Who Dares Wins

The scriptures referred to are Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16; Romans 4:13-25 and Mark 8:31-38.

Life is full of risks. And yet for some people that's not enough. So they gamble. They buy lottery tickets, bet on sports or go to a casino. They forget that the odds are always in favor of the House. More people lose money than win money. That's because of statistical probability. There are fewer winning combinations of lottery numbers or numbers on the slot machine or cards or place on the roulette wheel than there are losing combinations. And to keep you losing, casinos give you loyalty cards with incentives to use them. It allows the casino's computers to track your gambling. After a while they learn how much you are willing to lose before you stop. When the computer sees you are approaching your “pain threshold” it alerts the casino. They radio someone on the floor to approach you, and offer you a free drink coupon or a free meal at the restaurant or free tickets to the show with a big name entertainer. They want you to keep playing longer than you ordinarily would, so you will lose more money than you ordinarily would. And casinos are ruthless towards folks who seek to change the odds, whether they are cheaters or simply people who are good enough at doing the math in the heads that they can count cards and bet smartly. Even honest professional gamblers will get banned from casinos if they are too successful. The bottom line is that if the casino likes you, it's because you are a loser. Your losses are their profits.

Unfortunately, we have now based our economy on gambling. It wasn't supposed to work that way. Originally Wall Street was literally a market where entrepreneurs and investors met. If you had a good business idea, backed up by good talent and a willingingness to do good work, you could get financial backing. If your business prospered so did your investors. There was risk but it was reasonable. But people learned to game the system. And now as one financial reporter pointed out, investors treat the stock market as a casino. Investors move their money around like gamblers at roulette putting their chips on red this turn and on black for the next. Nobody is interested in a sound business strategy that's sustainable if it doesn't pay off big and regularly. They just want a huge return on the next quarterly report. That's how we got the Great Recession of 2008. There was a huge amount of money in the US housing market. Subprime mortgages were invented. Banks were giving loans to anyone with a pulse regardless of their ability to pay the loans back. Then it all came crashing down. It even hurt people who hadn't been investing. And suddenly nobody could get a loan. The Federal Reserve Bank had to figure out a way to get banks and businesses to take reasonable and necessary risks.

Even without the artificial risks of gambling, life entails taking risks, whether you are aware of them or not. The fact that you are here on a Sunday morning means you did so despite the fact that the risk of having a heart attack is 40% higher between the hours of 6 am and noon. And, no, this isn't an excuse to skip church. The risk is higher for the first 3 hours you are awake, no matter what time or day it is. It's just that most people wake up in the morning so, statistically, that's the most common time for heart attacks overall.

Most of us drive to church or work or school or the store even though the majority of car accidents occur within 25 miles of home. Living in the sunny Florida Keys gives you a higher risk of skin cancer. And so on. We don't usually change our lives drastically despite these risks. Otherwise we would just stay in bed all the time. Which would increase your risk of poverty, loss of the ability to care for yourself and bedsores. Nothing is totally safe, not even doing nothing.

You have to take some chances just to live. And without risk takers, society stagnates. This country would not exist had not a group of people decided it was worth the risk of breaking away from the biggest, wealthiest superpower of that day to try governing themselves. That's something that had never been done on that scale before. We would not have had a black president had Lincoln not decided it was worth the risk of a civil war to end the near universal institution of slavery. We would not have civil rights for people of color and women had not people like Martin Luther King Jr., Susan B. Anthony and others risked imprisonment and in some cases their lives to win freedom.

Today's lectionary texts are all about how vital risk taking is to our faith. The subject of our Old and New Testament readings is Abraham. At an age when most people would retire he took the risk of relocating from Ur in Mesopotamia, the heart of civilization, to the largely rural land of Canaan. Granted, he did it because God asked him, but would you? Would you leave home to go to an undeveloped country simply because God asked you? We'd like to think so but most of us secretly would like God to tell us to just stay put and don't change anything. But Abraham shows the true meaning of having faith in God by totally turning his life upside down. Why? Immortality, basically.

As we go through the Bible and get more of God's revelation, the picture of the afterlife gets clearer. While in the New Testament we hear of both heaven (paradise) and hell (exile from God), in the Old Testament, the fate of the dead isn't that clearly delineated. All the dead, righteous or wicked, seem to be consigned to the shadowy realm called Sheol. And in the earliest parts of the Bible, people simply hope to live on through their descendants and the remembrance of their name. To Abraham, this last avenue to immortality seems closed as well because he and his wife are too old to have kids. God, however, promises them lots of descendants and changes his name from Abram to Abraham which means “father of multitudes.” Sarai becomes Sarah which means “princess.” Though both of them find the idea of parenthood at this time of life laughable, Abraham comes to trust God's promise. And in a passage 2 chapters before today's reading we are told that God counts this trust in him as righteousness on Abraham's part. (Genesis 15:6)

The fact that Abraham's trust puts him right with God is at the heart of our passage from Romans. The apostle Paul had been a zealous Pharisee, who was devoted to a meticulous observance of the Jewish law. This included not just the 613 commandments found in the Torah, the five books of Moses, but also literally thousands of interpretations and applications of these laws. These could get extremely technical and legalistic. For instance, rabbis argued about whether you could eat an egg laid on the Sabbath or would that be supporting a form of work on the Sabbath. But after he encountered the risen Jesus, Paul came to see that all these legalities got people sidetracked from the essence of what following God should be. Paul realizes that the great ancestor of the faith, Abraham, had a righteous relationship with God hundreds of years before the existence of the Law. His relationship was based on trust. Trust allowed a person to be radically obedient to God and to do things that otherwise seemed unacceptibly risky.

Today's gospel comes immediately after Peter tells Jesus that the disciples think Jesus is the Messiah. Jesus begins to teach the twelve that he must suffer and die. This is so totally contrary to the popular conception of the Messiah that Peter takes it upon himself to correct God's anointed King. He sees no contradiction between saying to Jesus “You're God's chosen one” and “You are wrong about what God wants you to do.” So Jesus makes the contrast between what people expect of their leader and what God expects of his disciples as stark as he can. “If you're going to follow me, you must disown all rights to yourself, shoulder the instrument of your own torture and death and then follow my lead.”

That's crazy, right? Who would respond to such a recruiting speech? Who would take such risks? No one at first. John's gospel tells us that due to another difficult speech of his a great number of Jesus' followers turned away from him. (John 6:66) The twelve desert him at his arrest. (Mark 14:50) They go into hiding and even contemplate returning to fishing. But then the risen Jesus appears to them. He meets with them and eats with them and teaches them how all this was prophesied in scripture. And that changes things. They may have thought Jesus was God's Messiah before. Now they knew he was. That made the risks of following Jesus different. Yes, they might suffer. They might even die as Jesus did. But now they knew that death is not the end, not for those who trust God.

Today we in the West need not worry very much about physical martyrdom. But Jesus' final words in our gospel are prophetic. Are we ashamed of Jesus and his words? Do we fear, not dying for our faith, but living for it in this cynical, “your truth is not my truth” world? Are we willing to stand up against popular opinion when it's wrong? Are we willing to refuse to buy into the entire platform of any political party, left or right, because none of them totally line up with God's standards? Are we willing to both love and disagree with people when certain moral issues call for it? Can we manage to be both righteous and humble?

Returning to our illustration about the risks of investing, historian Niall Ferguson points out that money is based on trust, and financial crises are all about lack of trust. After 2008, nobody believed that anyone was worth what they said they were or that anyone could keep the promises they made. So nobody was giving anybody any credit for anything. It stayed that way until someone started taking the risk of trusting others. And only then was recovery on its way.

The same thing is true of Christianity. People don't trust Christians to be what they say they are: people following in the footsteps of the Jesus that we see in the gospels. And they don't trust us to fulfill the promises Jesus made about how his followers would act: with love and mercy and healing and help. Instead they see a church that plays it safe, a church unwilling to take the risks Jesus did: to reach out to the despised and the discouraged and the diseased and the despairing and to stand up for them against the powerful. People don't expect much from the church these days except disappointment. And in so far as we have not boldly lived out the words of Jesus, we are responsible for that.

The only way to get that trust back is for us to take the risk that Jesus is who he said he was and that his way of demonstrating self-sacrificial love for others is the right one. It means approaching moral questions not as a conservative or as a progressive but as a Christian. It means upholding both holiness and social justice. It means both comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. It means being willing to disown ourselves, take up our crosses, and follow Jesus.

That would be a terrible gamble if the world really were a casino, if it set the odds, if it could really control all the factors so that the House wins and everyone else was a loser. But Jesus changed the odds. Now everyone can win but only if we refuse to play the world's game. Only if we dare to follow Jesus' rules for living. Only if we dare to love God with all we are and all we have. Only if we dare to love each other as Jesus loves us. Only if we dare to trust him. Only if we dare.

Originally preached on March 8, 2009. There has been some updating.

Trials and Temptations

The scriptures referred to are James 1:12-18.

Lent is a time of spiritual self-examination. So, in view of our gospel reading about Jesus' temptation in the wilderness, I thought I'd look at temptation, especially that of the traditional seven deadly sins, as articulated by Pope Gregory 1 in 590 AD.

When mystery writer and lay theologian Dorothy L. Sayers mentioned that there were seven deadly sins, a person with her asked, “What are the other six?” When it comes to temptation, everyone thinks of sex. But sex is not a sin; it is a creation of God. When God tells the man and woman in Genesis chapter 1 to be fruitful and multiply, he is talking about sex. Sex is a gift and not a sin; lust is. Lust is the abuse or misuse of sex. It is having or pursuing sex in the wrong way: when it is inappropriate, when the person you want to have sex with is inappropriate, like a close relative or someone else's spouse, or when the way you want to have sex is inappropriate, like rape or to inflict pain or to assert dominance. Sex is good when it is done as God intended it: with the right person for the right reasons and done in love.

As I've pointed out before, sex is not an individual need. It is, strictly speaking, only a need for the species. Without it, the species dies out. But not every member of the species must have sex. Individuals will not die if they go without sex. Eating, however, is a need for every individual. So how can it become a sin? Through its abuse, misuse or neglect. The average person should take in somewhere between 1000 and 2000 calories a day. Taking in a lot less leads to starvation. Most people who starve do so involuntarily. But some people do it deliberately, like models or movie stars, trying to fit an unrealistic picture of beauty. And many of us eat too much. I can't resist potato chips and will eat an entire bag if left alone with it. We also eat a lot of foods not found in nature, concoctions that are full of what we crave—sugar, salt, fats—and empty of the nutrition we should be getting. In 2012 a 17 year old British girl was rushed to the hospital with anemia, breathing problems and inflamed veins on her tongue. It turns out that ever since she was two all she ever ate were McDonalds chicken nuggets and fries. Doctors had to inject her with vitamins to stabilize her. Gluttony is another of the seven deadly sins. In this girl's case it was almost literally deadly.

Greed is another of the seven deadly sins. Examples of greed are not hard to find. A person I was talking with said that people having a hard time making a living is entirely due to capitalism. But the problem goes all the way back in time, due to the nature of human beings. Just recently I saw a documentary about a grave uncovered by archeologists. It's the wealthiest grave containing the oldest golden artifacts ever found and it dates back to the 4000s BC. It's in Varna, Bulgaria and it's older than the empires of Mesopotamia and Egypt. They found an individual wrapped in clothes with gold ornaments sewn into them, plus gold bracelets, necklaces, a scepter and even a gold penis sheath. This was more gold than found in the rest of the world at that time. And there was no such thing as capitalism back then. Just greed.

To be sure, capitalism has made it so that 10% of the world's adults hold 85% of the world's wealth and half of the world's wealth belongs to the top 1% of the rich. That leaves 15% of the world's wealth divided among the remaining 90% of people in the world. And to make things worse, we have hedge funds, which don't manufacture goods or provide services but just buy up companies and suck out all the money they can, leaving the dry husks behind. That's what happened to Sears, K-Mart, Toys R Us, Payless Shoes, Radio Shack and Sports Authority. And now hedge funds are buying up pharmaceutical companies, so the prices of medicines people need are going up. 80% of the drugs with the fastest-rising prices are owned by companies with a lot of involvement with hedge funds, private equity or venture capital firms. These elite investment groups aren't interested in the research and development of new drugs as much as they are in raising prices of drugs that already exist and are needed by patients. One drug that treats a particularly resistant form of tuberculosis went from $13.50 a tablet to $750 a tablet. There is no reason for this other than greed.

Rage is another of the deadly sins. People who shoot up offices and schools and churches are filled with rage that they take out on others, including those who never even interacted with the shooter before. Death threats sent to politicians have become so common that many need to have security and bodyguards—in a supposedly free society. Women who are public figures and say anything controversial receive not only threats to their life but threats of rape. We cannot politely disagree anymore. We can't agree to disagree. No, if you don't agree with someone 100%, you are considered to have lost your rights to life and liberty. And often the people making the threats do so in the name of the constitution—or of God!

Envy, another deadly sin, is a staple of our media. The lifestyles of the rich and famous are dangled before us as things to pursue. We want what they have. We want to dress and even get surgery so we look like our favorite celebrities. Envy of what others have drives our economy. We are encouraged to buy more and have more. It's not just the ads. Our music is rife with singers rhapsodizing about jets, mansions, Rolex watches, and Lamborghinis. And yet studies show that once we get enough to take care of our needs and our modest desires, more money doesn't make us that much happier. Winning the lottery brings headaches and conflicts with family and friends. Studies show that after a few months the winner's happiness level reverts to what it was before they won. Depression is more common in wealthy countries than in less wealthy ones. Perhaps it is that we are trying to fill the emptiness in our life with material things. And when that doesn't work, we are tempted to do it by getting more stuff.

Today a lot of people want to be celebrities but they don't want to spend years learning to play an instrument, or working their way up from being an actor doing a dog food commercial to being a movie star, or toiling away at inventing something people want. They just want to go onto social media and be an influencer. Because it seems to be less work. That's laziness, another of the deadly sins. Elizabeth Holmes came up with a great idea: invent a machine that can test for 200 different diseases using just a drop of blood. But she didn't want to finish college or spend a decade or more trying to work out just how to do it. So she created a company called Theranos, that announced it could do what she promised. Meanwhile her employees couldn't get the prototype to work and had to fake the results to convince investors to give her billions of dollars for what was still simply a dream. She made a deal with Walgreens to put the machine in their stores but patients got the wrong diagnoses, endangering their lives. It all came crashing down, of course. But she wasn't willing to do the hard work of first inventing a method that worked and only then marketing it. Lasting achievements are not the result of laziness.

The final and worst of the deadly sins is arrogance. The old word for this was pride but this is really about thinking you know better and are better than others. And that is often the gateway to the other sins. The story in Genesis 3 is a paradigm of temptation. It starts with doubts about God's motivation and goodness. The tempter tells the first humans, “You certainly will not die, for God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good from evil.” (Genesis 3:4-5) The next verse is all about how we rationalize doing the wrong thing: it looks good; it feels good; the end result is desirable. They thought they knew better than God what was the right thing to do. Thinking we are smarter than God has always been at the root of our problems. We want to do something we know we shouldn't and we tell ourselves, “Just this once won't hurt.” Or knowing that doing the same thing did not work out well for others, we say, “Well, that won't happen to me.” And then we find out we are not the exception to the rule.

James makes an excellent point about temptation. He says that temptation doesn't come from God; it comes from our own desires. We often have a problem distinguishing between needs and desires. You need food; you desire sweets. You need shelter from the elements; you desire a million dollar mansion. You need love; you desire a sexy celebrity. You need some control over the vital aspects of your life; you desire absolute power over other people.

Not all desires are bad. It's okay to desire that things be better than they are, especially when you are not in a good place. It's okay to desire better and more nutritious food, or a home that doesn't leak, or a spouse who is helpful and not harmful, or to not be living paycheck to paycheck. But our desires can get away from us. Notice that the seven deadly sins are desires for things like forbidden sex, for piles of money, for what others have, for others to feel your pain, for more of what tastes or feels good than is good for you, for getting rewards without effort or for total independence from God because you know better than he does.

James warns us that when our desires get out of control, they can give birth to sin. And a little later in his letter he explains how. “What causes the conflicts and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle inside you? You desire but you do not have, so you kill. You envy what someone else has and you cannot obtain it, so you quarrel and fight.” (James 4:1-2, my translation) Actually the Greek word translated “fight” literally means “to make war.” Aren't most wars about one side wanting something the other side has? Nations fight over territory, resources, power over other people or all three. Putin says he invaded Ukraine to fight neo-Nazis. The fact that Ukraine has ports that Russia wants, and that it is a major producer of wheat, and that it is the flat plain through which everyone from Napoleon to Hitler has invaded Russia so that Ukraine joining NATO makes Putin even more paranoid, has absolutely nothing to do with it. Or so he says.

James is right. People who are content with what they have rarely have internal conflicts nor do they get into conflicts with others. Among the fruit of the Spirit Paul lists peace, or well-being. (Galatians 5:22) The Greek word means “tied together into a whole.” If you feel that all the essentials in your life have come together, you have a sense of wholeness and peace.

The Swedish have a word for it. It is lagom and it means “not too much, not too little but just enough.” This is a common theme in Swedish culture. Which is why they have striven to balance out capitalism with high taxes that fund social programs that cover everyone. It's why Sweden is consistently ranked in the top 10 countries with the highest levels of satisfaction. It's not perfect however. An economic downturn in the 90s led the country to slash taxes as well as spending on social services. This has led to more income inequality and violence. So the country is trying to regain their sense of lagom.

Getting everything you desire does not ultimately make you happy. Having a lot of stuff does not give your life meaning or a greater purpose, two things that are associated with happiness. Paul put it this way: “For to me living is Christ...” (Philippians 1:21) He knew he was part of something bigger than himself. He was bringing people the good news that God loves them and that he demonstrated his love through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Unlike the pagan gods, the God revealed in Jesus cares about human beings—Jews and Gentiles, men and women, slaves and free people. Unlike the pagan gods, the God who is love is moral and cares about how we treat one another. He is just and merciful, giving and forgiving. He created us in his image and expects us to live up to that. He adopts us as his children and through his Spirit helps us to become more like his son, Jesus. Paul knew that even when he was gone the good news would continue to spread and bring people together. That gave him joy.

James says, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights...” God doesn't expect us to ignore the gifts he gives us. Paul says that God “richly provides us with all things for our enjoyment.” (1 Timothy 6:17) But we are not to hog them or hoard them. We are to pass them on. Studies have shown that getting something for someone else brings us more happiness than getting stuff for ourselves. As Jesus said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” (Acts 20:35)

One person who seems to have gotten this message is J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books. She went from being a single mother on welfare to the first author to be worth $1 billion. She was richer than the Queen of England. Then she dropped down to a mere millionaire after giving $160 million to create and fund charities for medical causes and for at-risk mothers and children. She said, “I think you have a moral responsibility when you've been given far more than you need to do wise things with it and give intelligently.” She identifies as a Christian and belongs to the Scottish Episcopal Church.

Now why am I talking about the rich in a setting where most of us definitely aren't? Because compared to most of the world, we are. The only countries that rank higher than the US in per capita purchasing power have much smaller populations with which to share that wealth. So while we are the 7^th richest country by that measure we are the only large country in the list of top ten richest nations. There are more than 220 countries below us. And on average we live better than the kings of the past. They had jesters and singers and storytellers. We have access to thousands of TV shows, movies, videos, albums, and books in a little device we carry in our pockets. They had to move out of their city palaces in summer when it was hot. We have A/C. They needed stables of horses and people to feed and take care of them and their chariots or carriages. We have cars, usually with cruise control, as well as A/C and sound systems. And we can fly; they couldn't. Their beds were stuffed with reeds, hay, wool or feathers. We have soft, cushioned mattresses with pillow tops or even sleep numbers.

We take these things for granted. And we don't share them readily with those who don't have these advantages. The average American rents a home but more than 650,000 Americans are homeless. The average American eats 1000 to 2000 calories a day but 44 million Americans, including 1 in 5 children, face hunger. The average American has some form of health insurance but 26 million Americans are uninsured. Most health insurance policies have limited coverage for mental illness, even though around 20% of adults experience a mental illness in any given year and 10 million have a serious mental illness. 48.7 million people aged 12 or older have a substance use disorder, including 29.5 million with an alcohol use disorder. Yet only 6% receive treatment. 94% go untreated.

We say we are a Christian country but we are more focused on what we want other people to do or not do rather than what other people do not have. We have succumbed to the temptation of complacency and self-righteousness. Jesus scolded the Pharisees for paying way too much attention to little matters “yet you neglect what is more important in the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness....” (Matthew 23:23) Jesus said that he would judge us for how we treat the hungry, the thirsty, the poor, the sick, the imprisoned and the immigrant. He says that how we treat them is how we treat him. (Matthew 25:31-46)

Desires are all about ourselves. So one of the best ways to fight temptation is to get our minds off ourselves and think of other people. Instead of buying junk food for yourself, buy some extra cans of good food and give it to your local food bank. Instead of seeking out someone for a one night stand, call your grandmother or your mom or a friend you haven't talked to for a while and enjoy connecting to a whole person who actually cares about you. Instead of buying the latest unnecessary gadget or collectible on Amazon, go to Charity Navigator and look up organizations that help people and donate. Instead of soaking up the outrage of someone on TV or the internet, join an organization that makes things better like Habitat for Humanity or a disaster relief organization. Every major denomination has one. Instead of wasting your life playing video games for hours, unlock some real achievements like volunteering to read to the blind or driving people to doctor's appointments. Instead of basking in your superiority to others, read the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) or 1 Corinthians 13 or the book of Proverbs and see how you measure up to those standards.

The Greek word for temptations also means tests or trials. It is often when we undergo trials that we get tempted to abandon God's ways and do what we want. But Paul says, “No trial has seized you except what is common to humans. And God is faithful. He will not allow you to be tested beyond your ability, but he will provide along with the temptation a way to escape so that you can endure it.” (1 Corinthians 10:13) This does not mean that you will not undergo trials that are more than you can deal with using only your own strength. But with the power of his Spirit within you and the gracious gifts he provides and the people he puts in your life who support you, you can overcome them. It takes persistence and patience and trust in him. But as Paul said of the trials that must have tempted him to give up, “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will trouble or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?...No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, not depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8: 35, 37-39)

Listen

The scriptures referred to are 1 Kings 19:9-18,2 Peter 1:16-31, and Mark 9:2-9.

You know the one character who appears in all 4 Monty Python movies and in the opening of their TV show? I'm not talking about the 5 writers and one animator who played almost all the parts.They always played different characters—except this one. It was God. He was usually a cartoon and sometimes just a foot that would descend from the heavens to squash something. In one sketch, a family is disgusted by finding dead bishops on their doorstep every day so they call the church police. The officers are dressed like English Bobbies but with crosses atop their helmets. Led by a detective who wears a priest's stole, they first ascertain the bishop's diocese (it's tattooed on the back of their necks) and then pray that God will reveal the murderer. A gigantic hand comes down and points to the culprit. As he is hauled away, the detective leads the family in a hymn.

Wouldn't it be great if God worked that way? If he always popped up the minute someone sinned, told them they were wrong and made them repent right then and there. Or, if someone was particularly bad, if he just zapped them with a lightning bolt or squashed them flat with a big foot? Wouldn't that be wonderful?

I don't think so either. Putting aside the whole issue of having to pick your way through streets clogged with folks who were either crispy or crepes, it would be very hard to function if God visibly and verbally intervened at every infraction, however minor. It would be as if your parents followed you everywhere. Apart from being annoying, it would lead to the world's population being afraid to do anything for fear of getting it wrong. People would flee from God like cockroaches flee from a light. It would even lead some people to choose open rebellion against God. We see this often in “preacher's kids.” Some of my colleagues were PKs and admit to deliberately cultivating a bad boy attitude as an overcompensation for the constant pressure to not only behave but be perfect.

God doesn't want robots. He wants people who obey him out of love. Maybe that's why God set up the world so that our every sin doesn't result in immediate pain or suffering. He gives us a margin of grace in most things. We have time to repent and change our ways. But if we continue doing the same sins over and over, the physical, social, emotional and spiritual damage will accumulate.

Still wouldn't it be nice if God talked to the world audibly sometimes? The Israelites didn't think so. At Mount Sinai, the God who took them out of slavery in Egypt spoke to all the people. And they asked Moses if, from now on, he would act as a go-between. Just as they thought that seeing God face to face meant death, hearing the creator of everything address them was a profoundly unnerving experience. (Exodus 20:19)

So from that point on, we see God speaking to and through his prophets. Even so, they were freaked out by these encounters. Isaiah was acutely aware of his extreme lack of holiness in God's presence. (Isaiah 6:5) Words fail to coherently describe what Ezekiel saw. (Ezekiel 1) Jeremiah stammered that he was too young. (Jeremiah 1:6) Maybe that's why God speaks so softly to Elijah in 1 Kings 19. Elijah is fresh from his triumph of exposing the false prophets of Baal for what they were and destroying them. But he fled from the threatened backlash for that to the mountain of God and now is depleted and depressed. He thinks he's the last prophet left in Israel. Standing at the mouth of a cave, Elijah sees quite a spectacle. A wind comes up suddenly, cleaving mountains and blasting rocks into powder. But the Lord was not in the wind, we are told. After that, the earth shivered as if in fear. But the Lord was not in the earthquake. After that, flames engulfed the view. But the Lord was not in the fire. Finally after all that, Elijah hears a “still small voice.” Some translate this as “a gentle whisper.” The new RSV renders it “a sound of sheer silence.” Whichever you prefer, God realizes that he needn't shout to get his point across. The content speaks for itself. Elijah hears that he is not alone, not by a long shot, and that God has a plan to depose the corrupt regime that rules Israel. Furthermore, there is work for Elijah to do to kick it all off. Encouraged, Elijah is ready to fight again.

The point is that Elijah waited to hear what God had to say. Which is more than we can say for Peter in today's reading. Just a week earlier, Jesus asked them who they thought he was. Peter says, “You are the Christ.” And after congratulating Peter on his heaven-sent insight, Jesus starts talking about how he will soon be tortured and killed. Peter reprimands Jesus for saying such things and Jesus rebukes Peter for for not letting him be the kind of Messiah he was sent to be. Peter is hurt and confused. All he wants for Jesus is the best. So why was he called Satan for suggesting that Jesus is frightening the troops with all this death talk? (Mark 8:27-33)

Probably still upset by Jesus' teachings about what will happen to him, the inner circle of Peter, James and John accompany Jesus up another mountain. And then it all changes. Jesus' clothes look blindingly white. Moses, the lawgiver supreme, and Elijah, the paragon of prophets, are talking to Jesus. This doesn't happen every day, not even to Jesus. Frightened out of his wits, Peter starts babbling about camping out with these two heroes of the faith. That's when the cloud covers them and God tells them, “This is my son, the beloved. Listen to him!”

There's a lot that's important in this passage but for our purposes I want to focus on what God tells the disciples: “This is my son, the beloved. Listen to him!” A lot of problems in our lives could be avoided if we simply did what God says here—listen to Jesus.

After the success of the first film, an interviewer asked the Pythons what their next movie would be. Eric Idle quipped, “Jesus Christ: Lust for Glory.” Everyone thought they were just joking but they were seriously thinking of doing a religious satire. Then they studied the life and words of Jesus. They were struck by how wise and good he was and they didn't want to make fun of him. But they were inspired to make fun of the ways people blindly follow and distort religious and political ideologies. The Life of Brian is about a guy born in the manger next door to Jesus. All his life Brian keeps getting mistaken for the Messiah. The joke is that Brian doesn't want to be worshipped or have followers but can't shake his fervent disciples who zealously and wrongly interpret everything he says and does. People do this with Jesus too. One scene puts us on the fringes of the crowd listening to the Sermon on the Mount. They are so far away from Jesus that they can't quite make out what he's saying. “What did he say?” asks one fellow. “Blessed is the Greek,” another says. “Really?” the first guy says, “Which one?”

This reminds me of when Barbara Brown Taylor related the story of a poetry reading by W.H. Auden. The poet spoke so softly that not everyone could hear him. So other people tried helpfully to relay what they thought he was saying. Eventually the people trying to pass on what he said got so loud that no one could hear the poet himself!

We tend to get that in churches. So many people are speaking for Jesus that nobody can actually hear what he says. And sometimes people deliberately misquote Jesus. There are times when we look at what he said and go, “Oh, he couldn't have meant that!” And so we issue corrections like a White House press secretary trying to walk back what a president said. I actually heard a pastor say of a difficult passage, “Jesus couldn't have said that. Or if he did, he was wrong.” That's what Peter did when Jesus made the disturbing statement that he was going to die like a criminal. Just after telling Jesus he was God's anointed king, Peter immediately informed Jesus that he knew less about his role as Messiah than Peter did. That's why Jesus rebuked him. “You are not thinking as God does but as human beings think.” We get nothing out of the hard sayings in the Bible if we dismiss them. Instead we should grapple with them, like Jacob wrestling with the angel who declared, “I will not let you go until you bless me.” (Genesis 32:26)

Sometimes we blather on like Peter at the transfiguration. We find ourselves in an unfamiliar situation and we neglect to simply get quiet and listen to Jesus. The silence can be frightening at times. We don't want to wait it out. We want someone to please say something. And so we fill it with the first thing that comes out of our mouth.

But there are times when talking is unnecessary or even wrong. Like when a friend is dealing with the loss of a loved one. We may be tempted to say something like, “It was God's will.” Or “You mustn't feel sad. He's in God's hands.” The point isn't whether what you say is right or not. The point is your job may be to just shut up and listen. Let God speak to the person through your presence and love. The best thing Job's comforters do is just sit with him silently for the first week. It's when they open up their mouths and try to justify God letting this tragedy hit Job that they get into trouble. (Job 2:13; 42:7)

In 2 Peter, the writer says, “We did not follow cleverly devised myths.” (2 Peter 1:16) When people deliberately concoct myths they usually make them comforting. They tell us what we want to hear. They don't usually challenge us. That's why new religious fads don't tell people they are sinners, and why they tell them that they are automatically going to heaven. They don't usually tell people they must make painful changes in their lifestyles or habits. They will never say that the world is violently out of balance and we must put all our weight on the side of peace and forgiveness and self-sacrifice to put it right again. Most New Age gurus bless the status quo or attack some easy target like an abstract quality of society. “Stop being so materialistic! And buy my books, videos and merch!” The popular ones never say, “...love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you...” (Matthew 5:44) Or “But whoever strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other to him as well.” (Matthew 5:39) Or “If you want to come after me, you must deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me.” (Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23; Matthew 16:24)

That's precisely the sort of thing you will hear if you listen to Jesus. If we stop our babbling, stop our commentary, stop our excuses, and simply quiet ourselves, we will eventually hear in the sheer silence the still small voice of our Lord. And though there may not be any whirlwinds or earthquakes or fires, what that gentle whisper imparts to us will blow away and shatter our preconceptions, shake the foundations of our world, and burn within us like a fire in our hearts. (Luke 24:32) Eventually even Peter learned this. When Jesus lost a lot of followers with a difficult speech about eating his flesh and drinking his blood, he turned to the twelve disciples and said, “You don't want to go away too, do you?” And Peter said, “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words of eternal life.” (John 6:67-68)

This was originally preached on February 26, 2006. It has been updated a bit.

When There Is No Healing

I once had a patient with A.L.S., better known as Lou Gehrig's disease, though today the most famous person who had it was physicist Stephen Hawking. The nerves controlling the muscles deteriorate within the brain and spinal cord. The person gradually loses control, first of his limbs and finally of the ability to swallow and to breathe. My patient was confined to her wheelchair. She was still able to use her hands but had no strength in her stick-thin arms. She could never get comfortable in her chair even with her gel cushion seat. So she was always asking to be lifted and shifted a bit. After doing so for the umpteenth time, her husband often lost his temper and yelled at her in frustration, leaving her in tears. Then he would apologize and kiss and adjust her. The nursing agency I worked for was concerned about the potential for physical abuse but I never saw any. What I saw was a man who loved his wife enough to stay and take care of her. They had two grown sons in the neighborhood but they never came over to give their father a break. Her husband was flawed but he was there. Many men leave their lovers, spouses, and even their children if they are suffering from a chronic illness. Guys like things they can fix. They don't do well when it comes to coping with a persistent health problem. On the Facebook ME/CFS page many women are grateful for husbands and partners who stay and do so much for them when they can do so little.

In today's gospel reading (Mark 1:29-39) Jesus makes healing look easy. Peter's mother-in-law has a high fever. Jesus takes her hand and helps her to her feet. She is not only cured but well enough to wait on the disciples. Compare this to the prophet Elisha trying to resurrect a child in 2 Kings 4:8-37. It's hard work for him. There's almost an improvisational quality to his efforts. He even gets up and paces as if thinking of what to do next. But eventually the child is revived.

We think, “Well, sure, it was easy for Jesus. He's the Son of God.” But it wasn't always easy. A little later in his gospel, Mark tells us of Jesus healing a blind man. He spits on the man's eyes and lays hands on him. When Jesus asks the man if he can see anything, he replies that he sees people but they look like trees walking around. So Jesus puts his hands on the man again and he sees clearly. (Mark 8:22-26) Out of the 23 healings spotlighted in the gospels, at least one did not happen immediately.

Well, there is another story where Jesus' healing of someone was delayed. When he is confronted by the possessed man living in the tombs, the demons ask Jesus not to torture them. They say this, Mark tells us, because “Jesus had said to him, 'Come out of this man, you evil spirit!'” When it doesn't come out immediately, Jesus asks its name. The chilling reply is, “My name is legion for we are many.” Then the demons plead with Jesus again. Finally he sends them into a nearby herd of pigs, who suddenly drown themselves. (Mark 5:1-20) Whether you accept that the man was demon possessed or mentally ill, it took a while for Jesus to heal him.

Mark tells us that the situation was even worse when Jesus visited his hometown of Nazareth. The people he grew up among were skeptical. Mark says, “He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them.” (Mark 6:5) That's quite a contrast with Capernaum, Peter's town and eventually Jesus' new homebase. Mark says that the whole city came to Peter's door. Even so it says Jesus healed “many.” (Mark 1:33-34) It doesn't say Jesus healed all. What would prevent the Son of God from healing?

In Nazareth, it was unbelief. Mark says, “And he was amazed at their lack of faith.” (Mark 6:6) Often when someone is healed, Jesus says that their faith made them whole. And he meant their faith or trust in him or in God working through him. The best doctor in the world can't cure a patient who doesn't trust him and let him work. So, too, God cannot work on us if we hold back and will not work with him. It is not that faith is magical; it's that trust is the foundation of a healthy and healing relationship. God is love and love doesn't force itself on anyone. We must open the door to God, all the doors to all the areas of our lives, if we wish his grace to flood in. A flower kept locked away from light will never bloom but will wither and die. Lack of faith can block healing.

But that faith need not be completely without doubt. When a man whose son has seizures asks Jesus to heal him “if you can,” Jesus says that everything is possible for the person who believes. “Immediately the boy's father exclaims, 'I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!'” (Mark 9:24) We often find ourselves in that position. We do trust in God but we still have doubts. We wish to be wholehearted believers but we have trouble doing so. So are we doomed to failure? Not necessarily. Jesus does heal the man's son. The key is that the man is honest about his struggle with doubts but he is open to change. He wishes to increase his faith and that's enough for Jesus to work with.

Notice that it is not the boy's faith but the father's faith that is in question. Only in 1/3 of the recorded healings of Jesus is the patient's faith mentioned. Jesus often heals people through the faith of their friends, family or even bosses. When some men tear the tiles off of Peter's roof so that they can lower their paralyzed friend to Jesus, Christ looks at their faith and forgives the man, healing him. (Mark 2:5) We are not told of the man's faith, only of that of his resourceful friends. That provides the channel for Jesus to work.

So does that mean that sick people who don't get well either don't have enough faith or enough friends? No. It's not the amount of faith that's crucial, but its presence, as we saw with the father of the sick boy. Jesus said that all you need is a mustard seed's worth of faith to move mountains. (Matthew 17:20) God can work miracles if given the smallest opening.

Still, it is obvious that not all believers are healed. In his second letter to the Corinthian church, Paul talks about a “thorn in the flesh” that bothers him. Commentators throughout the ages have speculated as to what it was. Some have guessed that it was his adversaries, or sexual temptation or a speech impediment. But many feel it was an illness. It may have been malaria or epilepsy or some eye disease. Paul does mention that he was ill when he preached to the Galatians and he says that the Galatians would have torn out their eyes and given them to him if they could. (Galatians 4:13-15) We also know he dictated his letters (Romans 16:22) and when he signs them he uses big letters, as if he can't see well. (Galatians 6:11) But whatever that thorn in the flesh was, Paul prayed three times that it be taken away. But it wasn't, and not due to lack of faith.

The reply Paul gets from God is “My grace is enough for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Now Paul has characterized his thorn as a messenger from Satan that torments him. It is evil and yet God allows it. Why? According to Paul, it keeps him from being arrogant. He realizes that the gospel's success is not based on his charisma but on Christ's power working through him. (2 Corinthians 12:7-9)

So God makes us suffer so we won't be proud? No. Remember that Paul did not think his problem came from God but from Satan. But God can use what is evil for our own good. Now I would never tell someone that God was using their illness or misfortune for their good. But many people suffering from illness or misfortune do discover that some good can come out of it. Illness can remind us of our mortality, of how precious life is, of how we are not rulers of the universe but part of it and subject to its physical limitations.

Richard Pryor had a horrendous childhood. The son of a prostitute, he was raised by his grandmother who ran a brothel. When he became a successful comic, he used his money to fuel an unbelievable drug habit. He was severely burned free-basing cocaine and nevertheless returned to drug abuse. Even a series of heart attacks did not cause him to curb his self-destructive lifestyle. Then he got multiple sclerosis. Thereafter he used his time to get to know his many children from his many marriages and liaisons. Again, I would not tell him that God did this to him. As we said, disease is considered an evil in the Bible. But Richard himself said that M.S. was God's way of saving his life. C.S. Lewis once said that pain is God's megaphone to get the attention of a world that has become deaf to his voice. Pain shatters the illusion that all is well with us and that we are the masters of our fate.

The fact is that sometimes the answer to our prayers for healing is “No.” And we do not always know why. But that doesn't mean that God is angry with us or has abandoned us. Jesus rejected the idea that disease or disabilities or disasters are always due to sin. (John 9:3; Luke 13:4-5) To be sure, some physical problems are the result of injuries we do to ourselves but not all.

Not only can the sufferer often find meaning in his weakness, but so can his family and friends. Illness can bring out the best or the worst in the sufferer's circle. As I said, some leave. Some exploit the sick, taking financial advantage of the elderly. In the bizarre syndrome called Munchausen's By Proxy, a parent will deliberately make her healthy child sick in order to get the attention and good will and financial gifts of others.

But illness can also bring out nobility, self-sacrifice, tenderness and ingenuity in caregivers. It can bring people together. An illness in a family can make it more closely knit. But not if they blame themselves or each other or the victim. The key to making something good out of illness or disability is to first exorcise blame and guilt. See it as Jesus did, as an opportunity to glorify the God who is love.

For the caregiver, that can mean giving comfort and help. Make a meal, do some chores, give medicine, give a bath. For the caregiver's friends, it can mean showing practical compassion. Give the caregiver a break, do the shopping, babysit, do their taxes, give them rides to the doctor, or raise money for a cure.

For the sufferer, glorifying God can mean transcending their problem. Offer it to God, work around it, minister to others who suffer. Just his week my Google alert turned up a news story about a woman with ME/CFS who, though bed-ridden for decades, started and runs a charity called Rest Assured, that organizes food deliveries, support and comfort for other people who have her condition or fibromyalgia. A misery shared can be a weight cut in half. Often someone who has endured a certain pain or sorrow can help others in the same situation more effectively than someone who's healthy.

We are to pray for our healing and that of others. But when healing does not come, it is our opportunity to show that our prayers are not merely words. It costs us but a little time to pray for someone to be healed. When they aren't, then we must show if we really mean what we say and care for the person's wellbeing. Are we willing to give up more time and some labor or some emotional support and perhaps spend some money to help that person?

And if I pray for personal healing and my problem remains, do I abandon God? Do I show that my faith is superficial and that I am only into God for what I can get out of him? How would we feel about someone who only sticks with us when things are going well and dumps us when things get tough and don't go their way?

Prayer is more than words. It is an expression of our desires and values to God. What we do is as much a form of prayer as what we say. Perhaps more so.

Finally, we must remember that our faith in God is not limited to this lifetime. If it were, as Paul says, we are all the more pitiful. (1 Corinthians 15:19) In this life, in this world, fractured and contaminated by the misuse, abuse and neglect of God's creations and creatures, we are going to have suffering. No one is exempt. Not even Jesus. (Isaiah 53:5; Matthew 8:17) But our hope is in the kingdom of God, which now is a seed but which will bloom into glorious flower in the life beyond this life. In his kingdom, God's will is done and his will is that we be made whole, morally, spiritually and physically. (Revelation 21:4)

Disease and disability are not signs of God's displeasure with us, just as the apparent wellbeing of some people is no sign that he favors them. He sends the sun and rain on everyone, good or bad. (Matthew 5:45) God loves us regardless of our condition. And we must trust that what he does is ultimately for our lasting benefit. A baby doesn't understand why her mother holds her down while the doctor stabs her with needles. To the infant this seems like a betrayal and an unwarranted infliction of pain. But later, when a virulent germ attacks her, she will be immune to its worst effects. Throughout history, anywhere from a quarter to half of all children used to die before their fifth birthday. The single greatest reason that life expectancy has increased is because of vaccinations. When I was a kid, the scar left by the smallpox and TB vaccinations were a sign of our parents' love for us. But try telling that to a baby screaming in pain from the doctor jabbing them with needles in their softer parts.

We are but infants in understanding God's ways. But based on what he has done for us in the past, based on the suffering he has endured for us, we can trust that our wounds, like the ones he chose not to heal on his own hands, feet and side, are signs of his love.

This was preached on February 9, 2003. It has been updated a bit.