Wondering Thoughts

A baptism I won't forget and other pictures of Maggie Lee I recently found

A baptism I'll never forget.  And she was the first in our new church, 2005, Trophy Club.

Summer, 2009, Mountain Air, North Carolina

School Christmas play

Maggie Lee for Good Day

Today would have been Maggie Lee's 14th birthday.  We mark it today not only with our fond memories of her life, but also with the second annual Maggie Lee for Good Day.  It is a day to bring good out of what was incredibly bad and tragic; a way to join with others in partnering with God's redemptive power and love to bring good into the world.  All it involves is doing one good thing for someone else.  It's a simple yet powerful way to make a difference in this world.  At least 18,000 people registered and participated in the day last year.  And we are hoping for at least the same this year.  Just think of 18,000 loving their neighbor with a good deed.

As Jesus said (Matthew 5:16), "so let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven." 

See just some of what is happening today here.

Feel free to share what you did do/wlll do here on this blog or on Facebook if you are reading it there. Also, if you are in Shreveport, come on over to El Chicos (on Fern) tonight at 7:00 PM for a celebration with stories, good food and music by the Matthew Davidson band.  El Chico will donate a percentage of the receipts to the local Northwest Food Bank.

 

Maggie Lee for Good events to benefit animal group, others | shreveporttimes.com | Shreveport Times

Local students, businesses and nonprofit groups will help honor the memory of a Shreveport middle school student who died in a church bus crash in 2009.

via www.shreveporttimes.com

Maggie Lee for Good Day is coming up on Friday. The article posted here in the Shreveport Times gives a glimpse of what some folks are doing. For more ideas, visit www.maggieleeforgood.org

Are you the Pharisee or the Tax Collector?

“How to Beat Your Breast”   Luke 18:9-18
Delivered to Church for the Highlands on Sunday, October 24, 2010

When I was a kid, I spent many a Sunday afternoon watching Westerns on TV.  For some reason, this was the typical time they ran in reruns on our cable system.  I could watch as many episodes as I wanted of Bonanza, Gunsmoke, Rawhide and, my favorite, Rifleman, with Lucas (Chuck Connors) and Mark McCain.  Now that I look back, I realize that I should have been doing my homework during all this time.  An episode of Rifleman popped into my head this week.  It was about a family that moved not far from the Rifleman, out on the harsh range they all called home.  The father of the family was the epitome of a Westerner, full of rugged-individualism and tough as nails.  He took pride in what he had done for himself and his family and he established his new homestead all by himself.  But things would soon get more difficult and he would need help. The Rifleman tried to warm up to him and be of help, but the man had the personality of a piece of wood and was cold toward his offers for help.  As you can imagine, the story line leads the man and his family to get into trouble.  I don’t remember if it was a storm or drought or Apaches, but the man finally surrendered his self-sufficiency and was rescued by the Rifleman and other neighbors.  He learned that rugged individualism isn’t all it is made out to be.  He learned of the limits of self-reliance.

Though we are no longer living in the harsh realities and elements of life on the frontier, we too struggle with our self-reliance, especially as it relates to our spiritual lives.  We tend to think we can do it all.  Or, we think we have to do it all in order for us to survive and make it “in” with God.  I recently read a quote about this mentality, written by Meryl Streep, I have always regarded myself as the pillar of my life.[i]  I think that statement nicely wraps up how we live.  This isn’t anything new for us humans.  Jesus ran into this kind of thinking at every turn.  There was always a crowd of self-made women and men around him.  In our Gospel today, Jesus told a story to just such a crowd. Luke prefaces this account by telling us that Jesus saw that the crowd was full of people relying on themselves. It continued a theme on prayer and how self-reliance just doesn’t work with God.  No, according to Jesus, God-reliance is what is needed. 

Jesus includes two very different kinds of people with two very different kinds of approaches to God.  One is a Pharisee who reminds God of all he has done, as well as all he has not done.  He has his life together and he is not afraid to tell God and all who are within earshot about it.  The man has one-upped the typical law-abiding Pharisee.  And the other person is the much-hated tax collector.  He has a nefarious lifestyle and knows it.  And the Pharisee obviously knows it as well.  All the collector can do is beat his breast and plead for God’s mercy.  And he is the one who goes home justified.  He is the one no one wanted to be like but now is the one everyone wants to be like—getting to go back to his house with an OK from God.  Jesus wanted the crowd to find their place in this story, hopefully going home in the same away, after beating their breasts.

And God wants us to find ourselves in this story as well.  Any idea on which one you look more like these days?  The Pharisee?  The tax collector? Well, whichever one you may be today, Jesus provides us with some help here on how to beat our breasts, relying on the mercy of God rather than the soft and crumbling pillars of our lives.

Relying on God seems to always begin with seeing God’s holiness.  Both of these men were in the temple.  Both of them were drawn there for some reason.  Based on what we do know about the Pharisee, we could conclude that he was probably there as a part of his spiritual check list for God.  This is where he hung out.  He felt comfortable here.  He knew this was a place to revere God’s holiness, although his posture in life and in the temple show more of what he thought of himself than of God. The tax collector was also drawn there to the temple, but it is hard to say why.  He didn’t have much on his checklist and couldn’t point to anything to use as an offering to God.  His posture is most revealing about his view of God.  His hesitancy to come near and his unwillingness to look up show his recognition not only of his sinfulness, but of God’s holiness. Both men understood their accountability with God.

I ask you again, with which one of these do you most identify today?  As you think about this past week and as you think about this time of worship even now, how do you approach God? How do you see God?  What we can learn from both of these characters in Jesus’ story is that God is holy.  God is other than we are.  Jesus would have us know that God is pure and sinless and certainly worthy of our trip to the temple.

Our posture in our approach to God is to be one from where we see our accountability.  Just as both men understood that who they were and what they did was accountable to God, so who we are and what we do is under the supervision of our God.  Realizing and remembering this is really the beginning point of moving away from our soul-hazardous self-reliance.

And this idea of accountability leads us to another help with our self-reliance issues.  We need a proper awareness of our sins.  The Pharisee didn’t seem to be aware of his sins, but his actions lead us to wonder that maybe the reason he is doing so much is because of them.  I’m thinking that he was so busy trying to build up the pillar of perfection in his life that he just quit seeing his sin.  He certainly missed what Jesus so cleverly points out--his pride and subsequent contempt for his tax-collecting neighbor. 

The tax collector, however, demonstrated a real awareness of his sin.  He couldn’t look up to God, stood far away from where he thought God was, and gave sign with the beating of his breast that he was all to familiar with his sinful condition.  We get the idea he is all too aware of his sins of commission and can only plead for extra doses of mercy for the unknown sins, all those sins of omission. 

I’m doing some thinking about which one of these characters I’m more like.  What about you?  Are you seeing yourself in one of these two characters today?  Before we judge the Pharisee, which the parable sets us up to do, we should take a step back for a moment and see that we could at times be very much like the Pharisee, doing and doing and doing as a way of covering up our sins.  Yes, we are going about things in the wrong way, but it can be said we are aware of our sins.  We just aren’t saying it, to ourselves or to our God.  Maybe you and I are a lot like that.  We are aware, but not in the way we should be.  It’s like we become aware of our sins and then try our best to hide them away, like putting layers of make up over that untimely zit or like putting paint over that dirty wall or getting a lift on that double or triple chin.  We see it in all its ugliness but we quickly dismiss it and act as though it doesn’t exist. 

Or, maybe you have gotten to the point in your life when you realize that the best policy is just raw honesty—with yourself and with God.  You’ve grown weary of all of the hiding and the covering up.  You just bring it all out before yourself and God, looking at in the full light of what it is, beating your breast in such a way that says, “God, I know I have messed up again.  My life is a mess.  And I’m not going to sugar coat it or justify it in any way.  Here it is.”

You are probably one or the other of these or you are or have been a combination of the two.  Maybe you were more like the Pharisee at one point of your life and have become more like the tax collector.  Or maybe you came to Christ as the tax collector, but you took on more of religion than you did of Christ and you have found it much easier and acceptable to put cosmetic touches on the ugliness of your sin.

Maybe the real sin here with both of them and with us in this room is in not seeing that God loves as He does; that God’s love is completely reliable; that it is enough.  It is to not see that God has done what is necessary to forgive your self-righteousness and your sins.  It is to continue living your life with both a crazy pursuit of building yourself up so God will like you as well as to beat yourself down for being someone God could never like.  Yes, maybe your biggest mistake is to live with resistance to God’s mercy.

And here in this story this morning is an invitation for you and for me to rely on God’s mercy.  The Pharisee relied on himself, all that he had painstakingly done for God.  The tax collector, however, had nothing to hold out and, from a distance, relied completely upon the mercy of God. Jesus made him the hero of the story.  And Jesus made him the point of how God justifies—out of His mercy and grace for even the tax collectors.  It was grace for all. And it is grace for us all as well. As Paul stated it so well, wanting the Ephesians to know what God had done for them in Jesus, For it is by grace that you have been saved, not by works, lest anyone boast.(Ephesians 2)

We can’t really beat up on the Pharisees in this story, though it is easy and fun to do.  We can’t because deep down we know of our problems with relying upon ourselves.  It happens when we drop that check in the offering plate, with that thought in our minds that God will love us a little more extra because we have done it.  And it might have happened this morning, when you were making the choice to stay in bed or get up and go to church, thinking that we can make God feel better about us if we go to his house for an hour or two. It also happens when we check our list of what we don’t do and never would do against what our neighbor seems to so easily do.  "At least I’m not like her or him," we say to ourselves.

No, Jesus leaves us with no real options for self-sufficiency here.  He does remind us of God’s distribution of mercy for those who ask.  He reminds us of the opportunity of trusting in God’s radical love.  He offers us a solution to the beating of our breast and leads us into the arms of God, trusting that what God has for us is far better than the rigid religions we create or the short-term effects of our tax-collecting activities and pursuits. Self-reliance just doesn’t look so good anymore.

As I’ve thought some more about that Rifleman show, I recall that the Rifleman wasn’t judgmental toward the man of self-reliance, for he too must have learned that he couldn’t live life on the dry-dusty, harsh plains on his own.  And the lesson Jesus has for us here today is that we can’t make it on our own either, no matter how long our list of things we do and don’t do.  No, it all comes down to God’s abundant mercy. The tax collector beat his breast for it and went back to his house right with God.  And you and I can do the same from this place this morning. 

---

[i] http://www.famousquotesandauthors.com/topics/self_reliance_quotes.html

 

The ways we exalt ourselves

I am looking through the texts for this next Sunday and have decided to go with the Gospel text (Luke 18:9-14) for my sermon.  How can I not, when Jesus tells a story to a group of people who are full of themselves and leaving little room for God?  And how could I not choose a text where Jesus throws in a Pharisee character and tax collector, having the latter come out looking much better than the former? And how can I not, when I can't help but thinking I look a lot more like the religious here than the irreligious?  This will be a good week of study.

Luke 18:9-14

⁹He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: ¹⁰“Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.¹¹The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. ¹²I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.’¹³But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ ¹⁴I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.”

"Wrestling with God" from yesterday

“Wrestling with God”  Genesis 32:22-31; Luke 18:1-8
Delivered to Church for the Highlands
Sunday, October 17, 2010

Several stories I’ve heard this week have stayed with me as I’ve read through the Scriptures for today.  One I heard while ironing my shirt as I watched the news on the Today show this past week.  It was an interview of the wife and mother of the man who was killed in the beautiful yet cartel-infested waters of Mexico. I had watched an interview just the day before as well, when there still wasn’t much known about the disappearance of the man.  Suspicisions were growing about the wife and what might have really happened.  But in this interview, a day later, Meredith Viera was asking how the news of the death of the lead investigator had impacted them and their hopes of finding their loved one’s body as well as the people responsible for his death.  There was a quiet spot for a moment and then the mother said that she still believed that they would find her son, that God would do it; that they were still praying.  I was moved by the woman’s persistence; her deep faith that God would provide justice here.  The wife, the mother, and now the beheaded investigator’s family have all entered the wrestling ring, struggling with their pain, their prayers and perhaps even with their God.

Another story is from Facebook.  A Friend had a post asking people to pray for her and her family while the Lousiana Supreme Court was to rule in regard to a man being tried for her sister’s murder was taking place.  It was a cry for justice to be served; for God to bring a win on the side of righteousness and justice.  I could just sense the years of wrestling that have gone on with the justice system, the killer and even with God.  “God, bring your justice” is what I was hearing through this post.

A third story is from Chile’. I really don’t need to say more, for you are as aware as anyone in the world about the rescue of the miners after 3 months of being trapped a half mile deep in the earth.  The key word in most of the stories breaking this past week was “miracle.”  Miracle indeed.  What a wrestle for life.  What exertion for the men, their families and for the rescue workers for all this time.  And that’s nothing to say for all the wrestling with God in prayer from those involved as well. The good news is that the miners were able to come out alive, to see the dawn of a new day.

These stories have been much in my mind as I have considered our Scriptures for today.  If we had time to read all of these texts, you would quickly conclude with me that they all—from Old Testament to New—had one thing in common—people wrestling with God.

The clearest picture of this is in Jacob’s life, as we find him here in Genesis 32.  We remember the highlights of his life up to this point, recalling his wrestling moves from birth when he grabbed hold of his brother Esau’s ankle on the way out of the womb.  His moves would continue, pushing his brother out of the way and usurping his birthright from his father.  He had lots of moves and knew how to leverage his strength to get his way.  But, now, he is in need of getting back to his brother.  He has been living his life for 20 years with some measure of guilt about his actions toward his own flesh and blood, with probably a nagging curiosity about how things turned out for Esau, with weariness living the life of a nomad on the run from not only his brother but all of the problems that go along with a usurping personality.

And now, as he sits along the river Jabbok, about to step into his brother’s world and into either revenge or mercy, he takes in the moment.  You get the idea that there is some kind of review going on here, just like in the movies where the music changes while the character looks off in the distance and begins to have flashbacks of what has led him up to this moment in his life.  It seems to always happen before a watershed moment in the life of the main character.  This is what was happening to Jacob, I am sure.  He has sent on his family, his friends and his belongings.  It is just Jacob and his thoughts sitting there.  And God.

Just when Jacob thinks he is alone with his thoughts and anxieties, God shows up.  God jumps out of the bushes, with the element of surprise and full Nelson type moves.  He begins to wrestle with Jacob and Jacob wrestles back, not knowing what or who this is who has entangled him in the dark.  The strength and tenacity of Jacob is so strong  and enduring that God pulls out his best move and even goes for the Achilles of every wrestler—the thigh muscle.  He disables it, throwing Jacob’s hip out of socket and rendering him vulnerable to his opponent.  Jacob continues to wrestle, but as one now wounded.

The Keil and Delitzch commentary on this event states what happened this way:

To save him from the hand of his brother, it was necessary that God should first meet him as an enemy, and show him that his real opponent was God Himself, and that he first of all overcome Him before He could hope to overcome him his brother.  And Jacob overcame God; not with the power fo the flesh however, with which he had hitherto wrestled for God against man . . . but by the power of faith and prayer, reaching by firm hold of God even to the point of being blessed, . . . [i]

Jacob prevailed in his match with God in the same way he would be able to prevail in days ahead, even with a wound, as he learned the power of faith and prayer, holding tightly to the arms of God.

Ok, so what in the world are we to do with this bizarre story?  Are you telling me that God is the kind of deity that jumps out of bushes like a WWF wrestler, ready to throw down on me and do damage to my hip? That’s a question you may be asking of me this morning.  It may be one you and I are asking God these days.  And if we are not asking it, we might be feeling it, deep down wondering what kind of God God is.  The story is here, I believe, because it continues to speak to us.  This story—and the current ones I mentioned earlier—is accessible to us because we find ourselves in the midst of them.  I mean, haven’t you found yourself feeling a bit like Jacob at times?  Haven’t you felt what it is like for God to jump out of the bushes late one night and grab you?  Have you ever felt like grabbing him back, getting him in a grip so tight you won’t let go until He gives you the answer, the blessing you’ve been longing for all your life?  Or have you felt like the woman praying hour after hour, day after day, night after long night for justice for her murdered and still missing sister?  Have you felt like a Chilean miner, trapped in the suffocating depths of hole that has now become what is looking like your tomb, one you are realizing could very well do you in for good?  You no doubt know what it feels like to be in such a place like Jabbok, or in courtroom limbo or deep in the ground of your Chile’.

So, what do we do with this, beyond identifying and nodding our heads that we know about grappling with God?  What do we do when we find ourselves scrapping with our past, our present and the God who meets us in both as he pulls us out of their circle and into the future?  Well, we do what Jacob did. 

Just as Jacob wrestled back with God with all his might and passion, so we do the same.  We stay in the arms of our God, pushing back and seeking to get a better handle on Him.  I don’t think God minds this.  It seems the Psalms have been given to us for this very reason, to show that it is ok to get angry and even to push at God.  In so doing, God allows Himself to become vulnerable, allowing us to explore things about Him we might not have known before.  Doing so requires patience and persistence.

I think this is what Jesus was teaching in the parable we just heard in the Gospel reading (Luke 18:1-8), of how Jesus taught the disciples to be persistent in their prayers to God, learning to pray with persistence for justice just as the woman in the story pushes and pesters and throws out her best persuasive moves on the judge. It sounds like wrestling, doesn’t it?  Jesus is teaching and, specifically, inviting us to do the same with God.  We recall that Jesus knew a thing or two about wrestling, having started his ministry in a 40 day death match in the wilderness with himself, with his desires and dreams, with the devil and with the Father’s will, I am sure. His wrestling would continue throughout his ministry, leading Jesus to go to solitary places often to get away from bickering disciples, biting and hateful Pharisees, jealous Romans and, as we see in the Garden of Gethsamane, as he gives up any struggle with his own will to surrender to that of the Father.  Jesus knew a thing or two about wrestling and he wanted to make sure disciples of his time and those for today understand it as well.  And not just to understand, but to know how to wrestle.

When we find ourselves in the dark of night, wrestling with God, we are to be persistent.  In the chilling hours of the night, in the pain of our relationships, in the disappointments of our lives, in the anguish of unspeakable loss and grief,  we are to stay with God, planting our wrestling feet so deep in the dirt that we shall not retreat to the other side of our Jabbok river, not going back to the life on the lamb we have grown weary of for so many years.  No, we are to stay in the ring with God, grasping at God to the point that we become like Jacob, refusing to let Go until God blesses us; until God provides what we have been longing for all along.  It is hanging on until we too see the face of God in the midst of our problems, our unanswered prayers, our questions about why God would allow us into this hole that has become so deep and depressing.  We may not find answers, but we can find that God is there wrestling with us in them too. That kind of wrestling is up close and personal.  And that’s what God reminds us of today.  Just as He didn’t create Jacob’s problems, so He doesn’t create ours.  But, in the midst of them, He gets up close and personal, allowing us to wrestle with Him and allowing Himself to be vulnerable enough to be pinned down and held.  He even allows us to see a more clear view of His face as we fix our eyes on Jesus, whom God sent that we might never forget what God looks like, that God Himself is wounded.

We walk away learning that we didn’t win, but we did win.  We walk away realizing that we have no fear of what lies ahead with the Esau’s of our lives.  We walk ahead with Penuel, the face of God forever engrained on our minds.  We walk ahead, limping, yet out of the darkness and into a new dawn.

---

[i] Keil and Delitzsch.  Commentary on the Old Testament:  The First Book of Moses. p.306

 

It's all about wrestling this week

Chagall

Have you ever wrestled with God?  Jacob did, as described in one of this week's OT readings:  Genesis 32:22-31.  

The same night he got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had. Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him.Then he said, “Let me go, for the day is breaking.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” Then the man said, “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.” Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.” The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.

I've jumped into this text while holding it up with the Gospel reading, Luke 18:1-8.  There is much here about wrestling with God, especially through the interaction of prayer.  More on Sunday.

 

Some People See

“Some People See” Luke 17:11-19 Delivered to Church for the Highlands Sunday, October 10, 2010

“Some people!” That’s a phrase I often say and with clenched teeth and unhealthy thoughts. The words come out of my mouth in all kinds of places. Take the week for last, for example, when I was walking out of Starbucks coffee, with my hands full of hot coffee. Someone was coming through the door, so I held the door open with my foot, while doing my best not to drop my scorching not Café Estima. She walked right through the door without a thank you, without any aknowledgement of my coffee calesthinics. Some people! I said aloud and within. And then there was the time recently when I was at the intersection of McAllisters and Lifeway. You know, the one where traffic backs all the way up to Chic-Fil-A while everyone waits for the light on Pierremont to change and clear the lane. I let someone go ahead and there’s not even a wave or a nod or even a hint of gratitiude. Some people! I thought to myself. Or, it happens while you are at the grocery store and everyone is in one line. The manager finally wakes up and calls another checker to come to open a new register and a new line. Your hands are full of items, though you take pity on someone with less than you, so you signal for them to go ahead when the checker says, “I can take someone in this line.” The person shoots the gap and gets to the register rapidly, all without ever giving you any thanks at all. You watch as he walks out of the store, all checked out, while your checker is helping the customer 4 people ahead of you find the most obscure kind of cigarette ever inhaled. “Some people!” you scream in your head.

I’m wondering if Jesus used that phrase with the lepers we heard about in our Scripture reading for today. I’m thinking that if there was a word bubble we could see, it would probably be in there, floating around in there in Aramaic or Koine Greek. If it wasn’t said, I’m sure it was felt. Jesus had just provided all ten lepers with complete healing of their leprosy. He had done for them what they could not do for themselves. He had done for them what no one could ever do for them—complete healing for their leprosy ridden bodies. And only one of the ten came back to say thank you. Luke so beautifully puts it this way, “. . . and he saw that he had been healed.” Luke is making sure that he truly saw what had happened to him, while the others noticed but did not see. As we hear this account of this event in Jesus’ life today, we get the opportunity to enter the story and see things that I think he saw; things that help us see what God has done for us today in our lives. The first thing I think this one leper saw was that God does not discriminate. The man was a “foreigner,” a Samaritan and thus hated by so many within Jesus’ religious group. Not only was he a Samaritan, he was also a leper. What a double whammy in the eyes of the people in his village, especially for the religious leaders who followed and criticized Jesus. There were multiple reasons for them to discriminate against this man. Jesus, however, chose none of them. He, instead, went out of his way and common practice to bring healing to this man. He demonstrated God’s universal love for everyone. He provided the man and the world with a clear picture of the reality of God’s unconditional love for all people. He already knew what discrimination felt like, but this day he not only felt but saw real love and acceptance.

There have been several TV shows recently about how discrimination still exists. Shows like “Caught On TV” and Nightline create scenarios and plant actors to steal bicycles in a park, showing reactions to black and then to white actor “thieves.” Or, they will send a poor, haggard looking woman and then the same woman all dressed up going into a store at different times, showing the kind of discrimination from sales people based on the a shopper’s appearance. As humans, we are still very much a discriminating bunch.

What we can see about God today, through this one leper’s eyes, is that God does not discriminate. God is an equal opportunity healer and Redeemer. Are you aware of this? You may say, “Well, yes, of course,” but you may live your life each day feeling like God doesn’t like you or that God is more interested in helping other people with their lives than with you. So many of us can walk through life not truly seeing God’s acceptance of us. In these days when discrimination still make the news, it truly matters that we see that God doesn’t play favorites. Based on this week’s news alone, we could conclude that God discriminates based on religion, sexual orientation, nationalilty, or even sports teams. Or, it matters to see God in this way when we hear politicians invoking the name of God for their side or their particular issues. It matters when we begin to criticize another person or another religion or another country or perhaps even ourselves. While our world is full of discrimination, God has made it clear through Jesus that He is not.

The one leper discovered other truths about God when he “saw,” He also saw that God could heal what ailed him, and all through this man Jesus whom he encountered on the streets of his city. He saw in a powerful way how Jesus had the power to bring healing to his point of need, even to the point of restoring skin where it had ceased to exist. We can imagine the effect of seeing decaying and disfigured finger tips, thumbs, toes, and even the end of his nose fully restored and made well. We can just imagine how all ten of these men went from hobbling along and disabled to jumping up and down and running with their newly restored limbs and skin. The disease had rendered him incomplete, but the healing words of Jesus restored him and made him whole again.

Our city, the medical community as well as countless patients recently mourned the tragic death of local eye surgeon, Dr. William Steen. His name is familiar to you because not only was it in big letter on and in hospital buildings in our city. It was also on the lips of the many people who knew him as their healer. He had a reputation for healing, as stated in his obituary, having been first ophthalmologist worldwide to perform a living, sighted, human eye implantation of the Optical Radiation Corporation U780A Memory Lens in 1990, a procedure that brought sight to many a blurry eye in this city and around the world. People flocked to him as their healer, one who could make them see.

What we can see about God, through Jesus, today is that He can heal what ails us. He not only can do it, He has chosen the greatest procedure and instrument that could ever be—Jesus himself. God sees our problems, our sins, and our rebellion. He sees what is broken and bleeding within us and He has taken the steps to bring healing. God not only knows your ailment, He can bring healing. Do you believe it? And you and I can know today that the way God has provided for our healing is through Jesus. Just as the ten lepers encountered Jesus along the road of their lives, so we have that same opportunity to encounter this Jesus who heals. God has placed Jesus right at our point of need. It happens as you see how Jesus sees you, as you feel his touch of compassion and strength. It happens as you hear his words of instruction on where to go and what to do to be made complete. All of this happens through Jesus. And just as the man returned to Jesus, realizing that he is the one who made all of this happen, so we will find ourselves returning to Jesus. He is the one we must go back to see time and time again, this Dr. Jesus.

I am sure there are many other things the one leper saw that the other nine missed, but one last one to note today is of how the newly-made man saw the power of faith at work. When he returned to Jesus, I am sure that he had no thought in his mind that he had anything to do with his healing at all. No, he headed straight back to Jesus to give him proper praise and thanks. So, I’m sure the words of Jesus about how his faith had made him well threw him off a bit. We can just see him getting back to the business of his new life unable to forget these rewarding words about his faith: Get up and go your way, your faith has made you well. The words Jesus uses here carry the idea of resurrection; of new life. And that is what the man received through his faith. Jesus made a definite point for the man about his faith. And it’s a point for us today, about the role of our faith, as well.

There has been a lot of construction activity around the Highland Center lately. If you drove by this building the week before last, you no doubt saw the massive crane parked out front in the middle of Olive St., taking up about half of the block. It created quite a stir of curiosity, conversation and perhaps some real frustration for those rerouted in traffic by its presence. It drew a crowd each day as it would reach down and pick up air conditioner units, as it was used to dismount the steeple and then to lift a brand new roof over the steeple tower. There is no way that any of these items could get to where they needed to be without such a lift. It was a thing of engineering beauty to watch it lift these magnanimous air conditioning units and do its work, picking up these things below and lifting them to a higher plane.

As we hear these words of Jesus for this post-leper man, we can take in the engineering beauty of a God who developed an instrument to lift up a world in need to a higher plane. It is beautiful because it happened for this man, as well as the other nine, but also because it happens to us as well. Or, it can happen to us. I’m wondering . . . has it happened to you? Have you ever heard these words, spoken by Jesus into your ears? God moves in our lives a response to our faith in him. This is one of those mysteries of our faith that is discovered only by our movement. God has a place for us to be—a higher plane of living and purpose. And only the lift He provides, combined with our mustard seed’s size of faith, can get us there. We can rejoice in what God has done for our immediate need and still not be fully made well because of our lack of faith. We can move about in this world with the realization that a man named Jesus did something great for us yet still live empty lives without ever “getting up” from our real problems and moving into greater depths of faith with God. Our real healing comes from our return to Jesus in faith and in our utter gratitude for what He has already done.

After reading this text again this week, that phrase “and he saw that he was healed” reminds me that some people see and others don’t.  I’m reminded that the “Aaah! some people!” phrase applies to me here and maybe even to you.  But, as we enter this week, may we be like the one who sees, gets up and goes in a whole new way. 

 

What We Can See this Sunday

I'm preaching on Luke 17:11-19 this Sunday, a text I have used many for the Sunday before Thanksgiving, to remind us to give some thanks in the midst of endless football and food. This week, though, I'll focus on what the one man saw and what we can see--about God and ourselves--today. Luke 17:11-19 11On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. 12As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, 13they called out, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” 14When he saw them, he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were made clean. 15Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. 16He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. 17Then Jesus asked, “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? 18Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” 19Then he said to him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”

Altar Table today

This was our table set up for today's communion service.  It was prepared by Sabra Scoggin, one of our Altar Guild Team members.  And that's St. Francis on the table, in honor of St. Francis day (Monday) and all he did to live out the Gospel in his lifetime.  Yes, we are Baptist, appreciating the contributions of Christians throughout the ages.  Way to go Sabra and Altar Guild.