Loading...Sermon Delivered on July 1, 2019
During the summer of 1994 I worked as a hospital chaplain at the New Hanover Regional Medical Center in Wilmington, NC. The hospital served a largely rural population. So it was no surprise one night when I sitting in the little room on the 6th floor reserved for us to spend the night — it was next to the closet where the radium was stored for radiation treatments on the oncology unit — when I got a call from the emergency room staff that went like this: “There’s a big family down here in the emergency room with their father. He’s a farmer and he will probably be dead before you can get downstairs, but they really need help.”
So I got downstairs as quickly as I could and found the farmer unconscious and, remarkably, untethered to any tubing or needles. If he was indeed dead I was surprised that the staff would have unplugged him so quickly. His grown children and grandchildren surrounded him. His wife was crying and asked me to say a prayer. She made it clear she wanted him to live, and asked that every measure be made to save his life.
All the while the children were trying to convince her to let him go. The hospital staff had made it clear the man was as good as dead. I gathered everyone around him and while they held hands and I reached out to lay my hand on his shoulder. It was cold as ice and hard as stone. How long had it taken me to ride an elevator 6 floors — and how long after death before rigor mortis sets in? Had he just died and no one else knew it yet? I was surprised and I had no idea exactly what I was praying about: For the repose of the soul of a dead man? For the peace which passes understanding for someone about to die? I cannot remember what I muttered.
Six weeks later he was wheeled out of the rehab unit cussing up a storm.
What do you do when you’ve been given up for dead? Nothing, I suppose. But given-up-for-dead is exactly the moment God does some of God’s best work.
Jairus must have figured that out and so did the woman suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. Jairus’ daughter was as good as dead but like the farmer’s wife he insisted on taking a chance and that every chance be taken.
The woman suffering from hemorrhages was as good as dead and she insisted on taking on the healing presence available to her, even the simple scrap of fabric of the healing presence available to her.
Today, at the offertory, we will bless the healing blankets made by the Episcopal Church Women Sewing Ministry. If you haven’t already taken one either for yourself or for a loved one, maybe today is your day to do so. Why don’t you?
The testimonials from both this congregation as well as far flung strangers sound like the mysterious accounts of a hospital chaplain and a synagogue leader and a woman called-out for her faith. It looks like a simple but functional piece of fabric — like the simple and functional cloak Jesus wears when the bleeding woman pirates healing off of Him. But this simple fabric has been marinated in prayer with love by many hands moved by compassionate hearts created by a healing God who designed us to be healable.
How many ways are there to be healed? Redeemed. Reconciled. If you’ve ever woken up sick, irredeemable or irreconcilable you could preach this sermon yourself.
My short list of healing includes listening to Pachelbel’s Canon, or swimming, or Bruce’s fidelity. I propose to you that a simple bowl of watermelon healed me during the air quality alert yesterday.
I believe that God has established a foundation for a deep and abiding healing ministry here at St James. What I mean by that is I have only been here three and a half months and I have already witnessed and experienced resurrection moments. The first was my own arrival. During the search process I had taken my name out of consideration at the last moment and given up my chances to be your rector. I was as good as dead to you. Here I am. I had taken my name out of consideration for a significant relationship and here we are together. I’ve witnessed healing second hand and I’ve experienced it myself many many times.
If I could write a how-to text book on raising the dead, redeeming the irredeemable, reconciling the irreconcilable I would. Only God can write that book and God has included my name in it many, many time. And I want more. And I want to share what I have found here with others.
St James is a place I want to invite both friends and strangers to come and meet you. US. I want to introduce both my friends and perfect strangers to meet God’s presence in this faith community. I’ve already invited about 40 people to attend the Celebration of New Ministry Sept 21. Traditionally, that is what is called an “Installation”. But I am told that term sounds like plugging in a new refrigerator.
In essence a Celebration of New Ministry is where the diocese gathers to celebrate that you and I found one another and that we are agreeing to the same mission God’s already got started here at St James. I hope you plan to attend that Friday night, even invite a friend. Yes, it’s a chance to introduce them with “Here’s our new rector.” It’s also one more testimony we make about how God does God’s best work: That when we discover someone as good as dead we’ve just met someone in whom God can do God’s best work. That discovery is the reason people like Ellen and Tim drive the Samaritan truck down to the tent city at Bear Grass Creek every Wednesday. The addicts receiving that food are as good as dead. Ellen and Tim bear witness that life is available to the dead.
Availing ourselves of life in the midst of death is what happens every time we come to the altar for the bread and the wine. This feast is where we claim that the One whose name was taken out of consideration for Life and laid in a tomb for three days is now the Name to be claimed for new life. New life is what I found here and my prayer is, won’t you pray with me, that all may taste and touch this new life, from the neighbors in our community, to the addicts in tent city, to the fractured families of our nation bearing the burden of separation under many various circumstances. Our prayers, hand in hand with our actions, provide the fabric of God’s faith outside these walls. Yes, this blanket may look like a simple piece of fabric, which it is. And it is one part of the naming, claiming and proclaiming of the healing presence of God here at St James and I am thankful to be included in it. Amen.
