"God With Us Where Life Is Most Frightening June 24, 2007 Pentecost 4 (Proper 7)

(First, read the text for this sermon: Luke 8:26-39)

This morning’s story from Luke is about where life is most frightening. In the setting of the story, and in the encounter with the demon-possessed man, Jesus is far removed from what’s orderly and safe.

We read, Then they arrived at the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. As he stepped out on land, Jesus, a Jew, is stepping onto unclean soil. The Gerasenes are not of the people of God. As he stepped out on land, a man of the city who had demons met him. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he did not live in a house but in the tombs. Think of that. No clothes! This man is not part of what’s civilized, of what’s under control and tidy and arranged nicely and neatly! The man is frightening! And he’s living among the tombs! These are non-Jewish burial sites! And so they are unclean!

It turns out that the man is possessed by what is unclean. When he saw Jesus, he fell down before him and shouted at the top of his voice, "What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me" – for Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. Indeed, here’s what we read about the unclean spirit: (For many times it had seized [the man]; he was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the wilds.) Jesus then asked him, "What is your name?" He said, "Legion"; for many demons had entered him. They begged [Jesus] not to order them to go back into the abyss.

There was, of course, a whole belief system about demons and unclean spirits, at the time this story in Luke was first spoken. For example, Jesus asks “What is your name?” because knowing the names of demons gave exorcists ower over them! In popular belief, the demons’ final destination is “the abyss” that is named in the story. This is the abode of the dead (Psalm 107:26 or Romans 10:7 for example), or the final prison of Satan and the demons (Revelation 20:3, for example). But it was thought that unclean spirits had time to wander the world first, living in deserted places and in demented people! In this story, they are so desperate not to be sent to “the abyss” before their time of wandering is up that they agree to be thrown into a herd of pigs! But you remember what happens in the story, don’t you?

Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding; and the demons begged Jesus to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned. Evil is always self-destructive, you see. That’s the point of this peculiar occurrence in the story. Indeed, to Jewish ears, it would have been a good thing to hear that the herd of pigs had been destroyed along with the unclean spirits – because pigs were unclean animals! A Jew wouldn’t want to be anywhere near a pig!

What a story! It’s filled with bizarre and frightening elements. It’s a very difficult passage for you and me to enter into, because, for the most part, we simply do not understand reality in this way. (For the most part. For some it does make some sense! A few weeks ago I mentioned that those suffering from addiction and those suffering from depression do describe experiences of feeling possessed by those illnesses, as if they are possessed by demons! But it does not serve the missionary task of the church to pit the pre-scientific worldview of the Bible against what we know today of mental illness.)

With all of its bizarre and frightening elements, this is story. Like the rest of the Bible this is story that communicates profound truth about God!

This morning’s story is about life at its most frightening. And there is much good news in the story. Jesus reveals that God has deep love for this man who is out on the margins, frightening to himself and to others, unclean, cast away. And so, this morning’s story is about God’s willingness to enter into yours and my lives when we are out on the margins, when we are frightening to ourselves and to others, feeling unclean, perhaps; even cast away. It is about God with us – precisely where life is most frightening.

Where is life most frightening? Isn’t it when we are out of control?

For instance, those of you who have been hospitalized for a serious illness know how much fear there is in that. You are entirely out of control. Healing comes as it is given by God. It is not according to any schedule you would like to establish! How hard it is to trust God in that situation!

Another example: the young woman who is reeling from her breakup with the young man with whom she had been planning marriage. Her whole future had seemed to be set! But part of the reason why all those plans for the future have now been destroyed is because of ways that she screwed up and did hurtful things, and it’s a fearful thing to enter into repentance, praying for forgiveness, opening herself into vulnerability.

There is the older woman struggling on the journey through grief. She hasn’t done this before! She’s never encountered this frightening terrain of the journey of faith. And what’s worse is that she’s being hard on herself because others assume that she should be “all better” by now. She thinks she’s not “improving” the way she should. (Do you hear that word? “Should.”) It’s a fearful thing to know that you have no control of your feelings when you’re making your way through grief.

There is the man who finds himself to be unemployed, and struggling over his fear for the future, and the fact that he’s always built his self- identity on what he has done for a living. It is a fearful thing to leave that old certainty behind, and to trust that he has value simply because of who he is -- a deeply loved child of God.

Here’s the Good News we get from this morning’s story: God in human flesh enters into life where it is most frightening! God with us.

That is God’s name, according to the verse we read during Advent each year, Matthew 1:23:
"Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall name him Emmanuel,"
which means, "God is with us."

God with us, even where life is most frightening.

God with us when we are helplessly in need of healing from physical illness, or emotional illness, or spiritual emptiness; God with us for as long as that helplessness lasts; God with us for as long as it takes for that healing to occur.

God with us when we are out of control of our feelings, when we are grieving the death of a loved one; God with us for as long as it takes for that healing to occur.

God with us, present, faithful, for as long as we are on the journey of faith, through terrain utterly routine as well as absolutely terrifying.

That’s the gospel, the Good News of this morning’s bizarre story from Luke.

Thanks be to God who is Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.


Pastor Andy Ballentine
St. Stephen Lutheran Church
Williamsburg, Virginia

"Hungry and Humble" June 17, 2007 Pentecost 3

(First, read the passage for this sermon: Luke 7:36 – 8:3)

It is our hunger that draws us here.

For some, the hunger is acute. Some of us are suffering with loved ones through their illnesses. We hunger for healing. Some of us are journeying through the grief of a miscarriage. We hunger for restored joy. Some of us are frightened and confused, hungering to know God’s direction for the future.

For many of us, these are not days of crisis – and so you know how, when things are going well, you just go onto automatic pilot? Then the hunger is underneath the surface. It’s something you can ignore on many days.

But the hunger is there, however acutely we realize it. It is a desire for God.

With that in mind, let’s look at this morning’s story in the gospel of Luke. What are the characters’ hungers? For instance, there’s the Pharisee, whose name, we find out, is Simon. Why, does he invite Jesus to his house?

The Pharisees were one of the three major groups of religious leaders of God’s people at the time of Jesus (along with the Sadducees and the Scribes), and the gospel stories tend to portray them as knee-jerk villains who oppose everything Jesus says and does. But, in fact, there were members of these leadership groups who were at least interested in what Jesus was bringing into the roiling religious mix of the day.

I am thinking that Simon the Pharisee is more than just interested. In that culture, inviting a guest into one’s home for a meal bestowed honor on the person. We read that Jesus “took his place at the table,” and that sounds simply enough. But there is much that’s easily missed. In fact, the Greek words indicate that Jesus reclined. That was the custom of lying on one’s side, supporting oneself on an elbow and reaching for the food with the other hand. This was done during ceremonial banquets. And there was an elaborate order of honor involved in taking one’s place at the table. (Do you remember the parable about humility where Jesus teaches a person to take a humble place at the table; that it is better to be invited to a higher place than to be asked to move down to a more humble seat?)

Can we assume that Jesus is a guest of honor at this banquet in Simon the Pharisee’s house? We learn later in the story that Simon thinks Jesus is a prophet. I’m thinking that Simon is hungry to hear more of what Jesus has to say. Simon the Pharisee is hungry for more about God. He’s at least open to how Jesus might lead him to God.

But then something happens that is shocking and offensive to Simon’s sensibilities as a Pharisee. And a woman in the city, who was a sinner, having learned that [Jesus] was eating in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster jar of ointment. She stood behind him at his feet, weeping, and began to bathe his feet with her tears and to dry them with her hair. Then she continued kissing his feet and anointing them with the ointment. Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said to himself, "If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him -- that she is a sinner."

We do not know why this woman is branded to be “a sinner.” But what hunger she has! And it must be a hunger for God, because that is what Jesus is bringing, and those interested have grown into crowds of people, according to the gospel of Luke. This woman’s hunger drives her past the point of humility, to humiliation! She is impure. But she has the audacity to burst into the house of a Pharisee – one who is charged to maintain the religious rules of purity! She intimately touches Jesus – which, according to those religious rules of purity makes Jesus immediately dirty. Jesus is being touched by a woman (which itself was not allowed, unless the woman was one’s wife), and by a woman who is dirty! Jesus should recoil at this, and jump up from his reclining position, horrified over this violation of God’s holy laws of cleanliness!

It is good to remember that the Pharisees are the custodians of those religious laws out of the best of intentions. They believe themselves to be serving God during a precarious time in the peoples’ faith history. How else are the people of God to keep themselves pure and devoted to God, unless they separate themselves from those who are not clean?

Of course, that concern is not limited to the Pharisees’ time and place. It’s potent today, for instance, when religious traditions exclude gays and lesbians by quoting anti-homosexuality Bible passages, because those passages come right out of the ancient religious purity and cleanliness laws. In the Bible, homosexuals are considered to be dirty and impure.

But the same is true for women throughout the Bible! That’s part of the Pharisee’s horror over what Jesus is allowing this dirty woman to do to him. And notice, as the passage ends, that not only are “the twelve” following Jesus at this point, but so are some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Herod's steward Chuza, and Susanna, and [in fact] many others, who provided for them out of their resources.

That new, unheard of activity of Jesus – of welcoming those who were considered to be unclean, but who were drawn to him in their hunger – was one of the reasons why Jesus simply became intolerable to the religious authorities who were charged with enforcing what they understood to be God’s laws against dirtiness. Jesus could not be allowed to continue with his “ungodly” actions and his teachings, and so he was crucified.

But the Word of God is Jesus. Jesus reveals who God is. And so it must be that it is displeasing to God to exclude those in our culture considered to be unclean and impure, if they are hungry for God! All who are hungry for God are being drawn by God the Holy Spirit, and are welcome! All are invited to turn towards the life that God has created, and to live by the practices of the faith.

In the story, in her profound hunger, the woman is drawn to Jesus. And Jesus contrasts this unclean woman’s love with the grudging hospitality that Simon the Pharisee has been exhibiting! Jesus tells a parable, making the point that the one who loves more is the one who is forgiven more. But doesn’t it take humility to ask for forgiveness? Then turning toward the woman, he said to Simon, "Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment.” This is shocking, shocking stuff that the woman is doing and that Jesus is allowing! Then Jesus furthers the outrage by saying this: “Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little."

God is grace. God is compassion. God reaches out to you and me with forgiveness. There are no hoops for us to jump through first. In the story, Simon the Pharisee hungers for God, but it is on his own terms, and according to his own rules. There is great pride in that attitude! Much different is the woman who is drawn to Jesus with hunger so deep that it drives her to shocking humility. Her great love arises from her forgiveness.

The woman is hungry and humble. And she is presented to us by the gospel writer as an example of someone saturated with the love of God, someone who is welcomed by God.

In the name of God who is Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.


Pastor Andy Ballentine
St. Stephen Lutheran Church
Williamsburg, VA

"God Desires Healing" June 10, 2007 Pentecost 2 Proper 5

(First read the texts for this sermon: 1 Kings 17:17-24; Luke 7:11-17)

When I was a patient in the Progressive Ventilator Care Unit this past November, at Norfolk General Hospital, the nurses enjoyed being in my room. One reason was because I was getting better! Most of the patients those nurses work with do not improve much, and are transferred to nursing homes when they are weaned from the ventilator. What a hard job! It gave the nurses a lift to work with me because I was so responsive and appreciative for their care.

For two nurses who worked the night shift, it was more than that. Knowing I was a pastor released them to be open in talking about their faith. In my room, we were a religious hospital! We spoke thankfulness to God for healing, out loud. They even sang a spiritual for me each night, before turning down the lights in my room!

The Progressive Ventilator Care Unit was only a step removed from Intensive Care, and so the nurses were in and out all the time, doing something with me, often something unpleasant. Every time they would finish, I would say, “Thank you for taking care of me.” That surprised them at first! I don’t think they’re used to being thanked. I was extremely moved one time when one of them stopped on her way out of the room and said, “God has sent you to us. We have needed you on this unit. You have been ministering to us.”

Wow.

When she said that, it was a way for to her to make sense of why I was suffering from my illness. In her theology, everything that happens is caused by God.

It’s easy to find scripture that would lead us to think that! For instance, there are the verses we read this morning, from First Kings. It’s the ending of the story of the prophet Elijah and the widow who’s living with her son in the town of Zarephath. You may remember the first part of the story. It takes place during a terrible drought. Elijah is sent by God to this woman and her son, to ask her for something to eat and drink. But she said, "As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a jug; I am now gathering a couple of sticks, so that I may go home and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die." Elijah said to her, "Do not be afraid; go and do as you have said; but first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterwards make something for yourself and your son. For thus says the Lord the God of Israel: The jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail until the day that the Lord sends rain on the earth." And, according to the story, that’s what happens! There is always enough! God always provides enough!

But then begins the story we read this morning. After this the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, became ill; his illness was so severe that there was no breath left in him. She then said to Elijah, "What have you against me, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my sin to remembrance, and to cause the death of my son!" But he said to her, "Give me your son." He took him from her bosom, carried him up into the upper chamber where he was lodging, and laid him on his own bed. He cried out to the Lord, "O Lord my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I am staying, by killing her son?"

I firmly believe that God is present and moving in every one of our experiences. In fact, I’ve always liked this bumper sticker that Jean Kuhn gave me one time: “WIGIAT” (Where Is God In All This?) That is what we try to discern, through our listening prayer, in all of our experiences. Pete Parks, who is a friend from Williamsburg, is a chaplain at Norfolk General who visited me frequently in the hospital, and he would often ask the same question, in the same words! He also said this, and it’s significant: “It will probably take you months to figure that out.”

Pete’s a Baptist, just like my two special nurses. But do you see how his theology is different? He is not saying that everything is caused by God. Let me ask: Did God cause my respiratory failure? Was it God’s will that I suffer with a tracheotomy and require a feeding tube? And for my fellow patients in the PVCU, was it God who caused them to have strokes, and to suffer serious injuries in accidents?

If you have trouble with that, then good – because that view contradicts our understanding of God, as Jesus reveals God to be. And that helps us interpret a passage such as the great story about Elijah and the widow in First Kings.

Remember: the Word of God is Jesus! In Jesus’ human flesh, God entered into the worst of human suffering and weakness. It is there, in suffering and weakness, that God exercised God’s power of resurrection, of new life! Because of who Jesus reveals God to be, we can say that God does not cause suffering. Because of Jesus we can know that God enters into our suffering and suffers with us, all the time earnestly desiring nothing but healing!

With that in mind we read this morning’s story from Luke. It’s a story very similar to the one in First Kings (which is why the two stories are paired in the lectionary). You remember what happens: As [Jesus] approached the gate of the town, a man who had died was being carried out. He was his mother's only son, and she was a widow; and with her was a large crowd from the town. When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her, "Do not weep." Then he came forward and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, "Young man, I say to you, rise!" The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother.

Jesus, God in human flesh, is pure compassion. He is moved by the widow’s weeping, by her grieving. He enters into her suffering. And God’s power for healing is strong and powerful. Indeed, it is startling! Remember how the onlookers reacted to what Jesus did? Here’s what we read: Fear seized all of them; and they glorified God, saying, "A great prophet has risen among us!" and "God has looked favorably on his people!"

God desires healing!

But what about when healing does not include a physical cure? We are into deep mystery here. Many of you prayed for my physical healing. I did myself! And I stand before you on this day!

But what if I had died? Does God choose to cure some, while ignoring the pleas of others? Because that is an intolerable idea to her, one person very close to me said that she did not pray for a physical cure. Instead, in her wailing prayer, she lifted up to God my suffering and her agony over my suffering; she just lifted that up in her prayer; and, one night, she somehow experienced a certitude that all would be well, whether or not I got better physically. What healing she received from God, in that prayer!

God desires healing. But healing does not necessarily mean a physical cure. The healing that God desires is far deeper, far more profound.

For instance, God’s healing is shown in the witness that is offered by a seriously ill person who receives each day with joy as a precious gift. God’s healing is shown in the witness of a person who is willing to let go in her suffering, leaning back into God’s arms, in the faith that all will be well. God’s healing is shown in the witness of a person who dies, secure in faith.

An elderly professor of mine, who has since died, once wrote,

“Intellectually, I cannot put any content into the word live with regard to the time after I die. Because the only life I know is the finite one that I live before dying. I certainly don’t want to do this all over again. I definitely do not want to continue to love the present carcass into all eternity. That is an absurd and not at all pleasant idea. But what life beyond death might be, I have no notion. If all life is engendered and created by God, then that relationship will not be destroyed by the periodic appearance and disappearance of this particular person with my name. Something continues, but what that will be I’m perfectly willing to leave in the hands of the Originator.” (Joseph Sittler, Grace Notes and Other Fragments)

What faith is expressed in those words! What health!

God desires healing.

In the name of God, who is Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pastor Andy Ballentine
St. Stephen Lutheran Church
Williamsburg, Virginia

"Joining The Dance" June 3, 2007 The Holy Trinity

The dance has been going on since long before you and I were born. It is the divine dance, even since before the foundation of the world, “the interweaving of the Three, the Father, Spirit, Son.”*

The first thing, then, is to be aware of the dance that is going on! And so, for instance, when you and I are alert, we hear God the Father-Creator in the rain that begins before the sun is up, and in the singing of the birds who are delighted to be wet! We see God the Father-Creator in the stunning appearances of the cardinal and blue bird and blue jay. We know the presence of God the Holy Spirit when we are listening in prayer, and when insight and resolution occurs in that prayer. We see the face of the Trinity in Jesus – whose face we see in each other, and especially, in the faces of those who are poor and in need.

“The universe of space and time did not arise by chance, but as the Three, in love and hope, made room within their dance.” First we become aware and alert to the dance of God, Father, Spirit, Son. And God makes room for us! God invites us to join the dance!

What creativity there is in the dance! What new life! We see the dance of God – as children mature; as high school youth enter into college and discover their first vocations to which God is calling them; as college students and graduate students earn great academic accomplishments; as a working person serves the needs of her community; as a person retires and discerns God’s call for his retirement; as a grieving person follows the Spirit’s guidance through that suffering and discovers the new life that has been awaiting her – it is all a matter of joining the dance of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The dancing has been ongoing from before the beginning of creation. It will continue long after you and I live our spans on earth. But now, at this time, in “the interweaving of the Three, the Father, Spirit, Son,” God makes room for you and me! What joy!

Of course, sadly, we can fall away from the dance. That happens when we are closed off to that joy that God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit invites us into. That happens whenever we are mired in anger or regret; or whenever we’re overcome by depression or despair; or whenever we are deadened because we are trudging along purely from a sense of duty and responsibility.

This doesn’t happen only to individuals. Congregations can fall away from the dance. That happens whenever a “survival” or institutional maintenance mindset takes over.

Communities can fall away from the dance. That happens when “insiders” close themselves off from “outsiders.”
Nations can fall away from the dance. That happens whenever a nation inflicts war and injustice upon others.

But even when individuals and collective bodies fall away from the dance, God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit does not turn away! “The inter-weaving of the Three, the Father, Spirit, Son”; God keeps dancing! Over and over again, as many times as necessary, God makes room for us! God invites us to join the dance, to live and to move in the joy of God’s grace-filled presence and movement!

*This sermon is based on Richard Leach’s text, “Come, Join the Dance of Trinity,” (Evangelical Lutheran Worship, Hymn 412):

Come, join the dance of Trinity, before all worlds begun –
the inter-weaving of the Three, the Father, Spirit, Son.
The universe of space and time did not arise by chance,
but as the Three, in love and hope, made room within their dance.

Come, see the face of Trinity, new-born in Bethlehem;
then bloodied by a crown of thorns outside Jerusalem.
The dance of Trinity is meant for human flesh and bone;
when fear confines the dance in death, God rolls away the stone.

Come, speak aloud of Trinity, as wind and tongues of flame
set people free at Pentecost to tell the Savior’s name.
We know the yoke of sin and death, our necks have worn it smooth;
go tell the world of weight and woe that we are free to move!

Within the dance of Trinity, before all worlds begun,
we sing the praises of the Three, the Father, Spirit, Son.
Let voices rise and interweave, by love and hope set free,
to shape in song this joy, this life: the dance of Trinity.

Thanks be to God, who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit! Amen.


Pastor Andy Ballentine
St. Stephen Lutheran Church
Williamsburg, Virginia