Sermons

August 26, 2007

Rev. Scott Swanson

12th Sunday After Pentecost - Luke 13:10-17

As it happens, I have had occasion this summer to think about call. And about purpose. Which of course are related since call follows from purpose, doesn't it? Once we arrive at some clarity around our purpose, our call also becomes clearer, and vice versa. I've been thinking about this not only in terms of my own calling and purpose, but also the church's - not LUC's, but more generally. I'm going to spare you the details of my summer musings - at least for this morning - but I wanted to mention it because it was a significant part of my summer, and because it relates to the text from Luke's gospel that is before us this week.

Call weaves it way through the texts this week. If you follow the practice of reading all the given texts for the week before coming here, you will know that the Hebrew Bible reading for the week is the call story from the beginning of Jeremiah, where God calls the boy Jeremiah to be a spokesperson for Yahweh. And in this story from Luke Jesus calls the bent over woman twice. When he sees her, he calls over to her. Later, when he is defending his healing action, he refers to the woman, calling her a "daughter of Abraham." And in doing so - in recognizing her identity -- Jesus reminds everyone present that she too is an inheritor of the promises of God made in the covenants with Israel.

This story also helps to make it clear for those of us who still tend to think of divine call as something reserved for clergy and the like that call in fact is for all people. It is something we receive as part of our human birthright, and for some call includes a life of Christian discipleship: following in the way of Jesus.

It seems to me that part of what makes God's call to us so powerful when we experience it, is that call is at its heart about our deepest identity.

I don't know about you but my experience of identity is a kind of layering. Think about how you would answer the question "who are you?" My answers to that are usually somewhat superficial, albeit true in their own way: I might say, "I'm a father", but if I were no longer a father, I would still be, so I am more than a father. I might say I'm a husband, or a United Church minister, or a Canadian. But if somehow I stopped being all those things, I would still be, and what I would be would still be essentially me. So while all those things may be true about me in as much they describe aspects of what I do or what is important to me or who I associate with or how I make a living, there is a very important sense in which those things are not who I am.

When I think of Jesus, when I think of that part of God Christians refer to as the Son - the second person of the Trinity - I think of One who truly sees and understands us in all our creatureliness. One who sees beyond the surface descriptors, the pretense, the pseudo self, the ego. One who sees all the way through to the very bottom, to the very core. One who looks upon whatever lays there -- that which may even be beyond our own self understanding - and loves it. Loves us -- in our brokenness.

It has been my experience that the further we are pulled away from that deepest, truest self -- as we become more disconnected from what God has fashioned in us when we were knit together in secret - the sicker we become. We may or may not become physically ill, be we are not what we were meant to be. We may find ourselves one day experiencing "dis-ease." We may feel as though we are bent over. This has been true for me, anyway; perhaps it has been true for you. I don't know that this is what Luke meant when he chose to include this story of Jesus healing the bent-over woman in his gospel. I don't for a moment think it would have been all he would have meant, but I hope he would be sympathetic to the reading.

The text says that "Jesus saw the woman and he called to her." In so doing, Jesus healed her, and gave her her true name back: daughter of Abraham, child of the covenant. A part of God's economy of grace. Some people in the healing arts and sciences speak of an in important difference between healing and curing: it is possible for people to be healed, even when there is no cure for their disease. The difference seems to be more qualitative than quantitative. I think on some level our healing as humans has to do with being seen, recognized, and named for who we truly are: beloved daughters and sons of the living God. Recipients of God's promises. Children of the covenant. Legal tender in God's economy of grace.

If you have experienced this, you know what I'm talking about. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, I would be willing to bet everything that when you do experience this, as you will if you honestly desire it, you too will know what it means to be raised up, and healed, and be given back the life that is yours. May it be so.

For more information or to comment on this sermon, please email Rev. Scott Swanson.