Fourth Pentecost/Lectionary 9/Proper 4
Genesis 12:1-9; Matthew 9:9-13; 18-26; Romans 4:13-25
We’ve all had one of those days. You start the day thinking you know exactly what you have planned and what you are going to do, but somehow things just don’t turn out the way you planned. I enter my office and see my desk is a mess. I call up my calendar on the computer and think, finally I will have a catch up day with not much on calendar. I begin to try and clean things up a bit by first opening my e-mails but before I can get half way through there is a call about the building fund appeal, a question about a youth activity, a request about using the church building and one of my favorites, a call from the sales person for the yellow pages. I take a few moments to look at the Biblical texts for the coming Sunday to begin sermon planning. Then we get the good news about a birth in the congregation followed by someone else who has just learned that they are facing surgery for cancer. About that time the director of the nursery school stops in and informs me that there is a line of ants crawling up the wall in the back classroom. As I walk back to the front of the church I meet a homeless couple in the narthex who have stopped in looking for just a few dollars to buy some gas so they can get to work. This is followed by more phone calls including one from a neighboring pastor with concerns about the Hispanic ministry in Waukegan. At which point I look at the clock on my desk surrounded by the piles of papers and realize that the morning is almost over with nothing yet accomplished and now I will soon face the cosmic question of what to have for lunch.
The past two days I have been attending the Metropolitan Chicago Synod Assembly along with Pastor Chris, Fred Biedermann and Janice Edwards. In addition to dealing with the business of the synod, being updated on many ministries of our church around the Chicago area, and acting on various resolutions, synod is also a time to reconnect with church friends old and new. One of those old friends with whom I reconnected was the senior pastor with whom I worked for a year as an Intern Pastor some 33 years ago. That was when I first came to Chicago. And one of the first things that I remember Pastor Al Bergh saying to me was, “Plan your calendar carefully and if you are in real ministry to people, expect God to mess it up daily.” I have come to know the truth of those words many times over. Furthermore, our lessons for today are a biblical affirmation of this truth.
It starts with the story of Abraham in our first lesson for today. At the age of 75, when most nomads were settling into their final years with their family and friends, Abram hears God calling him to not only believe that he would yet have a family but that he needed to journey to a new and distant land. This story creates two very interesting questions that have come down through time. One is why did God choose Abram and the other is why did Abram believe that it was God calling him. Centuries after the time of Abram, the Apostle Paul attempted to answer both questions with one word. Faith. The point that Paul makes in his letter to the church at Rome is that it was not that Abram was better than any other nomad or more religious or did more of the right things toward God. Paul tries to explain Abram’s place in holy history by noting that Abram never gave up on his hope for a son and his hope that God would fulfill the promise he had received of becoming a great nation in the land that he would be given. Hope is what kept Abram alive and moving until his faith was proven to be true.
Paul wants us all to understand that the core or center of our relationship with God is to follow Abram’s example. Recently I heard Jim Wallis, the author and editor of Sojourner Magazine, explain that “Hope means believing in spite of the evidence and then watching the evidence change.” Wallis describes some of the hopeful faith filled figures of history. He identifies the Englishman William Wilberforce who lived in the hope that slavery could be abolished and Abraham Lincoln who had a similar hope while striving to save the union. Hope is believing in spite of the evidence and then watching the evidence change. We all have hopes but some have hopes that are the stuff of faith.
When we talk about the hopes and faith of Bible figures we are looking at something that is more than just hoping our favorite team wins today or that the weather clears up for the picnic we have planned. Biblical hope is not something we come by easily. And hope that is centered in faith requires first that we hear God’s invitation and that we know the Jesus who comes to us. I have certain questions about the Bible that scripture never actually addresses, especially when it comes to the response of faith. I have often wondered how many Abrams there really were. How many nomads did God invite to hope for a future beyond their wildest dreams. A future of children, descendants filling a new land with faith in a God who was leading them toward something more than just surviving for one more day. While I have no evidence to support me, I just wonder if maybe God might not have had to make a few passes at finding the patriarch of the three great faiths. I mean, assuming that God does indeed respect our free will, does indeed allow for us to say we are just too old or too busy or too comfortable to explore a hope beyond evidence, then I can’t help but suspect that there must have been those who said no to God. Likewise centuries later, I have often wondered how many Marys there were. How many young women received a vision of God’s promise for all humanity and responded in all too human despair at the idea of bearing a child out of wedlock, even if it was to be God’s son. You see the real core of our lessons for today is the power of hope to believe in spite of the evidence and then watching the evidence change.
There was no way Abram and Sarai, especially Sarai, should have had a child in their old age but living in hope there came a day when the evidence proved otherwise. Isaac was born and a faith found direction and purpose in a covenant that was not of human origin or deserving. Why should anyone believe that the child born to a teen age girl is the son of God, and yet…The response of faith to an invitation to hope beyond hope.
That is actually where our Gospel lesson also begins today. Jesus is walking along and sees a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth and he says to him “Follow me.” And Matthew got up and followed him. We sometimes forget that Jesus did not call all twelve of his disciples at one time. Some of them seem to have had some history with Jesus while others were invited to become part of something that they really knew very little about. We know that at several places in the gospels Jesus invited various individuals to follow him and they said no. Based on my experience in the parish, I would guess Jesus may have heard “no” a lot more often than many of us would expect. Who says no to Jesus or God, you may ask? And I reply just look around the church and our neighborhood on a summer Sunday morning. My time or God’s time?
To respond in faith. To respond to faith. The calling of Matthew is described as the source of tension and controversy for Jesus. Jesus responds to faith with grace. He joins the tax collectors and sinners in a meal and responds to the questions of the religious leaders with a declaration that he came not for the righteous but the sinners. That of course raises the question for each of us. Are we the righteous or the sinners? Is Jesus at table with us or are we on the outside looking in at God’s work?
But our lesson for today doesn’t give us time to dwell on such things. This is a busy day for Jesus. Suddenly a leader of the synagogue comes in and kneels before him, saying, “My daughter has just died, but come and lay your hand on her and she will live.” Jesus expected his disciples to respond in faith. In this moment we see Jesus respond to faith. As quickly as Matthew followed Jesus, so Jesus got up and followed the religious leader. But this is a busy day for Jesus. As he is making his way through the crowd yet another hope filled person, a woman with a bleeding disorder, reaches out and touches the fringe of his cloak. She is a nameless figure of history of no particular importance accept that she believed in spite of the evidence that Jesus could make a difference in her life and living in that hope she watched the evidence change. Jesus declared her healed.
But the busy day for Jesus continued as he arrived at the religious leaders house only to find funeral preparations well underway. What happened next is the stuff of hopes and dreams. Jesus announced to the crowd that the little girl was only sleeping. They laughed at him. In light of the evidence at hand, they had no hope. But the father of the little girl must have still held on to some thin shred of hope, otherwise why would he have come to Jesus. So Jesus put the crowd outside, goes into the little girl, takes her hand, and she gets up. And the media reports went crazy.
Hope means believing in spite of the evidence and watching the evidence change. Two months ago we began our Spirit Renewed building appeal. While we had the experience of previous appeals to guide us, I will admit that there were a number of people who pointed out to me that the current economic climate is not good. With prayer and planning we set a hoped for goal of $450,000 over the next three years. We invited the congregation to consider what God had done for them in the past and what our hopes were for the future and then we mailed out an invitation for people to respond. There was plenty of room for people to say no. There are certainly more than enough distractions and other things to do and support. But at the end of 9 weeks we are now approaching $470,000 and I am wondering if I might have under estimated the vision God wanted us to cast, the hopes God wanted us to witness fulfilled.
Abram recognized God’s voice and entered into God’s future with hope. Matthew heard Jesus inviting him and responded by following. A woman reached out in desperate hope that found an answer and healing. A religious leader took the little hope he had left and placed it in the hands of Jesus trusting that Jesus would transform his faith into life. I like these stories but I will admit, I’m haunted by the question of how many others said no. On this day of hope and faith, how many have not yet heard that there is something to hope in. How many have not yet had opportunity to receive the signs of God’s grace in simple forms of bread and wine. How many have not had the opportunity to respond to God’s grace. There is room in this church. There is room at the table. There is room for hope in the lives of those we know and God has plans. Plans for each of us regardless of our age or our place in the community, regardless of our health or our desperate hidden need. There is room for hope that exists in spite of the evidence.
So I looked at my calendar again last night. The beginning of this week looks very busy but I think I have some open days coming up soon. I wonder what is going to happen. I know that God has plans and I know that some of them involve me. I know that God has plans and some of them involve you. I guess what we really need to do is look at God’s calendar.
Amen