August 17, 2014 - The Rev. Kimberly Reinholz

August 17, 2014

The Rev. Kimberly Reinholz
Cathedral Church of the Nativity

Proper 15 A

What would I do if Audrey, my little 6 month old baby, Audrey, were tormented by a demon?  Anything

Would I seek out any and all help I could for her?  Yes

Would I yell after my sworn enemy in hopes that it would do some good?  Yes

Would I suffer insults?  Yes

Would I tolerate being called less than a dog?   Yes

What wouldn’t I do for my child? …

That was supposed to be a rhetorical question…

BUT I would do anything in my power for my child, as I would hope all of us who are parents would. 

This is exactly where the Canaanite woman stands—her daughter is tormented by a demon—it doesn’t matter what kind of demon it is, what matters is that this child is tortured, this child is suffering and as a parent this woman is willing to do ANYTHING to ease her child’s predicament, even reach out to a complete stranger, a stranger of an enemy tribe, to relieve the suffering of her daughter.

The question of demonic possession is an interesting one—and countless Biblical scholars have extrapolated that the torment facing the little girl might be a physical illness like epilepsy or another seizure disorder, it might be a psychological condition like schizophrenia or dissociative identity disorder formerly called multiple personality disorder, it might be a combination of physical and psychological causes, and it might be an actual honest to goodness evil spirit dwelling in the body of this child. 

But to be honest, it doesn’t really matter what the condition is that afflicts this child.  What really matters is how her mother’s action of calling out to Jesus in despair lead to healing by faith. 

Let me clarify—

I am not condoning crying to the Lord in the quiet of your room lamenting and wailing as the primary mode of treatment for mental illness or physical ailments.

Prayer can move mountains, as my Grandfather is fond of saying,

but you have to open your eyes to see the shovel that has been provided. 

But there is a time and a place for prayer-

and the time is always and the place is everywhere. 

As Christians we are invited into a faithful relationship with God. 

As Christians we are expected to pray in various ways—

with prayers of adoration, confession, thanksgiving, petition and supplication. 

Our Book of Common Prayer is filled with lovely collects and versicles and responses some of which have been prayed by generations of Anglicans and Episcopalians throughout the world. 

Our liturgical worship is the work of the people and it is truly a place where we can bear our souls to the Most High.

But often times we forget that in addition to our common prayer we also need to pray in private. 

At times we may need to weep and wail and mourn at the feet of a God who appears to might as well be our enemy. 

Especially when we face demons and those we love face demons we need to trust completely in God, putting aside those things we value our pride, vanity and well-being and ask God to intercede on the behalf of those we love, and, if we can get out of our own way, ourselves.

This week we lost one of the most vibrant comedic voices of this (and possibly any) generation, with the death of Robin Williams by suicide.  It was no secret that he wrestled with the demons of addiction, anxiety, and depression, because he used these struggles as fodder for his comedy.  In a recent HBO special (Weapons of Self Destruction) Williams joked about how when someone is an alcoholic the thought of having a drink could be thought of like someone standing on top of a very tall building, looking over the side and thinking, “Jump. You can make it.” 

For any one suffering from depression, anxiety or any other mental illness life is a constant struggle with that inner voice, that demon who won’t leave you alone.  It’s more than the little angel or devil that pops up on Daffy Duck’s shoulder in old Warner Brother’s cartoons. 

It’s constant, it’s debilitating, it’s torturous living with demons.  For those who are experiencing it as well as those who witness it tortured wrestling with demons is mentally, physically and spiritually exhausting. This is the reason that programs like Alanon, Alateen and similar programs exist for family members of addicts and alcoholics.  12 Step Groups are designed to help not only those who suffer directly but also those who suffer indirectly. 

Everyone who lives with addition needs to acknowledge that demons take control of our lives at times.  I speak from personal experience.  I am the granddaughter of an alcoholic. I share this with my grandfather, Jack’s, permission.  Even though he has been sober for more than 30 years every day remains a struggle.  Every day he has to remind himself of the steps which have formed the bedrock of his faith,

admitting that he is powerless over his addiction,

coming to believe that a Power greater than himself could restore his sanity

and turning his will toward God as he understood Him. 

This is a formidable feat of faith and submission to God. For him the 12 steps with meetings and family support have worked. I know this is not the case for everyone. 

Even more formidable than my grandfather’s faith was the faith of my Grandmother, Clara.  She was the one who witnessed firsthand Jack’s demons destroying his life.  She was the one who saw what it was doing to his body, mind, spirit and all of those who loved him.  It was my grandmother who made him go to rehab the first and last time and all the times in between.  It was my grandmother who joined Alanon essentially crying out for God to save her husband, her marriage, and her family.  It is my grandmother’s voice which I give to the Canaanite woman in today’s Gospel.

The Canaanite Woman, my grandmother, and anyone who has watched a loved one suffer for any reason seems to have understandable reasons to be angry with God. 

How could a loving God let so much suffering exist in the world? 

Why would God do this to me?  

How long will you let my daughter, my husband, my beloved suffer, O Lord? 

It is easy to view God as an adversary when we are the witnesses to suffering and torture in those we love; when we are victims of violence and abuse ourselves; when the world around us seems to be going to hell in a hand basket.  But there is a reason that the story of the Canaanite woman is included in Scripture, and it is the same reason that those who assembled the canon also include the Book of Job, the Lamentations of Jeremiah and the Psalms in which the writer cries out to the Lord for deliverance from suffering, from persecution, from distress.

The reason is that people have wrestled with demons from the beginning.  These scriptures act as a reminder that we are not alone so long as we have faith, remain part of a community and use the tools which God has provided for our care. 

There is an old story that my grandfather tells that goes something like this: A man is on a deep sea fishing trip and he falls over board and be beings to cry out,” Lord, O Lord, help me.” Someone one the ship throws him a line and the man responds, “It’s okay the Lord’s got this.”

He cries out again “Lord, O Lord, help me.”  A crew member lowers a dingy and rows over to the man extending his hand.  The man responds again, “It’s okay the Lord’s got this.”  The crew member rows away. 

Finally the coast guard comes around as night is starting to fall, “Sir grab the ladder they call from the helicopter, Out of the darkness his now exhausted voice responds, “It’s okay the Lord’s got this.” 

The man drowns and goes to heaven, God asks him when he gets there- “What are you doing here?” The man says—“I prayed for you to save me and you let me drown, was all my faith in vain?” God answered, “I sent you a rope, a dingy and a helicopter, what more could you want?” 

The man said, “O that was you?”

When we are suffering or people we love are suffering we overlook the tools which God has provided.  We forget that there are other people out there who have been where we are, that there are professionals like counselors, doctors and clergy who are trained to help us care for our minds bodies and spirits.  We neglect to use the gifts that God has given us and we suffer and cry out to the Lord for deliverance.

When we are in pain or distress we look for the easiest answers, and often times forget that our prayers are answered in a variety of ways.  Just because what we want and expect is that the final response that Jesus gave to the Canaanite woman—that her faith has healed her daughter—we think that all we have to do is pray. If we just cry out to God for help, then he will give us exactly what we ask for, when we ask for it, and as we expect the answer to come. 

But that is not what the Gospel today teaches, instead it teaches that help comes in unexpected places, even at the hands of a sworn enemy.  God answers prayers, God provides for the faithful.  We only have to keep our eyes open and remember that while we are praying for ourselves and our loved ones who are dancing with demons that the kind of prayer and the kind of faith that is the most effective is not too proud to beg, not too vain to be belittled, and not so stubborn as to not accept help even from an enemy. 

What would you be willing to do to save someone you love?  If the answer is Anything—then keep praying and use the tools which God has provided.   Amen.

Loaves and Fishes

The Cathedral Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem, PA

Sunday August 3, 2014

The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa

Matthew 13   The Feeding of the Five Thousand

 

I am one of the lucky ones. Perhaps you can be counted among the lucky ones as well, perhaps not, I know some are more fortunate than others by no action of their doing. I am one of the lucky ones who in life has been loved with abandon, with abundance, even with extravagance. I am talking about being loved in the most authentic deep way. I have been loved sacrificially. There are four of us boys, my brothers and I who have been loved by a mother in such a way that our well-being was and is always foremost. My brothers and I grew up in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, known to many of you today as that quaint tourism driven town. I am here to tell you that in the late sixties and most of the 70s that we grew up there it was just another dried up coal town trying to recover from the coal bust. In fact, and I tell you this story, only because it will highlight my point later in this sermon, carbon county was the poorest county in the state of Pennsylvania. Yet I stand before you this day as one of the Lucky Ones, because I was loved with abandon, abundance, and with extravagance. You see after my parents’ divorce, even with alimony payments, our annual household income combined with my mother’s humble hourly wage at a local textile factory, was well below the poverty level. I know this now, I didn’t know it then. I didn’t know it then because though I sometimes I knew we didn’t have a lot of stuff, we were happy on the whole or at least I was. Happy because my mother loved with abundance. You see, even though I know there were nights she went to bed with tears of worry, I always felt loved, happy, adjusted even. You see my mother was crazy! She behaved, even when she might have doubted, she behaved and still behaves as if there is more than enough love to go around! More than enough! There are four of us to Love with such depth and abandon. Sometimes I wonder, as Methodist Bishop Will Willimon has speculated on the topic of radical love; is this wise on her part? Wouldn’t it be better for her to hold something back- to preserve maybe a piece of this energy, this sacrifice, this selfless giving, to hold on tight to it as a valuable resource to be used carefully, thriftily even? No, it seems this Love is a deep pool- my mother continues to send the notion and seems to behave as if there is enough to go around and that this pool of love seems endless. In fact she continues to demonstrate to any fortunate enough to know her that not only is this pool deep but it seems to be an inexhaustible  resource, and the clarity of the depth of this pool seems to come in focus particularly when crisis are set before her. She is crazy!

This brings us to our Gospel reading today. This preacher has preached on this text a few times and you have heard it many times. Yet I stand before you this day with the challenge for us to once again be challenged and lifted to a new place as we encounter this story again this day! Loaves and fishes, is about at the end of the day coming to know that in God’s economy, God’s Kingdom, God’s way, there is an abundance about us that is a promise and a challenge. You know how the story goes, Jesus, tired after days of teaching, preaching, and healing seeks to slip away for some quiet time. The typical crowd of folks desperate some of them to catch a glimpse of hope and meaning, healing and promise from this powerful stranger, draw near at the end of the day and instead of returning to their villages they remain. The disciples are met with their first ministry crisis! What to do with this mass of folk who are hungry in mind, body, and spirit. Their understandable reaction at first displays their feelings of inadequacy and the overwhelming reality before them. Jesus, they are hungry and there are so many, let us send them back to where they came from!  The easy answer is not the right answer for Jesus who looks upon the crowd and is himself overwhelmed with compassion and he tells the disciples, “You feed them”. God only knows then the response of the disciples but miracles of all miracles some fish and a couple loaves are scavenged up, Jesus blesses and breaks the pieces and it is said that all were fed, 5,000 men AND Women and Children- point- a whole heck of a lot of people. The power in this story of course is that not only were hungry, desperate, longing strangers fed and filled but twelve basket full of leftovers were collected! Leftovers! I don’t’ know about you, but Leftovers are about my favorite thing in the whole world because just when you think you’ve had enough of the best thing in the world, there it is the next day, more for the next day! It seems to be,  you see for this Kingdom that Jesus has come to deliver, it seems in the economy of God’s heart, it seems the way life is the way God sees it, there is  enough for all; in fact, more than enough.  Enough resource, enough love, enough hope, enough compassion, in fact, not just enough, but more than enough- Abundant, inexhaustible, even extravagant is God’s view of life.

 If this true, then there’s nothing to save for another day for fear that there won’t be enough to go around, or someone unworthy might get a piece of something they don’t deserve- Let alone that person being me?

Well, doesn’t it just seem then that God is like that? I mean look at other places in scriptures, Jesus is consistently delivering such compelling news. The parable of the sower you are to spread seed everywhere! Even particularly in the more complex soils, those challenged perhaps by a lack of depth or by competing weeds, one might find extra seeds sown because you need them. At a wedding in Cana, water is transformed into wine, and not only is it a little bit of wine, but it is a lot, and it is not just average wine from unripened grapes but it is full and rich, and deep, and abundant. Seems like God is like that.

 There is a lost son who returns from a wayward journey of his own choosing who is greeted not only enthusiastically by his Father upon his return, but not only is he greeted but he is celebrated with an abundance and extravagance that sends a definite truth-filled message.  Love it seems is a deep love, the kind of love that meets folks in their limitations, desperations, struggles, doubts, fears and prejudices and it is a deep pool that should one take the risk of diving into can present  the opportunity to change the equation before us. We don’t have to pretend otherwise. We don’t’ have to grab our piece of it and hide it away from others as if there isn’t enough to go around OR behave as if there isn’t enough to last the day! Jesus is clear in the teaching! There is enough and not only enough, there is more than enough. Abundant hope, abundant love, abundant forgiveness, abundant mercy, abundant compassion, abundant resources, abundant!

Such a reminder we need in our world today and as followers of such good, compelling and challenging news. The struggle is consistent in our world to declare and live this abundance. We sometimes feel like Jacob in our Old Testament lesson wrestling with God to find a blessing yet not smart enough to know we need God to win so the blessings might flow. We are overwhelmed with conflicts between peoples who clearly do not believe there is enough for everyone. Gaza, Ukraine, Syria and South Sudan.  Our own struggles in our own country. Our own struggles in our own lives where we sometimes fail to see the deepest pool of hope of love, of forgiveness- our own struggles in our own crisis where the opportunity is once again before us to lean into a truth that a deep abiding love of God is in exhaustive, sufficient- and even abundant, extravagant.

I’d like to tell you the story of my one of my closest friends. With his permission I tell you about Todd and Anne and their family. Todd and Anne living with their young son Ian in Austin Texas tell of how in their lives they came upon an opportunity to test the faith stated life-view of abundance as met and considered the adoption of two young boys in South Austin. They speak in terms of meeting these boys who for all circumstances were from another world. Born to a crack addicted mother and trapped in a cycle of poverty, Todd speaks of their encountering these new young lives, refugees from a circumstance of life so foreign to Todd and Anne’s experience, they may well have been considered to be from “another world”. 

This very week in an event held in a small town in Michigan, where Todd serves the Church as Bishop of the Diocese of Eastern Michigan, Todd speaks of his experience encountering the opportunity to live into Jesus world-view teaching of abundance. The important context of Todd’s speaking was in response to the refugee crisis of south and Central American children flooding the borders of the United States. There in Michigan a processing center has been established for these young children sparking diverse reactions.

These are Todd’s words,

My wife, Ann, and I, along with our 6 yr-old birth son, Ian, began a journey fifteen years ago into an unknown future with two refugees from a neglected part of our society that most folks don’t like to think about --- a place with circumstances that we truly can’t even begin to imagine --- across borders we’d like to pretend don’t exist.  We were frightened, unsure of ourselves, concerned about welcoming strangers into our home, unsettling our comfortable life and predictable patterns.  We didn’t know if we would have enough time, enough money, enough square footage, enough love.  But we welcomed the strangers anyway.  And the strangers became friends.  Friends became beloved.  The beloved became part of us, became our sons.

More than 57,000 children, teens and adults from Central America have entered the U.S. since October 2013, many fleeing gang violence and drug wars.  Most are seeking a better life filled with hope and possibility.  Many have been sent across by their parents --- children striking out alone in pursuit of a better future.  The response from citizens and governments along the border as well as communities in mid-Michigan, like Vassar, have been mixed.  They have been welcomed and reviled, embraced and rejected, invited in and sent away.  As a society, we are being asked, in the words of the biblical author of the Letter to the Hebrews, “. . . [to] not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it:.

Abundance, extravagance, an inexhaustible resource.

I stand before my fellow Christians this day with a story about desperate people, hungry people, 5,000 men and women and children on top of that! Who came to catch a glimpse of what they hoped would be an inexhaustible  resource, an abundant resource, an overflowing resource of compassion and strength and that day were met with a revelation that not only was love and compassion inexhaustible but there was plenty to go around, more than enough. At first the disciples wanted to send them home. Jesus response feed them.

 

I stand before you my fellow Christians this day with a story about worn torn countries and personal struggles in the midst of conflict where an opportunity as Christians is to believe and behave as if Love is inexhaustible, abundant, overflowing. A story about “Children”, so desperate and hungry that their parents send them off on a dangerous and undetermined path in the hope they might be met by something different.

I am a parent of teenage children, the same age as many of these refugee children coming to our borders. Can you imagine, can you begin with compassion to imagine the despair that would lead to a heartbreaking decision to send your child on such a dangerous journey? Like those on a hillside thousands of years ago, they too wonder how their hopelessness might be met? How would you like your child to be met in the moment of their deepest despair and need? Would your children be met with protest signs, with racial slur, with threats, and even with camaflouged militia with rifles? Or is it possible would they be met with compassion and resource-filled belief that their just might be enough mercy, enough care, enough love, enough food, enough grace for today, And even for tomorrow?

I stand before this day now speaking of a particular circumstance that I know politicization takes us to one place. The place of politicization is predictable and tried and true; it takes us to a place of divide and a mentality of scarcity.  I confess to you that I know such issues are complex and these refugees lives are mixed deeply in our great divide as a country around immigration reform. I confess to you I am not smart enough about Caesar, by that I use the term as Jesus pragmatically used the term in his teaching about what is owed and expected of the power structures of the day, I speak of our government- elected representatives; republican, democrat, independent who are elected to struggle and I pray constructively resolve this debate.  I confess to you I am not interested in this sermon with that debate and I do not know how this debate plays out.

 But I do dare to be so bold to say that I do know, and I believe you, my fellow followers, do know enough about our Lord Jesus to say, that there is ONE and only ONE response to the marginalized, the struggling, the desperate, the hungry, CHILDREN, of God who come to us as hungry strangers; that one response is compassion.  It is the response of compassion that flows from that deep pool of belief that in God there is after all enough to go around, in fact, more than enough. Abundant, extravagant, inexhaustible.

Jesus took the bread, blessed it, broke it, and wonders of all wonders- it was enough! And not just enough but twelve baskets full were taken up of leftover.

See, the thing is there wasn’t just enough, there was more than enough.

 

Let that be a lesson for us.