Good Shabbos, everyone!  How are things going with your Sabbath intention?  Are you relaxing, a bit?   I’d like to begin with a bit of a recap, and with a talk-back.   Before us are the symbols of the past three Sundays: 

• The backpack and weights, symbolizing the physical and emotional weights we are invited to let go of for Sabbath.  What is it that you need to say “no” to in order to really rest.  Have you learned anything about that these past weeks?  Have you figured out what you need to say “no” to, and what difference it makes?
• Second, there’s the half-empty/half-full glass.  Sabbath is an invitation to deep joy, and to gratitude – what, for you, makes for deep joy?  What’s on that full side of the glass?  Have you experienced deep joy lately?
• Third, last Sunday we looked at “blessing,” for which the symbol is the healing oil.  Blessing is not, I said, in what happens to us.  Blessing is not in our circumstances, in whether we are lucky or not.  Blessing is something in us, something that recognizes the deep inner wholeness that can be present even in the worst of situations.  Blessing is something God does in our souls, in the part of us that is eternal.  Have you touched the depths in that way, during this experiment – either in a positive or a challenging way? 

This morning our topic is “holiness.”  The question we asked was “what most feeds your soul?”  Because a Sabbath day is not simply a day “off.”  A Sabbath day, as the commandments remind us, is a day to be kept “holy.”  What does that mean? 

Photos from the Hubble space telescope always bring holiness and wonder to mind – but our symbol here is not that.  It’s not even a thing.  It’s a sound – the sound of the Japanese bell, used in Zen monasteries to draw one’s attention to the present moment.  An experience in time – that’s our symbol.  (ring bell)

What most feeds your soul? 

Our story this morning is the story of Mary and Martha – two sisters (Lazarus is their brother) who were friends of Jesus’. 

It’s a cool story.  It happens, in the gospel of Luke, right after the story of the good Samaritan – and I think that’s significant.  In that story, Jesus is asked the same question that is the subject of our second reading – what’s the greatest commandment?  And the same two commandments are listed.  And then the lawyer asks “well, who IS my neighbor?”  And Jesus answers with the story of the good Samaritan – which asks us to go and do likewise, to BE a good neighbor, to disregard any social dividing lines which might let us say that someone, somewhere, is NOT our neighbor.  So far so good? 

It’s a great United Church story.  It takes the whole law, boils it down to two commandments, and then further focuses our attention to the way we care for our neighbors.  All of religion boiled down basically to good ethics, inclusivity, and compassion.  And that’s who we are!  Right?  Yay! 

And then Luke mucks it up for us by telling this story. 

There was a woman named Martha, who had a sister named Mary.  Martha welcomes Jesus into her home; Mary sits at Jesus’ feet, with the rest of the disciples, to listen to him.  Martha is being the hostess.  She is run off her feet.  “Distracted by her many tasks,” Luke says.  Actually, the Greek is significant.  She is distracted by “much diakonia,” or much ministry or service.  Who knew?  Martha is United church!   She is taking the story of the Good Samaritan to heart.  She has taken Jesus and his whole gang into her home, and she’s being a good hostess, a good neighbor.  And her blasted sister is just sitting there!   Doesn’t she get it?  So out she comes – and I like this picture, it looks like Martha is about to crown her sister with a frying pan – and tells Jesus to tell her sister to get to work!  It’s perfect, isn’t it?   She doesn’t even talk directly to her sister!  She tells Jesus to do it.  But Jesus refuses – says in fact that Mary has made the better choice. 

If the story of the Good Samaritan is about the second commandment – love your neighbor as yourself – then perhaps this story of Martha’s is about the first commandment, the one that the United Church often puts on the back burner – love God with all your heart.  Sometimes I think we United church people, with our strong intellects and our sense of social responsibility, think that all we have to do is love our neighbor, and somehow our relationship with God will take care of itself. 

Luke says Martha is distracted by all her service, all her ministry.  Distracted from what?  Isn’t ministry the point?  What is more important, that ministry might distract us from it?  And Jesus replies that Martha is worried, stressed, as well as distracted, by many things.  Do any of you feel like you’re trying to keep a few too many juggling balls in the air?  But Jesus says only one thing is necessary.  What is the one thing necessary, do you think? 

What most feeds your soul?   Or let me put it another way.  If we call “soul” that part of you that is eternal, if that’s where the blessing of God comes, then what strengthens the part of you that is eternal?  What connects you to the living God? 

Abraham Joshua Heschel, in his book called Sabbath, does a lot of mind-bending, for me.  Here is an example:  “Even religions are frequently dominated by the notion that the deity resides in space, within particular localities like mountains, forests, trees or stones, which are, therefore, singled out as holy places; the deity is bound to a particular land; holiness a quality associated with the things of space, and the primary question is: where is … god?  There is much enthusiasm for the idea that God is present in the universe, but that idea is taken to mean His presence in space rather than in time, in nature rather than in history; as if He were a thing, not a spirit…  Reality to us is thinghood, consisting of substances that occupy space; even God is conceived by most of us as a thing.  The result of our thinginess is our blindness to all reality that fails to identify itself as a thing, as a matter of fact.”   

            Heschel, The Sabbath, 4-5.

There is a lively discussion right now between the outspoken atheists and religious people, about whether or not God exists.  But I must admit, the discussion does seem to center around the assumption that God is somehow a thing that can be separated out from all other things and said to exist, as a fact.  It’s an old argument, I suppose.  The atheists tell us this:  God is nothing.  A delusion.  A fabrication of our imaginations.  But from the 11^th and 12^th centuries, a mystic named Meister Eckhart changed this subtly and said this:  God is no thing. 

God is not so much a thing in space, said Heschel, but a presence in time.  The goal of the spiritual life is not so much to amass information as it is to face sacred moments. 

So… how do we love God?   How do we strengthen our souls?  It has to happen in time – and that is what the Sabbath is all about.  Like any relationship I suppose, our relationship with God requires time spent together. 

It’s something I tell pretty much every couple for whom I do a wedding.  When we make marriage vows, we do not promise to feel love for our partner, our whole life long.  No one can promise that!  Our feelings come and go, and depend at least in part on the circumstances of the moment – whether we are sharing a candlelit meal on vacation or juggling demands at work and care for a sick child.  We can’t promise feelings.  We can, and do, promise choices – that we will choose to act in loving ways regardless of the feelings of the moment.  In a marriage, we promise (and it’s a promise that takes a lifetime to grow into) that we will always choose love for our partner, that we will choose love even when we don’t feel love.  

That’s also what we do in baptism – we receive God’s promise to love us always and without condition, and we promise in return to choose love for God.  We promise to act in loving ways towards God, we promise to act in ways that nurture our relationship with God, whatever our passing feelings or the ups and downs of our personal faith. 

And what can we do to nurture that relationship?  Well, we’re doing one of those things right now – public worship.  In public worship, we orient our lives towards God; this is a place we can be reminded of the importance of our relationship with God, and we can spend a brief hour or so to reconnect. 

Sabbath is another practice that can help us to reconnect.  One of the things that I think is quite important is the ritual that begins and ends our Sabbath time, that sets this time apart from “ordinary time,” that marks it as time spent with God.  In a Jewish household, that is usually the Sabbath meal, and the lighting of the two Sabbath candles at the beginning of the Sabbath, and the candle lighting and smelling of the sweet spices at the end.   Our rituals could be a meal, candle lighting, sharing a glass of wine, a particular prayer or blessing…  Something to set this time apart, as belonging to God. 

And one more practice I’d like to mention.  Silence.  I have taken several silent retreats in my life, the best ones lasting at least five days.  These have been profound experiences for me.  I find that our lives are busy and noisy, by and large.  So when I go on a silent retreat – one in which I do not speak, except in worship – I find that it takes some time to quiet the noise around me, and get used to the silence.  Then I discover that there is also a good deal of noise within me, and it takes some time to quiet the gerbil-wheel of stress and activity in my own mind.  But when it becomes quiet outside of me, and quiet inside of me, then it really does seem that my soul comes out of hiding, and I can hear the still small voice of God. 

Silence, Sabbath, worship – practices to nurture our relationship with God, and ways to choose love for God.   Ways to build what Abraham Joshua Heschel describes as a “cathedral built in time.” 

What most feeds your soul?  What strengthens the part of you that is eternal?   And how important is that, to you?

Well!  Here we are, already at the third week of Lent.  Before us are the symbols from the past two Sundays – the pack and the weights, symbolizing the weight we are encouraged to let down on Sabbath.  What do you need to say “no” to in order to truly rest?  And then there’s the half full glass – symbol of the gratitude on which Sabbath is based.  What for you brings deep joy? 

So how’s it going?  Any stories, questions, learnings?  Anyone have any experiences that have been really positive?   Anyone having less positive experiences, anyone experiencing the dark side of Sabbath? 

Imagine a Jewish home.  The family is gathered for dinner on Friday night.  The Sabbath is about to begin (remember, a Jewish day begins at sundown).  The preparations are complete, everyone is present.  Mom lights the Sabbath candles, and there is a noticeable moment of relaxation.  Shabbat.  And then the parents stand behind their children at table, place their hands on their children’s heads, and say a blessing.  You may remember the one from Fiddler on the Roof:  “May the Lord protect and defend you…”

I must confess, I am a very imperfect Sabbath keeper.  But we have had a few Sabbath meals, and on the best, least hurried evenings, we have also stood behind our sons and put our hands on their heads or shoulders, and blessed them.  Now, we started this when they were teenagers.  It felt a little awkward, with hungry teenage boys waiting to eat, to stand and bless.  But they never complained about the time.  They never snickered or made a snide remark.  They were always quiet and present.  And when we finished and began the meal, it always felt close and warm. 

As followers of Jesus, we hold in our hands, our voices and our hearts, something surprisingly powerful.  It’s something that is a force for good in the world that unlike most other things, cannot be turned to harm.  It’s the power of blessing. 

Now.  Let me point out that I do not, and have not, always blessed my sons.  Sometimes I nag my sons.  See, the desire to bless is at least to some extent in conflict in me, with my desire to fix. 

I suppose it’s a version of the half full/half empty issue.  The blessing focuses my attention on the half full side, on the strengths of my sons, on the possibilities for their future.  The nagging focuses my attention on the half empty side.  “You didn’t take out the garbage last night.  Again.  You never take out the garbage.  I always have to clean up after you…”  It’s as if I see the half empty side of the glass, and think, in good consumer fashion, “until this glass gets filled up, unless this behavior or that issue gets fixed, I can’t, I shouldn’t, bless my son.  Fix first, bless second.  Otherwise, he’ll never learn!”  Not surprisingly, the blessings feel better than the nagging – for both of us.  The blessings may also accomplish more – but more on that later. 

Blessing and fixing.  On the Sabbath, we said last week, we are to live as if we lived in the garden of Eden.  Paradise, the seventh day of creation.  Live as if everything was fine, and nothing needed to be changed.   No need to nag.  No need to fix.  Of course, we don’t live in such a world.  There is plenty that needs fixing.  Parliament comes to mind!  Afghanistan.  Japan. Haiti.  The international list goes on and on.  But all we have to do is go downtown to see misery, or out to the Tsuu T’ina reserve to see injustice.  And we don’t have to go outside of this church, or our families, or our own souls, to find things that need healing, fixing, redeeming.  The glass really is half empty.  The world suffers greatly.  How can we live in this world, as if it were Paradise – and why would we want to? 

I want to turn your attention to the Beatitudes.  These are a series of Jesus’ blessings from the Sermon on the Mount.  They’re weird.  They’re challenging.  They’re even disturbing. 

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”  Most of you know what it is to mourn.  It’s not fun, is it?  It doesn’t feel like much of a blessing.  Just the opposite, really – it can be one of the most painful things we can endure.  But Jesus does not say “blessed will be those who mourn, once they have been comforted.”  When they have processed their grief, gone to a support group, rebuilt their lives.  No – he says “blessed are those who mourn.” 

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of God.”  Stress and depression are epidemic in our culture.  We live in the midst of something of a religious crisis.  Being poor in spirit is something many of us know.  That’s not fun either, is it?  I don’t think Jesus is referring to people who are humble and holy, either – I think he actually means “poor in spirit.”  Losing your religion, losing your faith.  But again, he doesn’t say, “blessed will be the poor in spirit, once they work through their spiritual crisis.  Once they find God there in the darkness.  Once they are no longer poor.  He says, “blessed are the poor in spirit.”  Right now. 

Blessed are the peacemakers.  Now, by definition, peacemakers live in times and places of conflict.  Life is hard, and they don’t always survive their peacemaking.  Rarely are they called “children of God” until peace is made or after.  More often, they are reviled by both sides, because they need to challenge the motives and methods of both sides.  But again – Jesus doesn’t say “blessed will be the peacemakers, once people finally come on side.”  He says, “blessed are.” 

People in a consumer society are so focused on externals that we think blessing is something that happens to us.  We think blessing and good luck are the same thing.  And therefore that God’s job in the world – to bless us – is to make us lucky, to make things work out for us, to make sure that we don’t get cancer and that the tsunami doesn’t reach our house and that our investments will always stay safe.  But God just doesn’t seem as concerned about these things as we are.  Look at that lone student there, standing in front of a line of tanks.  Bad things are happening to him.  He’s very unlucky.  But is he blessed?  Is there blessing here? 

God seems concerned with our inner selves, our souls – the part of us that is, we believe, eternal.  God seems to see with much greater depth, to find blessing and worth where we see only emptiness and pain.  There is, underneath the difficulty, a deep reservoir of beauty and wholeness and blessing. 

Back to blessing and fixing.  When I try to fix, I am often simply trying to make the pain go away – make the worry, or the guilt, or the stress go away.  And so I take shortcuts.  I look for a quick fix.  I focus on the symptoms, maybe, rather than the real problem.  I also tend to try to do things for people, because that’s easier and quicker.  I see problems, but I don’t see strengths. 

When we are looking to hire ministers in the United Church, we do needs assessments.  Figure out where the gaps are, and try to hire a minister that will fill the gaps.  When we do social ministry, we tend to ask, “what do people need?  And then we try to get it, do it, for them.  Why don’t we do strength assessments instead?  Find out what people’s gifts and strengths are, and then help them to use those strengths to find their own solutions? 

Part of it is we’re just impatient.  We want the pain to go away quickly.  To bless in our imperfect world, in our imperfect church, in our imperfect families, means being able to hold a certain amount of pain.  To bless our children means being able to hold the worry that they may not be turning out quite the way we hoped.  To bless each other means being able to hold the pain of our difference.  It also requires a certain trust – trust that God is already there, already at work, and that change may not depend on our intervention. 

Anthony de Mello, a Catholic priest who served many years in India, wrote this story: 

I was a neurotic for years.  I was anxious and depressed and selfish.  Everyone kept telling me to change.   I resented them, and I agreed with them, and I wanted to change, but simply couldn’t, no matter how hard I tried.  What hurt the most was that, like the others, my best friend kept insisting that I change.  So I felt powerless and trapped.  Then, one day, he said to me, “Don’t change.  I love you just as you are.”  Those words were music to my ears: “don’t change.  Don’t change.  Don’t change.  I love you as you are.”  I relaxed.  I came alive.  And suddenly I changed!    Now I know that I couldn’t really change until I found someone who would love me whether I changed or not. 

This, I think, is the power of blessing.  The unconditional good wishes become a foundation upon which to build, the solid rock that allows us to relax and come alive. 

On the Sabbath, we look to the full side of the glass.  We appreciate what is there, and we love without condition.  No “fixing” on the Sabbath!  And no need, because God is already there, already blessing, already bringing wholeness. 

I invite you to this Sabbath practice:  to bless.  Bless your children, if they are with you.  Bless your parents and elders, if they are in your care.  Bless those who cause you pain; perhaps if they become whole they will no longer cause you pain!  Perhaps if you are blessing them you will find that what they do no longer bothers you.  Bless.  There is great, great power in it.  AMEN.

First image:  dolphin/cow

Well, we are a week into our Sabbath experiment, so the first thing I need to ask is, how’s it going?  Any interesting experiences yet?  Does anyone want to say anything about how you’re practicing Sabbath, and how it’s going? 

*  *  *  *  *

Last week I talked about saying “no,” and that question:  what do you need to say “no” to in order to really rest?  There’s a fine line between saying no to the burdens we carry, to laying down our heavy load on Sabbath, and between the kind of “no” that becomes itself oppressive.  Does anyone want to say anything about how that’s going for you?

*  *  *  *  *

This week I’d like to talk about the first question in the list – what, for you, would be a perfect day?  (Second image:  cat/couch potato)  Or more particularly, I think – how would you spend a day if the only thing on your agenda was to seek your deepest joy?  Is this it?  Or would it be more like this?  (Third image:  family hiking)  I find this a very challenging question.  We are regularly asked, “what would you find enjoyable, or diverting, or fun…” – but deepest joy is not something we often think about.

What is it that makes you truly and deeply happy?   This might even be a threatening question.  What if I ask what gives me deep joy and find that I have no answer?  The truth is, many of us don’t.  A Sabbath of delight brings us face to face with the fact that there is little real joy in our consumer lives.  In a way, that’s the way our economy is designed.  (Fourth image:  shopper)

So let me first talk about where happiness is NOT to be found.

What do they call us North Americans, on newscasts, whenever the news is economic in nature?  Consumers.  What a horrible, demeaning thing to call a human being!  But increasingly, that’s the label we put on ourselves, isn’t it?  It means that increasingly, we look to the marketplace for our happiness.  And there, according to Wayne Muller in his book on Sabbath, “we are offered something that looks very much like happiness – a tantalizing substitute for happiness – something more easily acquired, more quickly and conveniently bought and sold.  We are offered the satisfaction of desire.”  Not happiness, but the satisfaction of our desires. 

Here’s how it works.  (fifth image:  half full glass)  You know the image.  Here’s a glass – it’s both half full and half empty.  A metaphor for our lives.  In a consumer culture, some thousands of ads a day teach us to look at the half that is empty:  thousands of times a day, we are shown images of the things in our lives that need to be improved, updated, replaced.  We are shown images of people who are happier than we are, more in love than we are, more attractive than we are, more connected than we are.  And we are told what to buy in order to improve our lot in life. 

In other words, fill up the glass – satisfy your desires – and you will be happy.  Only when you fill up the glass, only if you satisfy your desires, will you be happy.  Are you with me? 

The trouble is, the satisfaction of desire is a very temporary thing.  A new desire is just around the corner – especially with thousands of ads a day to fan them up!  And this is not accidental.  Have a look at this:  (sixth image:  quotation)

Our enormously productive economy…demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, or ego satisfaction, in consumption… We need things consumed, burned up, replaced and discarded at an ever-accelerating rate.

                                                     Victor Lebow, Journal of Retailing, 1955

That’s from the Journal of Retailing in 1955.  That’s what drives our economy, isn’t it?  The ever-increasing need for you and I to buy stuff.  That means – back to the half-empty glass – that our attention must always be on the empty half of the glass, that we must always be kept wanting, needing – that in fact our economic health depends on our continuing unhappiness.  That’s the way the system is designed.   Are you with me?

That means the core economics of our time are a profound violation of our Christian values.  In almost every advertisement, we are encouraged to covet – to want what we do not have, to desire something that belongs to another.  In all our lives, we are taught to serve not God but mammon, the pursuit of wealth.  In spite of all our prosperity, we lack happiness because all our effort goes towards the satisfaction of our ever-increasing desires.  The Buddha actually taught that the pursuit of our desires is the foundation of suffering. 

So… what is it that brings joy?  Real joy?  For me, there are two possibilities. 

The first thing that occurs to me is that joy comes from finding and living out our true calling.  (seventh image:  mission worker and children)  Joy is a “mission thing” – it comes from helping others, making a difference in the world, doing what I am deeply called and made to do.   I believe, for instance, that I am actually called to do what I do as a minister.  When a worship service really clicks, when I’m leading a group and someone has one of those “a-ha” moments, when I am part of one of those really significant conversations, when the spirit of God blows in – I don’t just go home happy.  There’s something deep and powerful that clicks into place.  Deep joy.  When we find and live our calling – when we find where our deep fulfillment meets the world’s real need – that’s joy.  Do you know that kind of joy?  Have you found your particular missional niche, the way that God’s love most naturally flows through you?  That search and discovery is a big part of what the church is all about, I think, but for this Lenten season, we’re going to put that aside.  Because this is not Sabbath joy.  This joy is a work-week  joy, a six-days joy. 

Sabbath joy, I think, comes from gratitude and appreciation.  And I believe that these things are in as short supply in our consumer culture as is deep joy. 

(next image – half full glass) Sabbath is meant to be a different kind of day, with a different kind of spirituality.  If for six days you want to focus on the empty side of the glass, and let it pull you forward, okay.  But on the Sabbath, instead of focusing on the empty part of the glass, we focus on the full part.  The image for the day is the seventh day of creation.  God has made all that is, and each day of creation God has found that it is good.  On the sixth day, when all is done, God declares that it is all very good!  Paradise, in fact – the Garden of Eden.  All is perfect.  No one has messed anything up yet.  It’s all fresh and new – not even any weeds to tend!  There is no need to change anything, fix anything, build anything – all that God needs to do is savour it.  Enjoy it. 

The Sabbath is a day for gratitude, and appreciation. 

Here are a couple of practices for you.  The first one your grandmother probably taught you.  Count your blessings.  This is something you can do no matter what is going on in your life, no matter how good or bad your circumstances are.  Simply focus your attention – not on what brings you pain, but on your blessings.  You’ll be amazed at what happens in your soul if you keep doing this. 

And the second comes from the book on Sabbath by Wayne Muller.  He got it from his friend Doug Wilson, who calls it “Slotha Yoga.”  When you wake up, don’t get up.  Just lie there for a while, remembering your dreams, feeling comfortable in the warm bedding, watch the light.  Try it.  If you’re late for church, just say “I was doing my slotha yoga.” 

Even Sheryl Crow can sing about this:  happiness isn’t having what you want, it’s wanting what you have. 

Sabbath is about savoring your life, enjoying the world, loving things and people just the way they are.   Just for one day, forget about fixing things, completing things, renovating, improving, healing – and just savor the now.   Live into what is, and give thanks.  Count your blessings.  Somewhere in here is, I believe, the secret of deep joy.  (Last image:  mountain stream) AMEN.

For how many of you are busyness and stress a problem?  Just for curiosity’s sake, how many of you who raised your hands are also retired? 

In the Matthew reading, Jesus says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and heavily laden.”  Is that you?  Or maybe a more ordinary way to say that is, how many of you are tired and overwhelmed? 

This, I think, is significant.  In spite of ours being the world’s, and history’s, most prosperous, most healthy, most secure society, we live lives of stress, busyness, isolation, depression, and fatigue – maybe more so than almost any other society on earth.  I believe that the busyness and stress of our society is a direct and necessary result of our consumer culture and economics.  And Sabbath may be a way to find a little bit of sanity and sacredness in the midst of it all.  But I’m getting ahead of myself. 

Can I have the first picture, please?   I don’t know if you can see the details here:  it’s just after five o’clock, her inbox is full and her outbox is empty, and she’s gulping coffee straight from the pot.  Ever feel like this? 

According to the Ten Commandments in Exodus, we are commanded to take one day in seven to rest.  There is to be no work, no worry, no lists, no orders, no planning… One day in every seven, just like the seventh day of creation.  Think about it.  God creates all that is, and calls it “very good.”  No one has messed anything up yet, it’s the Garden of Eden.  Nothing needs to be fixed or tended, it’s all brand new and perfect.  There is nothing to do but enjoy it.  Sabbath.  One day in every seven, to be lived as if we were living in Paradise.  In heaven.  Sound good?  But very, very few of us do it.  Most folks, especially folks my age and younger, think of a “day off” not as a day to let down our stress or our busyness, but simply as a day to change gears.  Instead of work for pay, we’ll do housework, shopping, or some programmed activity.   Or we’ll flop down in front of a TV, as a way of distracting ourselves from the weight we carry.  We’re not laying down the load so much as collapsing under it. 

Next slide, please?   Come to me, all you who labour and are heavily laden, and I will give you rest, says Jesus.  But tell me:  is church rest for you?  Or is it simply another gear change, another way to be busy and burdened? 

Sabbath is meant to be a different kind of a day, a different kind of time.  It is a day to let go of our stress and our busyness, a day to let go of our burdens, a day to be light and free.  Next slide, please? 

Interested? 

Well, you don’t get free and easy without saying “no.”  And “no” is a hard thing for many, if not all of us, to say.  A consumer society is much more geared to saying yes – yes as in “buy now, pay later.”  Yes as in “if you want something done, ask a busy person.”  Yes as in “you really should…”  We are reluctant to deny ourselves – or anyone else – anything.  And so life becomes very full, and our burdens become very heavy.  Next slide, please? 

Let me get this off me for a bit here…  I spent some of this week rummaging around in my own pack here, to see what weighs me down in life, to see what I might need to say “no” to in order to rest.  Here’s what I’m coming up with.  Of course I’ll have the usual blind spots and such, but maybe there’ll be something in here you can identify with, and maybe this will give you some ideas about what you might need to lay down on your Sabbath… 

So what’s in here? 

• Well, there’s an overdeveloped responsibility gland.  Oh, I know there are some of you that have one of these!  It’s fairly heavy.  It makes you feel like you are carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders, that you have to fix every problem that you see, or at least every problem that someone plops into your lap.  Living life as if you’re responsible for everything and everybody is tough.  It’s a heavy load to bear.  And sometimes it distracts our attention away from the stuff that really IS our responsibility…  For sure, we can lay this one down on the Sabbath.  Maybe on other days too!
• There’s guilt.  This is also pretty heavy.  And now some of it is useful stuff – the specific stuff that I’ve done wrong (and I’m reasonably good at doing stuff wrong).  But you know – that’s usually not that heavy and I usually don’t carry it around for long.  The heavy stuff is the less useful kind of guilt.  There’s the general stuff – the feeling that I’m just not good enough.  And there are some legitimate issues that I’m just not ready to deal with.  It’s hard to be light and free when you’re feeling guilty.  We can say “no” to guilt on the Sabbath. 
• Well, there’s stuff.   It has to be bought, stored, cleaned, maintained, found when it’s lost, and I feel guilty if I buy stuff and then don’t use it…  Stuff takes a lot of time, and it really does weigh me down…  On the Sabbath, I can let the stuff take care of itself.
• Here are some bad habits, addictions maybe even.  It’s personality stuff I drag with me, things about me that I know I should change, but I’m not ready yet.  I’m still attached to them.   I don’t know if I can let go of the habits on the Sabbath – but I can let go of the worry, the heaviness.  On the Sabbath, I don’t have to “should” on myself. 
• Other people.  I worry about other people.  Sometimes it’s just friendly concern.  Sometimes it’s people that bug me, and I worry over how I’m gonna fix them, or win, or whatever.  Sometimes it’s that responsibility gland again, and it’s other people’s problems that I’ve made mine.  On the Sabbath, I can give the worries to God, and just let the people be.  I can give thanks for them without worrying about changing them. 
• Fear and anxiety.  I’ve been reading a book lately that says our society is floating in a pool of anxiety.  News about crime makes us anxious, even though rates of violent crime are apparently very very low.  News in general makes us anxious, whether it’s about global climate change or the economy or politics or whatever.  Change makes us anxious.  Our health makes us anxious.  You know.   On the Sabbath, we are actually not allowed to worry.  We can let that go.  Let God handle the worries for a day.  We can pick them up tomorrow – if we want to.  
• Lists.  They’re always longer than the time available.  But no lists on the Sabbath! 

Next slide, please? 

Sabbath is built on saying “no.”  But it’s a careful “no!”  It’s “no” to all these things that weigh us down.  We say no to work in order to rest.  We say no to these things in order to allow our souls and bodies one day to be light and easy.   We say no to shopping in order to be free, one day a week, from our wallets and our stuff.  We say no to sports – if we do – just in order to be free from the clock, free from driving, free from schedules. 

The thing is, saying “no” can become a heavy weight in itself!  That’s what the “dark day of don’t” Sabbath is, and it is what Jesus is objecting to, I think, in the Matthew stories for today.  We don’t want our Sabbath to be an oppressive day. 

Here’s a little context.  I understand the Pharisees in Jesus’ day had kind of codified the Jewish law.  Something between six and seven hundred laws or something, that people were supposed to obey – including laws about what you could or couldn’t do on the Sabbath.  Now a lot of us hear about seven hundred laws and we think that’s oppressive.  That wasn’t the idea.  I mean, walk into a law library someday – we’ve got a whale of a lot more than seven hundred laws here in Canada!  Seven hundred is meant to be something easy, something to settle the conscience. 

When the disciples went through the field, and picked some grain and ate it, that is lawful.  According to the law, it was okay to pick from someone else’s field if you were hungry.  But technically, rubbing the grain in your hands to clean the chaff was harvesting – not okay on the Sabbath. 

And healing, of course, is not against the law.  But in order for doctors to have a Sabbath too, it was not lawful to do any healing except for emergencies on the Sabbath.  What Jesus did in the synagogue was not an emergency healing. 

It’s just that sometimes rules can oppress.  Sometimes rules can be used to keep people down.  Sometimes rules can be used as an excuse to judge someone. 

Last slide, please? 

Sabbath is a day to be free and light.  In order to do that, we must say no to some things – maybe some things that are good on other days.  The aim is not to oppress, but to be free.  The trick is to walk that fine line, between a “no” that is difficult but necessary, and a “no” that squelches the very life that we are looking to find. 

Good luck finding your way.   I invite you again this morning into an experience of Sabbath.  Not just a day off.  Sabbath is a day to rehearse for heaven.  It’s a day to practice the Kingdom of God.  It’s a day of paradise – of rest, and holy delight.  Like any of the great practices, it can contain the whole of the gospel, and it can open the way for God to enter our lives.  Come let’s join together, and taste and see that the LORD is good.  AMEN.

“Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years.  She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had and she was no better, but rather grew worse.” 

Healing is hard sometimes… isn’t it?  Here’s a woman who has suffered from hemorrhages for 12 years.  12 years of hemorrhages that have made her, in the eyes of her community, “unclean.”  Anyone who touches her, anyone who touches something she has touched, becomes unclean.  I suppose some may have braved it, but imagine 12 years without a touch, without a hug, without the basic comfort of human contact.  Not only the hemorrhages, though, not only the isolation, but also the doctors.  Doctors that had consumed all her money, and for all their so-called care, she had only gotten worse. 

Healing is hard to find, sometimes.  Maybe the diagnosis itself is elusive.  Maybe you’re depressed, but can find for the life of you no good reason for it.  How do you fix something when you don’t know what it is, where it comes from?   Maybe the doctors just can’t find a reason for your symptoms.  There’s something wrong with a relationship, but you can’t quite put your finger on what it is.  It’s hard to heal something that doesn’t have a name.  And sometimes, even if you’ve got a name, there’s really nothing that can be done.

Maybe there’s some denial involved.  Most of us are pretty good at that, somewhere in our lives.  We just saw “The King’s Speech.”  The king stutters – but doesn’t want to talk about his personal life, doesn’t want to look at when it started or why it started.  For all of us, I’m sure, there are places in our souls we don’t want to look.  There are things we don’t want to hear.  There are places we don’t want to go.  It’s tough to heal what we pretend isn’t real – or isn’t important. 

Sometimes, ironically, we get pretty attached to our ailments.  Sometimes, if the truth be told, we don’t want to be healed.  Being a victim can be a strange kind of asset at times, and being whole carries some freedoms and responsibilities of which we are sometimes afraid.  Sometimes folks smoke because they like it!   And while we may think we should lose weight or get fit, we may not want the diet or exercise.  Jesus often asked, “do you want to be healed?”  It’s sometimes a significant question. 

It’s hard to heal relationships.  After all, it takes two to tango.  And reconciliation – repentance and forgiveness – like the tango, is a very complicated dance.  It requires courage, and vulnerability, and constructive action from at least two people.  That’s hard. 

I could go on.  Healing is hard, sometimes.  Here’s a woman who has suffered for a dozen years.  Not touched for a dozen years.  Hurt by those who were supposed to help.  12 years. 

Healing is hard sometimes… isn’t it? 

“She had heard about Jesus.” 

The Bible is amazingly compact sometimes.   What had she heard?   Probably something like what we proclaim in this church – that God through Jesus Christ can heal, that God, through Jesus Christ, can transform our lives, that God heals, forgives, reconciles, makes new.   Our mission statement states that we are “seeking wholeness in Christ.”  The assumption, I suppose, is that wholeness can in fact be found in Christ.  We’ve heard that it can. 

A woman who has been unwell and untouchable for 12 years hears about Jesus – that he can heal, that he can bring new life, a new beginning.  Is this just another doctor?  Another disappointment?  Is it just religious fantasy, a nice fairy tale for children, but not to be trusted in the real world? 

What is she to think, this woman?  What are we to think?  Is it true?  Does Jesus Christ heal people?  For real?  Is there really recovery for addiction, reconciliation for relationships, transformation for our real lives, in Jesus Christ and in the gospel?  Is there wholeness to be found in Christ? 

“And she thought” – and this is the amazing part – “if I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.”  And so she – the untouchable woman – pushes through the crowd surrounding Jesus.  She spreads her contagion of uncleanness through the whole blessed crowd.  Stepping on toes, elbowing her way through…  Whatever else you might say about this woman, she has gumption!  She has courage!  She has faith – somehow 12 years of unsuccessful doctoring have not killed her faith.  She has not given up, she does not sit passive and wait for someone to come fix it for her – she pushes through the crowd for just a touch of Jesus’ clothes.  She touches – and it happens.  The thing she has hoped for, worked for, spent for, for these twelve years. 

“Who touched my clothes?”  Jesus stops and turns and asks, in a pushing crowd, who has touched him.  His disciples ask, “who hasn’t?” but Jesus knows that power has gone out of him.  There’s two paradoxes in this. 

• Power goes out of Jesus – his power accomplishes the healing.  But when he speaks with the woman, what he tells her is “your faith has made you well.”  Which is it?  Or both?  Jesus’ power or her faith?   It’s funny how in life both things seem to be true.  Ignatius of Loyola used to say, “pray like it’s all up to God, act like it’s all up to you.” 
• Normally, we expect – and the law states – that it is uncleanness or disease that is contagious.   If the unclean woman touches someone, they become unclean.  If someone sneezes wetly next to you, you look for the disinfectant.  But here, the unclean woman touches Jesus and becomes clean.  It is holiness that is contagious.  Here, the sick woman touches Jesus, and becomes well.  Health, or wholeness, is contagious.  Can it really work like that? 

Here’s the really breathtaking part of this.  A Canadian catholic named Ron Rolheiser – writer of several marvelous books – suggests that when we read this story, we remember that we, the church, are called the body of Christ.  We, the church, are now the incarnation of Christ in the world.  And he asks, “can someone come and touch the hem of our garment now, and be healed?”  Does touching the church – even the edge of the church – bring healing? 

The Darfuri community holds an event in a church – called “Beautiful Darfur.”  A man tells a story about a lost son, and begins a conversation with a church member.  Just a touch of the church’s clothes – and now that lost son is home. 

A family in need is put on a list to receive a Christmas hamper.  It’s just one of many in a year, and another family – part of the church – delivers the hamper.  Just a brief touch, the hem of the church’s garment.  But a relationship begins, and the two families begin to share a lasting bond. 

Perhaps you’ve touched the church, thinking that you were touching a very flawed human institution – and discovered power flowing from Christ, through this all-too-human church, and making you whole.  If only this church were like the clothing of Christ, such that when you touched the church, you somehow touched the power of the living God underneath. 

What do you think?  Is it unhealth that is contagious?  Is it our disease, our flaws, our failings and our sins, that are contagious, such that we must constantly be building walls, casting people out, protecting ourselves from one another? 

Or is there something miraculous among us, and inside us, is there a contagious wholeness about us, as flawed and human as we are, such that our touch can make the wounded whole?  Can we reach out to each other, and find Jesus Christ? 

Here is what I believe deeply:  day by day we must choose to be more than a collection of ordinary believing human beings.  Day by day we must choose to be the church of Jesus Christ, we must choose to be and to act as if Jesus was in our very midst. 

Healing is hard, sometimes – I know it.  But then comes Jesus. 

AMEN.

The Burning Bush.  What a great image for the church!  On fire, but not burning out.  Isn’t that what we want to be in our faith life, in our volunteering, in our lives as a whole?  On fire – full of energy and passion – and yet not burning out, not becoming exhausted, not wearing down.  Amen?  I think the story gives us a clue about how to do that – and that is important, I think, on an annual meeting Sunday.

When I was younger, I always wondered at this story.  Here’s God picking on poor old Moses, the ordinary shepherd.  “Go and set my people free from slavery!” God says…  Go and do the impossible!  No wonder poor Moses replies, “who am I?”  I always imagined that God just kind of chose Moses at random – but the more I study, the more I think God made a very wise and careful choice. 

Think of the rest of Moses’ story.  As a baby, he was placed in a basket and floated down the Nile, right into the place where Pharaoh’s daughter was swimming.  When she picked up the baby, there was Moses’ sister, just waiting to suggest that Pharaoh’s daughter raise the boy, using a Hebrew woman as nurse.  Just waiting to go get Moses’ own mother to nurse him.  Sometimes I think of Miriam and Moses’ mother as leaders in the Hebrew underground.  Kind of like being raised by Rosa Parks. 

And the training “took,” too – Moses was in Midian, in the Sinai, because he had killed an Egyptian overseer for abusing a Hebrew slave.  It may not have been the best choice in the world, but it proved that Moses was passionate – passionate – about the welfare of the Hebrew people.  That’s good leader material. 

Of course, the other people who raised Moses were the family of Pharaoh.  At this time, Egypt was the greatest nation on earth.  There was, therefore, no better place on earth to learn the art of national leadership than the household of Pharaoh, king of Egypt.   That’s not only good leadership material, it’s the very best. 

And then Moses killed the Egyptian, and fled into the desert.  He became a shepherd.  Having seen the Sinai desert, I know that surviving there is a challenge.  Where do you go to learn how to do that?  To the Bedouin, to the shepherds.  They know the territory, they know the dangers, they know how to find food and water and shelter.  Moses had that training, too. 

Who else in all the world would have those skills – a passion for the Hebrew people, national leadership training, and desert survival skills?    Add to that the fact that Moses’ father-in-law was a priest, and you even have religious wisdom added to the mix.  God could not have selected a better person in all the world.  Moses was they guy. 

Of course, the job was still impossible.  Go and set a nation of slaves free, from the most powerful nation on earth.  The job was still beyond human means – and so God said, “I’ll go with you.” 

Here’s why I like to pick this passage for Annual meeting Sunday.  What we do here in church is important – I think so, anyway.   What we do, at our best, is peoplemaking – we help shape the character of the people in this congregation, and we help shape the character of the society of which we are a part.  We help people connect with God, with the deepest and most significant core of reality.  We are about finding purpose and meaning in life.  It’s important stuff!  And so the volunteering we do in the church is also important. 

Now some of our church work is a bit like housework.  I think I talked about that last year.  It’s not all that much fun for most of us, it’s just got to get done.  So we all pitch in, because many hands make light work. 

But some of our work is “burning bush” stuff.  It’s a calling.  It’s something about which we want to be on fire, without burning out.  Like Moses, it’s a matter of personal passion, it’s something for which our gifts and skills and experience suit us, it’s something that fulfills us at a deep level.  If we can help you find and live out your calling, that’s what we want to be about! 

So here’s a trick I’d like to suggest.  When you’re considering volunteering, in this church or outside of it, think about these things. 

• Is this “housework?”   Is it something that nobody particularly wants to do, but needs to get done?  If so, then do your share and no more.  You need to leave enough room for your calling.
• When you consider what you’re being asked to do, do you feel excited?  Does this engage your passion, do you feel some energy and attraction?  If so, that’s a green light.  You may not feel quite adequate to the task.  But if your heart and your gifts are there, you can learn what you need.  And if God’s calling, then God will give you strength.  But look for the spark of life and interest. 
• On the other hand, when you consider what you’re being asked to do, do you feel a certain heaviness descending?  Do you suddenly feel tired inside?  Are you saying to yourself, or to someone else, “well, I suppose I could.  If you can’t find anyone else.  I guess.  If I have to…”  If that’s the way you are feeling, please say NO!  Your body is telling you that this is not your call. 

On fire, but not burning out.  That’s my hope for this church, and that means listening for God’s voice, finding your calling, finding that place where your gift and passion and joy meets the world’s need.  That’s more important than filling a committee. 

AMEN.

John 4: 1-42

This story this morning is one of the great “encounter stories” in John – Jesus, in the previous chapter, has met with the Pharisee Nicodemus in the night, here with the woman at the well, ahead are his meetings with the man born blind, with Lazarus at the tomb, with Pilate before his death, then with Mary, Thomas, and Peter after the resurrection. 

The gospel of John seems to be one of those pieces of literature that is written on several different levels at once.  In this story, for instance, there are at least two levels – one is simply the story of Jesus’ meeting with a Samaritan woman at Jacob’s Well.  The other level is a theological one, about worship, purity, national identity.  What I’d like to do is move back and forth between the two levels in this story, to give you a bit of a flavor of what’s going on in this gospel and how it might speak to us. 

Because I’m going to get a bit academic – I’ve been reading commentaries again – I’ll remind you about heckling.  If you’re right with me, I welcome an “amen!” or two!  But if I wander off into some weird ivory tower world that is totally incomprehensible, then feel free to shout out “Help him, Lord!” 

Here’s the setting.  Jesus is travelling from Judea, in the South, northwards back home to Galilee.  In order to do that, he has to travel through the center part of Israel, the bulk of what we now call “The West Bank,” and what was called in Jesus’ day Samaria.  This was difficult, because Jews and Samaritans did NOT get along. 

A little bit of history about why.  In the early days of the Kingdom of Israel, all twelve tribes were united under kings Saul, David, and Solomon.  But after Solomon’s death there was a bit of a civil war, and the nation split into two – ten tribes to the north, Judah to the south, and the Levites, the priestly tribe, staying mostly (I think) with the south.   The Davidic line of Kings stayed in the South, in Judah or Judea.  The capital of Judah was Jerusalem, the capital of Israel was Samaria.  The two nations continued side by side, sometimes allies, sometimes enemies, until one of the great powers, Assyria, invaded and conquered the North kingdom in 722 BC. 

Now, the Assyrians, like most of the empires back then, had their own way of keeping their conquered territories conquered.  They deported most of the local leadership, and then they moved a bunch of other populations in – the idea is that you put a bunch of people together who aren’t likely to get along, and they’ll never be able to get it together enough to revolt against your empire.  Anyway, a whole lot of foreign folk were settled in Samaria, and they brought their gods and customs with them.  The people intermarried, and by Jesus’ time, they had become the Samaritans.  They were despised by the Judeans because of their racial and religious impurity.  Got it so far? 

So Jesus is travelling through Samaria, and stops at the town of Sychar.  It’s high noon, and here comes a lone woman to the well with a water jar.  Just for information’s sake, the word for “water jar” here is the same as in the story of the Cana wedding – the kind of jars in which Jesus changed water to wine. 

Now, this is an odd time for a woman to be fetching water.  Normally, water was gathered in the early morning and in the evening, and it was a social occasion.  For some reason this woman is at the well alone, in the middle of the day.  Why, I wonder?  Why would someone want to avoid being with others, avoid social times? 

We’re not told.  But when she arrives at the well, there is Jesus.  And he asks her for a drink of water.  Two things about this:

• First, it’s a breach of custom.  Jews, as the woman points out, do not associate with Samaritans, or share things like drinking cups or buckets.  It may even be improper for Jesus to speak with a woman – I would think it was certainly wrong for the woman to answer Jesus back like an equal.  This whole conversation really was socially forbidden – but Jesus didn’t pay a lot of attention to those kind of things.  Jesus did not pay attention to social status, he didn’t abide any kind of discrimination or prejudice, he didn’t pay attention to laws that made one person lesser than another.  I think that’s something for us to pay close attention to. 
• Second, this man/woman meeting at a well is a familiar story in Scripture.  We can call it the “well courtship story.”  Isaac met his wife Rebekah at a well.  Jacob met Rachel at a well.  Moses met his wife Zipporah at a well.  Basically, the story goes like this:  the man, the stranger, comes to the well and meets the woman there.  He makes an impression (or she does) and she goes off and brings in the kinsfolk.  Then the deal is made, and the two are married.  So when Jesus and this woman at the well start talking, there might be a knowing nod or two in a Biblically literate group of listeners!  Except that the courtship happens on the second level of this story, the theological level.  Let me explain.
  • Often in the Old Testament – and even at times in the new – marriage or sexual relationship is used as a metaphor for the relationship between God and the people of Israel.  So in the prophet Hosea the people’s time wandering in the desert after the Exodus is actually presented as a kind of a “honeymoon period.”  When Israel wanders off after other gods they are portrayed as God’s unfaithful spouse. 
  • So, if I’m understanding this passage rightly, while on one level the story is about Jesus meeting one particular Samaritan woman, on the theological level this story will be about God wooing the Samaritan people. 

Okay.  Jesus asks for a drink, and the woman is surprised.  She points out the social difficulty.  And Jesus responds, “if you knew who was asking, you’d have asked me for a drink – and I’d have given you living water.”  There’s a bit of a pun here – “living water” is running water, as opposed to the stagnant water of a cistern or something. 

Okay, the woman replies, playing along.  How are you going to get that water?  I have the only bucket, and this well is mighty deep. 

Oh, no, says Jesus.  If you drink this water (meaning the well) you’ll get thirsty again.  The water I give will become a spring inside you, welling up eternal life. 

Like Nicodemus, the woman takes Jesus literally.  Nicodemus thought being born again was like getting back into the womb.  The woman says, “okay!  Give me this water, so I won’t have to keep coming here to fetch water.”  And Jesus says go get your husband. 

The woman answers somewhat belligerently:  I don’t have a husband!  And Jesus answers, “right.  You don’t.  You have had five husbands, and the one you have now isn’t actually your husband.”  She answers, “I see you are a prophet.” 

Something interesting is happening here.  Got this from a commentary (Becoming Children of God by ).  On one level, Jesus is commenting about this woman’s sexual ethics.  Lots of husbands, currently living in sin.  In the first century, that was probably pretty scandalous, and would explain why she’s at the well at noon.  But on the second level, the theological one, there’s something else happening. 

When the Assyrians – remember them?  The ones who conquered the north kingdom in 722 BC?  When they imported other nations and their gods into Samaria, guess how many nations and gods they brought in?  Right – five.  The Samaritans “married” five other religious and national systems.  And who were they with now?  The Romans, who were bringing in the worship of emperors and Roman Gods in every city in the land.   But this was still a pretty uneasy relationship – they weren’t exactly married.   

With this in mind, it’s not quite as much of a stretch when the woman starts talking about proper worship.  Who’s right?  Who’s faithful?  Is it the Jews in Jerusalem, worshipping on Mount Zion, or the Samaritans on Mount Gerizim?  Jesus responds that it’s not so much the location or the religion, but that God is worshipped “in spirit and in truth.” 

And finally, the woman bails out.  I know that the Messiah is coming.  I’ll leave it to him to sort this out.  And you can almost feel her turning away, until Jesus says, “I am he.” 

At that point, Jesus has made the impression.  The woman goes to fetch the kinsfolk.  She becomes an evangelist – “come and see a man who told me everything I ever did.  You don’t suppose he could be the Messiah, do you?” 

The woman in this story has three strikes against her, at least to an ancient Jewish audience.  She’s female in a patriarchal society.  She’s ethically challenged, maybe, on account of her many marriages.  She’s religiously challenged, as a Samaritan, shamed by her confused religion.  And what does Jesus do?  He offers her living water.   He offers her blessing.  He treats her as an honoured human being. 

And she, in her turn, becomes an evangelist – the first in this book of John, I think, this book of many very important and memorable women.  She goes back to her people.  She does not tell them what to believe.  She just says, “come and see a man who told me everything I ever did.”  She even shares her doubts – “you don’t think he could be the messiah, do you?”  She is basically saying, “I am attracted to this man – to this God – who knows everything about me” – and the unsaid remainder – “and still offers me his hand, his blessing, his living water.  Could this possibly be true?  Could it be that God actually loves ME?” 

When I began this sermon, I actually thought that this story was about questions, and doubts.  And on one level it is.  This woman believes all the wrong stuff.  We put a lot of emphasis on what a person believes, and it’s instructive to see that Jesus doesn’t seem to put a lot of weight on that.  I think that Jesus is offering living water to a lot of people in our day who don’t fit traditional religious categories.  Your questions are important!  Even your doubts can be good, because they can lead you into the conversation with God.  And they can provide a way to include others in that conversation. 

But on another level this is about courtship.  It is about Jesus, who knows everything we ever did, courting us, loving us, offering us living water.  Could that be true?  Is God like a man at a well, fallen in love with us, hoping for marriage?  Is God like a corporate head-hunter, with her eye on us, thinking we’re perfect for the job?  Could that be true? 

Come see.

1 Samuel opens not in the halls of power, but in the house of a man remembered only here. Elkanah is married to two women, and Hannah, his favorite, is barren. This theme is familiar, and reflects another time when barrenness put God’s promise in question with the matriarchs, Sarah and Rachel. We are reminded that what seem to be personal domestic decisions also have world-wide consequences when seen across the whole span of history. Hannah begs God for a child, and during her prayer, she encounters the priest Eli who is less than comforting, accusing the praying woman of being drunk! Despite this initial encounter, Eli tells Hannah that her prayer will be answered. Hannah has her long awaited child and does as she promised. She gives the child to the LORD. The boy, Samuel, remains with Eli at the holy place in Shiloh.  

Reading:  1 Samuel 3: 1-18

Sermon:  Mentors, Elders and Grace                       Rev. Karen Holmes.

We have entered a series of  character studies as we move into this season of Epiphany.  Today we meet Eli and Samuel,  both of them lying awake at night.   You know what happens.    Tossing and turning, shifting and groaning, late night shadows steal through  minds.  Lists, things done and undone,  what we might of, could of, should have said.   Worries, both  trivial matters and matters of life and death.    As we get older,   regrets   and reckonings arise in the darkness,   when the voices in our heads   speak of inadequacy, mistakes made,  unreached potential,  failure.  We can also find in the dark a gnawing sense  that life seems to be slipping away.   We ask ourselves  “Where is God in all of this?”    “Why,” we think,   “do I feel so far from God?  Do I even believe in God?”   In the darkness of questions and fears, everything seems possible and everything seems impossible….

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Imagine what it was like for Eli.  We know his children were running amok, and Eli knew it too.  There were problems with their use of money, some of it from the offering plate,  and  around  proper procedure around sacrifices at the shrine.  Seems the boys were helping themselves to the best meat.  There were whispers of bribes and sexual impropriety,  and Eli knew the truth of the matter.  His was a family coming apart at the seams,   he was getting old,  and, like the reading says ‘The word of the Lord was rare in those days;  visions were not widespread.”  It sounds as if Eli was just paying lip service to his role as a Judge, the enthusiasm and faith of his youth had deserted him.  His eyesight had begun to grow dim so he could not see, the passage states.  But it wasn’t just a need for better eyeglasses.  His blindness  was in his heart, his mind as well.  So,  he truly didn’t see.  He was in the midst of a corrupt family, in the midst of  a life that was falling apart.   His role as a Judge meant that  he was the one the community  were to turn to, to help them find a way through challenges in  their relationships.  Disputes,   marriage troubles,   legal issues,  Eli was the guy who was supposed to help.  This had to be one of those roles which became such a drain on his own resources,  emotionally,  and spiritually.  How does a Judge keep his own life together in the face of so much petty human behaviour?    How  does he keep on  giving sound advice when it seems people will continue, over and over again,  to make the same mistakes,  turn their back on God and on each other,  be so selfish,  misuse one another?   At this stage, his own life was  a shambles;  he couldn’t even solve the problems of his own sons.  What do you do, when the people you look to for  insight and wisdom, for leadership have messy lives, themselves?  ?   What do you do if you are Eli,   in so deep you don’t know what on earth to do to fix it? 

What do you do if you are Samuel, placed in this guys care?   Samuel  had been sent to live in the temple, to learn and to serve God.   None of this had been his choice,  but had fallen on him, after his mothers vow to God.   Like any of us, he learned and grew and watched and experienced.  He saw what was going on with Elis family.  He knew the corruption, the  arguments, the power struggles,  the difference between what was said and done.  He may have been on the road of faith, but it appears, from the story, that  Samuel still didn’t know the difference between the voice of Eli and the voice of God. 

In a perfect story,  there wouldn’t have been a problem for Hannah in getting pregnant.  Samuel would have known God’s voice from his infancy and Eli would have been a paragon of virtue.  There would be no question about the worship life in the temple, and Eli’s sons would both have taken their own religious vows at an early age.    This story isn’t at all perfect, it is far from it.  One might even think to wonder what on earth these people are doing in the church, let alone in the Bible.   Some people find it very difficult to cope with biblical role models who  weren’t perfect.    I think the challenge for us is to pay attention to what God is doing in these stories .   God worked through that old man, Eli,   whose faith was but a memory.   And God worked through Samuel,  who   literally ‘woke Eli up.’    As we look at mentors and role models in faith we see an irony, in that the ones who show us God in the present tense may be a person who are in the midst of a faith crisis, or even one with no faith at all.  Eli may have been in a time when he’d lost his faith,  but he hadn’t quit looking for God.  So when Samuel comes to him third time,  Eli was able to tell Samuel what to do.   Samuel  heard the voice but didn’t know what it was.  Eli listened to the child,  and heard the voice of God calling. 

 It’s funny, sometimes we seem to think that it is only a saint who can point us in the right direction.  Often the ones who  point us towards God are people we do not know,  ones who themselves are lost,  on the edge,  the weak or powerless.   In the story of Jesus birth,  the ones who heard God’s voice and followed the star were mainly outsiders.  Magi, who worshipped in a different way.  Shepherds,  on the outside of society.  A poor woman and her fiancé.    God is able to speak anywhere, through anyone,  in any situation.  What has your experience been?  When have you heard God speaking?  Who was it that brought your attention to what God is doing?   Samuel was just a child, and he helped Eli wake up.  Eli was facing the end of his life, as a failure,  and yet he was able, even when he was most aware that he was unlikely to be able  to recognize the voice of God.      Seems that even people who have messed up their lives,  given up,  forgotten what they were taught and  lost touch with God could wake up, listen,  and  receive the truth with thanksgiving.   Even tho the truth was painful to hear.  No one wants to be told the error of their ways.     Gods word laid out the situation at hand, and spoke of the punishment  Eli and his sons would bear.    Eli  is one who heard  the truth  and with it,  received restoration.  He moves out of the darkness and into the light.     And while the light meant the end of his Judgeship, and his sons facing their own punishment,  it also meant that something new could begin.    

By facing the truth,  Eli  allowed a new dawn to break,  a new voice to be heard.   He and his sons lost their role in the community, and the role Eli had played  moved to the  young prophet,  Samuel.  Samuel is sent by God to anoint  Saul to Kingship, and David after him.  Their stories, too, are  human ones, full of  the challenges and successes,  mistakes and failures that make up life on earth.  But through their stories God’s story is woven.  And God’s story  is one that speaks of  justice and forgiveness,  restoration and  renewal.  It is a story of hope arriving in times of hopelessness,  of  new life, even after death.

Wake up calls can come at many places.  They can come in the wilderness and they can come in the midst of  talks about  the economy.   God  speaks in all places,  if we will only have ears to hear.     We live in difficult times. Many will  wonder how the earth came to be such a mess, and we may wonder where the wake up call will  arrive.   We can see intolerance and injustice, as well as signs of great suffering all around the world.  We see massive flooding in Brisbane and Rio de Janero,   reminders that we are living in the midst of a climate crises.  NASA tells us that 2010 was the warmest year on record.  What is the creator telling us now?   Where do we hear God’s voice speaking for creation?   This past week the shooting in Tucson  underscored the  deep discord at the heart of politics, and the senseless violence which marks much of  human relationships.  The voice of a little girl and the voice of a president both point us to  a better way.       At one time, there was a man named Martin who spoke up for God.  He spoke about  God’s vision of humanity as  all God’s people.  He spoke of God’s dream.    God’s words to Samuel were hard to hear and even harder to speak to others, for they involved judgment against Eli’s own children. Like Samuel, Isaiah, and Jeremiah, God’s call often involves working to change human systems that are broken, leading one down difficult paths.  Martin Luther King Jr  heard that call, and he answered.  In our story today  Eli was the one with the most to lose,  but he  was able to  recognize when God was at work, and  was willing to  take responsibility.    I know God is still calling to people in the night, and I know there are many who   listen and watch and  speak up and out, no matter the cost.  Many are sitting beside you, today.  We shall overcome the fear and distrust in society,  people will overcome injustice and work for human rights,   when many stand up against hatred and greed,  intolerance  and hate.   Justice shall flow like a river and righteousness like an everlasting stream, because you have heard God calling and you will  join with Eli,  as you listen and see signs of God at work.   God has a way of waking us up,  of reminding us who we are.  God’s call comes when we least expect it and often to those we least expect. God is always the God of surprises. We, as the church, need to be like Eli, encouraging everyone to hear the voice that calls them forth into all they are created to be.   At the same time, we must help each other to tell the truth, even when the truth is hard to hear.  When we hear God call our name it is time to say ‘Speak Lord, your servant is listening.  Amen.

The set-up…

Esther is a fairly obscure Old Testament book – it comes just after Nehemiah and just before Job.  It concerns the Jews in diaspora, a rather modern-feeling situation.  This is not about the people of Israel in the land of Israel, but rather a religious and ethnic minority living in another land – in this case Persia; a Jewish community in the Persian city of Susa.  If you think of the Jewish community here in Calgary, for instance, or the Sikh community largely in Calgary’s northeast, you’ll get the idea. 

The characters you’ll encounter in this passage are as follows:  Esther is a young Jewess who has become, as a result of a series of rather sexist coincidences, the Queen of Persia (the king is Asaheurus).  Mordecai is Esther’s cousin and adopted father, the man who has raised her since the death of her parents.  Haman, you’ll see, is a recently-promoted official in Asaheurus’ court. 

Is the story an historical one?  As usual, we really don’t know.  On the one hand, it is entirely plausible.  It concerns a planned pogrom, the extermination of the Jews in the land of Persia – something we know has happened all too often through the history of the world.  There are possible references to some of these characters in historical records outside of the bible.  However, the story bears some of the marks of poetic license – if you’re in the right mood, some of this story is laugh-out-loud funny, with some feminist digs and satirical caricatures. 

We’ll try not to give away how the story ends.  Go ahead and read it for yourself! 

Sermon

We’re entering a series that will largely be character studies – various people in the Old and New Testaments and their stories.  We’ll try to find the connections between these ancient stories and our own world, in the hope of finding where and how God is active in our own world.  This morning, we look at Esther, and at politics.  Yup.  Politics. 

A couple of things to start with.  On occasion, I have heard it said that preachers ought not to meddle in politics.  And a respected American (American, and not Biblical) principle is often cited – the “separation of Church and State.”  As I understand it, the separation of church and state refers to a policy whereby the state, the government, is not allowed to control the church, nor is the church allowed to control the state.  That means that the Prime Minister can’t hire or fire clergy, or control what is said in a sermon.  That preserves the church’s ability to preach and act prophetically – to praise or criticize a government as the gospel seems to require.  The idea is, as a church, we need not fear heavy-handed repercussions from the government.   Similarly, the government needs to be free from heavy handed repercussions from the church – threats of excommunication, for instance, if a government official does not vote a certain way on a certain issue.  This preserves the government’s ability to govern for all people, and in particular to protect the rights of religious and ethnic minorities.  Do you get the idea? 

Separation of church and state does not mean that the church should leave politics alone.  Certainly, if we follow Jesus or the Biblical prophets, that is not an option.  The Bible makes it very clear that God is quite concerned for how we order our societies, for the justice of our economics and for the way we care for the poor and the vulnerable.   All this means politics.  If you doubt it, one need look no further than this symbol (the cross).  Romans did not crucify ordinary criminals.  This punishment was reserved for political enemies. 

Speaking of church and politics leads me to the second note.  This scripture, as you already have noticed, concerns a planned genocide, a pogrom, the extermination of Jews.  As you know, this part of the Scripture is entirely realistic, and such things have happened all too often through history, culminating in the Holocaust of the second world war.  Unfortunately, such exterminations have often been based in a Christian theology that devalues Judaism and Jews, a theology which in extreme cases calls Jews “Christkillers.”  As Christians, I believe we must own up to our share of the responsibility for the Holocaust, and ensure that we always remember that Jesus whom we follow was, and remains, a Jew.  Judaism is the mother of our faith, and deserves our respect and not our condemnation.  Politically and religiously, we cannot now and never could afford to be silent before genocide or prejudice. 

The Bible and the gospel require us to be political.  Good citizenship requires us to be political participants.  The question is, how can we be faithfully political?  Where is God active in politics and government?  How and where can we discern God’s grace in public life?

Let’s look at our story.  I’ll start with Haman, something of a caricature.  He has been recently promoted in Asaheurus’ court – a newly minted VIP.  In fact, Haman is so important that it has been commanded that everyone bow down to him when he appears in public – just like the King himself.  And the whole “extermination of the Jews” thing comes about because one guy, Mordecai, won’t bow down like he’s supposed to. 

Haman represents everything I hate about politics.  He seems to be concerned entirely with his own political and economic fortunes.  What he wants – and in this story, all he wants – is to climb the ladder higher, butter up his betters, and cut down his enemies. 

If you will permit a bit of a rant, that is what I sometimes see in our own politics.  When we have an election, much of our media cover the election as if it was a horse-race.  Who’s ahead?  What do the polls say?  What are the parties’ strategies to get ahead?  In our own recent Mayoralty election (which was, to my mind, one of the best we’ve seen of late), I think I saw as much coverage about the way our candidates were campaigning as I did about the substance of their campaigns.  For instance, I knew that Naheed Nenshi was doing house parties – I didn’t hear about his position on the cost of new housing developments.  Again – I thought our civic election was a good one, more a positive example than a negative one.  For my money, politics should be about informed and respectful debate about public policy, and politicians should demonstrate integrity above all.  To my mind, God is not in what I call “the political game.”

Okay.  Back to Haman.  Haman decides to rid himself of a political enemy by having all of the Jews exterminated.  He makes his own enemy seem like an enemy of the state.  He tries to advance himself by focusing everyone’s attention on a (supposedly) common enemy.  Again, this is a rather frequently used  tactic of dirty politics.  Please beware any time you are asked to collectively judge any grouping in society, particularly any time you are asked to see a group of people as hateful or as an enemy of the people – liberals, conservatives, environmentalists, Muslims, Jews, oil companies, Baptists… even the Taliban.  As followers of Jesus, we are not permitted to hate.  Beware whenever you see hate, prejudice, disrespect.  God is not in that. 

Okay.  The decree goes out that all Jews are to be exterminated, and their lands and goods plundered, on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month – a little less than a year hence.  Mordecai, in response, puts on sackcloth and ashes, the symbols of mourning, and goes through the city streets wailing.  Then he sits down at the city gate and basically sets up an ongoing protest.  It’s interesting.  As I understand it, he is doing a religious practice – mourning – in a public place. 

I was part of such an action a bit more than a year ago, when I joined with Bill Phipps in a week-long fast for wisdom and courage at the global climate change meetings in Copenhagen.  I found it interesting – in all my experience as a minister, I think the most opposition I have ever experienced was during that fast.  What’s with that?  A minister, fasting and praying…  why does that become a focus of opposition? 

Well, Jesus did have some harsh words to say about people who do their religious practice in public.  I think what he was objecting to was using religious practice to gain status.  I’m not sure what status points Mordecai or Bill got from their public fasts.  What they did do – and what others such as Gandhi and Martin Luther King have done – is draw public attention to a particular issue, and do it in a religious context.  I think what that does is call us to address a political issue as people of faith.  Is that where God is involved in politics?  When we connect our faith and an issue of public policy?  Well… maybe…  I can certainly think of good and bad examples of that, depending on the toxicity of the religion! 

I’m not sure how much public support Mordecai garnered with his public mourning.  But he did get the attention of some friends and family.  Maybe that’s all protests manage!  But in Mordecai’s case, the family that paid attention happened to be his adopted daughter, the queen.  First all she wanted was for him to get off the streets and into some proper clothes!  “Dad!  You’re making a spectacle of yourself!”  But then she spent some time listening to him, to determine what the issue was – and he presented her with the decree, and asked for her intervention.  Remember, at this point, the king does not know that his queen is a Jew.  Esther’s response was a natural one – “I can’t do that.  No one can enter uninvited to the King’s presence, on pain of death.” 

It’s Mordecai’s response to Esther that contains the gem of Esther, as far as I’m concerned.  There are two parts to his answer.  First he says, “If you keep silence at such a time as this, deliverance will rise for the Jews from another quarter.”  I think that’s called “faith.”  Mordecai trusts God, that even if Plan A doesn’t come through, God will somehow bring justice and deliverance anyway. 

I remember hearing a story about Desmond Tutu, during the darker days of apartheid.  He was preaching in church, and as a show of force, the South African police had arranged to have a military presence inside the church.  So here was the congregation, listening to this anti-apartheid preacher, while the apartheid police ringed the church inside the walls, pointing rifles at the congregation.  And Tutu said to the soldiers, “Listen.  God is always on the side of truth and justice, always on the side of the poor.  The truth always prevails!  Justice always prevails, in the end.  Tyrants and oppression always fail, in the end!  Always!  So… why don’t you put down your rifles and join the winning side?” 

Trust.  “Even if you are silent at such a time, deliverance will come for the Jews from another quarter.”  When, even in the rough-and-tumble of political life, we encounter the trust that God’s justice and truth will prevail, even in politics and public policy – I think we’re coming closer to the Spirit of God. 

But it’s the last thing Mordecai says to Esther that is most pointed, to me.  “Who knows,” he says, “Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this.”  Martin Luther King could have said, “no – I can’t lead this movement.  Look at all the hate out there!  They’ll kill me.”  Oscar Romero might have said, “No.  I can’t speak up for the poor.  The military will kill me and besides, half my people are rich.  I need to support them too.”   There are always reasons why we shouldn’t take Jesus more seriously.  There are always risks we’d rather not take.  There are always reasons why politicians can’t do what they really believe is right.  But maybe that’s why we end up in these places of privilege or possibility – maybe it’s for just such a time as this. 

When I see someone put their own lives and interests to the side in order to act with integrity and courage, when I see a person of power and privilege lay their political future on the line in order to do what’s right and important, then I think we are very close to the Spirit of God.

Esther undertook a fast of her own, for three days, and prayed.  She asked that the whole Jewish community fast and pray for her as well, and then she did what she knew was right and important.  What she did was a bit of a surprise, so perhaps she heard something as she was fasting and praying.  I won’t give away the story.  But here’s the last thing I’ll notice – when people listen, when they listen to each other, when they listen to what’s going on around them, and above all when we listen to God – then I think the Spirit comes right in among us. 

Where is God in our politics, in the ordering of our common life?   Not in selfish ambition and political game-playing.  Not in hate or enemy-making.  Perhaps God shows up when we bring our religious practice and understandings to political issues.  Even more when we can trust God to lead us, even when we don’t see our own way.  When political leaders risk their own fortunes in order to do what’s right and needed, then I think the light is shining brightly.  And when we stop and listen, especially when we listen for God together, then I think the Spirit can be right in among us.  AMEN.

Okay, well – recap and report-back!   In the season of Advent, we join ourselves with Mary and Joseph as they await the birth of Jesus – we are, as it were, in a “pregnant time,” awaiting a holy birth.  Do you feel that?  Do you feel a sense that God is about to enter our lives in a new way? 

We also join ourselves with John the Baptist, as we prepare the way for the Messiah.  And in our case, we are doing this by joining the 70 disciples of Jesus on their internship – sharing our faith, sharing God’s love as a way of preparing for God’s coming, and also as a way of opening our own eyes to see God’s grace in our real world. 

The disciples’ first task was to bless – bless not judge.  So we went out, with the prayer of lovingkindness in hand, to bless our neighbors in the first week of Advent. 

The disciples’ second task was to eat – to eat with the people they were ministering to.  Essentially, they are called to enter into relationship.  Once again, no judgment was required (thank goodness!) – just sharing of food, time, and conversation.  And our homework last week was to do just that – to pay attention to relationship, either by eating together, by engaging those people we meet who are sometimes invisible, or by paying particular attention to our contacts through the week.  So, again… how is it going?  Any stories to tell? 

This week is probably the most daunting task we have.  Jesus lays it out in a very few words:  “cure the sick who are there.”  Cure the sick.  No problem, right?  Start with warts and colds, and work your way up to broken bones and cancer.  Hmmm. 

It seems like Jesus is asking us to go out and perform miracles – and few if any of us consider ourselves miracle workers.  Mind you, I think that was probably the case with the 70 as well.  So what exactly is Jesus telling us to do? 

Well, let me do some thinking out loud…

• Number one, we are mortal.  Death is not optional for any of us.  To me, that means that we can’t simply be talking here about a physical restoration of health.  Eventually, that sort of healing will fail.  It must!  If we are mortal, then we are, to some extent, meant to grow old, meant to experience some fashion of failing health, meant to die.  I mean, physical health is surely involved somewhere here, but there’s got to be more than that to healing.  Does that make sense? 
• The flip-side is also important.  There’s more to disease than the physical.  The  Greek word for “the sick” here – the people we are asked to heal – is actually a word that means “weak” or “powerless.”  It doesn’t simply refer to those whose bodies are diseased – it also conveys a sense of powerlessness – a loss of the ability to make one’s own choices, to direct one’s own life, to follow one’s own path.  In one of those sexist passages in the New Testament, one writer notes that women are the “weaker” sex – using this same Greek word.  That could be a matter of physical or moral strength.  It could also be a matter of social standing – women are the “disempowered” sex.  Because of the strictures of society, they are less able to make their own choices.  Women, slaves, the poor, people who were considered “unclean” might all fall into this category.  This call of Jesus could be read, I think, “heal the disempowered.”  Does that add a dimension to the picture? 
• Continuing on that line of thought, I am given to understand that our bodies and our souls, our minds, our emotions, are very closely tied together.  A simple example.  I suffer from a relatively mild form of irritable bowel syndrome.  If I go through a period of significant stress, I can be pretty sure that something like a month into it, I will start having stomach problems.   Stress raises the incidence of heart disease.  Repressed anger leads into depression.  On and on, right?  Our mental/emotional/spiritual state has implications for our physical health, and vice versa.  So if a doctor is treating my stomach complaints, he or she would do well to ask about my mental and spiritual health as well.   Make sense?  If it’s stress that’s wreaking havoc with my stomach, then the core illness is not in the stomach it’s in the soul.  By the way, that’s what we mean when in our mission statement we say “wholeness.”  We are “seeking wholeness in Christ.”  Wholeness refers to the health of our whole system – body, mind, soul, emotions.  I’m thinking that when Jesus sends us out to heal, he is sending us out to care for people’s souls and emotional lives, as well as their bodies.  “Soul healing” seems a bit more up our alley, and may be for many a more foundational kind of healing. 
• One more bullet point here:  I think it was Oscar Wilde that defined medicine as “amusing the patient while the body heals itself.”  For all the wonders of modern medicine, there is still a lot of mystery to bodily healing.  From my very limited understanding of molecular physics and biology, for instance, I understand that we are not simply flesh and blood creatures, we are creatures of electromagnetic energy.  We really are surrounded by an “aura” of energy.  This is energy that you can actually feel.   Okay, I can’t – so far.  I seem to have, as far as healing touch goes, “cement hands.”  But it is this energy that practitioners of healing touch – such as our own healing pathway people – work with as part of an overall healing program.  I can’t put into words just exactly what this does, but it seems to have a significant overall effect on our bodies’ ability to heal.  It’s significant enough that I believe our health system trains nurses to do this. 

So what does all this mean?  Here’s how I put it together in my own mind.  The church’s ministry of healing has been, since the beginning, a very wide-ranging ministry.  We help build hospitals, we have medical missionaries, doctors, nurses, that undertake the practice of medicine as a ministry of Christian healing.  We practice ministries of psychological counseling and spiritual direction as a means of seeking wholeness and healing in our mental and emotional and spiritual lives.  We practice ministries of healing touch as a means of aiding our bodies’ own healing powers.  We seek to empower the disempowered by drawing people into supportive community and giving them back their dignity and self-worth and hope and vocation.   Ministries like Alcoholics Anonymous gather people into community and undertake a healing practice in order to find wholeness in real life.   All of this and more we do in order to follow Jesus’ call to heal the sick.

I often think that the Christmas story about the shepherds is a story of healing – the “empowerment” kind.  Shepherds were low-class folk – poor, probably dirty, outdoors a lot, unable to keep the finer points of Sabbath and purity laws.  But here they are, the first ones told of this holy birth.  The angels heal them by giving them back their dignity and worth.  God heals them, makes them whole, by sharing their world.  By being born in a stable, Jesus is really born to them in particular.  Jesus is born one of them. 

Psalm 103 is a dialogue between the Psalmist and the psalmist’s own soul.   It is our souls who are blessed and healed of all their diseases, that are forgiven and so brought back into wholeness and health.  And that is what I look for in myself, as I get older, what I hope for – a soul and spirit that is strong enough, healthy and purposeful enough, to cope with an aging body in such a way that I remain vibrant and alive until the very end of my days – whatever struggles my body will face! 

Does any of this make sense?  Does anyone have a question? 

Here, then, is the homework for the week.  Continue to bless, continue to pay attention to your relationships.  As you do this, I am betting that you will come face to face with some form of disempowerment, some form of illness or trouble or suffering.  It may, in fact, be your own.  On behalf of Jesus, I’m calling you to seek healing for that suffering or disempowerment.  I don’t know what that might look like!  A prayer, perhaps?  Bringing that person with you to the Healing Pathway.  Coming forward for prayer after this service, perhaps.  You might be in a position to offer some reassurance, to give forgiveness, to give someone their dignity back.  It may be a matter of including someone, or enabling them to stay connected, in spite of challenges.  I don’t know – but I’m hoping you will know – that God’s Spirit will lead you into the appropriate action.  Because the biggest surprise of all is that sometimes you can work a miracle (or God through you) – that sometimes your touch, or your listening ear, or your prayer, or your company, or your love – really can heal.   

We are sent with a mission that is a privilege and a joy.  Bless!  Befriend!  Heal.