and not for the public good but for those jerks in Rome. The Pharisee gripe makes total sense – although they lump together “tax collectors and sinners,” as if sinning were an occupation! In the 1950’s, politicians like Joe McCarthy and bureaucrats like J. Edgar Hoover tended to lump together “communists and homosexuals,” as if the pairing made it more dastardly.

   Their smug judgment though should alarm us, especially in our day when so many churches assume their calling is to be society’s “moral police.” No one is listening, nor do they care, when Christian people cockily “stand up for something!” Jesus was a radical alternative to the moral police – back then, as he still is today. But he doesn’t scold. He resorts to irony: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.” You can bet most Pharisees didn’t get it, and though Yes, we are well.

   And Jesus lifts a verse from the prophets, one that punctuates key turning points in Matthew’s Gospel: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice” (Hosea 6:6). There’s no mercy in judging – and Jesus had not much earlier said “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.” Perhaps, like the older brother in Jesus’ “Prodigal Son” parable, they did not think they needed any mercy – although you know that deep down, in some subterranean, crusted over place in their guts, they were desperate for some mercy. Why else behave in such calculating, morally superior ways than being duped into believing this was the ultimate coverup?

   And now the healing narrative. Two, actually, dovetailed unforgettably. Not quite as vivid as its parallel in Mark 5:21-43, is it? I was taught in seminary to stick to the text at hand and don’t veer into another Gospel. And you don’t want to read a lot in from elsewhere – but in this case, why not preach all we know from this mind-boggling episode from Jesus’ life?

   Matthew plagiarizes (the term we’d use today!) from Mark’s story – and thus his storytelling technique, which in this case is impressive. Or maybe things just unfolded in the way he reports. Jesus is asked, pleaded with to visit a child, the daughter of a powerful Roman military man, Jairus. In Mark, she’s sick and near death. In Matthew, she’s already died! – which must indicate this man’s faith is even greater! Or that his desperate sense of loss is more intense.

   Jesus, on such an important mission, is unfailingly “interruptible.” Important things to do, yes, always, but along the way there’s always a person, someone requiring just some compassion, a kind look and word. Jesus shows us how to be attentive while we’re headed toward wherever we’re going.

   There’s a painting I’ve loved since I first saw it – in a lovely new chapel on the shore of the Sea of Galilee in the village of Magdala, Mary Magdalene’s home town. At ground level, this painting shows the woman reaching out to touch the hem of Jesus’ garment - from her lowly, ground-level perspective.

   She must be a woman of considerable means, having spent huge sums on doctors, in a day when most people couldn’t afford any doctor ever. But all the cash and care money could buy didn’t bring her any health. She was sick and tired of being sick and tired – until she heard about Jesus. Due to her illness, she would have been regarded as unclean, not welcome in any crowd, much less coming face to face with this travelling rabbi / healer / maybe Messiah. But she presses forward, as close as possible without being noticed, barely brushing her hand against the low hem of Jesus’ robe.

   And, Voila! She is healed. Power flowed from him, into her – and he wasn’t even trying. No wonder we speak of the Master’s touch, the way simply being close to Jesus brings an unanticipated wholeness. Jesus notices, puzzling his disciples – and then he has more mercy on her, treating her like no one else would, as a whole, infinitely valued child of God.

   While we're still on the healing of a woman: Peter Storey, in his marvelous new account of his incandescent ministry in South Africa, tells of his first parish - and how some young adults, impassioned by what they were learning of the Gospel, changed many things, including... "There came a symbolic moment of liberation when they decided to attend church with hair uncovered. Because of the role hair texture played in the racialization and stratification of woman in this community, this was a massive step toward self-acceptance."

   Oh, the child. Jesus almost forgot – but probably not. He arrives at Jairus’s house – late, by Matthew’s or Mark’s timeline. If we read slowly, or just use our imaginations, we can overhear the loud wailing of her family and neighbors. Invite your people to feel their pain. Jesus did.

   I love the little details of this healing – more in Mark than in Matthew! He could have thundered a word from the yard. But he enters the home. He takes the girl by the hand. Ask your folks to picture that. Feel your hands. Precious Lord, take my hand… He speaks – and onlookers recalled what he said in his and their native language, Aramaic, so moving that Mark, writing in Greek, records the Aramaic! Talitha kum. Rise up, little girl. So tender. This 12 year old girl stood up. Imagine the sound of the shock, the rejoicing, maybe more intense than the wailing just moments earlier.

   And then, showing his immense compassion and understanding, Jesus speaks to her family: “Give her something to eat.” She’s been sick. She’s got to be famished. Let’s get back to normal. Little girls eat. Families feed their children. Envision Jesus standing in your home. It’s time to eat. He gets that you’re hungry. Enjoy. Be nourished. What a week to have Holy Communion!

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   Check out my book on preaching - not how to preach, but how to continue preaching: The Beauty of the Word: the Challenge and the Wonder of Preaching.