Among the Tombs

The Sermon Study Guide is here.

Luke 8:26-39

January 25, 2015 • Portage First UMC

It was my first year in seminary, and one of our required classes was on evangelism. Dr. Ron Crandall taught all about various theories and practices of sharing our faith, we read several books, but to pass the class you had to take part in a practical experience of some sort. That semester happened to coincide with Ichthus, a Christian music festival held at Asbury, and so one of the projects we could be a part of was to serve as an altar counselor at the festival. We would meet and pray with those who came forward after the speaker invited those to come who wanted to walk with Jesus. That sounded relatively within my comfort zone, and Cathy agreed to come along, so one evening we went to the training out at the Wilmore Campground, where the event was to be held. One of the things they told us that night is that youth pastors often try to take control of the situation, which sometimes scares their own youth off, so we were not to allow any youth pastors into the prayer room. No youth pastors, got it. Then they said something that really caught my attention: “And please, don’t try to cast out any demons.” You know, the thought had never crossed my mind! But they explained that, in the past, they had some overzealous college and seminary students who tended to see “demon activity” everywhere, and therefore, they had tried to perform an exorcism right there in the prayer room. It had not gone well. So…to review…no youth pastors, no demons. Got it. Thankfully, neither one of those were issues I had to deal with!

I don’t know what comes to your mind when you hear the words “demons” or “evil spirits” or even the name “Satan.” Some people believe those forces to be very real and personal. I know people who have had encounters with such evil forces, and can recount very vividly what it was like to stand in such a frightening place. Others today treat these images from the Bible as a metaphor, not really as personal, individual beings but more as a representative for the evil in the world. And still others today try to deny evil at all. They write evil off as bad choices, or societal influence, or even just as a label that really doesn’t mean anything. They believe you can’t call anything “evil,” because it’s all relative. Well, even though that last group seems to be growing in influence, it’s hard to deny the reality of evil in the world. I don’t know how anyone can look at a school shooting or a murder or children in poverty or girls sold into sex slavery or any number of other similar happenings in our world and say, “There is no evil.” The world can be a very dark place, and the question we have to ask, as followers of the one who is the light, is this: how do we respond to and even seek to shatter the darkness? How do we bring healing to a world that is broken by evil? This morning, as we wrap up our very brief journey through the broken places in our world, I want us to think, perhaps, more globally or even cosmically than we have been the last few weeks as we deal with evil and darkness and the brokenness it brings.

Our Gospel lesson this morning is only one of several encounters that are reported between Jesus and the demonic, but it is perhaps the most well-known, in part because it comes right after another well-known story. After doing a lot of teaching and being with people, Jesus has told the disciples that they need go to the other side of the lake, presumably to get away for some rest. So they get into the boat, and Jesus goes to the back and falls asleep. And while he’s napping, a huge storm breaks out. Matthew says it’s a “seismos,” in which you can hear our word “seismic.” It’s a violent shaking. Mark says it’s a “great wind” and here in Luke it’s a “squall,” or better translated as a “hurricane” (Card, Mark: The Gospel of Passion, pg. 70). Many of the disciples were experienced fishermen, but they’ve never seen a storm like this one, and the words the Gospel writers use seem to indicate this is a demonic attempt on the life of Jesus and his followers. This is an attempt by the powers of evil to prevent Jesus from getting to where he is going (cf. Liefeld, “Luke,” Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 8, pg. 913).

He is headed, and ends up (after calming the storm), in a place Luke calls “the Gerasenes.” It was also known as Gadara and was one of the ten cities, part of the Decapolis. Why is that important? Because it tells us that this was largely not Jewish territory. This is Gentile territory; foreign soil, you might say. It’s the eastern side of the Sea of Galilee, and in those days it was disputed territory. It still is. Today, this area is known as the Golan Heights, a region that, at one time, belong to the nation of Syria. During the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel seized control of this region, and eventually only gave Syria back a very small part of it. Since 1981, Israel has claimed full jurisdiction over the area, despite the condemnation of the United Nations and others. In 2010, Israel told Syria to give up any hope of regaining this territory (cf. Card, Luke: The Gospel of Amazement, pg. 113; Wright, Luke for Everyone, pg. 100). So this place, this area, is one that has been constantly a place of conflict, of disputes—one might even say a place of darkness. And it is darkness that brings Jesus to these shores.

Luke tells us that as soon as Jesus steps on shore, he is met by a man, but not just any man. He is a demon-possessed man. How do we know that? There are all sort of telltale signs that are “standard” in the Scriptures. He is naked, he is isolated from the community, he is living among the tombs (among dead people), he knows who Jesus is, his speech is strange and he shouts a lot, and he has extraordinary strength (Liefeld 913). Now, we might say, one or more of those indicators we could associate with certain mental or psycho-social illnesses today, so maybe this man just had schizophrenia or was manic-depressive or was bipolar or a sociopath. Now, I’m not saying all people who struggle with such illnesses are violent like this man, but there are those who believe the Gospel writers just didn’t know much about these things, so they attributed everything to demon possession. Except that Luke, long tradition tells us, was a doctor, and in his writing, he is very careful to separate illness from demon possession (cf. Liefeld 913). He doesn’t confuse the two. But here’s the real tragedy Luke is trying to describe by telling us about this man. Here is a life that is totally set against God, a life that is as far from the kingdom of joy, peace and life as you can be. He lives among the tombs because he is, in so many senses of the word, already dead to everything that makes like worth living. Evil has so captured him that he has only the semblance of life left. Is it this man which the demonic storm was attempting to keep Jesus from seeing? Luke seems to say that. And he also indicates that even if the raging storm was a threat, here is something even worse. This is evil in control of a human body.

In some places in our world today, most notably Africa, the demonic is spoken of and confronted regularly, but not so much in our culture. Not in our twenty-first century western world. Many wonder why, since it’s something that is talked about throughout the Scriptures. Do we underestimate the presence of evil? Or has the demonic chosen to work in ways that we might not recognize, things we tend to be more open to not realizing that evil’s influence leads always to death, to a life among the tombs (literal or figurative)? That’s the approach C. S. Lewis took in one of his most famous books, The Screwtape Letters. In the book, Screwtape is a senior devil writing words of advice and direction to his nephew, Wormwood. Screwtape gives lots of advice to Wormwood on how, exactly to tempt his “patient” without the “patient” being aware of it. Lead him into evil without him knowing it until it’s too late. It’s a fun read, but it’s also sobering to think about the ways we still experience evil, even though we may not see what we narrowly define as demon possession. Increasingly today we see people in the grip of powers that overwhelm them, that condemn them to a life among the tombs of our culture. Alcoholism, drug addiction, sexual addiction and so on. These demons that are so prevalent in our world lead to death—the death of marriages, the death of other relationships, the death of jobs and a financial future, even sometimes to the death of the person itself. These are what we could call “remnants” of the broken world that evil, the demonic, has created (cf. Bock, NIV Application Commentary: Luke, pg. 243). Our world is broken, our world is fallen, but the very good news is that the world can be redeemed, and so can those who are caught in the midst of evil.

So Jesus is in this dark place, this Gentile place of conflict, where the caves being used for tombs are just nearby. And he commands the “impure spirit” to come out of the man. He is just as calm in the face of this human storm as he was in the face of the demonic storm on the lake (cf. Wright 101). “Don’t torture me,” the man cries out. The word there can indicate either physical or mental torture, and presumably he’s referring to being cast into the Abyss (8:31), that place where, at the end of time, we’re told Satan and all his followers will be thrown (cf. Revelation 20:1-3). “Don’t send me there,” the man begs, and then Jesus asks a curious question. “What is your name?” he says (8:30). After all, the man knows Jesus’ name (8:28), and in that culture, knowing someone’s name was important for relationship. A person’s name told you something about them, and drew you into a relationship. Jesus intends to heal this man, and he wants to know his name, but what he gets is not the man’s name (we’re never actually told that). Instead, he gets a description of the man’s condition. The man says, “My name is Legion” (8:30). Legion was the name of a contingent of Roman soldiers, numbering anywhere from four to six thousand soldiers (cf. Card Luke 114). Was the man possessed by that many demons, or was this just a way of indicating that there were many, many dark forces at work here? We don’t know; Luke simply says, “Many demons had gone into him” (8:30). I also wonder if this wasn’t a posturing of sorts. “There are many of us, Jesus,” the demons might be saying, “but there’s only one of you.” And yet, this is Jesus, Son of the Most High God, as the man has already recognized. Jesus may be outnumbered, but he is never outmatched (cf. Bock 241).

It’s fascinating to me that the demons inside the man design their own punishment. Did you ever try that with your kids, asking them what they think their punishment ought to be? Most of the time, what they come up with isn’t very serious. Although, from time to time when our kids were little, they would mimic us and say, “You’ve been bad. Now go to your room!” And I would say, “Okay, please!” But here, on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, the demons devise their own punishment and ask to be sent into a nearby herd of pigs. This is, of course, to be able to avoid the “torture” of the Abyss. But what’s even more interesting is that they can’t go until Jesus gives them permission. Remember, he may be outnumbered, but he’s not outmatched. When Jesus shows up, he is in control. Even the demons need the permission of the Lord of life to move from the man into the pigs. And when he gives them that permission (8:32), the pigs immediately run down the slope of the hill and drown themselves in the lake. Untold numbers of pigs, unclean animals to the Jews, floating dead in the Sea of Galilee. It must have been quite a disgusting sight to Jesus’ disciples, though it serves as a reminder of the devastation demons and evil activity always bring (cf. Bock 241). But, Jesus is less interested in the pigs and by far more interested in the man who is left behind, the nameless man who is now “in his right mind” (8:35). Freed from the grip of evil, the man is once more himself.

So what does this story tell us about evil and how we face it and deal with it? First of all, we’re reminded that evil is real. Whether you are talking about a direct demonic encounter, or you’re talking about racism and sexism and alcoholism and drug addiction and abuse and a list that is too long to finish, there is evil in the world. It’s not a word we use a lot today, however. When 9/11 happened and then-president George W. Bush took to the airwaves to offer hope and comfort to the nation, he used the word “evil” three times in his brief speech to refer to the actions of the terrorists, and he defined evil as “the worst of human nature” (http://goo.gl/4g6J3n). People across the nation were upset to hear such a word used; I remember people complaining that such an awful word would be used to describe a terrorist. But that’s not what was described. The actions were what was (and is) “evil,” and yet the response shows how uncomfortable we are with the very idea. Evil is real. We see it when a child is abused day in and day out—sexually, emotionally, spiritually. We see it in a system that keeps people in poverty. We see it on television as ISIS graphically kills yet another innocent victim. We see it in the seller of drugs who continues to make the dosage just a little more potent, to keep the users hooked. We see it on the floor of the stock market, where greed runs rampant. We see it on the battlefield and in the eyes of a young soldier who might not make it home this time. Evil is real, my friends, and it is all around us. I’m not trying to scare us, or make us look for demons around every corner. But it is present, and if we’re going to confront evil, we have to be honest and real about that.

Second, for all those demons that we may have other names for, we need to be intentional about seeking out and using what resources are available to us. For the demon of alcohol and drugs, there are wonderful and powerful twelve-step groups that have helped millions find freedom and the strength to remain sober and clean. Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous and many others. Did you know we have a Narcotics Anonymous (NA) group that meets in our building? It’s an opportunity we have to show the love of Christ by opening up the building to those who are actively confronting their demons, the evil that invades their lives. And they meet every week, even if it’s a holiday—maybe especially if it’s a holiday because they know that it’s when they have “free time” they can most get in trouble. Or you may need a counselor to work through the demon of abuse, the evil that invaded your life, maybe at an early age. There are all sorts of counselors who can guide you toward healing and hope and many employers today provide EAP covering so you can find healing.

Maybe, though, it’s not you who struggles with any of these things but a friend of yours. You’ve watched them through the years and you know the evil that threatens, the issues that surround them. Are you truly a friend if you don’t help or even drag your friend to get the help they need? Take them. Walk with them. Help them through this time. That’s one way we can “be the church.” You know, one of the things I’ve noticed about the offenders who have been coming to our prison ministry meetings is how open they have become over these weeks to confronting the evil that has been in their lives. And I don’t see that as directly as do the folks who go there from our church. I see it in the prayer requests and the praises that they share with the team which the team brings back to us. At first they were rather generic, but lately the men and women have been sharing much more of their heart and their struggle with life. And it’s because this team goes each and every week, when the prison isn’t on lockdown, and they care. They shine the light of Jesus into the darkness of that place, into the darkness of lives that have been surrounded for too long by evil. They help the offenders deal with the demons that surround them. And they are faithful to do that. I’m grateful for our prison ministry team and the way they have become hope for the offenders in dealing with evil.

So we use what resources are available, but we also recognize that ultimate freedom and healing are found only in Jesus. In the story from Luke 7, the folks from town had tried to help the man. Perhaps he had been their friend at some point. We don’t know what caused him to be filled with so many demons, but when helping didn’t succeed, they at least tried to bind him—either so that he wouldn’t hurt others or maybe so that he wouldn’t hurt himself. Luke tells us, though, that every time he had broken his chains.  He had no hope, and the people had most likely given up on him—until Jesus shows up. No one could really help him until Jesus landed on the shore. There’s another story just a couple of pages over, in Luke 9, that takes place right after Jesus and three of his disciples go up on a mountaintop, where the disciples see Jesus transfigured, “in all of his glory.” Then, when they all come down to the foot of the mountain, they encounter a bit of chaos. There’s a father there, who has been trying to get the rest of the disciples (“the B-team”?) to cast a demon out of his son. The son has seizures, and the demon has nearly killed him several times. The disciples, however, cannot seem to do anything, so when the crowd sees Jesus, they run to him. The father begs Jesus to heal the boy, and Jesus does. Others had tried, but Jesus is the one who accomplishes the healing and brings peace back to a chaotic family. And when the disciples ask why they were unable to, Jesus basically says, “It’s because you were trying to do it on your own.” What he actually says is this (recorded in Mark’s Gospel): “This kind can come out only by prayer” (Mark 9:29; Luke 9:37-43).

Which reminds us that the most powerful weapon we have when it comes to facing evil is prayer. We connect with Jesus through prayer. We lift up the one who is struggling with demons in prayer. The best advice for confronting evil: pray, pray and then pray some more. This past week, we celebrated Martin Luther King day, a day set aside to honor and remember a great man who stood against the demon of racism at a critical time in our country’s history. And a lot of the remembrances focused on King’s speeches and his courageous act of peaceful resistance. But there was something else that emboldened King as he stared evil in the face, and that was his life of prayer. His wife, Coretta Scott King, once recalled a very difficult day in the midst of the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955 and 1956. King was weary and tired of fighting, and one night he received a threatening and abusive phone call in the middle of the night. It wasn’t the first and it certainly wasn’t the last, but on that night, King had had enough.

As his wife tells is, “After the call, he got up from bed and made himself some coffee. He began to worry about his family, and all of the burdens that came with our movement weighed heavily on his soul. With his head in his hands, Martin bowed over the kitchen table and prayed aloud to God: ‘Lord, I am taking a stand for what I believe is right. The people are looking to me for leadership, and if I stand before them without strength and courage, they will falter. I am at the end of my powers. I have nothing left. I have nothing left. I have come to the point where I can't face it alone.’” And in that moment of prayer, King said he experienced God’s presence in a way he never had before. He told it this way: “It seemed as though I could hear a voice saying: ‘Stand up for righteousness; stand up for truth; and God will be at our side forever.’” That night, King stood up from the table, filled with a new sense of confidence, ready to face anything. For Martin Luther King, Jr., prayer was a daily source of courage and strength that gave him the ability to move ahead even when it seemed the darkest (http://goo.gl/L9B7wg). When confronting evil, we must pray. Pray until God gives you the same courage and strength that he gave David and Samson and Deborah and Esther and Peter and Paul and and all the other heroes of the Bible. Pray until God gives you the same courage and strength he gave the reformers and the leaders of the church throughout the centuries. Pray, pray pray, then go forward in the strength God gives you. There is no other way.

There’s one more thing in this story that’s important for us in this struggle. After the man is healed, and he has found salvation, the people in the nearby city come out to see what’s going on. When they see the man “dressed and in his right mind,” they beg Jesus to leave the area. They are, Luke says, “overcome with fear” (8:37). What is going on here? They’ve lived alongside Legion for who knows how long. They’ve learned to deal with his inner demons (literally). And yet, when he is healed, when everything they have come to know is upset, they ask Jesus to leave. It’s almost like they are more afraid of Jesus than they are of the demons. They’re more afraid of the “new normal” than they are of the evil that has been. So they ask Jesus to leave, and Jesus does, but not before the man formerly known as Legion asks Jesus if he can go with them. Surprisingly, at least to us, Jesus tells him no. Instead, Jesus says, “Return home and tell how much God has done for you” (8:39). In other words, be a witness right where you are, among people who know you (cf. Liefeld 914). Be a witness among the living instead of living among the tombs. Be a witness of your healing, share your story, tell what God has done for you, even if it scares them. Keep telling the story, and eventually they will listen. And so the man went all over town, Luke says, and told what Jesus had done for him. We’re not told how the people responded, because that isn’t the important part. The important part here is that he was obedient to what Jesus told him to do. Once freed from evil, he told everyone he saw.

Though we may not use the language as much in our culture, evil and the demonic are alive and well, often in shapes and forms we call by another name. But it is still there. There is still darkness, and there are many ways in which evil breaks our world. Our calling is to stand against it, to pray against it, to work against it, to bring light into a dark world and healing into a broken world. I want to close with a reminder from Paul in his letter to the Ephesians. Paul knew about the forces of evil and often confronted them himself. In his advice to these people he dearly loved, he gave words we need to hear and continue to live out. “Finally,” Paul wrote, “be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand” (Ephesians 6:10-13). And after you have done everything—stand. Stand in God’s power. Stand in Christ’s strength. Stand, and evil cannot win. Brokenness will not prevail. Let us pray.

Questions in the Dark

Sermon Study Guide is here.

Luke 7:18-23

January 18, 2015 • Portage First UMC

I am up two or three times during a typical night—which may be more information than you wanted to have about me—but, like you, I don't turn on the light when I get up at home because I know my way around the house, even in the dark. That becomes more challenging, however, when we’re staying with friends or when I’m at a hotel—or, really, any unfamiliar place. I get up, and I have to be extra careful because I don’t know my way around, I don’t know what obstacles lie in the way, and it’s not uncommon for me to stub a toe or hit my leg while trying to walk in the dark—just to remind me that I’m not at home! Darkness can hide obstacles and can be a challenge when we’re trying to navigate. And what’s true in the physical world is even more true in the spiritual world. There are times when we find ourselves walking in spiritual darkness—not necessarily a darkness of unbelief, though that may be true sometimes and for some of us. More likely, though, we find ourselves in the midst of times of doubt, of difficulty, of struggle—times that early church fathers called “the dark night of the soul.” And in those times, questions come that we usually don’t have easy answers for. It’s in the dark that our faith is challenged, tested even, and what kind of person we become is determined by the way we confront the questions in the dark.

During this first month of this year, we’ve been looking at the theme of “Broken,” the ways we find life challenging, and we’re looking at those things in hopes of finding healing and new life in this new year. So far, we’ve talked about the ways our life gets broken by unforgiveness, and the way relationships get broken as well. This morning, I want to take us on a slightly different (and more personal) journey as we focus on the ways we can be broken by doubt, by questions, by challenges to our faith. Sometimes those challenges come in the form of intellectual questions; there are a lot of folks today who, whether seriously or not, like to ask questions such as, “How could a good God allow such and such to happen?” Other times, those challenges and doubts come because of a tragedy—someone in our family gets cancer, a child dies, a school shooting takes place. We could go on and on; there are more than enough tragedies in our world that can cause doubt and uncertainty. Some of you know the story of Bethany Hamilton. She was a championship surfer, on her way to great things when a shark attack took her left arm. In the wake of that tragedy, Bethany found herself with many questions, as depicted in the film Soul Surfer. Take a listen.

VIDEO: Soul Surfer

I love the way her father responds in that clip, because the reality is sometimes tragedies happen and we don’t know why. Sometimes we’re only left with those uneasy questions in the dark, because, let’s be honest, sometimes Jesus just doesn’t come through the way we think he ought to. And no one knew that better than John the Baptizer.

Luke told us way back in chapter 3 that King Herod had locked John up in prison, and he did that because John dared to preach against Herod’s family life. Herod, you see, had stolen his brother’s wife, and John had the audacity to tell him that wasn’t right. So we don’t know exactly how long John has been in prison when we get to Luke 7, but he’s probably been there a while, long enough that it’s beginning to get to him.

John, remember, was the forerunner. He was the one who came to prepare the way for the Messiah, the savior. His birth had been miraculous, though not quite like Jesus’ birth. John was born to an older couple, a childless priestly couple, a husband and wife who were, to all accounts, far beyond childbearing years. And yet, God blessed them with a child, one who would prepare the way for the Lord to come (Luke 1:11-17). Even before his birth, John was a spiritually perceptive child because his mother said he leaped in the womb when Mary, pregnant with Jesus, came to their home (Luke 1:44). And when John grew up, he was a fiery preacher, spending his days out in the wilderness near the Dead Sea. That’s a very inhospitable place; it’s hot and dry and there’s not much to see. It’s not an easy place to live, certainly in those days. Yet people came from all over, Luke says, to hear John preach and to be baptized by him in the Jordan River. And John pulled no punches. I mean, he called the religious leaders a “brood of vipers” and told them they were no better than a pile of stones (Luke 3:7-9). Try that with people you want to win to your side and see how they respond! And yet people listened to John. They followed him, and he faithfully fulfilled the duty he had been given: to prepare people for the coming of the Savior. And when Jesus came to be baptized, John pointed people away from himself and toward Jesus. “Look, the Lamb of God,” he said of Jesus, “who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). He had been as faithful as he knew how. So why, then, was he sitting in this prison cell? And why did it seem he would never get out alive?

When we pick up John’s story in Luke 7, some of his followers have come to visit him. In ancient prisons, you depended on friends and family to supply what you needed; there were no state-provided meals or anything. So some of John’s disciples have come, and while they bring him what he needs they also tell him what Jesus has been up to. They tell him about the way Jesus raised a widow’s son from death. They tell him about how Jesus healed the son of a Roman centurion in Capernaum. They repeat to him some of Jesus’ teachings and how he has said they must love those who are their enemies. And something in that gets to John. There, in the darkness and dampness of that prison cell, in the basement of Herod’s palace, John begins to doubt, to question, to wonder if he has possibly wasted his entire life for nothing. This Jesus, you see, doesn’t seem to be who John hoped and thought the Messiah would be. He’s certainly nothing like John is, and his ministry is much softer in tone than John’s was. John expected the Messiah to be a prophet of justice and reform, but Jesus seems to be insistent on talking about grace and healing (cf. Culpepper, “The Gospel of Luke,” New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. IX, pg. 160). Besides that, everyone knew that the Messiah was supposed to come and establish a kingdom, an earthly kingdom centered in Jerusalem. Jesus doesn’t seem to be doing anything that would point him in that direction (cf. Wright, Luke for Everyone, pg. 87). And so John, in the darkness of doubt, asks his disciples to go on a fact-finding mission. Go ask Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?” (7:19-20). I need to know, before I depart this life. Did I waste the life God gave me?

What do you do when Jesus turns out to be someone other than who you thought he was? That moment comes for all of us, at some point, mostly because we tend to try to make Jesus into who we want him to be. Someone once said that God made us in his own image, and then we returned the favor. We try to force Jesus into our idea of who he ought to be. To the historian he is a human being who performed no miracles. To the secularist, he is wandering teacher who proclaimed an ethic of love. To the one who believes the end is near, he is the prophet who brings fire and judgment. To others he is a social reformer, a peasant, a miracle worker, one who is obligated to always make us happy, a cosmic vending machine…and so many other things. We grow up learning about gentle Jesus, meek and mild, and then when we actually read the Gospels, he doesn’t seem so meek or mild. He makes a whip out of cords and throws the money changers out of the temple. He curses certain towns when they don’t receive his ministry. And then he turns around and welcomes children. He deals with those who are hurting in kind ways we can only begin to approach. He rescues a thief on the cross from eternal death and he restores a wayward disciple who denied him.

And then we read about him healing seemingly everyone he comes in contact with, all across Galilee, so that when we pray for healing ourselves, we’re confident he will respond. Until he doesn’t. I’ve shared my own story before, about how my heart murmur was discovered when I was getting my physical to attend Ball State. I asked my home church to pray, and they did. One of the godliest women I have ever been privileged to know prayed for me and assured me Jesus would heal me. But he didn’t, not right then. Healing didn’t come until sixteen years ago this last week when I had surgery to repair the hole in my heart. And yet, on another occasion, when I had a collapsed lung, Jesus chose to heal it overnight. The doctor was left scratching his head. Why was one area of brokenness healed right away and the other was not? As a pastor, I have walked with people, many of you, who have gone through serious illness and devastating circumstances. I’ve prayed for people to be healed, and sometimes they are and sometimes they aren’t. Sometimes people who are faithful believers die while those who couldn’t care less about Jesus are healed. I’ve stood by hospital bedsides and open caskets and asked, “Why?” I’ve done funerals for young and old, for children and adults, for those who died natural deaths and those who took their own lives. And I’ve been asked, “Why?” and I don’t have an answer. Each of those situations and countless more remind me that we all sit in the dark from time to time. We all share John’s experience. We think we know who Jesus is, we think we have him figured out, we hope we know how he will work and what he stands for—and then, suddenly, there is a sharp turn in the road. He’s not who we thought he was. And, like John, we sit in the dark and ask, “Are you the one or am I wasting my time?” (cf. Culpepper 161-162).

The church has not always been kind to those who doubt. We point to selected verses that, taken out of context, seem to say you have to be absolutely certain in what you believe, and often without saying anything we shun or ignore those who are struggling to find faith in a hostile world. What we mean by “certainty” today is really just putting God in a box. We believe we have to have God all figured out to be certain, which is part of the reason we have so many different denominations. In an effort to figure God out, we decide he is this and he is not that, and if you believe he is that, then you don’t belong to our group. And we don’t want to admit that how often we sit with John in the dark. Several years ago, author Philip Yancey submitted a book that he wanted to title Disappointment With God. The book dealt with, in Yancey’s words, “three questions no one asks aloud.” The questions were these: Is God unfair? Is God silent? and Is God hidden? The publisher initially balked; they didn’t believe a book simply called Disappointment With God would sell, and so they tried to get Yancey to change the title to something like Dealing With Disappointment With God. Yancey held firm, and the book continues to sell very well. What the publisher failed to realize or admit is that those questions are ones we all face at some point or another. In fact, we have to face them if our faith is going to grow.

Christian educator John Westerhoff has suggested that faith grows through four stages. The first is experienced faith. This is the faith children hold, often learned from their parents. Children observe and even mimic what we do; they “experience” faith not necessarily as an insider but as an observer. They don’t know a lot about it. They just experience it through Sunday School and worship and prayer time at home. The next stage is called affiliative faith, where we know we belong to a certain group of people. We affiliate with them. For instance, I am a Methodist because that’s the church I grew up in. At this point, it’s not so much a matter of what we believe as to whom we belong. Typically, this coincides with confirmation class, as youth and young adults are beginning to test the waters and figure out their own faith identity apart from their parents.

The third stage of faith is called searching faith. This often happens in the late teenage years or early adulthood, and it’s often a cause of great distress for parents. It’s the time when old certainties don’t seem so solid anymore, a time when we question what it is we believe, a time when those who were considered to be mentors don’t have as much influence as they once did. It can even be a time of darkness, of feeling spiritually abandoned, of drifting from our roots. And yet, this is a necessary time. Questions and doubts are not the enemy of faith. Do you remember, after the resurrection, how one of the disciples questioned? Thomas, who had not been there when Jesus first appeared to the other disciples, refused to believe that Jesus was risen until he could see him. “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe” (John 20:25). A week later, Jesus shows up again, and Thomas falls to his knees proclaiming his belief. But do you remember that never once does Jesus condemn Thomas for his doubt, for his questions, for his “dark night of the soul”? The church has, by eternally labeling him as “Doubting Thomas,” but Jesus never does. Never once is doubt said to the opposite of faith. Unbelief, seeing and yet refusing to believe, is what is condemned in the Bible, not doubt. Questions in the dark are necessary and important, and those who study such things say the real danger is found in people who never go through times like this. “Faith, to such a person, can end up being shallow, two-dimensional—and utterly joyless.” It becomes an obligation rather than a source of life. Questions in the dark are not only welcomed, they are encouraged. God is big enough to handle even the largest of your doubts.

Only when we go through the darkness can we come out into the fourth stage of faith, which is owned faith. Owned faith says, “This is what I believe. This is my faith.” Owned faith pushes through the doubts and the questions; it doesn’t ignore them. Those with owned faith dare to confront the questions in the dark and grab ahold of the God who has always held onto them. And I believe this is where John ends up. You see, John is not content to just have questions. He sends his disciples to find out the truth, to seek answers to the voices that rattle around in his head. So these disciples go, they find Jesus, and they relay John’s question to him. And Jesus doesn’t answer them. Jesus doesn’t give them a sermon. He doesn’t hand them a book of theology and say, “Read this, and then you’ll understand.” He doesn’t teach a class, he doesn’t deliver a lecture, and he doesn’t criticize John for having questions. So what does he do?

He turns to those around him and he heals many who have diseases. He casts out evil spirits. He gives sight to those who were blind. That’s what he said he came to do, way back at the beginning. When he was asked to speak at his hometown synagogue, Jesus chose a particular passage from the book of Isaiah to read. “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:18-19). Now, what Jesus says he was sent to do, he does. And then, he turns to John’s disciples and says, “Go back and tell John what you saw.” And while we have no picture of what happened back in that prison cell, I have to believe that John got it. Jesus was doing what the Messiah was supposed to do. He may not have been doing what everyone thought the Messiah ought to do, but Jesus was doing what his Father sent him to do. And I believe John got it.

But, regardless of what happened with John, the question and the challenge still comes down to us. What do we do when Jesus isn’t who we expect him to be? What do we do with our questions in the dark? The very first thing we have to do is to give up our firm hold on trite answers. When we don’t have the answers and we don’t know what to say, we’re tempted to give answers that are either not Biblical or hot helpful—and sometimes both! The two most common answers people often give to those who are walking in the dark is either “everything happens for a reason” or “God works all things for good.” The second one is Biblical; it’s Romans 8:28, but we yank it out of context and try to make it mean something it never meant. Paul does not say everything that happens is good. He says God can bring good out of any situation, but in the midst of the darkness we’re often not ready to hear that. A mother standing by the casket of her child does not care that good may come out of that situation and cannot see any good at that moment. A husband standing by the besides of his cancer-stricken wife cannot see any possible good that will come of his children losing their mother. Timing is everything. Besides that, Paul is more writing to assure those facing persecution that God will not abandon them in the midst of their struggle and that is actually a much more helpful word to offer, that God is there in the midst of the struggle. God has not forgotten nor abandoned those who suffer.

Then there’s this idea of “everything happens for a reason,” and the implication is that God does everything and we just have to look for the reason behind it. That’s neither Biblical nor helpful, because what kind of a cruel God do we worship who makes planes crash in the ocean, makes children into soldiers to kill innocent people, makes cancer cells grow in this person and not that person, makes a drunk driver run someone’s loved ones off the road? Several years ago, the man who was my youth leader at my home church died of a heart ailment, and at his funeral, the pastor of the church at the time tried to make sense of Dave’s death in this context, that everything happens for a reason. He tried to shoehorn Dave’s death into some greater, cosmic purpose. All I wanted to do (and this was before any sort of seminary training) was to stand up and say, “Dave died because someone at the hospital made a mistake. We can spiritualize it all we want, but that’s what happened, and I don’t believe God caused that.” We have to stop giving trite answers to people in the dark and, instead, do what Job’s friends did for the first week: just be with them. Just sit with them. Just let them know you’re there and it’s okay to ask questions. The God who is with them is big enough to handle their questions, even if they’re shouted from the darkest place they can imagine.

For those in the dark places, I encourage you to keep walking and keep asking. Jesus, at the end of his instructions to John’s disciples, says, “Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me” (7:23). The word for “stumble” is “skandalidzo.” You can hear our word “scandal” in that word. It means “to offend, to shock, to falter, to be ruined.” And Paul tells us Jesus is a stumbling block; that’s why we end up in these dark places with questions, because he does not do what we think he ought to. And that causes us to stumble. But do you know what is implied in his word here? That you keep walking. If you sit down and quit, you’ll never stumble. That is a guarantee. It’s only when you keep walking that you find you just might stumble and you might fall. But if you don’t keep walking, you’ll never get anywhere. You’ll either abandon your faith or get stuck in childhood faith. Jesus’ statement assumes that we will keep walking and that we will keep asking questions. Doubt is not the opposite of faith; doubt is an essential part of growing faith.

If you’ve been here very long, you’ve probably heard me say that, at this point in my life, I probably have more questions about God than I’ve ever had in my life, and yet, at the same time, I’ve never been more certain of what I believe. I feel like I’m somewhere between searching faith and owned faith, hopefully leaning more toward owned faith. I grew up in the church, gave my life to Jesus at Vacation Bible School and pretty much lived on the coattails of my parents’ faith all the way through high school. We were a family that “did church.” If the doors were open, we were probably there. It wasn’t until I went away to college at Ball State, an hour and a half from home, that I first remember having to really think through my faith. My neighbor in the dorm got me involved in InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, and for the first time in my life I found myself going to a Bible study and really looking at the Scriptures and the stories I knew so well. After my freshman year, I was asked to lead that Bible study as well as become president of the InterVarsity chapter at Ball State, both of which I did. I am grateful for those experiences, because it began to, for the first time, give me a solid foundation in my faith.

When I went to seminary, I found my faith torn apart and put back together. That’s really the purpose of seminary, and for me it worked. As I shared recently, I came out of seminary ready to change the world, convinced that I was going to do so all on my own! While I would have told you then I had an “owned” faith, it really was more of an affiliative faith. I believed in Jesus and knew him as my savior, but I still had a faith that was relatively untested. That testing, and the questions with it, would come in the first few years of ministry as I confronted things I had never had to deal with before. Within the first few months of my first appointment, one of our college students attempted suicide. She was a lovely girl, seemed to have it all together, and came from a “good family.” Thankfully, she did not succeed, but there were many things to deal with and questions to ask out of that experience. I dealt regularly with homelessness, race issues, and, later on, matters of sexuality. I stood by caskets of people who had died too young, and watched as a weeping widow became inconsolable. I experienced friends who turned on me, people who demanded much, and times when I wanted to walk away from it all. I remember a day that was probably darker than any other, when I lay on the couch in my home and just begged God to either take the struggle away or take me away. At that point, I didn’t care which happened. And do you know what God said?

Nothing. At least, not out loud. God spoke to my spirit, though, over the next hours and days, reminding me of what he had told Paul when Paul had a thorn in his flesh: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). I didn’t get any big answers or any great revelation; I still don’t have answers to many of my questions, and I don’t always understand why God does what he does or allows what he allows. Jesus is often not who I expected him to be, and in fact, every time I read the Gospels, he turns my world upside down just a little bit more. But in the words of Mr. Beaver from The Chronicles of Narnia, “He’s not safe—but he’s good.”

So that’s my story—and I’m sticking to it! Questions in the dark are no threat to God, and neither is my doubt or yours. It’s okay. God is big enough to handle it, and we can keep walking with him even when we don’t have him all figured out. After all, as Flannery O’Connor once said, “A God you could understand would be less than yourself.” A God we could pin down and figure out would not be worthy of worship. As Kathleen Norris once wrote, we deal with our questions in the dark by continuing to worship, staying connected to the community, and allowing God to work it all together for his glory. He has not abandoned you; he is with you, even in the dark places. Hold onto that truth and keep on walking. Let’s pray.

Heartbroken

The Sermon Study Guide is here.

John 4:4-26

January 11, 2015 • Portage First UMC

Dare I ask—how are you doing with those new year’s resolutions? We’re a week and a half into the new year, and, as I said last week, if statistics are accurate, 25% of you who made resolutions have already given up. There was an article in the Chicago Tribune this week about how business executives are using the new year as a time for trying to forge better relationships with their workers. A paper was published late last year in the journal Organization Studies that discussed a “revolutionary new finding.” According the author of the paper, a researcher at Georgetown University, relational leadership helps build trust among employees. And the paper went on to define relational leadership as “taking an active role in understanding the needs, aspirations, challenges, and skills of the people” you work with. In other words, the article said, treat people the way you want to be treated. That’s revolutionary, right? Apparently it is revolutionary enough that the Tribune decided it was news. Relationships make a difference. Treating people the way you want to be treated brings health. And business gurus act like that’s a new idea, when it actually goes back at least two thousand years to a teacher wandering the hillsides of Galilee. Jesus phrased it this way: “In everything, do to others what you would have them do to you” (Matthew 7:12). Treat people the way you want to be treated. We call it “the Golden Rule,” and something within us knows that, if we all just tried to live by that teaching of Jesus, life would be better. And when we don’t, because we don’t, we find that one of the areas in which we most experience brokenness is in our relationships.

This month, we’re looking at the ways life gets broken as we begin a new year seeking healing and wholeness. Last week, you remember, we talked about the way we get broken by failing or refusing to forgive, and on a deeper level, the ways we refuse to believe that we can be forgiven. I’ve heard Jesus’ words a lot this week: “Friend, your sins are forgiven.” Those words are freeing, aren’t they? Sometimes we just need to hear that, over and over. And that does tie in to the story we want to look at today as we sit by a well in Samaria and listen in on a conversation Jesus has with a woman who is broken by relational failure. She is lonely and basically alone, and she is broken far more than she wants to admit. She is like a lot of us, so let’s go to the well and see what Jesus offers her.

It’s noon, and Jesus and his disciples are passing through a region called Samaria. Judea, centered around Jerusalem, is in the south and Galilee, where Jesus spent most of his time, is to the north. Samaria is the place in the middle. John says Jesus “had” to pass through there, and geographically that’s not quite accurate. To be sure, it was the shortest way from Judea to Galilee, but most Jews from the south would not pass through Samaria because they considered the Samaritans to be unclean. They were halfbreeds, half-Jewish and half-something else, and there was a strong history of rivalry between the Jews and the Samaritans. However, it was not unusual for Galilean Jews, which Jesus was, to pass through Samaria. Those from the north didn’t get so hung up on all the ritual purity laws like those in the south did. But that still doesn’t explain the “had to,” because some people didn’t go through this area simply because it was dangerous. Like those places you won’t walk into after dark, Samaria was known as an area where you could sometimes be attacked and robbed, especially if it was apparent you were headed to Jerusalem (Wright, John for Everyone, Part One, pg. 40; Card, John: The Gospel of Wisdom, pg. 68; Tenney, “The Gospel of John,” Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 9, pg. 54). So, strictly speaking, Jesus didn’t “have to” go through Samaria, except that, I believe, he did. He had to come here and meet this woman, this broken Samaritan woman, this child of God who needed to know she could find healing and hope.

As I said, it’s noon, the heart of day, and Jesus and his disciples are headed north. When they get near Sychar, Jesus asks the disciples to go into town and get some food (4:8). Sychar was about half a mile from Jacob’s Well (Tenney 54), and Jesus sits down at the well to rest. After the disciples have gone, a woman shows up. Now, it was the custom in those days for the women to draw water for the family. However, that was usually done early in the morning, before it got too hot. This woman is coming to the well at a time when no one else is supposed to be there. As one author says, it’s a “suspicious time to be drawing water” (Card 68). Why is she there at noon? Well, it has everything to do with why she is so broken.

You have to wonder what is going through her mind as she approaches the well, expecting to see no one only to find that a strange man is sitting there. In fact, it seems that Jesus being a man is a bigger concern to her than him being a Jew. The custom was that men and women did not interact in public; in fact, typically, Jewish men did not even speak to their wives in public (Card 70). At the very least, Jesus should not have spoken to her without her husband present (Card 69; Tenney 55), and when the disciples return later in the story, there is no mention of them being surprised that he’s talking with a Samaritan. They’re surprised he’s talking with a woman. But Jesus will cross any barrier and break down any wall if it means restoring someone who has been broken. And so he is the first to speak to her: “Will you give me a drink?” (4:7).

Now, there’s a lot going on in this conversation that we don’t have time this morning to get into, but I want you to hear the sarcasm that’s in the woman’s voice. It’s not hard, even with the printed text. Jesus asks for a drink; she says, “I’m a woman; why are you asking me for a drink?” (4:7-9). Jesus then says she should really ask him for living water; she says, “You don’t even have a bucket, and the well is over seventy-five feet deep” (4:10-12; cf. Tenney 55). Jesus says, “If you drink from this well, you’ll get thirsty again. I can give you ‘water’ that will bubble up within you.” She says, “Okay, prove it. Give me some of that water” (4:13-15). And then Jesus goes straight to the heart of the matter: “Go, call your husband and come back” (4:16). And there’s silence. I picture the woman, so defiant just a moment ago, reduced to barely a whisper. “I have no husband” (4:17). Now, Jesus is not being sexist here. Within his culture, as I said, this would be a perfectly understandable and appropriate request. In fact, the woman may have been surprised he hasn’t asked this before now. But, as should be obvious by now, Jesus has no problem talking to her without her husband or another man of any sort. No, Jesus isn’t being sexist or exclusive or even elitist here. He’s slicing through her smokescreen and getting to the heart of her brokenness.

A smokescreen is anything we do that is designed to obscure, confuse or mislead others (Hunt, How to Deal with Difficult Relationships, pg. 29), and we are masters of the smokescreen, aren’t we? We like to and try hard to appear better than we are. And that’s not saying we’re bad people. What I mean is that we try to hide our brokenness behind all sorts of appearances and smiles and positive social media posts. When someone asks you how you are doing, what do you say? “Fine.” That’s not even a real answer anymore; that’s the standard automatic response because we know that people don’t really want to hear, “My life is a mess, and I don’t know what to do about it.” So we just say, “I’m fine. How are you?” And what we end up with are two “fine” broken people, desperately trying to put duct tape over the cracks in our lives. One way we put up a smokescreen is to use humor, especially the kind of humor that tears other people down. If we can make them look small or insignificant, we think we’ll feel better about ourselves. We do the same thing, with or without humor, when we say things about someone which we wouldn’t or won’t say to their face. It’s a matter of trying to feel good or better about ourselves, all the while ignoring what it does to our relationships. We fail to treat others the way we would want to be treated, and we push down that impulse that reminds us we’re made for relationships.

Here are some other ways we throw up smokescreens. We spread harmful gossip under the guise of “everyone ought to know.” We blame other people for our mistakes. We kid or tease someone else with the intent to hurt. We remind others often of their past failures while hoping they will not remember ours. We offer criticism that is anything but constructive. And we use sarcasm as a weapon, a way to attack someone else, just as this woman at the well did (Hunt 30). And, you know, two of the most common places we use smokescreens is in our marriages and at church. As far as marriage goes, two of the top ten reasons for divorce today have to do with not being real: losing intimacy and failing to work through conflict. Both of those issues escalate because we fail to be who we really are. We fail to be honest with our spouse until it all builds up and boils over. And in the church (which Paul calls, by the way, the “bride of Christ”—Ephesians 5:22-33), we get good at using religious language to cover over the hurt and pain caused by broken relationships rather than dealing with it. Could that be part of the reason why folks stay away from church? Unchurches folks often say that one of the reasons they stay away is because they feel like they have to have it all together to come here. Nothing could be further from the truth, but that’s the image we often project. I’m not saying everyone should come here depressed and mopey; not at all. But what this generation longs for more than anything else is relational reality. Who better than the church to be able to live that out?

And so, when we’re confronted with relational brokenness, we don’t want to deal with it or dwell on it, so we do that the woman does. She changes the subject. Jesus points out that she is telling the truth: she has no husband. In fact, she has had five husbands in a time when the rabbis said three was the limit (cf. Card 69), and the man she is now living with doesn’t love her enough to marry her. Now, some have suggested that perhaps her husbands had died on her, and that’s possible. We don’t know for sure, but whatever has happened has left this woman shamed enough that she avoids people by coming to the well at noon and she doesn’t want to talk to Jesus about her relational life. She’s ashamed. She’s embarrassed, and she’s the fodder for the gossips in town (cf. Wright 44). So she changes the subject. And what do you talk about when you want to make someone else uncomfortable? Religion, of course. She tries to start a debate about the right place to worship. Jesus won’t have it. She says, “Where should we worship?” Jesus says, “It doesn’t matter. Worship is a matter of the heart, and it’s your heart we’re focused on.” Then she says, “I know the Messiah is coming. He’ll explain everything when he gets here.” And that’s when Jesus comes to his point: “The Messiah is here. I am he” (4:19-26).

The Samaritans had a special name for the Messiah that tells us a lot about what they expected of him. He was to be known as “The Revealer” (Card 70). When he came, he was expected to reveal all the mysteries of life, give all the answers, clarify everything (Tenney 56). And, because Jesus comes here to meet this woman, to bring healing to this woman, that’s what he has really become for her. He reveals to her who she really is, not just what others thought about her. Her history is a difficult one. She’s been left by five men, and those are only the ones who married her. We can only speculate how many other men might have rejected her attempts to find love. Because of her history, she is a social outcast in Sychar, a woman who is probably talked about at the coffee shop and synagogue, a woman for whom conversations stop when she enters the room, a woman who has no friends and the only person who might talk to her in her life is the man she is living with, a man who wants her to fulfill the role of a wife without giving her a commitment. In that culture, that only further excludes her from so-called “polite society.” We shouldn’t be surprised to hear the sarcasm in her words we heard earlier; she’s probably found that defiance and anger and biting remarks are the only way she can survive. She’s learned that, just like we do.

And then this heartbroken woman encounters Jesus, the revealer. And after her encounter with him, in the passage right after what we read this morning, she goes running back to town (leaving her water jar behind at the well) and she tells people—people who had shunned her—she says to them, “Come, see a man who…” What? Who told me the mysteries of life? Who told me what mountain to worship on? Who told me how to get living water? No, she doesn’t say any of that. The whole conversation with Jesus seems forgotten—or is it? She says, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did” (4:29). Well, he didn’t, at least not in what John has recorded of the conversation. What I think she’s saying in those words is something like this: “Here is a man who looked inside me, saw my brokenness and pointed me toward healing. Here is a man who loved me for me and not for any other reason. Here is someone I can trust and I can love back without fear. He has revealed who I really am.” Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?

Jesus pointed her on the path to healing even as she tried to have a religious argument, and because we like to focus on the religious argument, that’s easy to miss. It’s when he begins talking about “true worshipers” (4:23). She’s worried about the right place, while Jesus is focused on the right attitude. She’s worried about winning the argument while Jesus is worried about winning her. He’s pointing her toward a life of fulfillment, a life of worship. You see, worship isn’t something we do. It’s not a service we go to. It’s a lifestyle, meant to be lived. Jesus says “true worshipers” worship in the Spirit and in truth (4:23). Spirit means they’re not bound to a place like the Temple in Jerusalem, and truth means worship is not the exclusive privilege of a few, or of only one people group (cf. Card 70). Worship is a life lived in relationship with God, focused on God, dedicated to God, because he is the only one who will never leave nor forsake us. As we discussed during Christmas Candlelight, he is the only one who is ultimately faithful. A life of worship calls us to put that relationship first, above all else.

Like many of you, I am a relational person who has experienced times of relational brokenness. Every time a break occurs, it hurts, and there’s a  piece of my soul that is gone. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about because we’ve all been there, whether the brokenness happens because of a fight or a disagreement or even just because time passes and you drift apart. And to be honest, I think social media has made it worse. We connect with people—I’ve connected with a lot of people from my hometown, people I grew up with through Facebook. But Facebook and Twitter and other technological solutions only give us the appearance of relationships. I worry about a world that relies increasingly on screens to connect us together. How, then, do we learn to trust one another? Relational brokenness, when we experience it, make it hard to trust. The hurt lingers, and we determine to varying degrees that we will not be hurt like that again. Until the next time. Because we are relational people, we continue to seek relationships even when we’ve been burned. In fact, I would go so far as to say we tend to substitute relationships here with people we can see and touch and talk to for a relationship with God through Jesus. We may say that our relationship with Christ is important, just as the woman at the well would have said that worship was important, but she, like we, was looking for connection in all the wrong places. We’re just not confident that, in the end, God will be enough or that he will come through. We don’t trust others because we struggle to trust God. And that makes me think of a ladder.

When we were in Jerusalem last fall, one of the places we visited (as groups always do) was the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the traditional location of both Calvary and the empty tomb. Standing outside the church, our guide was giving us some of the history of this church that is owned by six different Christian traditions. Some of the church is considered “common ground” and other parts of it are held by these particular groups. The “common ground” idea is so important that no one group actually controls the entrance to the church; the keys are held by a Muslim family and have been since 1187 because the Christians can’t trust each other enough to decide who locks and unlocks the front door.

But even more ridiculous is the story of what has come to be known as the Immovable Ladder. Above the main entrance, on a balcony that was once a flower garden, sits a ladder under a window. It was placed there sometime before 1852; actually, there is a drawing of the church that shows it in place in 1839 and possibly another one showing the ladder there in 1728. Now, why is it there? Well no one seems to know exactly why it was put there, but it’s there today because in 1853, a rule of “status quo” was put in place, meaning that anything in the common areas could not be moved without the agreement of everyone who owns the building. Six Christian groups, all worshipping Jesus in the building, and no one will agree to removing a ladder from under a window. Every time someone has attempted to move it, violence has broken out. And what’s the point of this ladder story? As I stood there and listened to the guide talk about this wooden eyesore, I couldn’t help but think how much that reflects the way we often approach each other and, even, the way we approach God. Other things become more important than relationships. Other things become more important than putting God first in our lives. Other things take priority over trusting God and trusting others. How does a ladder on a balcony help people know Jesus better? It doesn’t! It’s a striking condemnation of the inability of Christians to love one another, which is, by the way, how Jesus said others would know we are his people (John 13:35). Yet, rather than doing that, we fuss and fight and argue over who is right and insist on our own way and leave friends heartbroken behind us. Jesus says it’s because we’ve lost our way, and we’ve forgotten what is most important and we focus on things like ladders. “True worshippers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth” (4:23).

If we get the relationship with God right, when we put that first,  everything else falls together. Does life immediately get better? Maybe or maybe not, but when our lives are rightly ordered, we will find our deepest needs are met. External circumstances may or may not change, but God will meet our relational needs the way we need them met. He’s the only one who can. If our hearts are whole, being healed (and not just having duct tape put on them), we can then love others as God intended us to.

Ordering our relationships correctly calls us to begin with things like prayer and Scripture and corporate worship. What place does prayer (talking to God) play in your life, in your decision making? You know, when we have an important decision to make, Cathy and I talk it over, work it through. Why don’t we do the same thing with God? If our relationship with God is most important, why do we not talk with God about the things going on in our lives, ask God to direct us as we make decisions? Over the last few years, I have made it a priority to begin my prayers as soon as the alarm goes off. Before my feet even hit the floor, I begin talking to God about the day ahead and inviting his presence in it all. And then I make spiritual disciplines (reading my Bible, corporate worship, meditating on Scripture) a high priority in my day. For me, I do them first thing in the morning. That’s when I’m at my best, but some folks are more alert at night. Priority is a matter of carving out time that we will not give up to anything or anyone else. More of us do make going to the gym an untouchable priority than we do going to God. If we want other relationships in our life to work, we have to make our relationship with God a priority.

Now, I don’t know that the woman at the well was instantly welcomed back into the city or the culture. Don’t you wish we had a scene or two of “what happened next” in her story? But we know she was changed, and John tells us so were many of her townspeople. So you’ve got to think that their relationship to her changed as well once they began to accept Jesus. When it comes, then, to dealing with interpersonal relationships, the first and hardest thing we have to do is do the hard work of forgiveness, which is why we began with that topic last Sunday. As I said then, maybe the first thing we have to do is ask God to give us the “want to.” We may need to pray, “God, help me even want to forgive them.” And we may need to pray that over and over and over again. We keep praying it until God makes us ready to move ahead and to stop allowing that person to control so much of our lives.

And then, the next part has to do with communication, what we say to people that builds rather than tears apart relationships. Living, as we do, in a world where people are told they have no worth, we must let people know they have value, they are worth consideration. The Bible says all people are made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27). All people are of sacred worth. That doesn’t mean we automatically affirm what they do. But even the person who engages in a shooting spree, such as we saw again this week, is made in the image of God and is a person of inestimable worth. Their actions are despicable, but they still have sacred worth. Or when the world says, “You’re unacceptable,” we say just the opposite. “You’re accepted. You’re wanted. You’re loved.” Tuesday night, I reminded the folks who gathered here for Vision 2015 that there are many things the church cannot do, and many things the church can do but can’t do better than other organizations. But in this world where people are longing for connections—as evidenced by our obsession with social media—the church ought to be the very best at offering relationships, loving even (or maybe especially) the unlovable. And in a world that seems to excel in tearing people down, we need to remind people they don’t deserve to be insulted. Our culture trains us to do that. Watch any sitcom on television, and even the most family-friendly of them relies heavily on insults for their comedy. We ought to be better than that, even when we are treated poorly or insulted. Remember: we treat others thew ay we want to be treated. Peter, in writing to the first-century church, offered this timeless word: “Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing” (1 Peter 3:9; cf. Hunt 38). When we bless rather than curse other people, Peter says, we will receive a blessing. What, do you suppose, we will receive if we spend our time insulting and cursing others?

So we begin with pursuing forgiveness, then change the way we speak to and treat one another. And third, we take the risk of trusting. The woman at the well had to take the risk of talking to people who had talked about her, people who had taunted her, people who had shunned her. But what she found in Jesus was worth the risk. And finding healing from relational brokenness is worth the risk in our lives as well. Will you get hurt again? Probably. We have to be wise about the level of trust we offer to others, and we have to remember that whenever you have relationships, there is always the chance of being hurt. But the risk is worth it, because God made us as relational creatures.

One of the first images we encounter in the Bible is that of friendship with God, a relationship. It’s Adam and Eve, walking in the garden with their creator. But then came the sin that broke that friendship, and ever after that moment, a sacrifice was needed to heal the breach. The same is true for us. Something needs to die, whether that’s our pride or our bitterness or our anger, for healing in relationships to take place. Thankfully, in our friendship with God, Jesus died so that we could be restored. Paul, in the book of Romans, puts it this way (in the Message translation): “If, when we were at our worst, we were put on friendly terms with God by the sacrificial death of his Son, now that we’re at our best, just think of how our lives will expand and deepen by means of his resurrection life!” (Romans 5:10). If God can forgive our sin and welcome us back into friendship, then can we do no less toward those with whom we have relational brokenness? Healing is possible. Healing is available. Put God first. Then, begin with forgiveness, communicate differently, and take the risk. And, just like the woman at the well, our broken hearts can be mended, healed and restored. It’s possible. Will you take the risk? Let us pray.

First Things First

The Sermon Study Guide is here.

Luke 5:17-26

January 4, 2015 • Portage First UMC

Well, it’s a brand new year. We're four days into 2015, and I’m wondering how many of you made any sort of New Year’s Resolution this year. Anyone? Statistically, about 45% of Americans usually make some sort of resolution, so about half. Of those folks, 25% of them will not make it past the first week before breaking their resolution and by June, only 46% will still be maintaining those resolutions. To be honest, I was surprised that number was as high as it is! 46% making it past six months is actually pretty good! Now, what do you think the most popular resolution is? Number one on most Americans’ list is “lose weight.” Also in the top ten:

Get organized,

Spend less and save more,

Enjoy life to the fullest,

Stay fit and healthy,

Learn something exciting,

Quit smoking,

Help others fulfill their dreams,

Fall in love, and

Spend more time with family.

http://www.statisticbrain.com/new-years-resolution-statistics/

Research also says that those who make resolutions are ten times more likely to attain their goals than people who don’t. Ten times more likely! And the reason seems to be because they’ve determined what’s most important. They’ve sorted it out in their minds and their hearts and they become determined to put first things first in their lives. As much “bad press” as new year’s resolutions get, “real life” experience says they are incredibly valuable for helping us make and follow our priorities.

The new year always feels like a new start, even though it’s just the turn of a calendar page. Still, there’s something different in the air this time of year, a hopefulness that things might just be different this year. And it's in that spirit, that hope, we make resolutions. Yet I wonder if the reason some people don't make it past the first week is because, somewhere in the midst of that week, reality sets in and we realize again that we and the world are broken. At some point we begin to believe that little voice inside us that says nothing will ever change, or can ever change. It doesn’t take a theologian or even an expert analyst to tell us that the world is not like it ought to be. Something, somewhere along the way, got broken. And many times, we experience that brokenness in our own lives. In this new year, for the next month, we’re going to be looking at some of the ways that brokenness shows up in our lives, and, more importantly, how we can find hope and healing for that brokenness—how we can head down the road to wholeness. Throughout this month, we’ll be talking about brokenness that happens in relationships, brokenness comes from doubt, and brokenness that we encounter in the form of evil. But this morning, we begin at what, at least at first blush, seems to be a more basic form of brokenness as we encounter a man who was paralyzed—broken by illness. But, as with many stories in the Gospels, what first seems to be evident is not what is really going on.

Jesus is, most likely, in Capernaum, the town he chose for his base of operations during his ministry in Galilee. He’s teaching in a house, probably Peter's house, where Jesus stayed when he was in Capernaum (Card, Luke: The Gospel of Amazement, pg 79). That house, by the way, has been located and it’s just down the street from the synagogue. So we shouldn’t be surprised that there were people hanging around who have fashioned themselves as religious police. We know them in the Gospels as the Pharisees. The Pharisees were not an “official” group; by that I mean they were not officially authorized by the priests or anyone else within organized Judaism (cf. Bock, NIV Application Commentary: Luke, pg. 157). You might call them a protest group of sorts. Believing that those in Jerusalem weren’t serious enough about their faith, the Pharisees group had developed as a sort of “holiness” or (we might call them) a “back to the Bible” group. They believed the secret to being faithful was to observe the Torah, the Law, very carefully, and if they did that, they would create the conditions that would enable the kingdom of God to come (Wright, Luke for Everyone, pgs. 59-60). And to make sure that happened, they spread out all over the country, trying to keep an eye on everyone, to make sure people behaved. So that’s why, whenever Jesus is teaching or preaching, the Pharisees seem to always be close by. They’re checking on this teacher, this rabbi, to make sure he doesn’t say or do anything that would be considered unorthodox.

And so, Jesus is “home,” in Capernaum, teaching while people from all over the area have come to listen to him and, maybe even more importantly, to get him to heal the sick. There is a crowd that has already gathered, probably spilling out into the street, when some men come with their paralyzed friend. Somewhere, someone has told them that if they could just get to Jesus, he would heal their friend, and so they have loaded him up and traveled—who knows how far?—to be able to have a chance for their friend to walk again. They know—they just know—that if they can get him to Jesus, if they can lay him down at Jesus’ feet, their friend will walk again.

One problem—or rather, many problems. There are too many people gathered there. By the time they get there, it’s “standing room only” and there are no tickets left. No one will give up their spot, and no one will move so that they can get to the front of the line. There is simply no way they are going to be able to get close to Jesus. And I imagine them setting their friend down and beginning to feel a bit depressed. I mean, they’ve come all this way with a single objective: healing for their friend. Perhaps the man on the mat quietly says, “It’s okay, guys, I know you tried.” Just then, one of the friends figures out a way. Many of the houses in that area in that time were built with an exterior stairway, allowing families to use the flat roof of their house for extra living space (cf. Bock 157). “Let’s take him up on the roof!” he says. And the other friends look at him questioningly. “What are we going to do with him when we get him up on the roof?” “We’ll make a hole and let him down into the house.” Now, that would involve quite a bit of work, as the roof may have had a layer of tile on it, and certainly would have had hardened mud on top of roof beams (Bock 157). It would be like digging a hole in a dry desert, but the friends were determined, and so that’s what they do. I always try to imagine what it must have been like to be sitting inside the house when suddenly pieces of dried mud start dropping onto your head. Before Peter can get out of the house to stop them, he has a genuine sun roof carved right into his house, and down through that natural solar panel is coming a paralyzed man on a mat. The friends lower him carefully, right in front of Jesus. And the friends look through the hole, down at Jesus, eager to see their friend walk again.

Because his problem is physical, right? I mean, he can’t walk, so obviously the problem is his paralysis. That’s why the friends bought him here. And as they wait, I imagine silence falling over everyone gathered there as Jesus looks down at the man on the mat. There are a lot of things that could be said just at that moment. I imagine Peter had a few things he would like to have said about his roof, but there must have been a sense that something bigger than a roof or even than this man was about to happen, because there are no words recorded until Jesus says these astonishing words: “Friend, your sins are forgiven” (5:20). Wait a minute, the friends must be thinking—his sins are forgiven? That’s not why they brought their friend to Jesus. They brought him for healing. And, amazingly, that’s exactly what Jesus offers to him in those simple words: “Your sins are forgiven.”

There are several things to notice in this text, and the first is, perhaps, whose faith Jesus is responding to. It’s not the faith of the man on the mat—the man who, by the way, doesn’t say a single thing in this whole story (though at the end of the story we are told he was “praising God”). No, Jesus responds to the faith of the friends (5:20). It’s their faith that moved him—but faith in what? Or in whom? Was their faith in Jesus? Was their faith in his “magical” healing powers? We’re not told, but it seems to be that faith is more than just thinking about something or even more than agreeing with something. Faith is putting what you think and what you believe into action. The “faith” Jesus responds to is the action of these man, the fact that they took huge chances because they believed if they could just get their friend to Jesus, Jesus would heal him. Because of their action, Jesus is moved to respond (cf. Bock 157; Card 79).

But they must have been at least somewhat disappointed in his first response. Forgiving sins? That wasn’t even on the menu, Jesus! And besides that, the man didn’t even ask for forgiveness of any sort, nor did his friends. What in the world is going on here? What’s happening here is that Jesus is able to see what we really need, not just what we think we want. Jesus is helping this man put first things first, to deal with what’s really troubling him. Now, certainly, there are passages in the Bible where it’s clear there is some sort of connection between sickness and sin. I’m not saying that every sickness is caused by someone’s sin—not at all. But there certainly is a sense that some conditions can be caused or even made worse by spiritual problems, by having no sense of forgiveness. God made us as whole persons—body, mind and soul—and our whole life is interconnected. So refusing or failing to deal with forgiveness issues in our lives, not confronting the sin that sneaks into our lives can leave us very broken people. Jesus doesn’t say outright if that’s what’s going on here or not with this paralyzed man. All he does is look into the man’s heart and deal with the most important thing first: “Your sins are forgiven.”

And that’s when the Pharisees pop up and accuse Jesus of what was probably one of their favorite accusations against him and against most anyone they didn’t agree with: “This fellow speaks blasphemy” (cf. 5:21). “Blasphemy” is one of those good, religious words we sometimes might use but often have little idea what it means, or at least what it meant when the Pharisees accused Jesus of it. Blasphemy is a “slander against God” (Bock 158). It's doing something or saying something that detracts from the power or the glory of God; in other words, it’s getting in God’s way, shining our own light rather than his (cf. Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, pg. 75). I found it interesting that the Greek word here comes from various words which mean “injure, throw, strike, harm” or “stupid.” And certainly the Pharisees considered anyone who would commit blasphemy to be stupid. But, really, for the Pharisees, the blasphemy of Jesus centered around who he claimed to be, because, to their understanding, the only one who could forgive sins was God alone. The Old Testament law, which the Pharisees were trying to get everyone to obey in detail, had all sorts of practices and sacrifices and rituals by which you could get God to forgive your sins. And though a priest may pronounce you forgiven, the priest was not the one doing the forgiving. God along could forgive sins, so when Jesus tells this man his sins are forgiven, he’s claiming to he equal with God himself. Jesus is claiming to be God, and that’s something the Pharisees will not put up with. All of this teaching and dispensing of wisdom—they may not like that, but they can put up with it. But forgiving sins—well, now Jesus has crossed a line.

But, you see, the simple fact of the matter is that this man needed to know he could be forgiven more than he needed to know he could walk. We don’t know the circumstances of his life, but Jesus saw into his heart and knew what needed to come first. “Friend, your sins are forgiven.” And then, when the Pharisees grumble to themselves, Jesus takes it a step further. “Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’?” (5:23). Well, both are equally impossible; you simply don’t tell a man to get up and walk any more than you can pronounce the forgiveness of sins (Card 79). And then Jesus makes his point: “But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” (5:24). And that’s when he heals the man. The man stands up, for the first time in we don’t know how long, and he goes home. And everyone in the crowd, we’re told, is “amazed” (as people often are in Luke’s Gospel) and they say, “We have seen remarkable things today” (5:26). The word translated “remarkable” there really means “paradoxes.” They have seen paradoxes, things you wouldn’t normally expect to see (Wright 61). They’ve seen something here out of the ordinary. So the question is: which was more a paradox: the healing of the man or the forgiveness of his sin?

And even more than that, we need to ask why this scene was so remarkable to this crowd. I think it had little to do with the healing; many of them had probably seen Jesus do something similar before. In fact, he had healed Peter’s mother-in-law right here in this very house not that long ago (4:38-39). He had healed a man with leprosy in the passage just before this (5:12-16). What’s amazing here is how Jesus handles forgiveness, how he sees into the heart of this man and knows what he needs. What’s amazing is how Jesus doesn’t deal with insignificant things; he deals with the first things first. This man needed forgiveness; he needed to know his sins could be taken away. And so, I would bet, did most every person in that crowd. All of their lives they had lived with this idea that the only way you could be forgiven was to go through the rituals, the sacrifices, the festivals—especially the Day of Atonement—and if you did everything correctly, the priest would announce your forgiveness. You had to present something, some offering, in order to receive forgiveness. You had to do something, you had to ask for it. And now Jesus sees this man, who asks for nothing, who may not even be there willingly, and he offers forgiveness. That’s remarkable, and the crowd reacts this way because deep inside, they have this longing to be forgiven just like that.

So do we. There are things in each of our lives that have us paralyzed, feeling hopeless, feeling as if we are simply stuck in this place. And while we worry about the externals, the appearances, Jesus looks down into our hearts and sees that often what we first need to deal with are the places where we have been broken by unforgiveness. Every time you see her, there’s anger and animosity because she walked out on you. Decisions that should be about the best thing for your children become huge arguments because it’s become a power struggle. Who will win? Who do the children love the most? Who will get the most time? Divorce has broken your family and there is a root of bitterness that grows stronger every time the two of you interact. The externals, the details, have become more important than the seeking of any forgiveness. Then there’s the person you see at the grocery store, the person who hurt you some time back with their words or their actions. Do you speak to them? Do you ignore them? More importantly, what happens inside of you when you notice them ahead of you in line? Does your gut clench up? Do you want to find some way to hurt them back as much as they hurt you? Do you even think about forgiving them, even if they never ask for it, or has it become all about payback?

Maybe you’ve been to some family gatherings over this Christmas season, and there, across the room from you, eating the same green bean casserole you’re eating, is the one who, for all those years, abused you, verbally, physically and spiritually. You’ve never told anyone, and the two of you have never talked about it. He shows no remorse, never has. You wonder if he ever thinks about what he did to you, and just then, he looks your way and smiles. Suddenly, the emotional and spiritual paralysis you thought was gone takes over again. How can you ever forgive someone like that? And then there are the deep-seated, generation-spanning issues that are erupting all over our country these days. Whether it’s a racism issue or an authority issue or an anger issue, we’ve have story after story of persons who have been shot and killed when they shouldn’t have been. No matter what side of the issue you come down on, Jesus calls us to look past the bloodshed, past the rioting, past the angry words and threatening tones, to look deeper into the situations and see the need for forgiveness. Whether “the other side” wants forgiveness or not, there is simply no way for our country to move forward—politically, economically, socially and certainly spiritually—if we don’t find a way to put first things first and forgive one another.

You see, forgiveness is not ultimately about the other person; forgiveness is about you and your relationship with God. It’s not about letting the other person off the hook; it’s about finding healing for your soul. As it’s been said before, refusing to forgive someone is allowing them to live rent-free inside your head. It’s giving that other person or that situation more power and influence in your life than they deserve. Refusing to pursue forgiveness hurts you more than it hurts them. Or, as another person has put it: refusing to forgive is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. Unforgiveness poisons our soul, and Jesus came to bring healing. This man in Luke 5 was not really broken by his paralysis. He was broken by his need of forgiveness, and once Jesus showed him that forgiveness was possible, everything else became possible, too.

The problem we encounter, at this moment, though is that this is where I’m supposed to give you the magic formula for forgiveness. Three easy steps to finding healing and wholeness. Pray this magic prayer, do this ritual, whatever, and forgiveness will happen. The problem is this: that’s not what Jesus does. He never gives us a formula. He simply asks us, even commands us, to be forgiving people. He doesn’t say forgiveness will happen overnight. He doesn’t say it will always happen in an instance, and he doesn’t even give us a really good picture of what it looks like when we have forgiven, when we’ve experienced forgiveness. What he did, instead, is to offer himself in our place, to take on himself the punishment for our sin—indeed, for all the sin of the world—when he died on the cross. And even then, as cruel men were nailing his hands and feet to a piece of wood, Jesus prayed forgiveness for them (cf. Luke 23:34)—the ultimate example of asking for forgiveness for someone who didn’t ask for it, who didn’t want it, and who, we would say, certainly didn’t deserve it. But there it is, nonetheless. And when we take communion, as we’re going to do in just a few moments, we remember Jesus on the cross, what he gave and what he did to allow us to find forgiveness, to be forgiven.

This morning, we are the paralyzed man. Perhaps some of us are more paralyzed than others today. We need to hear Jesus say to us, “Friend, your sins are forgiven.” But we also need to be aware of the people who need to hear that from us as well, who need words of hope and reconciliation to flow their way. This morning, we are undoubtedly a mixed bag of those who are paralyzed and those who are on their way to healing. That’s what a church is; that’s what a community is. Today, as we come to this table, this place of forgiveness, may you find the strength to take that first step, whatever it might be, to pursue healing from the brokenness of unforgiveness. I pray that in this bread and in this cup, you can sense the presence of Jesus and hear him saying, “Friend, your sins are forgiven.” Let’s come to the table and find healing for today, tomorrow and all the days yet to come.