homily preached
at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Bellingham, WA
by the
Rev. Josh Hosler
Thursday,
January 14, 2016
The
satirical newspaper The Onion once printed a story with the
attention-grabbing headline: “Jesus Christ Implicated in Game-Fixing Scandal.”
It seems that at the conclusion of a recent football game, one of the all-star
players had told the press, “There’s only one man who’s responsible for this
victory, and that’s my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!” Further investigation
showed that similar attributions of power had been made to the same man all
over the country, thus necessitating an investigation of the Almighty Son of
God, who is pictured in the inset holding what was then still a rare piece of
technology: a cell phone. You know, as Seahawks fever begins to boil over again
in the lead-up to the Super Bowl, we should probably keep an eye on Jesus and
make sure that everything this year is above board.
It seems
that the urge to count on divine intervention in our victories has always been
with us, far more in wartime than in sports. The Israelites counted on having
God on their side. After their rout by the Philistines in today’s reading, the
elders figure they can guarantee a victory by trotting out the Ark of the
Covenant. After all, it worked many times in the past! And does it not
represent God’s very presence among the people? It intimidates the Philistines,
all right, but when battle is joined, the Israelites are crushed—30,000
soldiers killed! What has gone wrong this time? Why is our Ark on the fritz?
 |
| Of course, all sorts of people would still love to get their hands on that Ark ... http://deutschesoldaten.wikia.com/wiki/Arnold_Ernst_Toht |
The emphasis
on the death of the priests Hophni and Phineas ties the story to its greater
context: Samuel, as a little boy, has already relayed a message that God
intended to punish these two priests for their flagrant abuses of power. This
is the fulfillment of that prophecy. No amount of hiding behind the Ark of the
Covenant will change God’s mind, because the Ark is not a magical talisman, and
humans have no magical ability to control God.
I notice
that there is no suggestion that perhaps God is not involved in this
military action. Of course God always takes the side of the winner in a fight,
because God gets what God wants. If your people are on God’s bad side, you can
expect things to go badly for you. The modern idea that God might not have a
dog in this fight was one that I don’t believe would have occurred to anyone in
that time and place. Everything worked together in God’s plan at all times.
So Israel is
defeated, and in today’s psalm we read of a much later occasion, the defeat of Jerusalem
that led to the Jews’ exile in Babylon. But the outcome is the same: feelings
of rejection, humiliation, helplessness, injustice, waste. We all wish that we
could magically make God help us. I once heard someone pray, “What can we do to
attract God’s presence here?” That struck me as magical thinking, and not true
to a mature understanding of God’s nature.
Yet it’s an
honest human feeling, and God honors our honest human feelings. God hears us when
we call, “See me! Remember me! Save me!” And the psalmist provides an argument
intended to appeal to God’s actual nature. Why should God save? “For the sake
of your steadfast love.” The Hebrew word is chesed. This is where
Israelites place their trust: God’s steadfast love, God’s chesed, is the
thing about God that it is always safest to assume. And if that’s the case,
then what have we to fear in the long run?
 |
| Christ Cleansing a Leper by Jean-Marie Melchior Doze, 1864 (from Wikipedia) |
Now let’s
look at the gospel. Here is a leper coming to Jesus and begging him, “See me!
(Most people treat me like I’m invisible.) Remember me! (Most people would
rather forget me.) Save me! (Because that’s what God does, and you are to be
equated with God.) If you choose, you can make me clean.” The leper knows that
Jesus has the power to heal him, but he understands that he must not assume
Jesus will decide to use that power. The leper knows he has no magical
talismans, but he clearly identifies Jesus with God’s chesed. Why would
God not choose to save him? And indeed, Jesus does choose, and the leper
is healed.
Well, this
seems like a tidy enough ending. Whereas the priests and elders of Israel
failed to see that they couldn’t control God and were punished for their
arrogance, the leper saw clearly, and he was rewarded for his humility. Now we
might expect Jesus to say to those around him, “See? You don’t need religion.
You just need me.” Yet he doesn’t do that. He tells the leper, “Let’s keep the
source of your healing between you and me. Go through the appropriate ritual.
Show a priest that your disease has passed, and make the thank-offering that
our tradition prescribes for such a joyous occasion.”
Rather than
see the priestly office as a con job or an ineffective attempt to control God,
Jesus honors it. We might imagine this as Jesus telling the leper, “Humor the
priests, because they need to feel useful.” But I think it’s more than that.
Jesus sees the value that communal ritual plays in keeping people in
relationship with God. The leper’s healing is to be a testimony to God’s
goodness, not just a promotional tool for this itinerant miracle-worker. The
leper doesn’t need to make a sacrificial gift in order to keep his
healing. But such an offering will be appropriate, and God will honor it just
like God honors the newly healed man. Jesus urges the leper to make his ritual
behavior match the reality of his relationship with God.
Now, there’s
no indication in the story that the leper actually does this. In fact, he seems
to disobey Jesus directly by spreading the Good News everywhere that Jesus has
healed him. This makes life difficult for Jesus: suddenly he can’t go about
openly in the towns without being mobbed.
I wonder how
all this sat with Jesus. Was he angry? Frustrated? Mildly sad that the leper
had missed the point? Or did he ever really expect the leper to follow his
instructions? Have you ever felt so overjoyed at a surprising turn of events
that you completely forgot to thank God for it? This happens to me all the time:
I’m quick to pray when I’m in trouble, but I’m slow to pray when everything is
going well. The college student is quick to call home when the money runs low,
but otherwise, you might not hear from her. Such are we human beings, and God
knows that. And God loves us anyway. Joy is more important than due ritual
process, and it should always be celebrated.
And God
loves us anyway when we wheedle God, and needle God, and pester God to help us
with little things that don’t matter much in the scheme of things. I’m sure many
people are praying that God will help the Seahawks win the Super Bowl. And it’s
silly, yes. Would that we would pray as fervently for situations of actual
suffering and pain in the world … yet sometimes we do. And God loves us, and God
loves us. Amen.
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