"Brokenness"
A Sermon of
The Rev. Dr. David A. Killian, Rector
All Saints Parish
Brookline, Massachusetts
The Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany
February 12, 2006
Text: Mark 1:40-45
I
If you watched the Super Bowl last Sunday, you may have seen the commercial that featured the little Clydesdale colt looking at the Budweiser Wagon that is pulled by a team of Clydesdale horses. The colt wonders to himself, "Can I do it?" and then walks over to the halter, puts his head in, and begins pulling. At first there is no movement, the wagon is too heavy. Then you see the wheels begin to move and colt pulls it out of the garage. Only at the end do you see that two adult Clydesdales were pushing the wagon from behind.
It was my favorite commercial during the Super Bowl -- and it dramatizes something that is important to all of us. Deep down there is a part of each of us that wants to help one another and respond compassionately to people in need. Deep down also, we realize that at times we need an extra push, an assist beyond our own efforts, someone who understands our limitations and is able to make up for them.
II
We see this great compassion in the life of Jesus. In today's Gospel passage Jesus stretches out his hand and touches a leper and the leper is made clean. Jesus embodies and expresses the deep compassion of God. God's love extends to those who are considered "untouchable" and "unclean." In Jesus' time, lepers rang bells to let people know that they were approaching. Lepers were shunned and excluded from society. But Jesus does not shun the leper. Jesus stretches out his hand and touches him and he is made clean. Jesus is the one who heals, the person with compassion. The multitudes who deeply yearn for healing flock after him. The Gospel says, "people came to him from every quarter."
The people who came to Jesus were people whose lives were in disarray, people dealing with illness, loss, disappointment. People grieving over the death of a child, people who were sick, people who were on the fringes of society, people who were broken.
III
We are all broken in some way. Some are dealing with addictions, which pull them down and keep them from living whole and happy lives. Some are unemployed or underemployed or in stressful work situations; they feel unfulfilled and distressed. Some are grieving the death of a loved one. Some are dealing with their own illness or the illness of a family member.
We need to have the courage of the leper in today's Gospel and take our needs directly to the Lord and say, "Lord, make me clean. Make me whole. Give me the strength to deal with my addiction or to make a fresh start in my career or work."
Sometimes, we idealize some perfect standard of worthiness and imagine that God only loves those who measure up to a certain standard of righteousness and goodness. Sometimes we can become swallowed up in our own sense of "uncleanness" and unworthiness and we remove ourselves from family and community.
We may remove ourselves from God and imagine that we are not good enough to come into God's presence. The truth, of course, is that we do not come into God's presence because we are worthy or deserving. Rather, we come into God's presence because God loves us just the way we are and God invites us to draw closer.
Jesus told us that we should approach God with the confidence of a little child in the presence of a loving parent. I remember when my children were little, they would run to greet me when I came home from work. Or if I was sitting on the couch reading the paper, they would run and jump in my lap. They wouldn't ask, "Dad, is it OK to jump in your lap now?" They would just do it. They had the confidence that they could draw close to me, that I would welcome them, and they did not need to ask permission.
Jesus tells us that we should look on our relationship with God as children who know that they are loved by a loving parent. We don't need to ask permission first. We can simply enter God's presence, "jump on God's lap" as it were, and know that God will be happy to see us, happy to enjoy our company.
So, even if some days we feel like a leper; even if we are having a "bad hair day" or suffering from low self-esteem, we can come to our loving God just as we are. We can say, "Here I am today, Lord. I'm not feeling so great about myself. I've had some reverses in life or I'm dealing with really stressful work or I'm getting discouraged because of my illness or taking care of sick relative."
The Christ who heals lepers wants to heal us as well -- to heal us of any tendency to demean our own value; to heal us of our "leprosy" so that we can realize again that God extends compassion and grace even to the likes of us. Our God is a compassionate God, willing to forgive, strengthen, and restore. Before God, no one is an untouchable, no one is beyond the reach of God's mercy and compassion. All of us are sons and daughters of God, made in the sacred image of the God of justice, peace, and reconciliation.
Amen.