July 10 - Proper 10, Year A (RCL)
This week, as many of you know,
has been a difficult one for my family.
On Tuesday, my nephew was rushed to the hospital
with extreme headaches, along with problems with his balance and coordination.
After many tests, an MRI on Thursday
showed a golf ball sized tumor on his cerebellum,
at the back of his brain.
He was transferred to the major children’s hospital that night,
and on Friday had a five hour long surgery to remove
what ended up being a two inch wide tumor.
The surgeons are happy with their work, but we won’t know until some time next week
whether the tumor
is benign or malignant.
As you can imagine, my mind has been with Laughlin
and not really focussed on preaching today.
And when I looked at the readings, I couldn’t help thinking of them
in relation to wahat we’ve been through.
The Old Testament story of Jacob
is one of Laughlin’s favorites - he can tell you the details of Jacob’s whole life, and especially about the time Jacob saw a ladder - or as Laughlin insists, a staircase, becuase that’s the illustration in his bible - with angels going up and down.
And his love for bible stories - he has three read to him every night - echoes the psalm’s words,
“Your word is a lantern to my feet.”
He likes the stories about Jesus, and the stories Jesus told.
But it’s actually the reading from Romans
that has the most profound connection with us all this week, because what it says
is not only what we believe
but what we have experienced.
In our New Testament reading, we’re right at the core
of the apostle Paul’s argument about salvation.
You’ll remember that last week
the whole discussion was about sin, and the way we do things that we don’t want to, and don’t do things that we want to.
And the clmax of that argument was
that we’re freed from this
through Jesus Christ.
Or as we read this morning,
“There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”
And the reason is, acording to Paul,
that sin belongs to one realm,
a realm that he calls flesh,
but we who believe in Chirst belong to another realm
that he calls Spirit.
And in that realm of the Spirit,
there is no condemnation.
Of course, it’s kind of confusing, becuase when we hear the terms flesh and spirit,
we tned to think that what he’s talking about
is body and soul,
or something like that.
We’re used to a kind of dualism,
a dualism that comes from Greek and gnostic pholosophy
that says the body is bad, and the soul or spirit is good.
But that’s not what Paul is saying.
Becuase God created our bodies. There’s nothing wrong with them.
They are the good creation of God.
Paul is simply using the word flesh to mean
everything that is against God and God’s way of living.
And he’s using the term spirit to mean
everything that is for God and God’s way of living.
That includes our bodies, our bodies that were in the act of creation
given life
by the breath, the Spirit, of God.
And Paul is clear.
Those of us
who have faith in Christ,
those of us who through that faith
have received the Spirit at work in our lives,
there is no condemnation for us.
We live in the realm of life, not the realm of death.
And that matters.
It matters
because it frees us from the fear
tha somehow God is judging us.
It frees us from thinking
that our bodies are bad
and somehow our enemy.
And it frees us
to receive the life and peace
that the Spirit offers us.
And all this has mattered to our family this week,
as we have talked and cried and prayed and feared and hoped.
And the conversations have been amazing.
Last night
my sister-in-law and I talked
and she was asking the question that we all ask, and I imagine will continue to ask,
why? Why this child? Why a tumor? Why so big?
But she was also very clear in her belief,
that it was not God
who is the cause of this tumor.
God is not punishing Lockie, or anyone else.
Her faith and trust in God is profound,
and deep.
And we have talked about our fears,
our fears that Lockie will die,
at a time when his life
has just begun.
And yet, even there, even in our deepest fears and grief
there is a sense of peace.
Because we know
that whatever happens,
Laughlin will be in the hands of God,
the God he knows from his bible stories, the one who in Jesus
healed sick people
and who raised Jesus
from death.
And we’ve prayed. For those five hours of surgery
when we didn’t know what would happen,
whether Lockie would even wake up again,
we prayed.
And before and since.
And so many others have prayed with us, here in this church
and across the world.
And what has been clear to us all
is that it is God who has been sustaining us,
and our hope in God
that keeps us going as we continue to wait.
This is my testimony
to how God is sustaining us at this time.
I know that many of you have your own stories
about how you have experienced God
at times of great trouble in your lives.
And it’s important that we tell those stories to one another.
That we encourage one another
Becuas the reality is,
that it’s becuase I have shared those times
with some of you,
and with others in other parishes,
that I have found strength and renewed faith at this time.
So tell your stories, tell them to one another.
Share the good news
of how God has sustained you
when you needed it most.
Becuase it is good news,
it’s good news that we all need to hear, all the time.
And, as the apostle Paul wrote at the end of this chapter of Romans, remember
“that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
© Raewynne J. Whiteley 2010