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Sermon at The Church of
the Holy Apostles, New York City,
September 10, 2006, The Fourteenth Sunday of Pentecost:
Year B
The
Reverend William A. Greenlaw, Ph.D., Rector
Isaiah 35: 4 - 7a
Psalm 146
James 1: 17 - 27
Mark 7: 31 - 37
“Say to those who are of a fearful heart, ‘Be strong, do not
fear! Here is your God. …He will come and save you.’ Then the
eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf
unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of
the speechless sing for joy.”
These words from the 35th chapter of Isaiah
may seem to express the most definite hope and confidence and
possibility of a better future. But in fact they are almost
certainly from the latter-day Isaiah, of chapters 40 through 55,
often referred to as the Second Isaiah, the prophet of the Exile.
The people Israel have all but been destroyed. The larger,
northern kingdom of Israel was destroyed and assimilated into the
Assyrian Empire long ago. The southern kingdom of Judah with its
Davidic monarchy and the temple at Jerusalem is now also
destroyed—its remaining people carried off in exile into
Babylonia. A small group of hapless exiles wonder, how are they
to sing the Lord’s song in a strange land? —in effect, they are
waiting to die, and for Israel finally and irrevocably to pass
into the dustbin of history.
Yet it is out of the context of hopelessness and
despair that we hear the words for our lesson this morning. Those
words of comfort are proclaiming a God who, ultimately, is found
in redemptive love and suffering, not in power and triumphalism.
Those words, that Word with a capital “W” if you will, were so
very hard to hear, so very hard to believe. Everything, but
everything would seem to belie them. And yet, ultimately, Israel
was able to see that her misfortune was not because God, in the
moment of truth, failed her. Rather, it was because of her own
disobedience, her own lack of faith, her own trusting in her own
righteousness and might. And her confidence that as God’s chosen,
God would be with her come what may.
I think it is really important to try, as best we can,
to imagine what having the very foundations of life taken away, of
being carried off into exile, of being utterly hopeless and with
nothing but despair filling a people. And then to hear, in spite
of it all, a voice of hope and possibility, of redemption and
life—with springs of water.
I say it is important to try to hear these words in
their original context quite simply because today, many of us are
often tempted at least on occasion by a sense of despair and
hopelessness. Who here cannot remember exactly where you were on
that fateful day five years ago tomorrow, when our innocence was
shattered, when our world was changed forever, when all of the
sudden, we realized we were not God’s chosen, invulnerable and
exempt—but rather we had been fundamentally violated, brought low,
welcomed to a suffering humanity in a whole new way.
We had an all-too-brief period of time where it seemed
the whole world suffered with us, reached out to us in compassion,
resolved with us to find a way toward a more peaceful world. Yet
today, five years later, nearly the whole world is against us,
against a war without end which has no clear connection with 9/11,
pursued no matter what the cost, no matter how blatant the
contradictions and misinformation, no matter how much suffering
results from our arrogance. And, five years later, who can
imagine we are more secure, more safe as a result of our policies?
We despair over the ongoing rape of our planet, of the
good earth God has given us and whose fragile ecosystem which we
must share with the entire world—but we seem unwilling to even
acknowledge there is much of a problem. And, again, seemingly the
whole world looks at America and shakes its collective head in
disbelief and wonder.
We despair over natural disasters that seem to strike
especially those who have so little, except that we certainly got
a dose with Hurricane Katrina of this past year. But, of course,
the question of why it is there are so many more hurricanes in
recent years and whether there may be a connection with global
warming still seems fanciful to those in authority, to those in
denial.
We can even despair over the seeming triumph in so many
ways of the religious right both in our own country and through so
much of the rest of the world, especially, perhaps, as we see it
these days in our own communion. At least, in terms of our own
communion, we can acknowledge here, the problem is not just or
even primarily American, although much of the financing of
traditionalists abroad comes from a very few American sources, not
all of which are even Anglican.
Where in the midst of all this frightful ambiguity and
uncertainty and despair can we find a word of hope?
Well, at least one possibility is to open our eyes and
see the wonderful life we have been given and the blessings that
are all around us as we begin a new season in this wonderful
church and wonderful city in which we still find ourselves. I
continue to marvel about how it can be that so much is bestowed
upon us here, of this parish community, of the work that happens
here every day, of the uplifting music that makes our spirits
soar, of quite simply God’s presence among us in every single
moment.
All these things are true and wonderful and God given.
And God surely intends that we receive these gifts and enjoy
them. But the danger to us is that either we simply take the good
we know in this moment—and with blinders on, assume we can go on
partaking of this bounty indefinitely.
Or, we can simply become schizoid, strung between two
different and increasingly contradictory worlds, trying to block
out the static and discontinuities—but with our minds and our very
beings becoming fried in the process, as we inevitably strive to
reconcile the irreconcilable.
But there may, actually, be another, better way. In
our gospel lesson, we have the story of Jesus being on a major
journey, even though Mark’s geography is more than a little
confusing, or perhaps even confused. On this journey, a deaf man
with an impediment in his speech is brought to Jesus, for word has
spread of the amazing things Jesus can do. The mysterious “they”
who brought the man to Jesus beg him to lay his hand on him.
In a very human moment, Jesus takes the man aside, away
from the crowds, for he needs space apart as much as anyone. He
proceeds to put his fingers in the mans ears. He spits and takes
some of his saliva and puts it on the deaf man’s tongue. He sighs
deeply as he looks up to heaven, and says the word, “Ephphatha,”
that is, “Be opened.” Immediately, the man’s ears are opened and
his tongue released, and he speaks plainly. In characteristic
Markan fashion, Jesus orders them to tell no one what happened,
but the more he did this, the more zealously Jesus’ good works
were proclaimed.
More than one wag has noted that this is one divine
injunction Episcopalians have no difficulty in following. We are
most exemplary, indeed, in keeping silent about the faith that is
within us.
Now on one level, we have here one of a number of the
healing stories of Jesus. And this one is powerful, no question.
But on a whole other and I think deeper level, what we
have in this and other healings, is a metaphor—for those of us who
are being offered new eyes to see and new ears to hear, if only we
can be open to accepting the gifts of healing that are freely
offered. In the sacraments of baptism and the eucharist, and of
really being present to the proclamation of the Word of God, we
have the possibility of really discerning that healing word of
forgiveness and acceptance and love which is poured out for us—and
we can hear and see with new ears and new eyes the love of God in
our midst, a love that will not let us go come what may.
And our perceptions do not need to be idealized—we can
see the world as it is, the good and the evil. And we can do this
because we now know something more. And that is that God is with
us, and God has blessed us immeasurably, and loved us just as God
loves the whole of this suffering world.
But something else happens in our story for today, and
that has implications for us as well. For if we now see and hear
with a new discernment in the light of faith, we also have the
possibility, even the necessity, of speaking and even acting,
given what has happened to us and the healing we have
experienced. We have the possibility, maybe even the necessity of
really being who we have become, who we now are, and of living out
and speaking that Word by which the world might be transformed.
In the early 1980s, something got hold of Father Rand
Frew and a fair number of the very few folks who made up Holy
Apostles in those days. In spite of overwhelming odds and
discouragement everywhere, and every reason not to, they started a
soup kitchen.
In this very year of 2006, a number of pretty
dispirited and upset folks at this same Holy Apostles were
none-too-happy with what seemed yet another delaying roadblock in
the Episcopal Church’s seemingly endless journey in becoming a
truly inclusive church. Instead of lying down and taking it yet
again, discerning eyes and ears yielded to nothing short of a
prophetic voice, a voice of faith, hope, and clarity in
moving this church forward, of saying “NO” to open-ended injustice
and exclusion.
And I want to tell you this is an energy and a clarity
and purposiveness that is new and powerful—and something to
behold. And like every prophetic moment, it is causing something
of a commotion, and it is not clear what the short term outcome
will be. What is, I think, crystal clear is that God intends,
that one day we will actually have an inclusive church that acts
on and lives out what it ostensibly proclaims.
Do you wish to be healed? Do I wish for such a thing?
That is most definitely a serious question. For healings can be
scary. They have the possibility of opening ourselves to
dimensions of life and ourselves and of God that we had scarcely
imagined before. And yet in being open, we just might find
ourselves blessed beyond measure.
We may not understand how there can be so much
injustice and suffering and death in this world as there surely
is. We may not understand how a loving and suffering God could
possibly bring all of this together in ultimate meaning and
purpose.
And yet in the midst of a world such as this, we know
God is present nonetheless. And again and again we are given
life, nonetheless. And we know that, ultimately, this is God’s
world, where “waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and
streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and
the thirsty ground springs of God.”
And so let the tongues of all of us who were speechless
sing for joy. Amen.
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