Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Luke 13:10-17 - "Bent on Healing"

For eighteen years, she was bent over forward. I would like to invite you to lean forward in your chair if you are able and remain there for 18 seconds. (bend over as preacher and count to 18). You can sit up, if you want to. Perhaps the back needs to be stretched. For this woman, she was in this posture of being bent over for eighteen years. She had a “posture of forced humility”.[1] Everyone knew her in town. Day after day she walked like that. Week after week, she most likely attended the synagogue for worship, walking in again and again, week after week in the same posture over and over again. No one knows what happened, what made her snap and perhaps fracture a vertebrae in her back; what arthritic pain she had been carrying; what burden she’d been carrying, what abusive form of evil that had bound her.

Here she is at synagogue, minding her own business, listening to the visiting rabbi preach. We don’t even know what Jesus preached about that day, like many a sermon that is not memorable. Yet she walked there weekly, carrying the burden of the human condition of sin that knows no cure! Yet when Jesus is done preaching, he sees her and Jesus calls her over – makes her walk to him.

Jesus was bent on healing and would bend over backward to restore this woman so that she could walk with God in a new way. In Genesis 3:8-9, it states, “They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD”. Why did they hide? Fear! They were afraid, afraid perhaps of punishment. The sound of God was present and God was searching out for them, but they were hiding, weighed down by the burden of the knowledge of good and evil, a burden that humanity would carry for a long time, manifested in the laws requirements. The law required that men and women sit on different sides of the synagogue.

Jesus was seeking out this woman, who ironically stands out in the crowd. She never asked for this healing; she didn’t come to worship looking for the power of positive thinking. She just showed up every week. Jesus asked her forward and she crossed over that gender line and allowed Jesus to heal her with his words, “be loosed” and with his hands as he touched her and stood up straight. She praised God and people were amazed.

The religious leader was upset. Religious leader was more concerned about the law and the legalistic interpretation of Sabbath rest; and it would be easy to preach about the value of the Sabbath; but Jesus calls them hypocrites. A hypocrite was a pretender. In the Greek world it related to wearing different masks, like in the theatre; as an actor was pretending to be a different character. This religious synagogue leader was pretending to be concerned for this relationship between God and humanity but more interested in maintaining the laws and their roles. Jesus reminds them of their compassion for animals, whom they didn’t want to suffer on a hot day but allowing the people to give a drink to their animals. Yet they didn’t care for this woman, a daughter of Abraham. The religious leaders were bent on being right than right living; bent on absolutes instead of absolution; bent on the “truth” instead of trust; and bent on being correct instead of connected and concerned. But Jesus was bent on healing and restoring this woman to walk with God in a new way.

I want you to think about what you’ve been bent on in your life. Think about 1989, August, which was eighteen years ago. What was going on in your life? What burden were you carrying? What was going on in your life? I had just resigned from my role as Youth Director in Russell, Kansas and then had hernia surgery and returned to Chicago, uncertain I’d want to walk into a role as a Youth Director again. 1989! What burden were you carrying? What happened that year? (Pause for people to share). Remember, that woman didn’t attend the synagogue with the idea of being called upon. It’s dangerous what happens when we step inside these walls. (Pause for sharing….)

The Bible reminds us that we are to “bear one another’s burdens” (Galatians 6:2). I’ve known some of you for half of those 18 years, as it’s been nine years ago that I’ve been your Pastor! You’ve carried burdens, but you have returned for worship and we continue to be bent on sharing that grace that helps us to walk straight into this day where, like that woman, we too can GLORIFY GOD!!! Jesus is here bent on healing so that we may walk with this journey in a new way.

Let us pray, Gracious God, heal us as we lift those burdens up to you and bear them on the cross. Bring healing even when there isn’t a cure, in Jesus name. Amen!


[1] C.H. Spurgeon, http://home.twcny.rr.com/lyndale/Pentecost%2013C.htm

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Luke 12: 49-50 - "Fire of Faith"

"I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed".

Jesus is bringing fire. This is no warm and cuddly Jesus. Fire! This is a prophetic fire that will consume injustice, suffering, and institutional domination of political & religious nature. This is no gentle Jesus but a Jesus who is outraged by the burden of sin that is driving him to a baptismal cross that waits for him in Jerusalem. The fire in his belly will judge, removes impurities, purify and heal.

This next weekend, I am going for an over night campout with some college friends. Just the guys will get together and in the evening, we will add newspaper to match and sticks and wood and we will have FIRE. Last year we talked until 2:00am around the fire, rekindling the friendships and encouraging one another as we struggle with our daily lives. The fire will be rekindled and the flames of discipleship will be stoked as we gather around that fire of faith.

We gather here at worship around the fire of the altar, with these two candles (lights are dimmed) on the altar reminding us of the fire that was used on raised structure, with wood placed around it and an animal sacrificed as a sin offering. That offering which was burned by fire, incense added was meant to be a sweet smell to please a God that burned with righteousness.

We need that fire for the journey as we. Our daily walk will not always be easy as we carry the burden of following Jesus. Hebrew, chapter 11 reminds us of the many people who have journeyed before us, who were tortured; killed by the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, persecuted, tormented; wandered in deserts & mountains, & in caves and holes in the ground. Like the six miners who journeyed into the darkness daily and have now been missing for almost two weeks 1500 feet below the ground in a UTAH mountain; they “won strength out of weakness”.

The fire leads again to “look to Jesus as the pioneer and perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2). Jesus is the pioneer of our faith, leading us forward on a journey where we must carry our cross and not all the stuff we hold so closely. As we look to Jesus, the fire of our faith, we are called to “lay aside every weight and sin that clings so closely”. As a pioneer, we carry so many things for the journey. My family did a pioneering trip this summer in our Coleman Utah Camper. This way of camping is not a roughing it adventure. We carry many things with us for our journey camping. Perhaps you have been burned by religious institutionalism or relational dysfunction. Perhaps, we carry to many past weights that cling to us as we journey; either past hurts that you have caused or have received. Perhaps you carry past hurts that are sins that prevent you from living more fully and loving more deeply and growing a deeper faith through Bible study; prayer; and service sacrificing with more intentionally that others would benefit.

We bring these weights and burdens again to the altar and see Jesus, the “perfecter” of our faith and the fire of our faith, stripped of encumbrances and able to bear the only burden for us that ultimately matters. As Hebrews stated, “. . . who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross.”[1] We may even get lost, but the fire of faith has a way of finding us when we are lost by rekindling a fire in us or around us to find our way through the darkness to the light of Christ for our journey. We are the kindling, Jesus is bringing the wood (point to cross) and that is a great match to strike!


[1] Jesus’ Death: A Way of Finding (Heb. 12:2); by Ronald Goetz; http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=1383

Monday, August 13, 2007

Luke 12: 16-21 - Self Storage

We’ve been living in our house for 9 years this fall! Accumulate more stuff! Plastic storage boxes are wonderful because you can stack them very easily. With two children and more stuff than we need, it is up for debate on whether we will have a garage sale. You see, there are various things you can do with all this stuff we all accumulate in middle class America. We can either

1. Give stuff away to the many groups that will pick it up at your door for you.

2. Garage sale – multi million dollar not taxable industry in the USA

3. Get a bigger house – lots of people do this

4. Put it in storage. The self storage industry in the USA, according to the Self Storage Association[1] is the fastest-growing sector of the United States commercial real estate industry over the period of the last 30 years and there are now 51,223 “primary” self storage facilities in the USA; 1 in 10 households rent self storage; over the past 20 years, there has been a 9% growth rate of new facilities and 740% growth in actual square footage, which is 2.2 billion square feet (as of Q1-2007) representing more than 78 square miles

Today, we have a problem with self storage because we have so much stuff and not enough barns. Jesus takes up the issue of self storage when he tells the parable of a rich man who is getting richer. The man isn’t a Bill Gates or a Donald Trump. He owns land or has a basic home in the suburbs and one summer, he has a bumper crop, his second quarter earnings are through the roof. As a farmer, he doesn’t have enough room to store the excess so he builds larger barns, self storage first century style. This man has a strong work ethic, but no ethics in his work.[2] Perhaps he doesn’t even consider himself rich, but his behavior is probably is culturally acceptable for then and now.

The problem in this parable isn’t that he rich or that he had a great harvest, but that he is focused on himself. In this parable, there are eleven personal pronouns, six are “I” and five are “me”[3] orientated pronouns. He does have this internal conversation, but he doesn’t talk with family; friends or his rabbi. I’m sure if someone had a great quarter or received a bonus, they wouldn’t come up to the pastor out of fear that I would say give it to the church. I’d say give it to God through the Hunger Appeal or one of the local social ministries we support. The problem is that he didn’t see that God was behind all that he has received in his life. But he doesn’t seem to trust that GOD will provide for him by storing up so much but not carrying for the poor now.

We all forget that we are given that we might give. We are loved so that we might love. Storing up treasures like this man wasn’t a bad thing and being rich isn’t a bad thing. But it stated, that he “was not rich toward God” as well. He died and didn’t get the message soon enough that God is the source of all of our lives. God will provide and God has provided and God is trustworthy.

Perhaps our self storage hearts are empty. Perhaps the cup is only half full. In the book, The Lord Is My Shepherd, Harold Kuschner (he wrote Why Bad Things Happen to Good People), wrote on Psalm 23. When he discussed the part of the Psalm that states, “My Cup Runneth Over”, he talked about how sometimes we will ask, “Do you see the cup half empty or half full”? Depending on how you answer, you will either think of yourself as being a pessimist if the cup is half empty or an optimist if the cup is half full. The reality is that the cup is running over, overflowing the brims of our lives with the many daily gifts and blessings that we forget about. Perhaps it’s our hearts that are empty and impoverished. Perhaps we need to come and confess that we try to fill it ourselves, self storage, with more stuff that leaves us empty. Perhaps we need to come and ask to be filled again… God fills it again today, and again and again, and our cups are running over…Amen! Let us pray…


[1] http://www.selfstorage.org/

[2] Boiler Room movie illustration

[3] Homiletics, August 2007, page 48