Tangible Grace

Preached 7/1 (Pent 5B) at Holy Spirit, Eldersburg

Today, we here two stories of healing. A healing of two individuals. A healing of community. A glimpse of the kingdom of God.

Jesus, returning to Israel from the gentile side of the sea of galilee, encounters a crowd. One of the leaders of the local Synagogue, Jarius, a distinguished, honored, and well off member of this community, came begging Jesus to heal his daughter.

And Jesus, follows Jarius, and the crowd swarms around Jesus.

It is in this crowd another person seeks healing. A woman, who because of a condition – a mark of her womanhood and affliction, something out of her control, is left ritually unclean, and ostracized from society.  Her condition excluded her from life in the community; it robbed her of wealth, dignity, and livelihood. Out of sheer desperation she approached Jesus in the crowd… risking violence. Because anyone who came in contact with her would also be made unclean. And she touches, Jesus Christ, Immanuel, God with us. And she is healed!

When Jesus turned around and faced her, mortal fear overcame her. Though healed, her new opportunity might end if she is condemned by the messiah. But the God whose “mercies never come to an end” calls the woman daughter, a beloved child, and let’s her begin her new life.

Jesus goes on to Jarius’ house and raises his daughter from the dead.

Here we have an image of grace.
Grace, is a word I can easily define, the infinite love of God, but can seldom explain.

Writer Anne Lammott puts it a little better:
“[Grace] is unearned love–the love that goes before, that greets us on the way. It’s the help you receive when you have no bright ideas left, when you are empty and desperate and have discovered that your best thinking and most charming charm have failed you. Grace is the light or electricity or juice or breeze that takes you from that isolated place and puts you with others who are as startled and embarrassed and eventually grateful as you are to be there.”

But even this depiction struggles to depict the radical nature and scope of grace.

Yet, today, we heard it. We heard how relationship with God goes beyond class. How it goes beyond any conception of purity. How it restores a community to wholeness.

This wholeness is not just spiritual intangible wholeness, it is physical as well. Grace is salvation, and sometimes salvation is more than what happens to our souls.

I can remember a member of Luther Place, the church I attended while at school in Washington, DC, telling a story about Pr. John Steinbruck, who helped lead Luther Place to constructing a model shelter and service center for homeless and low income women. The member was recalling Pr. Steinbruck addressing a group of seminarians. He said that salvation for you may be something you worry about after death, but salvation for these woman is a roof over their head and food in their bellies – a chance at life tomorrow.

In a world where there is indeed enough, far too many people suffer from lack of resources. It strips them of their dignity and livelihood.

Those who do not struggle, who have a share of the abundant creation that is, frankly too large, rob others of the opportunity to share their God given gifts, they are robbed of the abundant and diverse gifts of humanity, the collective image of God.

Next year, I will be living and working in Szarvas, Hungary – working in many ways on projects to foster inclusion of Roma in the life of the community. The Roma, are arguably the most discriminated group in Europe. Hungarian scholar, Robert Koulish, writes of the Roma: “Indeed, for 500 years or more, Roma have never had a day where autonomy was allowed, when they had trust, were not suspects or had some say about their future.”

In Hungary, and much of Eastern and Central Europe, Roma suffer from destitute poverty. They live in segregated housing complexes, often without running water, electricity, or sewage. Literally, wallowing in their own filth. European populations openly discriminate against them in hiring practices. Then, those same people talk about how the Roma should get jobs. The Roma are seen as disgusting and smelly by the same people who do not want to restore sewage service to Romani settlements. In some places there are even walls built to separate Roma populations from majority european villages.

Here we have communities living in direct opposition with God’s radical vision of inclusion for the world. A community is robbing Roma of the fullness of God’s abundance, and of opportunities to share the gifts of their respective communities together.
And today we have a glimpse of what God does intend for the world. Communities made whole. It means more than throwing money at a problem, or talking about people as “the needy.” It means doing our best to eliminate poverty where  “The one who had much did not have too much, and the one who had little did not have too little.” It means all people have dignity, and the ability to share their God given gifts with the community.

I am proud and excited to be a part of that vision in Hungary. Where I will be living out a model for a new type of missionary, accompaniment. Accompaniment means “walking together in solidarity that practices interdependence and mutuality.” It is a mission that, in many ways, is a modern manifestation of the message in today’s gospel – that the vision God has for community is a place without walls, without crippling poverty, and where all can share their gifts in ways that lift each other up.
It means clothing oneself in humility, and listening to the stories and experiences of others. It means letting go of stigmas, stereotypes, judgement, and often, one’s conception of right and wrong.

I stand here today, not only to share the radical nature of grace, but to invite you to accompany me in my journey to Hungary. It was this community that helped shaped the faith I will carry with me in August when I leave.  And I hope that this community will help sustain and support me while I am almost half-way across the world. I also, hope you will listen to the stories of the people I encounter, and I hope these stories will transform the way we deal with poverty, racism, classism, and every other type of -ism.

So let us walk together, as a congregation, a community called to live out the liberating grace of God. As a community with people in Szarvas, Hungary, and as a global community – the collective image of God. And as we walk may we heed this warning and encouragement from an Aboriginal, feminist activist, Lila Watson, addressing missionaries : “If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”

So let us work together, to live out God’s vision for the world – to be people full of grace.

Amen.