Holes and Holiness

Holes and Holiness 

When Jesus heals the bent over woman in Luke 13, she is freed from a condition that has caused her to look down at where she was standing only, unable to see the world around her. Jesus not only heals her from her physical condition, but re-emphasizes her position in life long forgotten by both her and the community as he calls her a daughter of Abraham. She is now not only able to stand up straight, but stand up tall and see and embrace the world around her and the vision for God’s creation from the very beginning called good. What is also healed that day is the community which through its own myopic view of the world had forgotten she too was a daughter of Abraham, a part of creation called good. A community that had grown comfortable with her marginalization, and like all communities which do so, suffered from being less than God had called it to be.

Much to the chagrin of the religious and community leaders this healing took place during the holy time of the Sabbath. After eighteen years of dealing with this ailment, a few more hours wait would not have been an issue for the woman. Jesus chooses this time however to bring a healing to community and something else which had fallen out of health into illness, the idea of Sabbath or Holy Time. In Matthew 5, shortly after the beatitudes we hear 23"Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, 24leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift. For Jesus, Holy Time is truly only Holy time when there is reconciliation and the trouble more often than not is that we have become so accustomed to emnity and marginalization that we no longer see it, or care.

This story is a direct follow-up to last week’s Gospel about division not peace with three against two and two against three. Jesus is in essence saying, now that you have heard how the Gospel can make waves, let me show you an example of making waves and the healing that can take place when you confront ill that are no longer seen.

In our world, Holy time has long been compromised to the point where its abuse is no longer even noticed. There was a time in my hometown when, should you discover the need for something from the store because of unexpected guests on a Sunday, you would talk to Junior (the owner of the store) at church and he would go and unlock the store. You could then go in and get what you needed with the understanding that sometime that next week you would stop by, let him know what you had taken and pay for it. Junior himself would not go in, turn on the lights nor open the cash register, it was his time with church and family; it was his Holy time. Out of respect for his Holy time, you would move quickly to get what you needed and leave and in all the years he did this, no one would even think of not coming in that next week to make good on the purchase. There was an aura of respect, for the store owner and his holy time, for the person in need and their holy time, and for the Sabbath as holy time.

Last night someone threw a burning book, George Orwells 1984, up against the back of the church. Somehow it caught part of the siding on fire and caused a bit of charring and some smoke in the building. The initial report was that it was a Bible that was burned. When it was discovered it was Orwells classic instead there was a sense of relief on the part of the police and firemen. There is still a sense of the Holy and a sense of holy horror when that line is knowingly crossed.

Following the post 9/11 surge, most churches sense then have seen a decline in attendance. Here in Alaska it is mostly attributed to the call of the wild as we enjoy the bounty and beauty of God’s gift of creation. For others however it is the day to “do” the shopping, fixing, cleaning, as well as the child enrichment activities of camping, camps and sports. Adults free from rigors of child enrichment can also find this time occupied with the call of the game which fills our living rooms and lives with the allure of the big screen and the lure of the final four.

The twin draws of commerce and entertainment have come to fill the space left by what formally stood as Holy Time leaving us unaware of its gentle slide away from us. The hole in our soul, now a sordid jumble of memories, plans and soggy sleeping bags.

Much has been made of the Islamic Community Center planned for construction in New York near where the twin towers once stood. Dubbed the ground zero Mosque by its opponents, it is claimed to be an affront to the Hallowed Space once occupied by the twin towers that stood before September 11th. The Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf once revered across the spectrum of political and religious ideology as a moderate voice of reason, is now regarded by some as little more that evil incarnate. His presence and the presence of this and other potential Islamic houses of worship has by some been considered an affront to the very nature of this Holy ground in particular and in some cases to our nation as a whole.

In Jesus day, the bent over woman was considered an affront to that Holy space in the week called the Sabbath. Her condition was understood at the time to have been brought on by the presence of sin in her or her parents life. When Jesus healed her, he not only restored her physically but also restored and called her to her rightful position as a child of Abraham. Her dignity as well as her health restored. When Jesus healed her, he restored the community to its rightful position as the gathered community of all the children of God. When Jesus healed her, he restored the Sabbath to its rightful position as a Holy place in time and space where all could gather together as the children of God in celebration of the great things God has done. To do anything less than to restore all the children of God to their rightful place in the family of God is an affront to the very Holy nature of the creator who created all things and said, “it is good.”

When we demonize some of the Children of Abraham because of the horrific acts of a few we succeed only edifying and amplifying the voice of hatred in the hearts of many stung by this voice of disdain and hatred. Fear and hatred being such powerful emotions that all of us are susceptible to the power of them to draw us in and to think and do the very thing we despise in the other. As the great sage and cartoon character Pogo once said, we have met the enemy and he is us. Then Jesus comes along and points out that we have fallen into the age old trap of the adversary and have become the very thing we hate.

Though it is always a bit presumptuous and dangerous to claim to know the full extent of the answer to the question, “what would Jesus do” we can take some cues from what it is reported Jesus did. And what Jesus did was to restore not only parts of a community to their rightful status as Children of Abraham, but in the process also restore the community itself to the full status as the collective assembly of the Children of Abraham and this Holy time and Space to its former status as indeed Holy.

Our calling as the children of God is to concern ourselves less with others who wish return Holiness to time and space than it is with our own misuse of this gift of Sabbath God has given us. It is a call to return to the Holiness we all seek in our lives and the lives of our children and communities in our various ways by honoring this Holy place in time and Space that God has given us with more than just the twin draws of commerce and entertainment in our ever more congested schedules.

You who are here are honoring this Holy Time today, but we all know how easily we too can slip away just one more Sunday too many until the weeks turn into months. So I ask you today not only pray to for, but actively seek out those whose Holy time has been eaten away by one more Sunday too many, who have found one more reason to try to fill the Holy void in their lives with mere busyness, and who secretly long to stand up straight in the assembly of God and be welcomed as a daughter of Abraham, a child of God.

And let us as a community of faith work always toward restoring the Holiness not only in our lives and buildings damaged by vandalism and fire, but the lives of the communities in which we live and the image of this congregation where all the people of God can gather in a welcoming community and together live lives that are inspired by God’s love to Praise, Nurture and Serve. Amen.