God, we know that you love us in ways that we can barely imagine—help us begin to let our imaginations run wild with experiencing your great love for us. Amen!
Outrageous! Breaking the bonds of everything that is expected—not anything you could imagine. But God invites us every day to imagine just how broad and high, deep and wide God’s love for us truly is. Some of you might remember this song from your childhood days: Deep and wide, deep and wide: there's a fountain flowing deep and wide. You notice that it comes with arm motions—always a challenge for me—that’s why you will never see me dancing to “YMCA”—just can’t get those motions right! Isn’t it great that it doesn’t matter to God whether we do wide and deep or deep and wide as long as we get the concept that God’s love is bigger than the places in which we tend to live. And so the question is obvious—what if we lived into the full, the deep, the wide love of God? What would our lives look like? What would we look like?
I’ll tell you the truth—some sermons are easier to write than others—some seem to flow easily and then, there are weeks like this one, where the words struggled to find their place on the page and in my speech. I’ll tell you a second truth—I have come to know that the harder the sermon is to write, the more it needs to be preached and the more I need to listen to God’s words. And so, I invite us all to venture into this land of healing and redemption.
The woman in our simple gospel story learned all of this in one brief moment—but the living of it went long past the flash of grace in the synagogue. Jesus was in the synagogue—teaching—as was his practice. Picture the scene—the crowd is there—probably standing—the synagogues of Jesus’ time didn’t come with nice comfy chairs like we have here. So over the crowd, he spies her. She was unwell, fragile, and had enough sense to stay out of the way. Nevertheless, Jesus’ compassion looks beyond the front row to the very back of the synagogue. He calls her forward—you can imagine how long it took her to get to him—bent over that she was, the scripture says she “could not straighten up at all”. But Jesus can see her, feels her need for healing and calls her out of that dark corner. When she gets in front of him, he says, "Woman, you are set free from your infirmity." And then he did something that no one had done for years. He touched her, and immediately she stood tall and responded by praising God. And here is our clue for what our life would look like if we allowed the love of God to fully and completely inhabit our bodies. If you think about it, this is what every single person did who Jesus healed or set free—the Geresene demoniac, the woman with the issue of blood, the man born blind from birth, the leper—every single one of them responded to the miracle of healing with praising God…there’s a theme here.
Picture yourselves in that scene—Imagine the hush that must have passed over that group of regular temple goers—I would venture a guess that most of them had never even noticed this quiet, bent over women—imagine the torturous stillness that must have fallen as she shuffled forward—what do you think they were thinking? What do you think you would be thinking if Jesus were here and called her forth in our presence? I can imagine her fear mixed with tentative anticipation—coupled with the pain that wracked her body as she walked slowly forward—could she possibly have known that her life was about to change forever? And then, He touched her and she stood tall for the first time in years.
And what about us? I would be bold enough to suggest that there are not many of us here who have not been healed in one way or another—perhaps not in some miraculous physical way, but at least in a quiet, mindful way—Jesus has touched our hearts in some small or large way—and called us into a life of praising God. To those of you who may have come this evening seeking healing, you have come to the best place—to the place where Jesus walks and talks among us—when we let the love of God touch us with great healing and joy!
Hear again the Psalm for today—from her perspective--this formerly old, tired woman, now freshly healed by Jesus. She shouts: Praise God, my soul—everything, even that which is deep inside me praises God for this healing. I will praise God and not forget all that God has done—giving me a new outlook on life, changing who I am, and healing me from this horrible disease that forced me to look down all the time—why look! I’m standing tall—I’m no longer depressed and afraid—I want everybody to know the goodness of God—I feel young again—God is so good!
This, my friends is what it means to praise God—to allow God to work the miracle in our lives—changing our perspectives, touching us in ways that defy our limited understanding of who we can be. We are, many of us, bent over in some form or another—most of us gather every week desiring the touch of God—how do I know this? Because we are here, gathered together to experience this healing touch of God in our lives. And so we do! And so we worship! Here in the presence of God, waiting the touch of God…
One of my favorite children’s stories is Beauty and the Beast—it’s a theme that runs throughout many stories and fables. The thing of ugliness is transformed by the touch of the beautiful—kisses and frog-princes, comatose princesses and the kiss of a prince that awakens her—we could add many more. Somehow we all know that pain is transformed by grace and sadness is overcome by joy. Does it not make sense that we would want to stay in this healing place with God—to enjoy the constant companionship of the one who reaches in and touches us for good?
Why then, is every day worship so hard for us? Why do we get distracted and wander away from the miracles that God has done in our lives? Last week we talked about worship—corporate worship—worship like that in which we are engaged this very moment and I told you that this week I would talk about private worship and so I am. No one sums up for me the essence of private worship than Brother Lawrence. The little book “Practicing the Presence of God” was written after his death and contains bits and pieces of conversations between the author and Lawrence. Did I forget to tell you that Brother Lawrence lived in the 1600’s—no matter, his call to us is as current today as it was then. As a lay brother in the monastery where he worked, he did not have the complex theological training that the monks had—perhaps the very reason why he was so comfortable just spending time in God’s presence—no need to question, just be. Here is his call to come into the presence of God: "There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful, than that of a continual conversation with God. Those only can comprehend it who practice and experience it." And so, he challenges us to be always in the presence of God—to be at all times in that delightful, healing place—where God in continual conversation reaches out to us, touches us, restores us.
If you have come today seeking healing, I invite you to spend much time in conversation with God—for our God is a loving God, reaching out to us—spying us back in the back of the room, bent over with physical or emotional pain. There are no fancy riddles to answer or convoluted explanations to ponder—there is only the loving touch of God, always ready, wanting to seek us out, call us forward, and make us whole.
Father John O’Donohue, one of my mentors in my journey towards living the full life that embraces all that God wants for me and for us, gives us a blessing for such a day as this. He offers these words and I offer them to you: May all that is unforgiven in you be released. May your fears yield their deepest tranquilities. May all that is unlived in you blossom into a future graced with love. Amen and amen.
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