John 8:31-36

Then Jesus said, to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you continue in my word you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” They said to him, “We are descendants of Abraham, and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, ‘you will be made free?’”

Jesus answered them, “Very truly I tell you, anyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave has no permanent place in the household; the Son has a place there forever. So, if the Son makes you free, you will be free, indeed.”

We can’t deny that it’s hard to be human these days, right? I can make lemonade out of lemons with the best of them, but life on the planet – and in our little neck of the woods, even – is daunting, more often than not, it seems to me. Maybe that’s nothing new under the sun. Maybe I watch too much 24-hour news. I don’t know. But with Reformation on the horizon – the perennial message for which, in my opinion, is simply “grace upon grace upon grace upon grace.” So I’ve been keeping my eyes open for examples of grace lately that stand up, over and against, the hard stuff, and the ways of the world, that seem to win too much of the time.

A few weeks ago, Pastor Cogan had someone, out there in the world, question the fact that we give Needler’s grocery store gift cards to our food pantry clients. That’s not exactly something new under the sun, either. It’s happened before. People know – and have noticed – that sometimes our food pantry clients by pop or cookies or beer with the gift cards we give them, along with the other food we share. They wonder if that’s a good idea… if we should police that somehow… if it’s a waste to give gift cards to people if they’re going to buy anything other than fruits and vegetables, meat, cheese, or milk, I guess … if we should stop the practice of gift cards altogether.

I think it’s an expression of grace … a small act of generosity with no strings attached. Sometimes a person wants pop, or a cookie, or a beer … and the gift of dignity to make that decision is good news and grace, plain and simple, especially when someone suggests they aren’t worthy of it. Grace, upon grace, upon grace.

Last week I had a mother of three call for help with a few nights’ stay at the an extended stay hotel in Greenwood. At least one of her three kids was sick, she had just gotten a new job, but her first paycheck hadn’t come yet. She couldn’t move into her new apartment until the first of the month. She claimed to have called “every church in Greenwood.” And so on and so on…

I’ve heard all of that before. Whether she had actually called EVERY church in Greenwood, I don’t know, but she had surely given the same spiel to enough people that it rolled off her tongue with as much ease and detail as there was apology and desperation in her voice. There are times when I don’t oblige. And I could have been a sucker on Thursday, but I believed her and was able to get her and those kids a couple more nights of safety and sleep thanks to the gracious abundance of our Pastors’ Discretionary fund. Grace, upon grace, upon grace.

And, I heard an interview with the father of one of the victims shot and killed at that bar in Maine, on Wednesday. Through tears and choking on his words, he expressed an unfathomable amount of compassion and understanding for the stranger who killed his child, so violently and thoughtlessly, just days before.

This father said, he believed that, if the shooter had been in his right mind, he would have been a loving person, but that something went wrong. He was sure this man wasn’t born to be a killer and that he was sorry for whatever happened to make him that way. And, even though he had killed his son, he couldn’t hate him for that. He said he believed in the Lord and that he believed the Lord would prevail in the end. Grace, upon grace, upon grace, upon grace.

And because of this man’s words of compassion and understanding and mercy, it seems to me, that the Lord – and the grace of God we’re here to celebrate today – has already won, as hard as that can be to see sometimes. And not just as some high-minded theological concept, or cosmically, somehow, at the end of time, as our faith promises us: that God’s love is greater than this sort of hate; that life wins over death; that light shines in the darkness, and all the rest.

But I mean, that man reminded me that the Lord has won – and wins – here and now, all of the time if we allow it. Whenever someone can muster some measure of grace and kindness and humble compassion in the face of the horrible, ugly, terrifying sinfulness that seems to surround us, God wins. When a person can choose mercy and hope in the throes of such grief, God’s way has won. When a man can choose patience and understanding and empathy instead of all justification for judgement, vengeance and rage, God’s kind of grace and good news has – absolutely – won.

See, we can theologize all we want on Reformation Sunday. We can sing the praises of Martin Luther’s life and work and ministry… about the changes his theological insights meant for God’s church in the world … stuff like grace alone, faith alone, Word alone, the priesthood of all believers, and all the rest.

But, in all of that, Luther was pointing us, plainly and simply toward Jesus and to the kind of grace and good news his life, death and resurrection experienced, expressed and extolled for all people.

I also heard an interview with Jeffrey Myers, the Rabbi and Cantor from the Tree of Life Synagogue, in Pennsylvania, which was the site of that hate-filled, horrible shooting and massacre, where 11 people were killed five years ago, this Friday. He was sharing his perspective about the persistence of anti-Semitism in our country in light of the war between Israel and Hamas, overseas. He was talking about how there are still members of his congregation who haven’t been able to return to worship or feel safe in the world, generally, because of the fear and trauma they suffered that day, and because of the continued attacks and threats against the Jewish community in our country still.

When asked something about if, when, or how this might change, or if he had any hope for that change to come, Rabbi Myers said something about his hope that what he called the “silent majority” would become a “vocal majority” and start speaking up and speaking out and speaking more loudly than the voices of hate and discrimination and fear that dominate too much of our public life and discourse.

And that’s my reformation hope this time around. That something will change and be stirred up in Christians like us and in congregations like ours, who claim – like Jesus did – that God’s grace is the way to freedom; that to be loved by the Son – as he says this morning – is to be made free in spite of ourselves and in spite of our sins.

I think we are called, as people of God in this broken, hurting, sad and scary world, to lay claim to the gift of God’s grace – with no strings attached – and to be the vocal majority, Rabbi Myers is hoping for: to proclaim and practice this grace and good news in ways that are extravagant, surprising, and foolish, even, by the standards and expectations of the world around us.

I think we are called to be as aggressively gracious with the kind of mercy, forgiveness and love, we proclaim and long for, as those who proclaim, long for, and practice the opposite. And I think when we have the faith, courage, generosity and hope to put that kind of grace into action, God wins, here and now … and so will we and the rest of God’s children, just the same.

Amen

Matthew 9:9-14, 18-25

As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax-collection station, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him. And as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with Jesus and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” But when Jesus heard this, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous but sinners.”

While he was saying these things to them, suddenly a leader came in and knelt before him, saying, “My daughter has just died, but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live.” And Jesus got up and followed him, with his disciples. Then suddenly a woman who had been suffering from a flow of blood for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak, for she was saying to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well.” Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And the woman was made well from that moment. When Jesus came to the leader’s house and saw the flute players and the crowd making a commotion, he said, “Go away, for the girl is not dead but sleeping.” And they laughed at him. But when the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took her by the hand, and the girl got up. And the report of this spread through all of that district.

I don’t know about you, but it seemed someone in my household was sick every other week this past winter and even early spring. And I don’t know if you know this but Katelyn informed me that being pregnant and sick was a lot of fun, but I can assure you having a newborn who is sick and also being sick yourself is the most fun! We weren’t alone in this, anecdotally from family and friends we heard it was a rough winter and numerous headlines stated the same thing.

After the third one, we were over the colds but not sure what else we could do. We were doing the things we should, washing hands often, trying to not be around others who are sick, but the colds just kept coming. One morning, there appeared a plethora of immune strengthening supplements on the bathroom counter: half the alphabet in vitamins, zinc, and then one I had never heard before, a bottle of Elderberry gummies. I called out to Katelyn, “what’s this?” showing her the bottle. She said “just take it, it had great reviews on amazon”.

I thought to myself, is the nurse practitioner now trusting Amazon reviews for my health?!

She wasn’t, she had done the research and knew that elderberry may help with colds or strengthen the immune system, but research also shows that it may not do much of anything. Yet, it was the act of doing something, of taking something, that might have an effect, that might make us feel better, that we were after, even if it was a facade of wellness.

There are tons of products like elderberry gummies, which skyrocketed in popularity and sales since COVID; things that we think or are told will make us healthy, but often they can’t make good on the promises they’ve made. Just last month, I read an article on superfood powders and if they really help. At the end of the article, Dr. Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition at New York University said “You want to take them, take them, but it’s not going to solve nutritional problems.”

Now I promise, I am not knocking these things. I have taken the greens and you better believe I still ate my elderberry gummy this morning. But the problem with these things is that they seem like a quick fix to deeper nutritional or lifestyle problems. With excellent marketing, but no real science and studies, these products can make us think we’re healthy or well when really we aren’t. Obviously, being sick or having an illness or disease can be dangerous; but what’s most dangerous is being sick or unwell and thinking everything is fine.

“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick” Jesus said as he was eating dinner with tax collectors and sinners. The Pharisees who asked why Jesus was doing this were upset by the company because they were good Jews, who tried their best to follow the Torah (the Hebrew Bible) and it’s teachings. They were righteous people as Jesus himself says in just a few chapters earlier. They wanted to know why this so-called rabbi, unorthodox to say the least, was eating with tax collectors and sinners.

Tax collectors were seen by most Jews as agents of Rome and not the agent of God; they would have been presumed to be corrupt, dishonest, and likely to overcharge the population.

They were likely rich, well connected, and brash enough to host banquets. Tax collectors were known as sinners who likely showed no mercy to others. And the sinners there were likely just as bad: thieves, scammers, prostitutes, and more. That was who Jesus was spending his time with and it drove the Pharisees mad. “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.”

The tax collectors and sinners knew they weren’t well, continuing Jesus metaphor; that what they were doing, how they were living was not good and right, They knew they were sick. Others had let it be known. The woman who was slowly bleeding to death and the leader whose daughter died knew, quite literally, that they were sick, that something was wrong. They knew their needs and saw their reality for what it was.

The Pharisees, these religious community leaders who prayed and went to temple and tried to live the right way, they likely couldn’t say the same; as Jesus implies they likely thought they were healthy and had no need for a physician. Perhaps you see yourself in this story as the tax collectors and sinners sitting at table with Jesus. Yet, I’d dare to say that most of us, the good church goers, Sunday school teachers, bible study leaders, the book study participants that we are, are more like the Pharisees.

We pray, we try to live right, and because of all that, it is so easy to think we are well/healthy when we are not. We don’t know our needs or tell anyone about them. We don’t see our reality for what it is. Underneath our facade of wellness lies the sickness that none of us can escape from and that’s sin, both individual and communal/societal. Often we do things we think will keep us from sinning: we pray, we come to church, we read a devotion, as if those things are spiritual elderberry gummies that can cure us. But that’s not how that works.

The metaphor of sick vs well, in need vs healthy is a tough one for Lutherans because we are perpetually both. Our sickness is never gone, yet we are made well. The infection resides in us all our days, yet in God’s eyes we are perfectly healthy. We are terminally ill and yet we have already died, living again in new life. We are always a sinner. Yet at the same time we are a saint made well by the grace of God. This grace does not extract our sin, but rather its effectiveness, in that it no longer puts you at the threat of death nor destroys the relationship between you and God. Only in the life to come are we fully made well (by the death and resurrection of the one great physician Jesus Christ).

Thankfully in this life, Jesus comes to all who are sick, to all who are in need, whether they realize it or not. That’s who Jesus sat at table with and that’s who’s invited to this table. This table is not for the person who has no sin, who has done nothing wrong, who is well. This table is for the person who has lied, who has made mistakes, who sins over and over again, who appears well on the outside, but knows they are sick and in need, because it is at this table that Jesus offers exactly what you need: forgiveness, love, mercy, no copay required, no deductible to be met.

You may ask though if we are never quite “well” like we want to be, what then is the point? If sin always plagues us, what is the goal of this life? I think Martin Luther answers this best. He said

“This life, therefore, is not godliness but the process of becoming godly, not health but getting well, not being but becoming, not rest but exercise. We are not now what we shall be, but we are on the way…At present, everything does not gleam and sparkle, but everything is being cleansed.”

Amen.

Grace, Upon Grace, Upon Grace

A Façade of Wellness