Sermon for Sunday, March 26, 2017 – “What God Does”

Fourth Sunday in Lent
March 26, 2017
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
Decorah, Iowa
Rev. Amy Zalk Larson

Click here to read scripture passage for the day.

Beloved of God, grace to you and peace in the name of Jesus, the Good Shepherd.

“Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Whose fault is it? As Jesus is walking along, he sees a man who was born blind. His disciples, however, are unable to really see the man. They see a problem and want to find someone to blame.

Who is to blame? We want to know.

Who’s to blame for the fighting this morning as families tried to get to church on time?

Whose fault is it that the marriage ended, that a child is struggling?

Who is to blame for institutional failings, for the polarization in our country?

Whose fault is it?

When things are hard and confusing, there’s some sick satisfaction in at least having someone to blame. Identifying fault gives us some sense of control. Jesus’ response to the disciples’ question doesn’t really help matters. He responds, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.”

That sounds like maybe it’s God’s fault.

As if God made him to be born blind so that God could do something impressive? Is Jesus saying God causes suffering so that God can fix it and look good? Hmm … that doesn’t really help, Jesus.

There may be a translation problem.

The Greek translated here as “he was born blind so that God’s work might be revealed” can also be translated “he was born blind, as a result, God’s work might be revealed.” So maybe Jesus isn’t saying the man was born blind so that God could show off. Maybe he’s saying the man was just born blind but now, since that happened, God’s works can be revealed.

I like that possible translation more; it helps me with questions about God’s role in suffering even as it raises others. But what helps more is that Jesus doesn’t blame anyone. He doesn’t try to explain God. Instead, Jesus does the work of God. Jesus sees the man; Jesus gives him new life; and Jesus finds the man again after his community drives him out. Jesus does God’s work of seeing, recreating, and searching out all God’s beloved children.

In Jesus, we are given God’s response to the suffering of our broken world, to all our attempts to blame and find fault. There are always so many unanswered questions about God’s role in suffering, so many things we don’t and can’t understand. Yet in Jesus, we see God’s response to all the brokenness. God, in Jesus, comes near to us and gets into the dirt with us, God sees us, recreates us, and finds us again and again.

Jesus sees the man born blind when everyone else sees only a problem. Jesus stops and takes note; he doesn’t just pass by the man. Throughout scripture we see that God sees human suffering, God pays attention. God doesn’t just pass by us, God notices. And God calls us to see others not as problems, but as children of God.

Then, Jesus spits on the ground, makes mud with the saliva and spreads the mud on the man’s eyes. Jesus gets his hands dirty and gives the man a new start on life.

The way Jesus acts here has echoes of the second creation story in Genesis 2 – when God got down into the dirt to form human beings out of dust and give us life.

This is what Jesus does for the man born blind. He uses dirt to create sight and then gives the man new life by providing him with a sense of purpose. In his day, blindness would have prevented the man from most work and forced him to spend his life as a beggar focused on survival. Jesus changes all that by giving the man not only eyesight but also a mission. Jesus directs the man to wash in the pool of Siloam, which we are told means “sent.” The man is sent to witness that Jesus is sent by God. This provides him with purpose and hope.

We too are recreated; we too are given purpose and hope in Jesus. Sometimes this is as dramatic as a physically blind man being given sight. Much more often it is that our eyes are opened to how unhelpful it is to assign blame; our eyes are opened to God’s life-giving presence with us in the muck of our world.

Our eyes are opened to really see the people around us and to recognize the ways we can make a difference in a broken world.

The blind man is given new life and purpose and we are, too. However, the community is unable to accept what Jesus does for this man. It is too disruptive to their religious answers and their attempts at control.

Essentially, they blame the man born blind for challenging them and they drive him out of the community.

But Jesus seeks the man out and finds him. Jesus invites him into a deeper relationship and the man confesses his faith in Jesus. Others didn’t notice the man when he was blind and couldn’t deal with him when he could see. Jesus goes out searching for him. In Jesus he is found, he finds a home, and he is drawn close to God.

This, too, is what Jesus does for us: Jesus is the Good Shepherd who is always searching for us and always drawing us into relationship with God. When we feel lost – without purpose, without nurturing relationships, when we are stuck in patterns of fault finding – we are not alone. The Good Shepherd is still looking for us to draw us close to God.

In a world with lots of blame to go around, in a world full of suffering, in the midst of questions and doubts, Jesus does the work of God. Jesus sees us, gives us new life, and searches for us again and again.

When we are loved this deeply and profoundly, we too can do the work of God. Such love frees us from the need to find blame and sends us to see, love and search out others.

Let’s take a moment to pray. Our time of prayer will continue into the introduction to the hymn,

#452 Awake, O Sleeper, Rise From Death.

Sermon for Sunday, March 19, 2017 – “Thirst”

Third Sunday in Lent
March 19, 2017
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
Decorah, Iowa
Rev. Amy Zalk Larson

Click here to read scripture passages for the day.

Beloved of God, grace to you and peace in the name of Jesus who gives living water.

She has so many reasons to be thirsty as she approaches that well.

Day after day, night after night, she has swallowed salty tears, weeping until she is completely drained.

Five marriages have ended. Now she’s dependent on a man who has not married her – a tenuous situation in the ancient world. She’s at the mercy of harsh, battering winds – forces beyond her control.

She hadn’t gone to the well that morning, when it was still cool, with the other women. They must have talked and laughed and commiserated and found refreshment in one another. 

Instead she sets out for the well, alone, in the heat of the day. There, she’ll find water but not the deeper replenishment she needs.

Any quenching of her thirst will be temporary. She’ll have to return day after day, over and over and over again to fetch water and carry it home.

The repetition, the drudgery, the tediousness of it all leaves her depleted.

She has so many reasons to be thirsty.

What is depleting you? When do you notice your own thirst? Does it feel like loneliness, weariness, despair, grief? Are you longing for change, for connection? Are you drained by the daily grind, battered by forces beyond your control? As she approaches the well, she sees Jesus sitting there. There’s no reason to expect anything renewing from him. He is a Jew. He won’t talk to her or help her fill her jar. He’ll just ignore her, a woman of Samaria. Jews and Samaritans despise each other. He’ll think even God isn’t accessible to her – that she and her people worship God the wrong way. He’ll judge her.

What do you expect from Jesus? What do you expect from encounters with people who are very different from you, from people who worship God differently? Will you be replenished or further depleted?

She expects nothing but disdain. So, she’s startled when he asks her for a drink – when he wants something from her.

She starts asking questions of him. He engages her in a discussion about God Their conversation is lively, refreshing, renewing. He talks about living water – water that gives the deeper replenishment she needs.

He sees and names the pain of her relationships. He speaks of a new way to worship God – in spirit and truth. When she talks about the coming Messiah, he says, “I am he”; and, actually, the word “he” is not in the Greek text. He says, “I AM.”

Jesus claims the name used for God from the beginning of Jewish and Samaritan history – I AM. He uses the name he will use again and again in the Gospel of John: “I AM the Bread of Life, I AM the Resurrection and the Life, I AM the Good Shepherd….” She, the woman of Samaria, is the first person in the Gospel of John to learn Jesus’ deeper name.

There, among her thirst, her weariness, her questions about where to find God, she encounters God. God is standing there, right in front of her, asking her for a drink, engaging her in conversation.

In this unexpected encounter, she is given living water – water that flows into all the parched places of her life, all the emptiness, all the fatigue.

She is renewed from deep within. Today, God meets us here as well. Even when we show up with very low expectations; even when we’re full of questions, even when we’re depleted, even when our lives are a mess, even when we don’t want anyone to ask anything more of us. Even then, especially then, even now, God meets us here.

God engages us in conversation around the scriptures- in word and song. God comes to us in the body and blood of Jesus. God nourishes us with food and drink that flows into all the parched places of our lives.

And God shows up out in the world, as well, in unexpected ways. God shows up in the people who ask us for a drink of water, those who need something from us, and those who are different from us. As we give the cup of cold water, as we engage in conversation, as we ask for help, we encounter God.

After her encounter with Jesus, the woman of Samaria leaves her jar at the well and runs to share this living water she has received with her community. “Come and see,” she says. Those are the very same words Jesus uses when calling his disciples, “come and see.” She becomes the first person to share the good news of Jesus, the first evangelist.

Because of her testimony, other Samaritans do come and see. They ask Jesus to stay with them, to abide with them – something that the Gospel of John shows us is essential to Jesus’ ministry. She provides an opportunity for the people of her city to abide with Jesus. She helps them to encounter God, to drink deeply of living water themselves.

We too can invite others to come and see the ways God meets us – in worship, in conversation, in people in need. We can provide opportunities for others to abide with Jesus – to abide in hope and peace, to drink in his life-giving presence. We can engage people in conversations in which we see them and their thirst and wrestle together with big questions about God.

Of course, we aren’t always able to do this. There are times we simply need to be replenished. Yet over time, together, we are renewed and sent out to share living water.

Let’s take a moment for silent prayer. Our time of prayer will continue into the introduction of the hymn.