THIRD SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST – 17 JUNE 2007

ST PAUL LUTHERAN CHURCH, ABQ NM – the Rev. P. L. Holman

2 Sam. 11:26-12:10, 13-15; Psalm 32; Galatians 2:15-21; Luke 7:36-8:3

“Honest to God”

The Outreach Team had been meeting for sometime when I arrived. Their conversation was about projects and communication, and after a bit of clarifying and wrestling for a blessing I asked, “If you could rename this congregation right now, what would you call it? Funny, it didn’t take long to come up with Church of Confusion, Church of Conflict, Church of Unnamed Tensions. We also heard Starling Lutheran Church – a community of folks who share concerns and talk a lot, in a good way! And The Church in Process, Transformation Lutheran, and favorite “Never a Dull Moment Lutheran Church.”

We are a mixed bag, this place of gathering, and we are blessed. Some years ago I read a quote about the church from a Lutheran theologian named Gerhardt Lohfink. He said, “The church exists to make the world jealous.” I remember that to this day because it is a wonderful statement of identity and purpose: the church exists to be a place of confusion and joy, of conflict and hope, of struggle and healing, of forgiveness and peace. In these days we do well to remember that. We aren’t defined by our brokenness, but in spite of our brokenness we are defined by hope; thanks belong to God and the power of forgiveness.

God’s forgiveness is what makes this community called church life-giving; forgiveness is what makes of us the body of Christ. June is often a busy wedding month; here at St. Paul I am presiding over two. It is very humbling for me to sit with young couples, to invite them to name what attracted them to the other, and also what really irks them. I ask you, how often do YOU do that with your close friend or life partner, honestly name those things in front of someone else? Not easy to do; confession rarely is if it’s honest because it leaves us open to judgment, ridicule, and shame. Yet such acts of confession set us on the healing path – they become the opening to life for all who trust God. The very flow of our worship emphasizes that -- from the Thanksgiving for Baptism to the Word, through the Peace and Holy Meal and out the door, we move from confession to forgiveness, from empowerment to serve the world newly blessed.

Look at the power in David’s. King David here is the same shepherd boy who slew Goliath, the boy who made beautiful music. David is also the one who was so enamored of power and control and who so lusted after the soldier’s wife that he had Uriah murdered so he could take Bathsheba for himself. He tried to hide from his own brokenness, and succeeded for a time, until Nathan the prophet confronted him and set him free to live, healed his life toward a greater end and God’s world-changing purpose.

One summer while serving as interim pastor at a congregation in Colorado, I walked with a woman named Eleanor through the dying and death of her husband. He had suffered a massive heart attack, and after several days supported by machines it became clear that he would most likely not survive. Our prayers shifted in that time, from prayers for his healing to prayers for God’s healing and for the strength to let go. Eleanor was not much of a writer by habit, but I encouraged her to take time in the hours of watching and waiting to write the story of her husband’s life as she needed to remember him. She protested… When we met a week later to plan the memorial service she handed me a six-page manuscript. “This was a very healing exercise,” she told me. The final paragraph of that story contained a most beautiful and honest confession, an insight into what kept them growing in trust and love all their years together, and huow much she would miss him: In the over 50 years I have known my husband I have been happy, sad, proud, disappointed, angry, glad, frustrated, and exhilarated in turn. I knew his flaws and recognized his strengths just as he knew and recognized mine. But through it all I also knew he loved me as I loved him, for 53 years, 5 months, and 12 days.

There is healing power in honest confession, and also great risk. The unnamed woman in Luke’s story risks rejection even as she seeks the healing only Jesus can give. She is in need for forgiveness, and knows it. Everyone seems to know it, and they also know she doesn’t belong in that room.  Yet Jesus receives her silent confession and offers her forgiveness. Now this is all very hard on Simon, the Pharisee – you know, a leader of the synagogue who was always ready to judge what was “fair”, you see. From his position of privilege he sees the woman as a sinner but NOT as a child of God. It’s a judgment based in part on class: she’s a threat to his goodness – what will the neighbors think when they hear SHE’S been in his house! She is someone he needs to avoid, and someone Jesus should avoid if he’s really a prophet.

Now Simon isn’t a bad man, just a Jewish religious leader eager to do what’s right in the sight of his God according to his understanding of the Torah. But his sense of self-righteousness, his goodness if you will, blinds him. For the sake of a winning score he misses the beauty of the game. He is blind to the fact that he too is a sinner healed and forgiven by God’s grace. Seeing only her disgust he fails to see a fellow human, a sister on the journey. He shuts himself off. [See www.day1.net message for 6/17/ 2007 “A Place of Welcome” by the Rev. James T. Moor]

The woman, on the other hand, opens herself up, and is sent out in peace.

Taking the risk to honestly confront our brokenness sets us free to experience the power of a transformed life. Such humility can pave the way to healing and wholeness.

• The prophet Micah spoke of it when he said, “[W]hat does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God”[Micah 6:8] 
• Amma Syncletica, a fifth-century desert mother, spoke of humility when she said: “Just as it is impossible to be at the same moment both a plant and a seed, so it is impossible for us to be surrounded by worldly honor and at the same time to bear heavenly fruit.”
• St. Benedict, a monastic leader of the early church who thought deeply about humility and its importance for our lives, in his twelve principles of humility lists this as the first and primary one: “the memoria dei, ‘the awareness of God,’ at all times, in all places, at the center of all things” creates the foundation of one’s entire way of life in community” [NEW PROCLAMATION commentary, p.103].

Nathan proclaimed to David, “You are the man!” It wasn’t some father’s day blessing. You are the one who took the poor man’s lamb! It was a challenge to confess his brokenness that would bless his life everyday from that point forward. His child would indeed die, his life would be full of hurt and challenge, and yet so faithfully lived that even now what he accomplished – aha! What God accomplished through David, continues to be told as important part God’s story in memory of him.

So also for the woman and her tears of hospitality and simpatico.

So also for each of us.  We are the ones who take the poor man’s lamb, and we are the ones forgiven by God to make a different choice.

Take time to remove your success-colored shades, to remove the plugs of self-centeredness and fear from your ears. Set aside our own “goodness” and be on the lookout for the goodness of God. It is all around us, in the most likely of forms.  Make time to open the ears of your heart to hear Jesus words spoken FOR YOU: Your sins ARE forgiven. Your faith HAS SAVED you. Go in peace.” We need to do that, in our personal lives, and in our life together as the church, in order to become a healed place of healing for others, and, honest to God, to see the world transformed around us.