Sermon: With Our Unstopping Wingbeats
Luke: Luke 13:10-17
We stand on the horizon. It isn’t just that we see far off to the horizon which lies at the limits of our eye’s power. We “stand” on the horizon, on the edge, on the margin, on the rim, every morning, every day, every moment. Every morning, the Sun will rise up behind us, like a miracle from the dark sky - leaping above the rim of the earth and the glow of the horizon. On the opposite side of the world, a rain cloud may be silently collapsing, unseen and unnoticed. The mystery and the beauty of the horizon is, I think, that it does not show us its whole circle immediately. We have to turn around if we want to see the other side of the circle. Even with its vastness, it is never unoccupied. The strength and the variety of the shapes of the land and the ocean – the mountains, hills, the courses of the rivers, the people’s towns, create its landscape. One of the images that I am beginning to appreciate is that any horizon is a part of the greater circle of the globe. We are in horizontal connection with everything in the world. We are one and many. While being connected and connecting, we consist of the whole sphere of a singular and greater circle together. I hope this is the way we choose to stand and work together as a church toward a greater dream, a greater hope.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus heals a nameless woman by giving her the freedom to unbend and stand up straight after she has lived for years in crippling bondage to her illness. What is quite interesting in reading this story is that the woman has not asked to be healed. She simply finds herself in Jesus’ presence. (pause)
I Imagine that a circle of relationship was made immediately between the two, when Jesus called her over and she responded in His healing presence. I imagine that they stood at the horizon of that circle of relationship. They stood at the edge. They stood at the rim. They stood at the risk. Jesus healed the woman in sacred space (a synagogue, mentioned twice) AND within sacred time, namely on a Sabbath (noted no fewer than five times), at a time when curing the sick on a Sabbath would have been a breach of the religious and social law. According to Jewish law, people must not do any work on the Sabbath day. In today’s story, the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the Sabbath, criticized the woman and Jesus and insisted that “there are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, not on the Sabbath day.” On hearing his criticism, I wondered where this kind of absurdness and rigidity can come from in the human mind. It lacks compassion, and even passion for anticipating a new way of life and faith to come. The synagogue leader, by noticing only the breach of custom and ignoring the wonder of the miraculous healing, robbed himself of a moment when he could have accepted a different, deeper concept of faith and God’s work.
I feel the words of the synagogue leader echo the way we often respond when we are asked to see and face and appreciate how the rhythm and the flow of the new spirit leads us to the unknown path. The movement of the Spirit is unstoppable, but we do not always anticipate it. We stand right at the horizon. But we think that the horizon is far away at the end of our vision and we are looking out at it. Fixing our eyes forward, we do not notice that the new day is breaking behind us, casting its new colours, and asking us to turn around and see the beautiful glory of the fresh dawn and hear its quickening pulse. But we don’t want to refix our gaze, we want to have things the way they always have been. We want the familiar same grace of God which gives us a repeated sense of security and certainty, every day. We seek assurance of God’s love for us without checking on the state of our love for others.In today’s Gospel reading, the leader of the synagogue couldn’t understand and appreciate how a new dawn was breaking behind him and in front of him and how this healing encounter between the woman and Jesus was making a widening and unprecedented circle at the very sacred time of the Sabbath. We seek to follow the way of true shalom, but sometimes we are off the road - . we are too tired to wonder what does honouring and keeping what is sacred as sacred and what is holy as holy may mean and whether we are doing all right in that. As for me, I believe the most sacred and holy thing is life, the freedom of life’s energy. Jesus commands us to let it flow in you and in others, … and to Untie it and even lead it away and give it water(Luke 13:15). Jesus says to his critics, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham Satan bound for 18 long years, be set free from this bondage on the Sabbath day?”
On each of our horizons, both splendid and dark, we are all seeking restoration of life - of mine and yours and ours. We are leaning toward God’s whole creation. We bless each other and bid the true shalom of Sabbath, in all its meanings, to flow for one another. We will care for those far away, who need our prayers and real physical aid, and we will tend the needs of our own as well. We will build something which no architect could design; we will build a circle, a horizontal circle of faith, which is open for everyone to join with spirit and hope. We will build a path for a journey, rather than a tower of Babel, which is a self-absorbed, vertical system. We will walk on the path with appreciation of one another’s deepest yearnings, and know this is not our destination. It is only the halfway point, a milestone.
In the course of this journey, we will not only ask God to assure us that we are loved; we will go straight and meet and say to our beloveds and our neighbours, “I love you”. When we ‘screw up’ and know we may have hurt someone’s feelings, we will not only turn to God and ask for forgiveness. We will also turn to our family and our neighbours and say, “I am sorry,” and do whatever we can do to restore the relationship, as much as grace allows. No matter whether we can see and accept it now, the rhythm and flow of life – the grace of God – is all around us, unstopping, encompassing us, showering us with the energy of forgiveness and freedom of grace. May the circle of faith emerge and grow and shape the new horizon of our Chemainus United Church. May every small gift of love we add to each other’s lives join and grow and become a new sun, rising at the rim of the horizon. May we love the fast wingbeats of a hummingbird and make our own like this tiny fellow creature of God. Our activity will not make us lose energy; instead, we will gain the strength to stay aloft with balance and grace at each leaf and flower we encounter in our life journey, and appreciate each gift of beauty and wonder . May it be so. Amen.
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