Daughters

Sermon manuscript for Green Lake Church of Seventh-day Adventists (Final draft)

For March 21, 2015

Luke 8:40-56

Last Tuesdays I got to hang out with a couple of God's favorite daughters, Jackie and Lisa, at a place called Aurora Commons. Aurora Commons is like a family room for people on Aurora Avenue who have no family. It's a living room for people who have no house. (Aurora Commons was the organization that received the offering at this past season's Candlelight Christmas Concert.)

Jackie and Lisa are pretty. Their attractiveness is all the more striking when they are at Aurora Commons. On Tuesdays, most of the people who come in are men. They're a rough crowd. Drug addicts, lost souls, people with mental illness. They are not clean. Some people come in just to hang out. If they're tired they may fall asleep on the couch, knowing that for a couple of hours they are in a safe place. If someone needs need help filling out an application or finding information on the internet, the women help them. If you need a clean shirt or new socks, you can find that, too. Jackie and Lisa are skilled at helping people connect with resources that make their lives a little more bearable. But what strikes me most forcefully, dazzles me even, every Tuesday is the welcome these daughters of God extend to everyone who who comes through the door. These beautiful women touch every person. The prostitutes, the men who look like lost puppies, the tough guys with tattoos and swagger. Lisa and Jackie are very deliberate. They work the crowd, stopping to visit with every person. They look them in the eye and touch them. Touch their shoulders, hug the women. They are like angels of God. I think God must be very proud of them.

Watching them challenges me. Am I taking time to really see people? Do I extend the welcome of God to everyone? Do I give this kind of rich attention to the people I live with? When you see your kids first thing in the morning, do you greet them before you mention how late it is and the school bus will be here soon? At work, are the people there first persons to you and then employees or coworkers or bosses?

The daughters of God at Aurora Commons set a very high bar for seeing the face of God in every human being.

Now a Gospel story about two daughters:

Jairus was the synagogue ruler, which in a small town in Galilee in the time of Jesus was probably the most prestigious position a person could hold. I'm guessing it was like being the mayor and the doctor in a small town in Nebraska.

The light of his life was his twelve-year-old daughter. And he thought she was the sweetest, prettiest, smartest girl in the world. Part of that magic, of course, was that she adored her daddy. He could come home from difficult meetings to the smiles and hugs of his little girl and life was perfect.

Then she got sick. The first day or two he didn't worry. His wife made chicken soup and applied other customary remedies. Surely, this was a passing thing. But it wasn't a day or two later, Jairus' daughter was deathly ill. Jairus' was frantic. He watched her in terror as the disease wracked her body.

Then he heard Jesus was back in town. He hurried out of the house. When he arrived where Jesus was he pushed through the crowd. He was an important person, people gave way. Reaching Jesus, Jairus fell on his face. “Sir, please, I beg you. Come heal my daughter. She is about to die.”

The crowd is astonished. Jewish people do not bow to each other. They do not even kneel in worship. Kneeling is a rare thing. When this important man knelt in front of Jesus, a murmur rippled through the crowd. Did you see? He's kneeling. Those who were close could hear the catch in Jairus' voice. Please, sir. Please. Please. Come. Come now. Please hurry. I don't think she has much time. Please, will you come?”

Every dad in the crowd got caught up in the drama. They imagined their own darling daughters. They remembered the times they had stood by their own girls when they were sick in bed, had stood there helpless, angry at God for taking their beautiful girl.

Every dad in the crowd who has heard Jairus' words becomes his ally. Hurry Jesus. Hurry. Don't let her die. Jesus and Jairus begin moving toward Jairus' house. But the crowd is thick. Their movement is slow. Even with the help of his new allies, the dads who heard his request, who now share his urgency, it is impossible to move quickly through the crowd.

Then about the time they manage to get Jesus out of the very center of the crowd and begin making good progress, Jesus stopped.

He looked around him in the crowd. “Who touched me?” he asked

Apparently, Jesus said this fairly strongly, maybe even sternly. It was not a rhetorical question. And people answer him, all denying that had violated his space. After a minute, Peter gets a bit impatient with Jesus. “Master, we're in the middle of a mob. It's like a Japanese subway at rush hour. What do you mean, 'Who touched me?' All kinds of people have touched you and each other. Why are you asking 'Who touched me?'

“Somebody touched me.” Jesus said. “I felt healing power leave me.” Jesus searched the faces around him again.

At that point, a woman comes out of the crowd. Like Jairus, she kneels—or more accurately, she falls on her face. “I touched you.”

Jesus draws out her story. She had been bleeding for twelve years. She had endured physical pain and weakness. Far worse, for twelve years she had been untouchable to her husband. She had been excluded from all social events—weddings, funerals, religious events, parties, dances.

She had been a pariah. She had spent all her money on doctors, chasing a cure without success.

Then she had heard about Jesus. He could cure anything. Leprosy, blindness, epilepsy, lameness. He had even raised the dead. Surely he could cure her. But, her problem was unmentionable in public.

I remember in the early days of AIDS, a young man in our congregation was diagnosed. When the disease became debilitating, he went back to his parents' home in another state. They urged us to never mention the real diagnosis. If their friends knew their son had AIDS they would be completely cut off. As far as I know the silence was never broken, not even after he died.

This woman's bleeding problem would have been something like that. Maybe in the small town everyone knew, but no one, certainly no man could admit they knew it.

She was imprisoned in an unbreakable pit of isolation.

But Jesus could help her. That much she knew. If only she could get to him. Then she had the brilliant idea. If she could just touch the edge of his garment, that would be enough. She wouldn't embarrass herself or the Master. She would just sneak through the crowd and touch him.

Probably she knew the story of the centurion's servant who was healed just by Jesus speaking the word, even at a distance. Surely a touch would be enough.

So she threaded her way through the crowd, imagining that everyone knew her secret, imagining that everyone was watching her. She tried to make herself smaller and smaller.

Then she was there. She reached between Peter and John and managed to brush his robe with her fingers. She pulled her hand back. Already there were two or three people between her and Jesus. But she could feel it. Something inside was fixed. She was healed.

As she was telling her story, the men in the crowd are growing disgusted. How could this loathsome woman dare contaminate this public space with her disgusting presence? The dads in the crowd who had become the allies of Jairus and were trying to help rush Jesus along to heal the beautiful twelve-year-old girl were angry. This loathsome woman was putting that beautiful girl's life at risk. Jesus needed to hurry. He did not have time to waste on a repulsive woman.

The woman was completely vulnerable. It was all out there now. She had broken powerful taboos by wading through this crowd—a crowd comprised mostly of men. She in all her ugliness had interrupted a mission to save a beautiful daughter. There on the ground in front of Jesus perhaps she already imagined stones landing on her back.

Then Jesus says the most astonishing word, “Daughter.” Or as the one translation puts it, “My daughter.”

“My precious one, my beautiful one, my dear one, your faith has healed you. Go in peace.”

Before she began telling her story, this woman was invisible to the men in the crowd. She was a nobody. Then Jesus causes her to become visible. As she tells her story, the men see a loathsome, sick woman. They saw ugliness, disease, impurity. They see an interruption in their plans to act as heroes and help save a beautiful girl.

Then Jesus speaks. “My daughter. My precious one. My dear, God is very pleased with you. You are, indeed, healed. How could you not be, with such a magnificent faith.”

Go in peace. Walk out through this crowd knowing you are safe and clean and whole and beautiful.

Daughter.

As the woman turns to move back through the crowd, messengers arrive from Jairus' house. It's too late. Your girl is dead. No point in bothering Jesus further.

Jesus overhears the messengers and says to Jairus, “Don't worry. Just believe. Your girl, too, will be made whole.”

The mob finally arrives at Jairus' house. Already the place is full of people mourning. Jesus chases them all out. He asks Peter, James and John and the parents to be with him in the bedroom.

He takes the young girl's hand and says, “Young lady, get up.”

The parents and the disciples watched the heart-breaking corpse become again a beautiful daughter. Joy rippled outward from the bedroom. The beautiful girl was alive! Mom and Dad were happy. The crowd was happy. Jesus was happy. The daughter lived.

Go with me back to Aurora Commons. I told you about two beautiful daughters of God, Lisa and Jackie. I didn't tell you about Patricia.

Patricia graduated for University of Oregon, moved to Seattle and got a job. Life was good. Then mental illness began to warp her life. She had a psychotic break and was hospitalized.

Her story wandered. One of her best jobs involved travel to exotic places. Places she still dreamed of visiting again, not that she thought she actually had much chance of doing so, but it was nice to remember and to dream.

The clientele of Aurora Commons is a pretty rough crowd. Patricia was different. Her body language agreed with her story of education and successful work. Her face hinted, but just barely, at the truthfulness of her story of mental illness.

After she learned that I was a pastor, she mentioned that she had been filled with the Holy Spirit. I asked her to tell me about that. Her telling took her back to mental illness. It had wrecked her life. She could no longer work. She had been in and out of psychiatric hospitals. She had even been to jail. Life was hard.

The first time she had been hospitalized, she had been devastated. Sitting in her room at the hospital, staring out the window, she realized life as she had known it was over. She was insane. The future was completely black.

Then completely out of the blue she was enveloped in an ocean of warmth and light. She sensed God assuring her it would be all right. She would make it through. For a little while the fear and dread, the grief over her lost life, was all gone. She was perfectly at peace.

This divine visitation did not heal her, but it has sustained her through 12 years of craziness, in and out of psyche hospitals. Even in and out of jail.

Through all this chaotic darkness she has hung onto the assurance God gave her in that sweet vision. It's going to be all right. You're going to make it. For these twelve years she has been able to come back again to this assurance: God is with her. God will be with her. The disease is not the last word, the ultimate word. God will not condemn her for her disease. God will heal her.

Patricia is an only child. An only daughter.

As I listened and watched her face, I began to see a daughter. I felt the ache of her mother's heart.

If you just walked into Aurora Commons and just took a quick glance around you would see a lot of ugly people. People with addictions. People who cannot hold jobs. People who have problems. People who ARE problems.

But if you had the privilege of sitting and hearing their stories, these misshapen, loathsome forms would slowly morph into beloved sons and daughters. To your astonishment you would find yourselves looking with the eyes of God and you would find yourself in the presence of radiant beauty.

May God give all of us the gift of seeing with the eyes of God. May we see every woman—even ourselves—as a precious, beloved daughter.

How to Get Help from God

Preliminary manuscript for the sermon at Green Lake Church on Sabbath, March 14, 2015. I'll revise the sermon at least once more.

Bible passage: Luke 7:1-17)

(Special guests for the day: students from Cypress Adventist School)

Monday morning, I was lying in bed, thinking about getting up. Monday is my day off. I actually had an option to sleep a little longer, but as usual the instant I wasn't actually sleeping, Rexie was her feet right beside the bed wiggling herself. (Some dogs wag their tails. Rexie's tail wags her whole body.) Sure enough, it worked. She wiggled herself, and I got out of bed, got dressed and headed outside to feed her.

Rexie loves to eat. So every morning she does her breakfast dance. And every morning it works. She wiggles herself and I get out of bed, get dressed and head outside to feed her. It is entirely predictable. If you asked Rexie, what do you have to do to get breakfast at the McLarty house, she would answer without hesitation, “Wiggle yourself.”

As I was filling my thermos in the kitchen, another breakfast expert began her routine. Mama Cat sleeps in the broom closet (with the door closed to prevent unhappy events in the night). As soon as she heard Rexie and me in the kitchen, she started meowing. And just like Rexie's dance it worked. I opened the door of the broom closet. She stepped out and circled me meowing. She jumped up on the laundry room counter and stood beside her bowl, whipping her tail. I filled her dish and she started scarfing her food while Rexie and I headed outside.

Mama Cat loves to eat. If you asked her what you have to do to get breakfast at the McLarty house, she would tell you, meow and flick your tail about and rub your head on things while staring at Farmer John. It works every morning when I'm home.

When I open the back door a living roadblock forms at the foot of the steps. From all over the yard twenty chickens race toward the steps. They make really weird noises, they cluck and squawk and squeal. They make sounds I didn't even know chickens were capable of. And they cock their heads sideways and stare at me with beady eyes. They pack so closely together I can hardly walk without stepping on them.

I carefully shuffle my feet through the mob and follow, some of the repeatedly getting right in front of me, practically getting under my feet. Finally, I break into a run to get ahead of them and out to the barn where the feed bin is.

At the barn I'm greeted by Jack the Cat. He croaks at me then waddles rapidly toward the shelf in the back of the barn where I feed the barn cats. Rexie bounces around the feed room eagerly anticipating breakfast. The mob of chickens also invades the feed room.

I get a scoop of chicken food and head outside to the place where I feed the chickens. The birds follow on my heels. If I don't walk fast enough some of them will get in front of me and trip me. I walk out back behind the barn and spread their food.

If you asked the chickens what you have to do to get breakfast at the McLarty's they would tell you that you have to mob the first person who comes out the back door in the morning. Make crazy chicken noises and follow that person everywhere he goes until he scatters food for you behind the barn. It works every morning. It's a sure thing.

Back in the feed room, I encounter Jack Cat again, croaking. Yes, I know cats are supposed to meow. I need one of you kids to come to our house and teach Jack how to do it. He sounds more like a big frog with laryngitis than a cat.

I pick Jack Cat up and lift him onto his shelf above easy reach of the dogs and feed him.

Then, FINALLY!!!!!!, I feed Rexie. And the McLarty universe is filled with happiness.

Rexie did her morning dance, and finally got her food.

Mama Cat did her morning routine of meowing and flicking her tail and rubbing her head. And it worked she got food almost immediately.

The chickens mobbed the back door and continued to mob me every step I took until I spread their food behind the barn.

Each animal has a technique and it works.

But those of you who know our household well, may have noticed some gaps in my listing of animals.

I told you about feeding Rexie, but we have two dogs, and I didn't mention Gypsy, the old mama dog.

I described feeding Mama Cat in the laundry room and Jack Cat in the barn, but what about Schmanner Cat?

And then there is George. George is Bonnie's favorite rooster. He is old and a bit decrepit. He does not run around in the yard. He lives in a special pen behind the barn. He does not crow. He does not make funny noises and he does not follow me around.

What about breakfast for Gypsy, Schmanner Cat and George? What do they have to do to get breakfast?

Kids, listen carefully. This is the point of the whole sermon.

Gypsy is old. She sleeps more than she used to. She has gone deaf so she does not hear me get up in the morning and cannot hear me if I call her. She does understand sign language, so if I wake her up and signal to her to come, she will go with me to get breakfast. Or I can bring her food inside. Last Monday, I let her sleep and I brought her breakfast inside.

If you ask Gypsy what you have to do to get breakfast at the McLarty's house, she will look at you without understanding. You don't have to do anything. You can go with John when he signals you to come or you can sleep until John brings breakfast inside. And if you're still not hungry, John will put your food up where Rexie can't get it, and you can eat breakfast at 11:30 or whenever you happen to get hungry.

Schmanner Cat gets fed in the barn. When she is in the barn, she meows very loudly—actually it's more like yowling because she is Siamese. She jumps up in the rafters, then back onto her shelf. She sticks her face out toward you then turns and checks her dish. On days she is in the barn, Schmanner Cat has her own breakfast dance. But on Monday, Schmanner Cat was not in the barn.

I could have fed Jack Cat and then gone out to sit on my stool and enjoy the sunrise in peace and quiet. No loud cat making noise and demanding to be petted. I couldn't have argued, if Schmanner Cat does not do her dance, I'm not going to give her breakfast.

But, of course, I didn't think that. Instead, I went and checked the garage. Sure enough, she had gotten shut in the night before when Karin came home from work. When I open the garage door and called, she answered. She walked across the rafters, jumped down onto the refrigerator, then onto my shoulders for a ride to the barn.

She climbed off my shoulders onto her shelf and I fed her.

If you asked Schmanner Cat what you have to do to get breakfast at the McLarty house, her answer would have been similar to Gypsy's. It's the wrong question. Breakfast for animals at the McLarty house is not something animals do. It's what the people do. You can meow like Schmanner Cat or croak like Jack Cat, you can haunt the feed room day and night like Jack or get locked in the garage like Schamanner cat does regularly. No worries either way, you'll get breakfast because that's what the people do there. You can be chunky and fat like Jack or lithe and athletic like Schmanners. Either way, you'll get breakfast.

Then, there's George. At breakfast time, he just stands at the edge of his pen, waiting. He doesn't make noise. He doesn't dance around. He doesn't go to breakfast. Breakfast comes to him. Because that's what people do in the McLarty universe.

Our New Testament Scripture this morning is Luke 7.

After traveling around Galilee, Jesus came back to the town of Capernaum. A centurion in town had a servant who had been part of his household for a long time and was very close to him. The servant was sick and about to die. When the centurion learned that Jesus was back in town he asked the elders of the local synagogue to ask Jesus to come and heal the man's servant. The elders were happy to oblige. They found Jesus and urged him to come with them and heal the servant. “This centurion deserves your help,” they said. “He is a good man. He loves our nation. He has even provided the funds to build our synagogue.”

Jesus headed out with the elders. When they were nearly to the centurion's house, the centurion sent friends with another message: Don't trouble yourself to actually come to my house. I am not worthy to have you actually come under my roof. That's why I didn't come and make my request directly to you. If you simply say the word, my servant will be healed. I know how authority works. I am an officer under orders. I have soldiers under me who follow my orders. I tell one, Go, and he goes. I tell another, Come, and he comes. I give orders to my servants and they do what I say.

When Jesus heard this he was amazed. Listen, he told the crowd, I have never seen such great faith, not even among all the people of Israel. these things, he marvelled at him, and turned him about, and said unto the people that followed him, I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.

When the friends returned to the centurion's house, they found the servant sitting up in bed, completely well.

If we used this story as a guide for how to get help from Jesus, there are several salient points:

First, it helps to be an important person—like the centurion. Notice that the servant was healed because the important person, the centurion liked him.

Second, it helps to get other people to support your request. The centurion enlisted the help of the leading religious figures in town.

Third, other people are more likely to support your request if you're a good person. The elders were very happy to present the centurion's request to Jesus because he was a good man. He had been generous to them. He had provided the major gift for the synagogue fund-raising campaign. He liked the Jewish religion.

Fourth, and most important, faith matters. Jesus declared that this centurion, a non-Jew, a foreigner, a “non-church member” to use language we might use today had given the most impressive demonstration of faith he had ever seen.

If we applied this in our world today: What do you have to do to get God to help you? Be a good person. Be an important person in the work of the church. Give lots of money or lots of time. Get other people to prayer with. Use the internet to get thousands of people praying in support of your prayer. And last, make sure you have absolutely confident faith. Don't harbor the least question or doubt.

Then comes story number two.

The next day Jesus visited the town of Nain. A huge crowd of discipels went with Jesus. As they were approaching the city gate, they met a funeral procession headed out of the town toward the cemetery.

The person who died was a young man, the only son of his mother. And his mother was a widow. Jesus stopped the funeral procession and spoke to the mother. Don't weep. Jesus said. Which seemed like a weird thing to say. Who wouldn't weep in her situation. She was now completely alone in the world. And in her world a woman alone was the most desperate of all persons. She had no rights. No income. No resources. Prostitution and begging were her only likely sources of money for food.

Besides the economic precariousness of her situation, she was utterly socially isolated. Her son had been her whole world, now he was gone.

So Jesus' words appeared to be a mockery, but Jesus did not mock people. After telling mom not to cry, Jesus stepped over to the funeral litter, laid his hand on the corpse and said, “Young man, get up.”

Just like that, the young man sat up and started talking! I wonder if the people carrying him dropped him? The funeral was over. It turned into a big party. I'm sure people started dancing. Hallelujah!

So kids, let's do a compare and contrast exercise. What is the same in both of these stories. What is different? First, let's look at what is different.

In the first story there was great faith. The centurion had great faith. The elders must have had some faith.

In the second story there was no faith at all.

In the first story, lots of people joined together in asking for help.

In the second story, no one asked for help.

In the first story, the main characters were important people.

In the second story, except for Jesus, the people were nobodies. The woman was a widow. In that society, widows were invisible, without rights and with resources. The young man was a widow's son. He was a nobody who was the son of a nobody. We don't know Mom's name or the son's name.

With all these differences, what is the same? In both stories, the person who needed help was precious. The servant to the centurion, the son to his mother. In both stories the person who needed help was precious to Jesus. In both stories, help was given.

If we had only the story of the centurion we might think the only way to get help from God is to have great faith, or have important people support you in your request. We might even think we would have to be good and generous people in order to expect help from heaven.

If we had only the story of the centurion, we might think about getting help from God like Rexie thinks about getting breakfast from the McLartys. If you are Rexie, you know the key to getting breakfast is wiggling yourself. If you are Mama Cat, you know the key to getting breakfast is to meow. If you are Jack Cat, you know that the key to getting breakfast is hanging out in the feed room 24/7 and croaking like a frog with laryngitis.

But since we have the second story, the story of the Widow of Nain, we know that getting help from God is like getting breakfast at the McLartys. Just as breakfast is not limited to animals that wiggle themselves and meow and haunt the feed room, so God's help is not limited to good people, to people of faith, to people who attend church or are connected with people of faith.

It is God's nature to help. That's what God does. That's how God rolls.

Life is better when we have faith. Life is better when we are connected with good people and important people. God delights in our confident prayers. But God is not made helpless by our weaknesses. God is not shut out of our lives by our inability to hope or trust. If we cannot make it to breakfast, God brings breakfast to us.

And we will find our greatest joy and deepest satisfaction when we practice this attitude toward one another.

Kids, this week, at school look around your classroom and ask yourself which kid in my class could I make happier? Parents, ask yourselves, how could I surprise my kids with mercy? Husbands and wives—maybe even ex-husbands and ex-wives—ask how could I act more like God in my interaction with that other person?

God delights in providing healing, in interrupting funerals and turning them into parties. Let's consider how we can cooperate with God in this divine scheme.

Ignore Prefectionism

When we read or listen to exhortations about perfection, our attention inevitably is drawn to our own imperfections. This is true whether the exhortations are based on passages in Ellen White or citations from Scripture. 

I refuse to read or listen to such exhortations. Instead I pay attention to those things that help me take one step in the right direction.

I pay special attention to evidences of God's generosity, graciousness, and compassion. The more attention I pay to this overflowing goodness, the easier it is for me to be generous and gracious in my attitudes toward others. I fret less about my failures and the failures of others. I am freed to devote my energy to planning another act of holiness. Which I think is the real goal of all that perfectionistic literature, anyway. 

I encourage people to simply ignore preachers who quote passages from the Bible and EGW that promise or require perfection. Instead, let us give our attention to the next step--the single next step--to which God invites us. 

The Place of Prayer

The place of prayer matters. Some places are more conducive to prayer than others. We do right to cultivate respect and appreciation for places of prayer. It is also appropriate to be careful not to allow appreciation for places of prayer to substitute for participation in prayer. Especially as we beautify places of prayer, it is important to beware of the possibility that admiration for the place may mask our native hunger for the practice of prayer. Hours or minutes spent deliberately cultivating attentiveness to God is time well spent.


If you look at the place where I pray (seated atop a wooden block, atop a plastic barrel) you are unlikely to be charmed. But if you look at what I see from where I pray, I'm confident you, too, like me will be enchanted.

The Place of Prayer

Take this cup. (Hot beverage is an essential aid for prayer outdoors in cold weather.)

What I see at prayer: Dawn as the smile of God

My Father Is Pleased with You

This morning as I watched the eastern sky brighten, I experienced the fruit of years of greeting every dawn in contemplative prayer. On bright mornings like today, the warm glow readily speaks to me of God's affection and approval. But even on mornings when the sky is leaden, the air thick with moisture and the temperature hovers in the 30s, my time on my stool facing east is suffused with an awareness of the smile of God.

Today, may your Sabbath-keeping be similarly lighted with a sweet awareness of God's kindly regard.

Dawn Meditation

I watched the lake at dawn. Cloud-softened sunlight dancing sparkles across the ripples. Sheets and strings of glitter shifted across the dark mirror of the water. Ducks launched tiny circles of seismicity, ringlets of light. I tell you this because it was too rich to go unremembered, and maybe, by trying to tell, I will remember until tomorrow's dawn.