Unexpected Gratitude

Jeremiah 29:1-7

These are the words of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the remaining elders among the exiles, and to the priests, the prophets, and all the people, whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.

This was after King Jeconiah, and the queen mother, the court officials, the leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, the artisans, and the smiths had departed from Jerusalem.

The letter was sent by the hand of Elasah son of Shaphan and Gemariah son of Hilkiah, whom King Zedekiah of Judah sent to Babylon to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. It said: 

Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon:

Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce.

Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease.

But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.

  

2 Kings 5:1-15c

Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man and in high favor with his master, because by him the LORD had given victory to Aram. The man, though a mighty warrior, suffered from leprosy.

Now the Arameans on one of their raids had taken a young girl captive from the land of Israel, and she served Naaman's wife.

She said to her mistress, "If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy."

So Naaman went in and told his lord just what the girl from the land of Israel had said. 

And the king of Aram said, “Go then, and I will send along a letter to the king of Israel.”

 He went, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten sets of garments. 

He brought the letter to the king of Israel, which read, “When this letter reaches you, know that I have sent to you my servant Naaman, that you may cure him of his leprosy.” 

When the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and said, "Am I God, to give death or life, that this man sends word to me to cure a man of his leprosy? Just look and see how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me."

But when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, he sent a message to the king, "Why have you torn your clothes? Let him come to me, that he may learn that there is a prophet in Israel."

So Naaman came with his horses and chariots, and halted at the entrance of Elisha's house.

Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, "Go, wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored and you shall be clean."

But Naaman became angry and went away, saying, "I thought that for me he would surely come out, and stand and call on the name of the LORD his God, and would wave his hand over the spot, and cure the leprosy!

Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them, and be clean?" He turned and went away in a rage.

But his servants approached and said to him, "Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more, when all he said to you was, 'Wash, and be clean'?"

So he went down and immersed himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God; his flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy, and he was clean.

Then he returned to the man of God, he and all his company; he came and stood before him and said, "Now I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel."

  

Luke ‪17:11-19

‪17:11 On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, they called out, saying, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!"

When he saw them, he said to them, "Go and show yourselves to the priests." And as they went, they were made clean.

‪Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan.

Then Jesus asked, "Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they?

Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?"

Then he said to him, "Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well."

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Obeying God’s will doesn’t often make sense.

Let me rephrase that: the act of obedience to God often involves doing things that make no sense.

We have multiple examples of that in scripture this morning.

Ten lepers see Jesus, and beg for mercy. Jesus doesn’t immediately heal the lepers, but instead tells them, “Go see the priest.”

A young girl who is the slave of Naaman’s wife recommends the prophet that he should see to cure his leprosy.

Naaman, the mighty warrior, goes to see the prophet, Elisha, but is received instead by his messenger.

Naaman is not miraculously healed by the prophet or by his messenger, but is given second hand instructions to wash in the backcountry waters of the Jordan. Seven times.

And the Israelites in exile, who long for nothing other than to return to their homeland, are told instead to settle in for the long term. Build houses. Marry and raise families. Grow food in farms. Rather than being ready to flee when the coast is clear, seek the welfare of the city where you have landed.

Unexpected actions, all of these.

When we pray, we generally ask for healing, for release, for some desired action to take place, or to not take place.

Lord Jesus, heal us or our beloved one.

Gracious God, let the hurricane not hit our house.

Holy Spirit, give me strength until I get out of this terrible situation.

We fill out prayer cards. We post requests for prayer on Facebook. We spend time alone and in community in prayer.

And we wait for answered prayer. We wait for a blessing for which we can offer thanks.

But each of these stories reminds us that our healing, our answered prayer, even our obedience to God often comes in unexpected packages.

This is the everlasting reminder that God is in charge, and we are not.

That God is God, and we are not.

That our blessings and our answered prayer and our healing rarely comes packaged in the way we expected.

Unexpected blessings, arriving through unexpected paths, through obedience in ways that don’t make sense. Ways that require trust.

Jesus says to certain fishermen along the shore, Follow me. And they drop their nets and go along, not for a day, but for a lifetime.

Jesus tells the lepers to go see the priest. It sounds like Jesus is saying, “Not my job; go ask someone else.” But they obey. They go to see a priest that they know does not want to see them, for they are unclean. And as they go, they are healed.

The Lord God, through the prophet Elisha, by way of Elisha’s messenger, tells Naaman to wash in the Jordan. How is that supposed to help? At first he is outraged. I imagine we can understand why.

He’s already taking the advice of a young slave girl – and of his wife. None of this was his idea in the first place.

He comes bearing gifts – many gifts – fit for a king. Yet here he waits, chariots, gifts and all, outside the shack of a lowly prophet. A prophet who won’t come out and heal him directly.

Then, the message with instructions for how to receive healing makes absolutely no sense at all. And if it were not for one of his servants bringing him back to reality, back to himself, back to humility, chances are good that he would have turned around and headed back home, bringing with him nothing but his anger and rage for not being treated right.

But when he finally obeys – obeys the unexpected Word of the Lord, he is healed. Healed in a totally unexpected way.

The result of the Israelites obeying God as they are told through the prophet Jeremiah – the result of them settling in for the long haul – well, the rest of that story is the rest of scripture, ultimately leading to the life of Jesus Christ. But in this case as well as the rest, they are called to behave in a completely unexpected,  unexplainable way.

All this makes me wonder, how often do we get in the way of the blessings God intends for us? How often do we miss out on our own healing, on our own redemption, on God’s revelation to us, because it’s not packaged in the way we expect?

At the end of this week of death and destruction from Hurricane Matthew, perhaps it is good to remember the story about the person who was in a house with flood waters rising, who prayed, “Lord, save me!” A person in a boat came by and said, climb in, but the reply was, no thanks, God will save me. Then, a while later, a person in a helicopter came by and shouted down to this poor soul, perched on the top of the roof of the house, grab hold of the line! But the person said, no thanks, God will save me. And not long after, this person was standing before God, and asked, Lord, why didn’t you save me? And God said, what do you mean? I sent a boat, and I sent a helicopter!

God’s help comes in packages we don’t expect, in ways we often don’t trust. Because they don’t look like the way we would do it, or the way we would like for God to do it. We prefer our blessings to be packaged in ways that ensure our comfort, ways that reassure us that life will go on the way we want it to go, or will change the way we want it to change.

This is where trusting God, and following God, and loving God by loving one another, is where we are healed, how we are blessed.

So when refugees are welcomed into local communities, the community as well as the refugee are blessed.

When parents accept and openly love and support their child who has come out to them as lesbian, or gay, or transgender, the child and the parents are blessed.

When a congregation comes together to change a situation of hate, or indifference, or division, the persons affected by the situation as well as the congregation are blessed.

When we not only expect the unexpected, but we prepare ourselves to respond in unexpected ways to the unexpected calls from God, then God’s will is being done. Then we are participating in God’s kingdom.

It doesn’t always make sense. It doesn’t often make sense. It doesn’t fit within the rules and structure that we come up with, the systems of the world that run counter to God’s kingdom.

A few weeks ago, Walt Brueggeman spoke at an Ann Arbor church, and Wade and I went to hear him. Walt Brueggeman is an Old Testament scholar, a contemporary theologian, now 83 years old with a message as strong as ever. He spoke about the economies of the world, how they have always run counter to God’s economy, and how the Bible is essentially the story of God’s economy compared to the economies of the empires. God’s economy, God’s kingdom, is based upon neighborliness. And when we act in that way, the evidence is clear all over the Bible, that God comes alongside us and provides for us in miraculous ways. That first step of loving one another opens up the floodgates for God’s kingdom to flow in.

So how then shall we live?

When the choice is between keeping a building in prime condition and serving the community where the building stands, how then shall we live?

When the choice is between surrounding our selves and our families with multiple layers of protection so that the stranger, the other, the unexpected things of the world cannot get near them, or opening our hearts and our wallets and our homes to someone in great need of a blessing, how then shall we live?

When the choice is between fighting for what we want for ourselves and seeking the welfare of the city where we so often feel we are in exile ourselves, how then shall we live?

When the choice is between trusting that God is with us and taking over control ourselves, how then shall we live?

When the choice is between keeping silent and speaking out against injustice, against bullying, against domestic violence, against voices and words of hatred, how then shall we live?

We have the opportunity, as a congregation and as Christians throughout this country, throughout this world, to show our obedience to God, to show our trust in Jesus Christ, to show the power of the Holy Spirit, simply by loving God and loving one another. And to do this in faith, especially when it makes no sense.

In a commentary by Old Testament professor Katherine Schifferdecker from Luther Seminary, we are reminded that it is our faith that makes us well, just as Jesus told the Samaritan. God works through the lowly, the last, and the least, through those in exile, to bring about healing and salvation, contrary to the ways and expectations of the world. The real power of the world does not lie in royal courts, military strength, political influence, or great wealth. The real power in the world lies with the God Elisha serves, the God of Israel, the God who came to us as Christ Jesus the Savior.  This God works throughout scripture in unexpected ways, through unexpected people, to bring life where hope has been lost. God turns the expectations and the systems of the world upside down. This is true power.

Expect the unexpected. And be the unexpected. Participate with God in unexpected ways that reflect our trust. And, always, be grateful, as Naaman was, as the Samaritan was, as the Israelites were called to be. Be grateful to God for blessings, for peace, far beyond our understanding and comprehension, giving thanks at all times and in all circumstances, for God’s undescribable, unexpected gifts!

Amen.

Enough Faith

Lamentations 3:19-26

‪The thought of my affliction and my homelessness is wormwood and gall! ‪My soul continually thinks of it and is bowed down within me. ‪But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:

‪The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

‪"The LORD is my portion," says my soul, "therefore I will hope in him."

The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.

2 Timothy 1:1-14

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, for the sake of the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus, To Timothy, my beloved child: Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. I am grateful to God--whom I worship with a clear conscience, as my ancestors did--when I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day.

Recalling your tears, I long to see you so that I may be filled with joy. I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you.

For this reason I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands; for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.

Do not be ashamed, then, of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel, relying on the power of God, who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace. This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.

‪For this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher, and for this reason I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed, for I know the one in whom I have put my trust, and I am sure that he is able to guard until that day what I have entrusted to him.

‪Hold to the standard of sound teaching that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. Guard the good treasure entrusted to you, with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us.

  

Luke 17:5-10

The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!" The Lord replied, "If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it would obey you.

"Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, 'Come here at once and take your place at the table'?

Would you not rather say to him, 'Prepare supper for me, put on your apron and serve me while I eat and drink; later you may eat and drink'? Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded?

So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, 'We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!'"

Jesus says to us today that every one of us, no matter what size our faith is, has enough faith.

The reason that it’s enough is because, as we hear in the reading from Lamentations,  “the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, God’s mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning. Great is God’s faithfulness”.

But how can it be that a mustard seed amount of faith can possibly be enough?

Because it is added to all the other mustard seeds.

I don’t know about you, but my Coney dog doesn’t need a lot of mustard – just a dab of mustard is plenty. But, that dab of mustard is essential.

Each of us is a mustard seed in the jar, a link in the chain, a puzzle piece in the big picture.

So the first part of that passage is pretty easy to understand: The disciples ask Jesus to “increase their faith”, and he says, you have enough faith to do whatever needs to be done.

But what is he talking about in the second half, when he says that a slave would never simply do the outside work, and then come in and ask the master to serve him dinner?

Well, Jesus is reminding us of a few important things. First of all is that God is our Lord, our Sovereign Master, and we were created to be servants of God. We are slaves of Christ. We don’t like to use the word slave, because of the way we have treated slaves all through history, but the Bible makes it quite clear that God is Lord and Master, and our lives are intended to serve God. And God’s work is never done.

This means that when we step out in faith, regardless of the size of our faith, it is not enough to offer help once, to hang our hat on one kind deed, to say, “remember that one time I saw that person asking for money and I gave it?” remember that one time I helped that person whose grocery bag tore apart in the parking lot? Remember that time I paid it forward in the Starbucks drive through lane?

We are not called to respond one time. We are called to respond every time. We serve God every day, in every way, in every aspect of our lives. Thanks be to God for the mercy and forgiveness that is ours when we fall short.

However, even as we are called to respond in every way to God’s call, we are not ever being called to solve the whole problem. We are called to provide our one piece of the puzzle, our one link of the chain. And then, to have faith, no matter how small, that God who is steadfast and faithful will bring the other puzzle pieces and chain links together.

Jesus is telling us two things – one, that our little bit of faith is enough; and two, that our personal contribution is essential to the collective whole – every day, in every situation. In other words, the work is never done. Not ever. But we are not alone in doing it. We join and are joined by a great cloud of witnesses who are doing and praying and supplying puzzle pieces and dabs of mustard and links to a chain that comes together by God’s grace and mercy, new every morning. So we don’t get to work in the field and then come in the house, thinking we are finished and get to sit down and eat and be done. It’s not done. It’s not ever done. But it’s not all ours. We all do what we can, whenever we can. Every time we can. And our voices join in a great chorus. Together with the power of the Holy Spirit we are the Body of Christ. It’s a choir bigger than we can possibly imagine, spreading across the world and across time, backward and forward and present. It’s a mixture of spices and flavors that is incredibly glorious when it all comes together – a dab here, a dash there, an incredible feast resulting.

Methodists say it this way, quoting John Wesley:

“Do all the good you can.

By all the means you can.

In all the ways you can.

In all the places you can.

At all the times you can.

To all the people you can.

As long as ever you can.”

My dad used to say, “you gotta do what you gotta do.”

Each of us can do something, and the faith that is within us, that spark of God that has been planted in us, is enough to propel us to do our something wherever and whenever it is needed. Every time. The challenge is to listen to that call, to respond to that nudge, that whisper, that we could help here, and here, and here, and not get sucked into the “other” voice of fear, of anxiety, that voice that says, “my little contribution won’t make a difference” or “why me? what about all those other people?” or “I must hang onto it so it’s available for someone else”. Because God will provide the rest of the story. We can use our faith to trust in that too, and keep on trusting. It may – indeed, it will, be beyond our understanding. God is beyond our understanding. It will be outside the results we see, almost all the time. That’s also where the trust comes in.

When Nike says, “just do it”, perhaps they are being scriptural. Because it involves suspending all those “what ifs” and “I can’ts” and “it doesn’t matter anyways” and calls us to just go and do and keep doing and trust that what needs to come together can and will come together, as long as we keep on keeping on. We can’t stop, we musn’t quit, we have enough faith and gifts and time and ability, and God is faithful and merciful beyond all our greatest contribution and wildest imagination, and so “every morning we will see God’s new work in the world, as we participate in it”.

Detroit video.

Here at NLPC, as a congregation and a community we spent about seven months out of the past year actively working on defining our new story, our new narrative. We expressed who we are, and where God is calling us, what work God is calling us to, in the words of the mission statement you see in your bulletin:

“Assured of the new life we have received in Christ, we will live out our faith together through worship, prayer, education, fellowship, and mission.  Being called to love all people, we will use our gifts to serve God in an imperfect world.  Equipped with our faith and filled with the Spirit, we will:    

• reach out in acceptance to a diverse community;
• embrace the marginalized and show love to all;
• feed the hungry and care for the sick;
• search for peace and work for justice.”

We said what Jesus is saying today, in the words that reflect our mission, here in this place and time.

We will live out our faith together. It’s enough, when it is brought together.

We will use our gifts. Collectively they will provide what God needs to fill in a crack, to shine light through it, to create beauty in the midst of it.”

The world is imperfect. We won’t make it perfect ourselves. God is working for good in every situation; we are only called to help out in whatever way we can, every time we can.

And so, equipped with our faith, we will:

• reach out in acceptance to a diverse community;
• embrace the marginalized and show love to all;
• feed the hungry and care for the sick;
• search for peace and work for justice.”

We have experienced how this works, in the official organized things we do that are on the calendar, like Salvation Army meals, and food baskets, and Red Cross Blood Drives, and making our building available for AA and other support groups; and also in the unofficial everyday things we do, like digging into our pockets and our supplies of food and diapers and whatever we happen to have when someone walks in the door in need; by joining our voices and our five dollar bills to others all over the world to help make an impact on a systemic need that needs to change; by speaking up or stepping up in the school cafeteria or the parking lot when we see someone who is being bullied or who just needs a smile or a friend or someone to eat lunch with; by pulling our varied gifts together to help solve a problem for someone whose situation needs a variety of solutions. All these are the results of the two messages we hear today in the gospel – a mustard seed is enough faith, and keep doing what you can, for the work of God is never done, and we have never done enough.

A mustard seed is enough.

We are never done.

The joyful work of our life is to be neighbors for each other, using our gifts in an imperfect world.

We wrote the mission – and now, today, and every day, it is time to be carrying it out.

We come to the table today, and we receive Christ, in a small piece of bread dipped in juice. And we can trust that it is enough to sustain our faith, to nourish our spirit. Like the mustard seed.

And as God’s children, we are sent out into the world to do God’s will and to continue to do it, every day, all over the world. And always, always, in ways beyond our understanding, God will see it to completion, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.