| Sermon
for All Saints-by-the-Sea, Proper 6, June 15, 2008 In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit – Amen. This is my second official Father’s Day. I still don’t really feel like the day applies to me, though. The meaning of really being a father seems to be about more than just being a diaper changer, a bill payer, or a person who cleans up the mess after the breakfast feeding. The real meaning of fatherhood seems like it goes beyond these kinds of somewhat mechanical tasks. It seems to me that being a father has more to do with being someone who gives guidance and direction. This is not something that you can do to a very great extent with a mostly pre-linguistic child who has little choice but to go wherever we take her. But Sarah and I had a small “Ah ha!” moment last weekend, towards the end of a two-week trip. It was a real wake up call for us that we are suddenly entering into a new stage in parenthood, that we may be giving more direction than we realize. And it was a little scary. We were at my college reunion weekend, visiting the Art Gallery. We came right when it opened. Nobody was there except the security guards and the three of us. Zoe got a free coloring book. We went to the modern art first, because Zoe was still in her stroller at that point, and the art was therefore safe. By the time we were at the special photo exhibit, Zoe was walking around beside us, pushing her miniature stroller with her baby doll. This lasted for a while, but eventually we had to leave when she was getting carried away chirping and calling out so that she could hear the echo of her voice off of the famous Louis Kahn architecture. We went down out of the building to Chapel Street, a busy city street in New Haven, and walked down the sidewalk together. She pushed her little toy stroller alongside of us as we pushed the real stroller. All of a sudden, she had her mother’s cell phone in hand, and she gleefully held it up against her ear, tilted her head, and began jabbering away like she was talking to somebody – loudly! She said “Oh boooooy! . . . Ber, blah ber blah-bah. Ha ha ha!” She was pretending to listen, and then responding with gibberish that sounded almost like words but weren’t. Then she’d pause as if listening, staring vacantly in that way that people on cell phones always do. And all while pushing the stroller with her other hand. Then enthusiastically she’d exclaim, “Oh, yeah! Huh? Huh? Oh boooy!” People kept walking by and looking at us being mocked by our little daughter, and they’d say, “That’s soooo cute!” It was kind of like looking at a funhouse mirror of ourselves, her own mom and dad. We were being caricatured! The scary realization was that we have definitely arrived. Our little child is taking direction from her parents already. And we have to think about what kind of direction we are giving. *** In this morning’s Gospel reading, Jesus says a very interesting thing about the crowds. The text explains that: “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” We know that there is also sickness among the people. And we know that Jesus has been “healing every disease” brought to him, and instructing his newly appointed apostles to heal the sick as well. Needing direction and needing healing go hand in hand. Notice that Jesus does not blame them for this, but rather he feels for them. He has compassion for the crowds. Notice also that when Jesus sees the crowds he doesn’t say, “Oh, just let me lead them all myself single-handedly.” Instead, he recruits other leaders. Paul Tillich preached on this text to the graduating class at Union Theological Seminary, where he was a professor, saying: “The first difficulty you will experience when Jesus sends you ahead of him and gives you the power of healing is that many people will tell you that they do not need to be healed. And if you come to them with the claim that you will cast out the demons that rule their lives, they will laugh at you and assure you that you are possessed by a demon – just as they said to Jesus.” Being whole, spiritually, is the same as being oriented in the right direction. It is to be integrated, as opposed to disintegrated. God, according to Paul Tillich, is our ultimate concern. To be oriented is to treat God as our ultimate concern! Being oriented toward God helps us to overcome spiritual sickness, which leaves us in a state of estrangement between ourselves and God and also between ourselves and others. What heals ultimately is not medicine, because our spiritual needs are not mechanical. Likewise the commandments don’t heal. They merely guard us off from inflicting harm. Grace heals. *** Jesus asks his newly appointed apostles to do some incredible things—casting out demons, healing the sick, and preaching the good news—but he punctuates it with a call for grace. They are to be agents of grace, which is the currency of the Kingdom of God. They are to give without payment They, like us, have already received without payment. Even when we are living in the midst of a non-grace-based world, we are creatures of grace. We were created out of nothing, and that’s what grace is all about. And the ultimate grace is God coming in God’s fullness to forgive us even though we are undeserving. *** I was sitting on the sand with Zoe watching a catamaran a couple days ago. I told her about it—as if she could understand what I was saying—and found myself seeing it in a fresh way myself. The sail was gleaming white, perfectly trimmed, catching the wind to carry the boat very fast across the water. What a beautiful thing to see—a vehicle that is powered by nothing but wind. There is no need to go to the pump and empty out your wallet to get that invisible fuel. There is no way for a sailor to make wind, let alone buy it. But a good sailor knows that it is there, and she watches for it. She’s ready for it. The wind is like grace, invisible, incredible, but real. Unbidden, uncontrollable. Receivable. *** Whether we are parents or not, whether we are ordained ministers or not, each one of us is called to be a healer. The world needs more healers. There are too many who are disoriented and directionless. The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. It is a daunting call—as it surely was to the disciples as well—but we can have confidence in the power of grace. Jesus promised that the Spirit will give us what we need. We have only to prepare ourselves for the grace that is waiting to fill our sails and bless us with the power to be healers. Amen.
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