June 15, 2008
The Ven. Richard I Cluett
Genesis 18:1-15 + Matthew 9:35-10:8
“History is not a straight line going from the beginning to the end, it loops and swirls eventually finding its way back to places it’s been before.” So it has been thought, written, and spoken aloud.
The proof is in today’s gospel reading. Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.
Tell me that is not a description of the crowds in our own day and time. Can you tell me that people are not harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd? Tell me that we are not, as a people, milling around, going to and fro, seeking here and seeking there for someone who will show us the way out of this difficult time we are in, someone who will provide answers to ALL the problems of the day. Tell me people are not weighted down by the cares and demands of daily life. Tell me job loss and a shrinking job market, decline in housing value, increase in food prices and decrease in food safety, rising gasoline and all energy prices do not rule the daily concerns of the people, to say nothing of ruling of the news media.
Can you tell me people are not harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd? I don’t think so, unless you point to the few who are privileged in the security of their wealth and position.
But I don’t think people are seeking a shepherd. I think people are seeking here, there, and everywhere for a Savior, for someone who will say, “it ain’t so.” Someone who will make it all right. Some-one who will take care of it for us and in the doing will take care of us as well. Think back over the comments and the discussions and the hopes that have surfaced during this political primary season. Who will save us? Do we really expect anyone to save us?
I have learned in my years – all my years – that when stress gets high enough, when the demands of living get hard enough, when the details of life become just tough enough, the ability to see options shrinks dramatically and exponentially.
So we feel distressed in ill-defined ways. We are besieged by anxiety, stress, and fatigue. Our relationships suffer. We have unexplained aches and pains. The flood of daily events seems beyond our control.
Our increasing inability to manage, much less control our lives causes a resulting decrease in our ability to cope, our ability to see options, our ability to plan a future, our ability to see possibilities, our ability to expect something other or better – in other words a decrease in our ability to hope, whether we be a person, a nation or an entire world.
A hard life will do that to you; limit possibilities, vision, and hope for a better future. That sounds like what was going on, too, for Abraham and Sarah. Life’s been hard, that original promise from God to be the beginning of a limitless future for them and their offspring.
“… the word of the Lord came to Abram, He brought him outside and said, ‘Look towards heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.’ Then he said to him, ‘So shall your descendants be.’ And he believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness… On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, ‘To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates…” Genesis 15
But that was a long time ago and now here they sit, in a tent, in the desert, old and childless. Seemingly out of time, out of possibilities, out of hope – just sitting, surviving, waiting to see what will happen to them next – and they know it won’t be good.
Three travelers come, in need of hospitality and refreshment, which they provide. “Then one says, “I will surely return to you in due season, and your wife Sarah shall have a son. And Sarah was listening at the tent entrance behind him. Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age; it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. So Sarah laughed…”
Sarah laughed.
Apparently she laughed loudly enough and long enough to be heard. Maybe it was like that Hillary Clinton laugh that the media has enjoyed hearing and lampooning. A loud, hearty, even harsh laugh. In Sarah’s case, at least, she laughed out of disbelief that some-thing so preposterous, so outrageous, so good could finally be hers, could finally be theirs. “Yeah, Right!”
The very idea that God could, that God would… Ridiculous! Unbelievable!
And even here in the gospel, Jesus telling his disciples, “Proclaim the good news… cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons.”
The very idea! Is that your experience of your discipleship? Is that your expectation – that God could, God would? Is that what you expect from a disciple?
When I was your interim dean, I would get home at the end of a day and Patricia would ask, “How was your day, honey?” And I would say, “Oh, you know, the usual: Proclaimed the good news, cured the sick, raised the dead, cast our two demons. How about you?” And then we would laugh.
Have we so limited our vision; have we so diminished the possibility of the presence and the power of God in life, and in our own lives? Have we have so circumscribed God with the limitations of our own view of what is possible and probable in this world, in this life? I wonder if it is possible at all for us to see God’s hand at work in the world about us, or in ourselves, or even through us on behalf of others.
The Word, with a capital W, which scripture has for us today is that there is reason to hope and reason to expect.
Even if we “see through a glass darkly” at St. Paul puts it, God is God. God reigns. The kingdom is being built. Goodness abounds. Look for it. People are being healed. See it. We are being saved in all kinds of ways in all kinds of situations and problems. See it. Demons and powers are being thrown down – daily. Know it. God reigns.
No matter what it looks like. God reigns. No matter how it feels. God reigns. Should we fail or feel inadequate. God reigns. In our darkest hours. God reigns.
Even if the worst of the worst happens and someone we love dies. God reigns. How? Suffering is ended. Love has been known. We are surrounded by others who love us and are there for us. Even then. God reigns.
No matter what. God could. God would. God will. God reigns.
God reigns. Yesterday, today, tomorrow and forever. Amen.
