I feel like pretty much every time
I step up to the ambo to preach these days
I step up to the ambo to preach these days
I end up saying the same thing:
“Wow, things sure are tough.”
I may be accused of belaboring the obvious,
but I don’t think I can be accused
of saying something that is untrue.
In my nearly sixty years I cannot recall a time
so marked by collective loss:
loss of life-sustaining relationships,
loss of simple daily activities that brought joy,
loss of a certain carefree confidence
that the future will probably be okay,
that problems will find solutions,
that fairness and justice will prevail,
that divisions will be healed.
I know that people around the world
suffer death and disease,
discrimination and deprivation,
on a daily basis and on a scale far surpassing
anything I have personally experienced,
but even my own small miseries
cause today’s reading from the book of Job
to find an echo in my heart:
“I have been assigned months of misery,
and troubled nights have been allotted to me.”
At this point,
it’s been just about eleven months of misery:
eleven months of disrupted lives,
eleven months of disrupted work and school,
eleven months of disrupted plans and relationships.
Even if we have not ourselves gotten sick
or suffered through the sickness of a loved one,
or been estranged from family or friends
by the divisions that beset our world,
these months of misery have affected all of us.
They have washed out the colors of life’s fabric,
rendered the world a grayer place,
a less joyful place.
And we may be tempted to say with Job,
“My days…come to an end without hope….
I shall not see happiness again.”
“Wow, things sure are tough.”
I may be accused of belaboring the obvious,
but I don’t think I can be accused
of saying something that is untrue.
In my nearly sixty years I cannot recall a time
so marked by collective loss:
loss of life-sustaining relationships,
loss of simple daily activities that brought joy,
loss of a certain carefree confidence
that the future will probably be okay,
that problems will find solutions,
that fairness and justice will prevail,
that divisions will be healed.
I know that people around the world
suffer death and disease,
discrimination and deprivation,
on a daily basis and on a scale far surpassing
anything I have personally experienced,
but even my own small miseries
cause today’s reading from the book of Job
to find an echo in my heart:
“I have been assigned months of misery,
and troubled nights have been allotted to me.”
At this point,
it’s been just about eleven months of misery:
eleven months of disrupted lives,
eleven months of disrupted work and school,
eleven months of disrupted plans and relationships.
Even if we have not ourselves gotten sick
or suffered through the sickness of a loved one,
or been estranged from family or friends
by the divisions that beset our world,
these months of misery have affected all of us.
They have washed out the colors of life’s fabric,
rendered the world a grayer place,
a less joyful place.
And we may be tempted to say with Job,
“My days…come to an end without hope….
I shall not see happiness again.”
But then there is Jesus.
Even as I am tempted to focus once again
on the past months of misery,
there is Jesus in our Gospel for today,
in the midst of sickness,
in the midst of spiritual and psychological distress,
healing illnesses, rebuking the powers of evil,
bringing solace and consolation to the brokenhearted,
shedding light in a world grown gray with sorrow.
There is Jesus reaching out to grasp
the hand of Simon’s mother-in-law,
pulling her free from her joyless world of pain
and pulling her into his world,
the world of God’s reign,
where sickness is healed
and the forces of darkness are put to flight.
There is Jesus raising her not simply from her sickbed
but from a life that had grown narrow with suffering,
and drawing her into a new life
that is as broad and bright as God’s merciful love,
a life in which she is free to rise again
to serve the cause of God’s reign.
Even as I am tempted to focus once again
on the past months of misery,
there is Jesus in our Gospel for today,
in the midst of sickness,
in the midst of spiritual and psychological distress,
healing illnesses, rebuking the powers of evil,
bringing solace and consolation to the brokenhearted,
shedding light in a world grown gray with sorrow.
There is Jesus reaching out to grasp
the hand of Simon’s mother-in-law,
pulling her free from her joyless world of pain
and pulling her into his world,
the world of God’s reign,
where sickness is healed
and the forces of darkness are put to flight.
There is Jesus raising her not simply from her sickbed
but from a life that had grown narrow with suffering,
and drawing her into a new life
that is as broad and bright as God’s merciful love,
a life in which she is free to rise again
to serve the cause of God’s reign.
There is Jesus, whose human life
is nothing but this divine mission
to heal and enlighten:
“For this purpose have I come.”
There is Jesus who comes as the light of God
in the midst of darkness,
as the joy of God
in the midst of sorrow
as the life of God
in the midst of death.
There is Jesus who comes to live this mission
even to the point of cross and tomb,
filling the darkness of death with light
and breathing forth his Spirit of life upon his friends.
As the 5th-century bishop Peter Chrysologus wrote,
“Where the Lord of life has entered,
there is no room for death” (sermon 18).
is nothing but this divine mission
to heal and enlighten:
“For this purpose have I come.”
There is Jesus who comes as the light of God
in the midst of darkness,
as the joy of God
in the midst of sorrow
as the life of God
in the midst of death.
There is Jesus who comes to live this mission
even to the point of cross and tomb,
filling the darkness of death with light
and breathing forth his Spirit of life upon his friends.
As the 5th-century bishop Peter Chrysologus wrote,
“Where the Lord of life has entered,
there is no room for death” (sermon 18).
There is Jesus amidst the people of Galilee.
But what of us here, today,
in the midst of months of misery,
who feel in our hearts
the echo of Job’s words:
“My days…come to an end without hope….
I shall not see happiness again”?
Does he come for us as well?
Faith in the resurrection of Jesus
and in the sending of his Spirit
is faith that for us,
no less than for those people in Galilee,
Jesus comes as light and joy and life.
For us, no less than for them,
Jesus grasps our hand to pull us up,
to pull us into the world of God’s reign.
He grasps us through words of encouragement
spoken to us through the Scriptures;
he grasps us through his grace
made present to us through the sacraments;
he grasps us through the bonds of love and unity
that his Spirit forges among the members
of his body the Church.
In these, and in countless other ways,
the living Christ, made present through the Spirit,
grasps the hand of each one of us to give us hope,
to restore for each one of us
the color of a world grown gray,
and he says to each one us,
“for this purpose I came:
I came for you.”
But what of us here, today,
in the midst of months of misery,
who feel in our hearts
the echo of Job’s words:
“My days…come to an end without hope….
I shall not see happiness again”?
Does he come for us as well?
Faith in the resurrection of Jesus
and in the sending of his Spirit
is faith that for us,
no less than for those people in Galilee,
Jesus comes as light and joy and life.
For us, no less than for them,
Jesus grasps our hand to pull us up,
to pull us into the world of God’s reign.
He grasps us through words of encouragement
spoken to us through the Scriptures;
he grasps us through his grace
made present to us through the sacraments;
he grasps us through the bonds of love and unity
that his Spirit forges among the members
of his body the Church.
In these, and in countless other ways,
the living Christ, made present through the Spirit,
grasps the hand of each one of us to give us hope,
to restore for each one of us
the color of a world grown gray,
and he says to each one us,
“for this purpose I came:
I came for you.”
And what do we say back to him?
How to we respond to so great a love?
We can respond with the words of the psalmist:
“Praise the Lord, who heals the brokenhearted.”
We can respond with our lives,
rising up, like Simon’s mother-in-law,
to serve the cause of God’s reign.
The one who comes for each one of us
now frees us to be his light and joy
and life for the world.
How to we respond to so great a love?
We can respond with the words of the psalmist:
“Praise the Lord, who heals the brokenhearted.”
We can respond with our lives,
rising up, like Simon’s mother-in-law,
to serve the cause of God’s reign.
The one who comes for each one of us
now frees us to be his light and joy
and life for the world.
Let us pray that, through God’s grace,
those who have endured months of misery
and have been allotted troubled nights—
whose days end without hope
and who fear they shall not see happiness again—
may hear from us a word of divine consolation,
may feel in the touch of our hand the grasp of Jesus,
many see in our lives a reflection of the Spirit’s flame.
And may the God who comes for us
have mercy on us all.
those who have endured months of misery
and have been allotted troubled nights—
whose days end without hope
and who fear they shall not see happiness again—
may hear from us a word of divine consolation,
may feel in the touch of our hand the grasp of Jesus,
many see in our lives a reflection of the Spirit’s flame.
And may the God who comes for us
have mercy on us all.
