Sixth Sunday after Epiphany

Should now be "current" with Sermon's for 2009!!!!

Sixth Sunday after Epiphany Year B (RCL) 2009
2 Kings 5: 1-14; Psalm 30; 1 Corinthians 9: 24-27; Mark 1: 40-45
St. Stephen’s Episcopal Parish, Portland, OR
Sunday, February 15, 2009

WHAT IS JESUS FEELING?

Let us pray: Gentle Jesus, you reach out and touch the untouchable, you heal those of broken body and mind, you rebuke evil when you encounter it among us, and restore the lost to wholeness. Empower us, guiding Saviour to reach out to those among us who are in need, to bind up the broken hearted, to restore the alienated to community and fellowship. Teach us to live and to love as you live and love. Amen.

(SUNG) JUST AS I AM, WITHOUT ONE PLEA, BUT THAT THY BLOOD
WAS SHED FOR ME, AND THAT THOU BIDD’ST ME COME TO
THEE, O LAMB OF GOD, I COME, I COME.

So let me just tell you that the first thing which popped into my brain as I read the pericope from the author of Mark’s account of the Good News assigned for this sixth Sunday after the Epiphany was – just what is Jesus feeling in this story?

I poured over my Greek Christian Scriptures, I searched in my parallel Greek and NRSV/NIV bible; I researched my Greek-English Lexicon of the Christian scriptures all to try and find out what exactly was Jesus feeling upon encountering the individual with leprosy whom we meet in the Gospel story this morning. William Willimon, who is a source that I frequently look to in my preparation for my sermon writing – is former Dean of the Chapel at Duke University and Bishop of the North Alabama Conference of the United Methodist Church. Willimon stunned me when he wrote “There are some of our Bibles that say Jesus was filled with pity or compassion. The Greek word in Mark’s text says that Jesus was filled with anger. When Jesus looked at this poor leper, Jesus’ heart was filled with rage. Rage?

Was Jesus feeling anger? Was Jesus feeling rage? Was Jesus’ reaction to this “unclean” one this “un-touchable” of the time that of fury or rage at the disease or at the circumstance of this individual’s life? So, I finally wound up calling a friend of mine – who is a little better at Greek than I am, (since all of my searching and reading and translating hadn’t gotten me my answer) and we discussed just what this Greek word which the translators have marked as “moved with pity” actually might mean. Well, we determined that the root of the word comes from – the gut or the bowels, so that, in fact to translate it as moved with pity is a pretty weak translation. Jesus is feeling deeply and from the gut around this individual and “moved with pity” doesn’t exactly capture that depth of feeling. So what exactly is Jesus feeling here about this individual and how does that effect the way which we experience the story?

I’m reminded of another experience I had, in which I was in a church basement for a meeting and I read something that was posted on the wall in that basement and it also stunned me as I read it. Here’s how it went, “I am the bread (the rice, the noodles the beans) of life. All who come to me shall never hunger, and all who believe in me shall never thirst.” Isn’t it amazing how just changing a phrase or inserting a different word into a familiar passage can cause us to say – wait a minute, that’s not what I remember, that’s not what that has always meant to me? As I read that placard on the church basement wall I was struck by that very amazement. I had to read it again, and again and again to try and make sense of it and see how I could incorporate it into my understanding of that famous passage from the Christian Scripture. Jesus is actually saying I am the “stuff” of life; that is the bread, the rice, the noodles, the beans, the very foundations of what you know life to be in your food and your drink. I AM that, I will be that for you – the very stuff of life; the very foundation of your being. It was a grace filled moment for me and I stopped to give thanks for the insight and for the growth that graced me in that experience.

It was similar to what I experienced when I read that Willimon was thinking that the disease that the leper presented in today’s Gospel story angered Jesus. Wow, what if Jesus really was angry about what this leper was experiencing in his body, or in his community or in the treatment of that community around his “un-cleanliness”? That could flip my whole interpretation of this reading and what it might mean for us, today in our time in our world with our versions of leprosy.

(SUNG) JUST AS I AM, THOUGH TOSSED ABOUT WITH MANY A
CONFLICT, MANY A DOUBT; FIGHTINGS AND FEARS WITHIN,
WITHOUT, O LAMB OF GOD, I COME, I COME.

So here’s the thing. This leper, this “un-clean” one of the society of 1st Century Palestine turns to the Christ – the healer, the one who was going about among them and working marvels in their midst and simply says, “if you choose, you can make me clean”. Jesus if you make it so….all of this will be different, all of my fear and my pain and my separateness will be wiped away in an instant and I will be made whole again. And Jesus responds, “I do choose, be made clean”. Just as Jesus did for this nameless leper over two thousand years ago – Jesus will do for you and for me. Jesus if you make it so….all of this will be different, all of our fears and our pains and our separateness will be wiped away in an instant and we will be made whole again. And Jesus responds, “I do choose, be made clean.” That is really good news folks. Do we trust? Do we truly believe that Jesus can and will do this for us?

These are the promises of our faith – we will be cleansed, we will be made clean, we are already forgiven, we will be given all that we need; and all that is asked of us is that we do unto each other as we would have done for us. Do we wish to be fed? Then we need to feed. Do we wish to be forgiven? Then we need to forgive. Do we wish to be loved? Then we need to love. We have in our power, the power of the Christ – we have in our hands the hands of the healer. Jesus offers us this opportunity to become what we have always dreamed of being; to use the generosity of our hearts to encourage us to open the generosity of wallets and relieve the suffering of the lepers of our own age. The hungry, the forgotten, the lonely the sick, and perhaps most importantly to Jesus the poor. What could be more clear to us in Jesus’ message than this particular focus on and concern for the poor. Poverty is measured in many ways in our lives, the poor in spirit, the poor in health, the poor in geography, the poor in financial resources – yet they are all the poor and they are all blessed and beloved in the eyes of the Holy One of Israel who holds them all in such high esteem. Don’t you think it would serve us well to hold them all in the high esteem to which they are held by our God? We have the resources at our hands to heal the wounded and the sick, to cure the diseases of the ill, to relive the burden of debt for the financially strapped nations of this planet – it is all within our power, it is all within the power of the Christ which we share.

We have a new leader in this country who has encouraged us all to begin to look differently at those whom we have identified as “other”; this leader has taken us along some steps that we hope will change the way we view our planet and its limited resources; the way we view our political systems and just what bi-partisanship might look like; the way we view other Christian believers - those with whom we disagree by suggesting that we invite them to the table so that we might truly “hear” what they pray and not merely assume that we know what they will pray. It has not been a completely smooth introduction to this change that we all might believe in; but it has been a start – and how well we are learning that the old ways are not working anymore. It was Mohandas Gandhi who taught us that we must be the change we want to see in the world – and we who are Christians have the blessing of knowing that we are the body of Christ in this world and we have the power of that Christ within each of us. We have only to desire it enough, to speak our truth to the powerful and to demand that the poor be blessed. This is what Jesus would have us do. This is what the Gospel or Good News of the Holy One of God is all about. Let us claim that Good News and be the bearers of it into a world which is aching for its fulfillment. With each other and with the power of the Body of Christ, the Church behind us we can accomplish much – that is why I love the Church, because it can be for the world the beacon of hope promised in the Epiphany of our God, who is among us – Emmanuel.

(SUNG) JUST AS I AM: THOU WILT RECEIVE; WILT WELCOME
PARDON, CLEANSE RELIEVE, BECAUSE THY PROMISE I
BELIEVE, O LAMB OF GOD, I COME, I COME.

Are you ever frustrated that you can't do more? That you don't have anything special to offer?

Charlotte Elliott, the author of that hymn, "Just As I Am," certainly felt that way. Charlotte was a good Anglican daughter of the Church of England. She had been a brilliant and vivacious woman until an illness in her late 20’s left her disabled. She speaks of days upon days of beging unable to summon the energy to even rise up from her bed. In her situation she became quite depressed. She felt that she no longer had anything to offer -- nothing to give.

Several years later a pastor and a friend, Dr. Caesar Malan, came to visit her. Noting her despair, he encouraged her to give her life to the service of the Christ-- to come to Christ just as she was. That comment started a turnaround for her. While she remained disabled, she began to search for ways to make her life meaningful.

Her friend Malan's words stayed with her -- "Come to Christ just as you are."
Several years later, she wrote this hymn, which has become a favorite around the
world. While she wrote more than a hundred hymns, this one in particular has
affected more lives than she ever could have imagined.

So if we ever wonder what we can do to make our lives meaningful, we might just want to put it into the hands of the Christ and go whereever the Christ might lead. Emmanuel has a way of using ordinary people to do extraordinary things.

Amen.