Sixth Sunday after Pentecost, Year B (Proper 14)

My Grace is Sufficient

Readings: 2 Samuel 5:1-5, 9-10; Psalm 48; 2 Corinthians 12:2-10; Mark 6:1-13

There were some people whom Jesus simply could not reach. He was preaching in his hometown synagogue. His message and ministry there were heckled and rejected. People were not able or willing to understand how he could speak with such authority and wisdom. “Where does it all come from?” they ask. After all, isn’t he just a carpenter, the son of Mary, Jo’s boy? Don’t some of his brothers still live in the town? While they acknowledge his wisdom and power they cannot really accept it. After all, they knew him when he was growing up.

Jesus doesn’t really give it a second thought. He doesn’t let it consume him. He simply comments: “Prophets are not without honour, except in their hometown, and among their kin, and in their own house.” Jesus is simply saying that this is the way things are.

Families and people who have known us our whole lives have a habit of cutting us down to size, sometimes gently, often harshly. You can grow up and mature and have a respectable position in the community and still be remembered as the brat who was always getting into a fight. You can be a dependable parent yourself and still be reminded about your teen years when you tried your parents’ patience by coming in late. People can even take offense at your achievements. Human nature being what it is, rather than admit blindness to someone’s growth and change we can become angry at their achievements. How dare he or she prove our assumptions so wrong?

Jesus knew that his disciples would also face rejection. He prepared them for it. He gave them some directions, some rules. They had to take care of their own travel. That is what the staff and sandals were for. But for the rest of their needs they were to depend on the hospitality and resources of the community.

What was it that Jesus wanted the disciples to learn as he sent them out? He has nurtured them. Now he gives them responsibility and the opportunity to decide and respond and to act on their own. He sends them out in pairs. We need mutual support and encouragement. How important it is to have feedback on how your ministry is going! But most of all he is teaching them that they are to rely on God. They are to have no reliance upon their own means. Messengers who wish to provide for every emergency simply do not have enough faith. How can you believe the word of a person who relies on their resources rather than on the message they proclaim? They are to make use of what is provided, but things are in no way to become a hindrance to them.

Most of us do not have the ability or opportunity to come to such an understanding as the disciples did through an experience provided for their learning. I have to say, I did have such an opportunity when I was studying theology. I did a course in Urban Ministry. One of the requirements was to spend two days living on the streets of Toronto. I kept telling myself that I didn’t really need to do it, but it was made clear that if we did not participate we would not pass the course. And so one cold November weekend I set out with only the clothes on my back. Now I had prepared myself. I talked to the street people with whom I was working. “You’ll never survive a weekend on the streets,” they told me. But they helped me to prepare, giving me good advice. “When you ask for money,” they told me, “look for a couple. Look down. Speak to the woman. Have a good story ready. She’ll give you a lecture about finding a job, but then she’ll turn to her husband and tell him to give you something.” I must say, it worked every time.

I knew that in the cold of November I could not sleep outside on a grate. And so I planned on staying in a hostel. I had been working that year in a Food Bank. I remember seeing people pacing in front of the building. I would think to myself, “Why don’t they just come in? We always help them. We always give them something.” Then I found myself pacing in front of a hostel. I must have wandered back and forth for fifteen minutes before I went in. I realized that the most difficult thing for me to do was to say “I need help”. But when I did, the help came. They found me a place to stay.

Over that weekend I questioned whether it was the right thing to do, the ethical thing. But I know that without that life changing experience I could never have learned the things I learned about myself, about ministry, about human nature, and most especially about my need to rely on God. I needed to experience that God’s grace is sufficient for my needs.

Unfortunately in our human fallibility, it takes the crunches, the difficult times of life to bring us closer to God. It is times of affliction, trouble and adversity that cause us to seek refuge and dependence on a higher power.

For one it might be a diagnosis of cancer. How does one deal with the initial shock of the illness? How does one deal with the resulting treatments that leave one physically and emotionally spent? How does one deal with friends who find such illness threatening? How does one face one’s own sense of mortality?

For another it might be the death of a loved one after a long illness, the prospect of a life alone. How does one fill lonely days which have been spent in the care and nurture of one who has been ill? How does one deal with feelings of inadequacy and guilt? How does one deal with anger at being abandoned?

For another it may be the loss of a job after a life-time of dedicated service. How does one begin again? How does one face the financial crunch of being out of work or the feelings of inadequacy as one gets turned down for job after job? How does one even get up in the morning knowing that there is no job to go to? It is the crunch times of life that bring us to the point where we admit that we need God.

It was a crunch time for the apostle Paul that brought him to know that he could depend on God for his needs. He shares at a very deep level about a spiritual experience in his life. It is far from clear just what he experienced, but such things are often beyond words. Then he admits that it was the thorn in his flesh and not the mystical experience that caused him to put his reliance on God. He kept asking God to remove the “thorn”. Finally he accepted God’s response. “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.”

By ourselves we are inadequate to deal with our brokenness. The things that happen to us, the tragedies and difficult times, cause us to question our faith. Can that same brokenness which leads us to seek God help us in some tangible way to cling to God? Can the memory of our brokenness help us to hold on to that sense of dependency when things are going well? Can the reminders of our brokenness prevent us from going backwards in our faith journey?

Henri Nouwen, a Roman Catholic priest and the author of the book “The Wounded Healer”, explains that it is our brokenness that allows us to minister to others. It provides us with an understanding of the brokenness of others. In our brokenness we reach out in compassion to others.

I can well imagine that it was Jesus’ compassion for those in need, which led him to give authority to the twelve whom he had chosen. He certainly intended that in this first period of preaching, they would learn that his power extended beyond his presence and could even be delegated to them. They would learn to depend on God for their needs. They would learn that God could supply their temporal needs. They would learn that despite opposition, God would not fail them. They would learn that even in their weakness they could depend on God.

“My grace is sufficient for you,” God is saying to each one of us. Can we open ourselves to God working through our weaknesses? Can we see God’s grace at work in our lives? Can we learn that reliance on God will help us, not only in our daily lives, but will allow us, in compassion to reach out to others? Amen.

The 5th Sunday after Pentecost, Year C (Proper 14)

Leaving Your Baggage Behind

Readings: 1 Kings 21:1-3, 17-21; Psalm 5:1-8; Galatians 6:7-18; Luke 10:1-12, 17-20

The message of the gospel this week is that sometimes in life we feel powerless and must seek a power beyond ourselves. We must learn to depend on God’s grace, our need of it, and our need to share it for the empowerment of others and ourselves. A bumper sticker that I saw the other day brought it all home to me. It proclaimed, “When the world ends the one with the most stuff wins!” It caused me to reflect that most of us don’t travel through this world lightly. We carry a great deal of baggage, emotional and otherwise. It is a big learning for most of us to trust that God can meet our needs. As Christians we know that God’s grace is abundantly available to us. We know how much we need that free gift. But to really depend on God’s grace and God’s grace alone, to follow God’s agenda, is contrary to all that our self-reliant society stands for. It is very difficult for us to even acknowledge that we are in need of God’s grace. We are often unaware of the needs of others. We don’t even see our own neediness. It comes from the self-indulgent behaviour that is so prevalent in our modern day society.

If you don’t think we are self-indulgent, simply walk through a mall observing how people react. People these days expect doors to open for them. They walk around with cell phones to their ears, oblivious to the effect they are having on other people. Most of us give little thought to how dependent we are on other people, never mind on God. When we find ourselves in need, it is very difficult to ask for help.

Not that it is unique to our society or era. I suspect it is part of human nature. It comes through loud and clear in that wonderful narrative that we heard in the Old Testament reading. Naaman is the commander of the army of the king of Aram. He is a great man, honoured in his country because of his leadership. This man who possesses great power has to learn the hard lesson that he is human and vulnerable, and that there are other kinds of power beyond his own. He has leprosy, probably not the virulent disease that would have banished him into exile, but difficult all the same for a man of his position to deal with. He tries every cure possible, but nothing works. His wife’s maid, a young woman from Israel, tells him about the prophet Elisha who may be able to cure him. He doesn’t take any chances. He gets a letter to the king of Israel, lots of money and clothing, and sets off for Israel. He arrives with all of his entourage at Elisha’s house. After all that, Elisha doesn’t even come out to see him. Instead he sends a messenger, “Go, wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored and you shall be clean.” He might as well have told Naaman to go jump in the lake! Naaman is beyond angry. After all, he wants a performance equal to his self-importance. His pride is deeply wounded. He refuses to do as Elisha has told him.

Once again it is one of his servants who persuades him to come to his senses. “If he had told you to do something difficult, you would have done it.” Finally he is able to hear the good sense of what the servant is saying. He does as Elisha has told him. He immerses himself seven times in the Jordan, and he is made clean.

It is a wonderful story that reminds us of the struggle most of us have in accepting help. It is a wonderful reminder that there are sources of grace other than those we know in our public lives.

Jesus’ disciples too must learn to depend on God’s grace for their needs. Jesus empowers them to go out into the society around them, to share the good news of what they have come to believe and experience. They go out trusting that God will provide. They don’t pack a lunch. They don’t take money – not even an extra pair of sandals. They stay wherever they are welcomed. And they come back filled with stories and experiences of God at work in and through them. They are happy, not because of their new found power, but because they belong to God. They know that the glory belongs to God, not to them. They know that they are utterly dependent on God, and that they can trust God to be there in all of their needs.

How do we learn to be grace-filled people, dependent on God for our needs? How do we put God’s grace into action in our world? For most of us it begins with learning that we need God and that we can depend on God meet our needs. I can certainly think of times in my life when it became abundantly clear to me that I had a share in God’s grace and that God would be there in my needs. It has usually been times when I needed God and made an active decision to trust that God would meet my needs.

When I was studying theology I spent two years in urban ministry. The first year I worked in a Food Bank. Most often my job was at the intake desk. I would interview people and make recommendations for how to help them. The desk was at the entrance to the building. I would watch people walk back and forth in front of the building, sometimes for ten or fifteen minutes before they came in. I wondered what kept them from just coming in. We always helped them. For many people, just to say ‘I need’ was very difficult.

Then I did a course that required a ‘plunge’. To pass we needed to spend a weekend on the streets. “Take no money, no sleeping bag, no food!” we were told. We could sleep outside, or we could find a hostel to stay in. I felt like a lamb amongst wolves. It was a terrifying but life-changing experience! I found myself walking back and forth outside a hostel trying to get up the courage to go inside and ask for a place to stay for the night. It was just so difficult to say, “I need”! When I did I received the help I needed. I learned a great deal about myself that weekend. I learned a great deal about people, about how dependent we are on one another, about how kind we can be; and I learned that I could trust God to take care of me.

We don’t all need to take a ‘plunge’ to learn that God takes care of our needs. We do need to learn to depend on God’s grace. We do need to get rid of some of our baggage. We do need to the grace of God with others. Like the seventy Jesus sent out, we are called to seek out people who will respond. We are to listen to them, to share with them in their pain and their joy. We are to meet their needs. We are to relate to them the gospel message that God loves them and is the answer to their deepest needs. We are called to allow God to work through us. We are called to responsible action, to finding the ways and means that others can know God. We are called to live out the Gospel message in our lives. It is a call to respond in the way we live and work. May we know the urgency of that call! May we respond and live in love as God has called us. Amen.