Saturday, August 29, 2015
Sermon for the Pentecost 8
Proper 11 B ~ July 19, 2015
Holy Trinity & St. Anskar
God
did not make death…righteousness is immortal.
+In the Name of God, the Holy and Undivided Trinity,
Three words jump out at me: compassion, shepherd, and fringe.
Jesus had compassion on the crowd because they seemed to Him like sheep
without a shepherd, and they all wanted to get near Him and even just touching
the fringe of His robe healed them. The Collect also mentions compassion:
invoke divine compassion on our weakness. With that prayer
setting the tone, the readings seem to invite us to identify with that
desperate crowd who were like sheep without a shepherd.
In this context, shepherd
means a higher being that DOES have compassion. Not a ruler and judge, but the
One who leads beside still waters and restores the soul, our guide into green
pastures and our defender in the Valley of the Shadow of death. The Shepherd is
the compassionate One, who knows better than we do what we need and where we
want to go.
Look how desperately the people wanted to be near Jesus. He and the
Apostles were worn out and wanted to get a rest, but the crowds beat them to
the deserted place and Jesus felt sorry for them. Apparently He gave them what
they were looking for – everyone who touched the fringe of His robe was healed.
I suppose that is what they were looking for – healing, health, wholeness,
salvation. And although they may not have known precisely what they were
looking for, It didn’t matter: Jesus gave them what in their blindness they
could not and in their unworthiness dared not ask.
We are the same, aren’t we? We don’t know what we really need, and if we
do, we don’t dare ask. What strikes me about the crowd is that they didn’t give
up trying to get to where Salvation was. Their behavior seems to indicate a
kind of desperation. But it didn’t matter. They weren’t required to learn
anything or to profess anything, or even to recognize the precise nature of their
need. All that was necessary was contact with Jesus.
That is well to remember, when I consider the Church. The person of
Jesus is all that is important – whatever brings one closer to Him is the road
to salvation – spiritual health and wholeness. – since He IS that road. What does that for me may not necessarily do
it for everyone. There is more than one way.
I fully believe that the visible Church is the vestibule and gateway
into the Mystical Body of Christ, and that salvation is participation in its life.
But I must remember that all those people didn’t get directly into contact with
His Body. Most of them only touched his
outer garment. And some of them only its hem
(as in the older translations) and that was enough.
I like fringe better, because
of its meaning in our everyday speech. The robe isn’t Jesus’ Body, and the
fringe is even more external and removed. But even those who can only get into
contact with the fringe are healed. That’s an important detail, I think. I must
remember it the next time I am given to think someone else’s religion is fringey. And if I am honest, I also have
to admit that my own is certainly on the fringe! It is good for me to recognize
that, because there is always the danger for fringies like me to imagine that
what brings me closer to Jesus is the best way for everybody. Worse, it is also
tempting to think of my fringe as SUPERIOR. That is a temptation because it is
sectarianism rather than salvation – mistaking the fringe for the Real Body of
Christ.
But the Gospel insists that ANY contact with Jesus is salvific, however
distant. I would say that the only
proviso is that those who touch the fringe and are healed must not imagine that
theirs is the only possible approach. It would be foolish to think so. God is
the Fountain of Wisdom, Who knows our
necessities before we ask and our ignorance in asking. Like those desperate
people in Gennesaret, we don’t know what we really need. The best we can do is
to rely on God’s compassion, displayed by His Son, asking Him to give us those
things which for our unworthiness we dare not, and for our blindness we cannot
ask.
AMEN
MARANATHA
COME, LORD JESUS!
