Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost
October 14, 2018
Service of Healing, Feast of St. Luke
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
Decorah, Iowa
Rev. Amy Zalk Larson

First Reading:  Isaiah 35:5-8; Psalm 124; Second Reading:  Revelation 22:1-6; Gospel: Luke 4:14-21

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

Today as our kids are given their Bibles, we’re looking at an aspect of the Bible that is troubling and con- fusing to many of us, including our kids.

That is, how do we understand stories about healing? Jesus healed lots of people, but why were only some people healed? Why not everyone?

And what do these stories mean for us today? We pray for healing and people still die. And everyone will die eventually, so why even pray for healing?

Some Christian churches use the healing stories as a kind of test of faith, to sort out the true believers from those who doubt. The message is, “Just take a huge, irrational leap of faith and you too can be miraculously healed. If you aren’t healed, there must be something wrong with you, guess you just don’t have enough faith.”

That’s not what Lutherans teach about healing at all. We embrace doubt as an important part of faith. We recognize that faith is not our own doing, not something we have to muster up with force and will power.

We honor both faith and science.

So, what do we make of these stories?

I think we need a new metaphor to help us interpret them.

These stories don’t demand a blind leap of faith so that we too can experience miraculous healing. In- stead, they offer us gifts for the journey of faith.

For one thing, they help us to know the God who journeys with us in Jesus. We see just how compassion- ate God is, how deeply moved by human suffering. We see God challenging the stuff that keeps people excluded and oppressed. According to Jewish law, every single person that Jesus healed should not have even been touched, much less healed. He touched lepers, unclean women, children, the blind, outcasts, Samaritans, Gentiles. As Jesus did that, he defied all the things that keep people down, all the things that separate us from God and each other.

Ultimately, this is what Jesus’ death and resurrection shows, too. Jesus defies everything that would keep us down and keep us apart, even death. He cannot be stopped from walking with us and loving us. In Jesus, we have a true companion on the journey. And Jesus works to reconcile us with the other travelers on the way, to bring more companions alongside us. We are not alone and this assurance itself brings so much healing. It is important to note, too, that healing is not the same thing as curing. We can experience healing even as an illness persists, even as the forces of oppression grow stronger, even as we die.

Scripture’s healing stories also provide light for the journey. It’s easy to get discouraged, to think this valley of shadows is all that there is. Stories of God’s healing can be like the sun breaking through the clouds after weeks of dreariness. They give us a glimpse of the bright future God intends for all of cre- ation: a future in which mourning and crying and pain will be no more; those now blind will see and those held captive will be released; waters will break forth in the wilderness, streams in the desert; and there will be a tree of life for the healing of the nations. This is what God intends for creation. It is what God is bringing about through the risen life of Jesus and the power of the Spirit. This vision is healing. It lifts our eyes when they are cast down as we plod through the mud. It gives us greater perspective and hope. It shows us that the powers that be will not have the last word after all.

Finally, the stories of healings give us signposts on the journey, directing us towards the paths Jesus wants us to take. Jesus calls us to walk into God’s promised future one act of compassion and inclusion, one step of reconciliation and love at a time. As author Rachel Held-Evans puts it, “The miracles of Jesus … are instructions, challenges. They show us what to do and how to hope.” Rather than a leap of faith, we are invited to walk in faith towards the healing of all creation. And, we have all that we need for this journey: We have the compassionate presence of the risen Jesus and the companions he brings alongside us; we have light for our path and we have guidance along the way. We can walk towards God’s promised healing together.

I see this happening in so many ways among us. I see it happening in the Good Shepherd members who are closely accompanying our immigrant neighbors. Their presence is bringing help and healing; real change is happening for our neighbors. Yet, Good Shepherd members are being healed as well. They are sharing in meals with these neighbors, learning their stories, building relationships. The sun is breaking through the clouds of despair and fear.

I saw healing happen when a member of the Worship and Music Committee did devotions last week at the meeting. He shared how troubled he is about the state of our country and then played music that brings healing for him. The sense of deepened well-being in the room was palpable. I think it got us all thinking about how we can be opened to God’s healing and let it flow through us into the world.

I see healing happening for a member who is undergoing surgeries and is sensing an invitation to rely on God and other people even more fully in this time and for other members who are grieving openly about recent losses, opening up opportunities for others to walk with them.

I could go on and on. It is my deep honor to get a close-up view of so much healing that is happening amidst our sorrows and pain.

Together, we are walking in God’s ways of reconciliation and healing. 
Together, we are walking in God’s promised future.

Let’s take a moment for silent prayer.

Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost
October 7, 2018
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
Decorah, Iowa
Written by Rev. Amy Zalk Larson; delivered by Pastor Marion Pruitt-Jefferson

Click here to read scripture passages for the day.

A man comes to Jesus and says, “ What must I do to inherit eternal life?”

When we hear that, we’re conditioned to think about an afterlife, about a place called heaven complete with St. Peter and the pearly gates.

We take this story as some kind of entrance exam about who’s gonna get past those pearly gates. This rich guy clearly fails.

So, what does that mean for us? Do we have to give everything away to pass the test?

Very few people in history have actually done that – have they all failed the entrance exam? Probably not.  So, maybe, this was just this guys’ specific test and it doesn’t apply to us?  Or maybe Jesus doesn’t really mean sell everything, just make sure to be generous?  Or maybe Jesus is trying to show us that we really need Jesus to get into heaven?

Actually, this story isn’t about getting past those pearly gates at all. It isn’t about somewhere we’ll go after we die. Throughout the gospels, when Jesus talked about eternal life he was talking about experiencing abundant life in relationship with God now and forever. When Jesus talked about the kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven, he was talking about life on earth being as God intends it.

God intends for us to know peace and well-being and harmony with each other and God. When that happens, we experience the eternal, abundant life God wants for us.

It seems this man was not experiencing that well-being. He came to Jesus and knelt before him. His posture is the same posture used by everyone who comes to Jesus asking for healing in the Gospel of Mark. They kneel and plead for the thing that they are missing.

It seems this rich man has a sense of dis-ease with his life. Something is missing and he longs to know how he can be healed and experience eternal, abundant life with God.

Jesus looks at him with compassion and sees his problem. It is his wealth. Jesus doesn’t spell out how wealth is causing the problem but we can probably guess. Wealth can trick us into thinking that we are self-made people who have earned or deserved every good thing that happens to us.

• In Jesus’ time people believed that wealth was a sign of divine blessing, that it meant you were righteous and worthy of God’s favor.
• In our day, we still often understand some relative measure of wealth to be sign that we are virtuous and have a good, strong work ethic and deserve what we have earned.

Wealth can mask our true dependence on God and one another. As scripture tells us, it is “not good” for us to be alone – we need to be in relationships of mutual dependence with one another. Yet, wealth can lead us to think we’re fine on our own. We can get focused on how to protect and increase what we have earned rather than gratefully receiving and passing on what God has graciously given.

Perhaps this was what was happening for the rich man:

• He had acquired many possessions.
• He had kept the letter of the law.
• He had brought his kids to Sunday School and served on the church committees and done everything he was supposed to do.
• And still something was missing.

He went to Jesus in his dis-ease, seeking a prescription. And Jesus told him something that shocked him – you are lacking one thing so give everything you have away. What? If he was lacking one thing, why give everything away?

• Wasn’t there one more thing he could do, one more thing that would assure him of God’s blessing and relieve his sense that something was missing?
• Isn’t there some self-help book or app that could help us?

No, Jesus said to this rich man, let go of it all and give to the poor. Let go of the illusion that you can do, earn, achieve or buy your way to happiness. Stop looking to external signs of God’s favor and trust in God alone. Happiness, joy, and well-being will come as you give your money away and discover your inter- dependence and connection to the poor and all God’s people.

There is great wisdom for each of us here as well. Both wealth and concerns about money can separate us from God and one another and from the joy and well-being God longs for us to know.

We don’t know what Jesus would tell each of us individually if we were to kneel before him seeking help for our own dis-eases and our own issues with money. Would he tell us to sell all we have and give everything away? Probably not. He gave this extreme advice to just one person. He called some people to leave everything, including possessions and family, to follow him; but he also relied on the hospitality and wealth of many people.

The callings and the healing given to Christians throughout the ages have been as varied as those in scripture. Some of us have been called to leave everything. Many more of us have been called to give abundantly to others so that we might truly know our dependence on God and our connection to one another.

We are all encouraged to ask: What role do money and wealth play in our lives? Have we bought into the narrative that we can buy our own happiness – that what we really need to be satisfied is just a purchase away? Are we consumed by worries about money or do we live with guilt about how much we have? Do we live isolated from almost two thirds of the people in this word who live in poverty or have we realized our interconnectedness with them?

These are the kinds of questions Jesus asks of us. They are the things we need to consider together:

Together, let’s let go of the illusion that we can “do”, earn, achieve or buy our way to abundant life.

Let’s stop looking for external signs for God’s favor and trust in God alone.

Let’s stop living isolated from God and others thinking we are just fine on our own.

Let’s give some significant percentage of our money away.

Wellbeing will come as we give and discover our interdependence and connection to the poor and all God’s people.

This may feel overwhelming, even impossible; but with God all things are possible. God gives us abundant gifts, mercy, forgiveness and healing. God gives us eternal, abundant life in Christ Jesus. We can trust, receive and give freely of what we have first been given.

Thanks be to God