True Worship

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“We keep a troubled vigil at the bedside of the world,” writes Howard Thurman, “Thus we clutch the moment of intimacy in worship when we become momentarily a part of a larger whole, a fleeting strength, which we pit against all the darkness and the dread of our times.

I want to invite you to think for a moment about some of the darkness and dread that hangs over our world today…

 

When in worship have YOU felt a part of something bigger? When have you been given the strength to face those struggles in the world?

 

The idea that worship itself is a moment of intimacy when we become part of a larger whole is a powerful and timeless truth.

 

In our scripture this morning, we read about Isaiah, and the very reality of reality was presented to him when he met God in his vision of worship.

 

To set the stage, to understand just how important his experience was, we need to look at the first words of verse 1:

In the year King Uzziah had died…

King Uzziah was ruler over the southern kingdom of Judah and he came to be king at only 16 years of age. According to both 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles, he did what was right in the sight of God and had a powerful and successful reign over Judah for fifty-two years.

But then something happened. All of the success that God had brought the nation went to King Uzziah’s head. In the wake of military victories, Uzziah provided top of the line armor and weapons for his soldiers and fortified the city of Jerusalem with towers and archers and traps. But in these things, he was demonstrating trust in the hands of man, rather than in the power of God.

Our God is on that would take a whole army of the ready and send only three hundred into the battle. When you fight on God’s side, you don’t have to fight with anything else!

But King Uzziah forgot this. His pride became such a problem that he entered the holiest place in the temple… that special room at the very center that only the high priest was allowed to enter and he walked in like he owned the place and burned incense to the Lord.

 

Now, today, we wouldn’t consider that a big deal. But in the days of King Uzziah, there was a strict boundary between the people and God and just as important of a boundary between the authority of the priests and the authority of the King. This was the separation of church and state for its time… and Uzziah crossed the line.

He snuck into the temple and had just lit the flame to burn incense to the Lord, when 80 priests came pouring into the room. The chief among them cried out, “Get out of the sanctuary, for you have trespassed! You shall have no honor from the Lord God.”

Instantly, leprosy came upon Uzziah as a consequence of his prideful action and he was a leper until the day of his death.

 

It is in the midst of this culture of pride and success that Isaiah receives his vision from God.

Beginning in chapter 1 of the book of Isaiah, we hear…

 

What should I think about all your sacrifices?     says the Lord… 12 When you come to appear before me,     who asked this from you,     this trampling of my temple’s courts? 13 Stop bringing worthless offerings.     Your incense repulses me. …15 When you extend your hands,     I’ll hide my eyes from you. Even when you pray for a long time,     I won’t listen. Your hands are stained with blood. 16     Wash! Be clean! Remove your ugly deeds from my sight.     Put an end to such evil; 17     learn to do good. Seek justice:     help the oppressed;     defend the orphan;     plead for the widow.

 

True worship, worship that is pleasing to God, is a moment of intimacy.

It is a moment where we are connected, as Thurman writes, to a larger whole.

It is a moment not where we show God how great we are, but we offer ourselves, with all of our flaws and weaknesses, and let God’s greatness strengthen us.

 

After Isaiah has vision after vision of the failings of his nation, of the people and the bloodshed and the oppression his people have created, King Uzziah dies and Isaiah – in the midst of this moment of transition and change – is mystically transported into God’s presence.

In eight verses, we receive the pattern of a life of worship. We find the structure we need in order to let the spirit of God connect us with reality at large.

These four movements help us keep worship from being all about “me.” They pull us and stretch us and teach us what it means to be faithful.

I want to invite you to pull out your bulletin and look with me at the headings for each section. Each one of these represents a movement we discover in this passage from Isaiah this morning.

 

We begin with Gathering Together… a time of praise .

 

I saw the Lord sitting on a high and exalted throne, the edges of his robe filling the temple. Winged creatures were stationed around him. Each had six wings: with two they veiled their faces, with two their feet, and with two they flew about. They shouted to each other, saying:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of heavenly forces! All the earth is filled with God’s glory!”

 

Isaiah finds himself in the temple and he is not alone. The seraphim have joined him and they sing praise to the one who has gathered them all together.

Most importantly however, worship begins with the presence of God.

As we gather with one another, we do so in the name of God, in the presence of God, and in our call to worship, we remember that God is here before us. Whether we are worshipping in the sanctuary or outside or in the park or at home, we gather in God’s presence.

But another key aspect of this gathering is that we are praising God. We acknowledge… no, we can’t ignore WHO it is that is before us. The seraphim are moved to sing in this awesome presence. We, too, begin our time of worship with a song of praise.

Each week, as the hymns and songs are chosen that will begin our time of worship, the first one we sing always points to the God who has called us here.

As we think about what this gathering time means, we can see clearly just how far King Uzziah crossed the line. He entered the temple for his own selfish reasons, rather than to praise and honor God.

 

As we return to our bulletin, the next heading is a time of confession…

 

The doorframe shook at the sound of their shouting, and the house was filled with smoke.

I said, “Mourn for me; I’m ruined! I’m a man with unclean lips, and I live among a people with unclean lips. Yet I’ve seen the king, the Lord of heavenly forces!”

 

How many of you have had worship moments where you felt God’s glory filling the room?

Maybe it was during a hymn being sung or a scripture passage or some moment of prayer… whatever it was, in the presence of God’s glory we can feel so uplifted and close to the Lord.

But the flip side of being in God’s presence is realizing just how NOT like God we are.

When Isaiah stood there in the temple with the hem of God’s robe surrounding him and the seraphim singing and the sound of it all so overwhelming that the door frame shook… he felt pretty small.

Instead of trying to prove ourselves to God, like King Uzziah, instead of trying to stand on our own righteousness, true worship is a time to confess who we really are – both individually and as a community.

Confession is a time to lay bare the truth about ourselves. It is a time when we don’t have to pretend. It is a time when we are forced to see difficult truths about ourselves we might not otherwise admit.

We are human. We are weak. We are selfish. We need the Lord.

 

And in worship, we experience the Lord our God.

 

Then one of the winged creatures flew to me, holding a glowing coal that he had taken from the altar with tongs. He touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips. Your guilt has departed, and your sin is removed.”

Then I heard the Lord’s voice saying, “Whom should I send, and who will go for us?”

 

After we stand before God, vulnerable, open, knowing fully who we are and how not like the Lord we are, we hear God’s word proclaimed.

You are forgiven.

I love you.

I have a job for you!

Now… these might seem like simple words – and they are! – but they are also words we proclaim in our time of worship in a hundred different ways.

Through song and scripture, through the cross above us, through our actions and bodily motions, through painting and dance, through sermons and images, through the smell and taste of Holy Communion, through the touch of a neighbors hand or the smile on a strangers faice, through a burning coal that touches our lip and makes us clean… This is the gospel that is proclaimed over and over and over again:

You are forgiven. I love you. And I have a job for you!

 

You see, in the very same moment God is helping us get over the past and our failings and weakness, God is getting us ready for the future God has planned.

In the words of Anne Lamott – God loves you right where you are and loves you too much to let you stay that way.

And when we come face to face with God in Christ, we hear that message, too. When we are touched by Christ in the breaking open of the word, we are forever changed.

Worship, therefore, is a time when we let God set the agenda, rather than barging in to tell God what we think, as King Uzziah did.

Finally, we respond in faith.

 

I said, “I’m here;

send me.”

God said, “Go…”

 

When we open ourselves up and let God in, when our lives start to change – then we can’t help but respond to God’s call.

In our response to God’s word, we begin to realize that it is not about us. Isaiah’s plans don’t matter anymore.

His problems and failings don’t matter any more

The money he was saving to buy a new donkey doesn’t matter anymore.

When God asks, Isaiah responds – Yes.

 

In worship, we respond to God’s invitation with prayers. We lift up our own lives and those of others that God has called us to care for.

In worship, we respond by offering our whole selves in love and service and by giving back even a piece of what we have been giving.

In worship, we hear hymns that call us back into the world that is full of darkness and dread with a renewed strength and a word of hope.

In worship, we are sent out into the world, not alone, but with the Holy Spirit as our guide.

 

 

 

 

Call & Response: ie: post ordination paper sermon & bishop’s letter

Call and Response.

In the African-American church tradition – call and response is what happens when the people hear something the preacher says and can’t contain themselves… they have to respond. It’s the chorus of Hallelujahs and Amens and Tell Me More Sister’s that the congregation brings out to help the preacher along in telling the gospel story. And when you are a part of it – when you feel the energy, when you realize that each and every single person in that room is waiting to respond – it’s pretty powerful.

Now – we are a white, Iowan congregation. 51 weeks out of 52 there probably won’t be an “amen” uttered in response to anything I have to say. It’s just not who we are! =) BUT. But… we do have a call…. And, we are called to have a response.

We were first reminded of that call today from the book of Isaiah – the Lord who created us, who formed us says: DO NOT BE AFRAID, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are MINE.

Do not be afraid, God says. Do not be afraid to respond – I have called you. And so when you are called to pass through waters – I am there with you. Called through rivers? – They won’t overwhelm you. Called Into ministry in Marengo, Iowa? I have your back.

DO NOT BE AFRAID, says the Lord. I have called you.

God calls us – just like God placed a call upon Jesus. This morning we heard that story of Jesus’ baptism… a story that is shared in the gospels of Matthew and Mark and Luke. As Sarah Dylan Breuer reminds us, “Mark’s wording is particularly striking, as “immediately” after Jesus is baptized by John, Mark says, “the Spirit drove [Jesus] out into the wilderness.” The verb Mark uses is ekballo — the same word used of what happens to demons in exorcism.” (http://www.sarahlaughed.net/lectionary/2007/01/first_sunday_af.html)

Jesus’ baptism calls him out from the life of silence that we talked about two Sundays ago. His baptism sends him forth – thrusts him forth if we look at Mark – into a headfirst confrontation with the powers of this world.

DO NOT BE AFRAID, says the Lord. I have called you.

We too, are called. Our baptisms are connected to Jesus’. The same Holy Spirit that came upon him and sent him out into the world, comes upon us. We are called.

But called to what?

Dylan Breuer says this call is what we take on when we are sealed with the weighty sign of means that we will participate in Jesus’ mission… and invest our very lives – body, mind, and spirit, and pocketbook – into the mission of transforming the world around us, until we truly can say that Jesus is Lord of it all.

We are called to God’s audacious vision for humanity. We are called to live out the gospel of Christ. We are called to go with Jesus into the wilderness and resist injustice, evil and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves.

DO NOT BE AFRAID, says the Lord. I have called you.

We need to be constantly reminded not to be afraid, because this calling is difficult. It is daunting. And many of us prefer to ignore it.

Many of us prefer to forget we made these promises in our baptism.

But when we do so, when we choose not to respond, we also lay aside the reassurance and hope that God provides when we are faced with real evil and injustice in the world.

Over the next four weeks, we will be exploring how money has gotten us all tied up into knots – both as individuals and families and as a nation, during a series called “Enough.” We will talk about how ultimately our financial problems are spiritual problems – brought on by gluttony, sloth, greed, envy, and pride. And what we each will be called to be are ambassadors of hope… people who demonstrate to the world that our joy doesn’t lie in the things we have, but in the God who has us.

DO NOT BE AFRAID, says the Lord. I have called you.

But money is not the only problem our world faces. Our former Bishop Gregory Palmer wrote: “As bishops, we know that critical issues of the day have left people feeling fearful, cynical, hopeless and overwhelmed.”

And so our bishops, as the spiritual leaders of our denomination… as fellow baptized Christians with the same call up their lives as we have, got together and they have something they want me to share with you…

“God’s creation is in crisis. We, the Bishops of The United Methodist Church, cannot remain silent while God’s people and God’s planet suffer… our neglect, selfishness, and pride have fostered: pandemic poverty and disease; environmental degradation, and the proliferation of weapons and violence. Despite these interconnected threats to life and hope, God’s creative work continues. Despite all the ways we all contribute to these problems, God still invites each one of us to participate in the work of renewal… We cannot help the world until we change our way of being in it. We all feel saddened by the state of the world, overwhelmed by the scope of these problems, and anxious about the future, but God calls us and equips us to respond.”

DO NOT BE AFRAID, says the Lord. I have called you.

God’s Spirit… that same spirit that baptized us… is always and everywhere at work in the world fighting poverty, restoring health, renewing creation, and reconciling peoples.

Aware of God’s vision for creation, we no longer see a list of isolated problems affecting disconnected people, plants, and animals. Rather, we see one interconnected system that is “groaning in travail” (Romans 8:22 RSV)… We urge all United Methodists and people of goodwill to offer themselves as instruments of God’s renewing Spirit in the world.

First, let us orient our lives toward God’s holy vision. This vision of the future calls us to hope and to action, because as disciples of Christ, we take God’s promise as the purpose for our lives. Let us, then, rededicate ourselves to living each day with awareness of the future that God extends to us and of the Spirit that leads us onward.

DO NOT BE AFRAID, says the Lord. I have called you.

Second, let us practice social and environmental holiness… Through doing so, we make ourselves channels of God’s blessing in the world. We practice social and environmental holiness by caring for God’s people and God’s planet and by challenging those whose policies and practices neglect the poor, exploit the weak, hasten global warming, and produce more weapons.

DO NOT BE AFRAID, says the Lord. I have called you.

Third, let us live and act in hope. As people in the tradition of John Wesley, we understand reconciliation and renewal to be part of the process of salvation that is already underway. We are not hemmed in to a fallen world. Rather we are part of a divine unfolding process to which we must contribute. As we faithfully respond to God’s grace and call to action, the Holy Spirit guides us in this renewal. With a resurrection spirit, we look forward to the renewal of the whole creation and commit ourselves to that vision. We pray that God will accept and use our lives and resources that we rededicate to a ministry of peace, justice, and hope to overcome poverty and disease, environmental degradation, and the proliferation of weapons and violence.

DO NOT BE AFRAID, says the Lord. I have called you.

This letter from our bishops goes on to include some concrete ways that they are responding to God’s call on us all…

“With God’s help and with you as our witnesses–

1. We as your bishops pledge to answer God’s call to deepen our spiritual consciousness as just stewards of creation. We commit ourselves to faithful and effective leadership on these issues, in our denomination and in our communities and nations.

2. We pledge to make God’s vision of renewal our goal. With every evaluation and decision, we will ask: Does this contribute to God’s renewal of creation? Ever aware of the difference between what is and what must be, we pledge to practice Wesleyan “holy dissatisfaction.”iv

3. We pledge to practice dialogue with those whose life experience differs dramatically from our own, and we pledge to practice prayerful self-examination. For example, in the Council of Bishops, the fifty active bishops in the United States are committed to listening and learning with the nineteen active bishops in Africa, Asia, and Europe. And the bishops representing the conferences in the United States will prayerfully examine the fact that their nation consumes more than its fair share of the world’s resources, generates the most waste, and produces the most weapons.

4. We pledge ourselves to make common cause with religious leaders and people of goodwill worldwide who share these concerns. We will connect and collaborate with ecumenical and interreligious partners and with community and faith organizations so that we may strengthen our common efforts.

5. We pledge to advocate for justice and peace in the halls of power in our respective nations and international organizations.

6. We pledge to measure the “carbon footprint”v of our episcopal and denominational offices, determine how to reduce it, and implement those changes. We will urge our congregations, schools, and settings of ministry to do the same.

7. We pledge to provide, to the best of our ability, the resources needed by our conferences to reduce dramatically our collective exploitation of the planet, peoples, and communities, including technical assistance with buildings and programs: education and training: and young people’s and online networking resources.
8. We pledge to practice hope as we engage and continue supporting the many transforming ministries of our denomination. Every day we will thank God for fruit produced through the work of The United Methodist Church and through each of you.

9. We pledge more effective use of the church and community Web pages to inspire and share what we learn.vi We celebrate the communications efforts that tell the stories of struggle and transformation within our denomination.

With these pledges, we respond to God’s gracious invitation to join in the process of renewal. We rededicate ourselves to join the movements of the Spirit. Young people are passionately raising funds to provide mosquito nets for their “siblings” thousands of miles away. Dock workers are refusing to off-load small weapons being smuggled to armed combatants in civil wars on their continents. People of faith are demanding land reform on behalf of landless farm workers. Children and young people have formed church-wide “green teams” to transform our buildings and ministries into testimonies of stewardship and sustainability. Ecumenical and interreligious partners persist in demanding the major nuclear powers to reduce their arsenals, step by verifiable step, making a way to a more secure world totally disarmed of nuclear weapons. God is already doing a new thing. With this Letter, we rededicate ourselves to participate in God’s work, and we urge you all to rededicate yourselves as well.

DO NOT BE AFRAID, says the Lord. I have called you.

God’s call on each of our lives began with the waters of baptism.

(go into baptism liturgy… and use this litany as a call to the water to renew our baptism)

At the conclusion of their letter, the bishops write: We beseech every United Methodist, every congregation, and every public leader: Will you participate in God’s renewing work?

They ask us to pledge along side them, filled with hope for what God can accomplish through us all. And so they ask us to respond after each question: “We will, with God’s help!”

Leader: Will you live and act in hope?

People: We will, with God’s help!

Leader: Will you practice social and environmental holiness?

People: We will, with God’s help!

Leader: Will you learn from one another and prayerfully examine your lives?

People: We will, with God’s help!

Leader: Will you order your lives toward God’s holy vision of renewal?

People: We will, with God’s help!

Leader: With God’s good creation imperiled by poverty and disease, environmental degradation, and weapons and violence, will you offer yourselves as instruments of God’s renewing work in the world?

People: We will, with God’s help!

Send Me!

God said, “Whom shall I send?” And immediately, without hesitating, without knowing what on earth he was getting into, Isaiah responded, “Here I am, Send ME!”

Now, I have thought and thought and thought about this sermon. In some ways, it is the inspiration for this whole series on worship – because fundamentally, I believe that what we do in worship gets us ready to say yes. What we do in worship helps us to place God at the center of our lives as we praise. What we do in worship helps us to let go of the pasts that weigh us down. What we do in worship re-presents us with the Word of God. And ALL of those things prepare us, shape us, form us, so that when God cries out, “Whom shall I send?” we will all cry together – SEND ME!!!!

If you look at the structure of our worship services – about a third or more of our time is spent responding. We respond to God by lifting one another up in prayer. We respond to God by giving generously to the work of Christ’s church in the world. We respond to God by coming forward to the table of the Lord and sharing in the heavenly banquet. We respond to God by heading out into the world with a blessing. And the most important part? We respond by living every minute of our lives between 10:00 on Sunday morning to 9:00 the next Sunday in a way that says yes to God.

That, my friends, is the tricky part. We read in James that we are supposed to be doers of the word and not hearers only. That we shouldn’t just talk about loving God and others, but we are actually supposed to go out there and love God by loving others.

As we have talked about all this month, the core of our gospel message is: God loves you, God forgives you, and God has a job for you.

Every single day, in a thousand different ways, God is inviting us to participate in the reign of God’s kingdom. Just on Thursday as I sat down to write down some of my thoughts, I was struck by four invitations in particular.

1) Mary Lanning passed away on Thursday morning and I heard God say, “Whom shall I send to comfort those who are grieving?”

2) The rain kept falling all day Thursday and I heard God say, “Whom shall I send to fill sandbags in Palo and Central City and Marion and bring hope to those who are flooded?”

3) I looked at some of our curriculum for Sunday School, and I heard God say, “Whom shall I send to teach the high school class and provide support and encouragement for our young people?”

4) Our lay leadership team met on Thursday evening, and I heard God say, “Whom shall I send to serve the people of this church in Marengo, Iowa?

Now – in school, I was always the kid who wanted to answer all of the questions. And so I’d be sitting there in my seat, eagerly raising my hand, halfway standing out of my chair so the teacher would notice me.

That’s kind of how I picture Isaiah. He just had something AMAZING happen to him – He is standing before God and in spite of all the things he has done in his life, he has lived through the experience. Even more than that – he was forgiven, given a whole new lease on life. And now this same God that is full of grace and mercy needs someone to help him out. And Isaiah raises his hand and says “Hey God!!! I’m over here!!! Send ME!!!!!!”

If I took each of those questions from Thursday individually and just stood up here and asked them, I would be willing to bet that you wouldn’t be eagerly responding. I myself have gotten out of that habit of eagerly saying yes to things that come along. Our lives are so busy. We have legitimate reasons to be gone. We are already committed to many good and wonderful other projects. We are serving the community through our jobs or through the school already.

We have lots and lots of good excuses.

Or are we just letting ourselves off the hook?

There is a twenty year old young woman is a missionary in Uganda who has adopted 13 children who have been orphaned. She also shares God with the people in the village through bible studies and worship. One day recently, she was handed a baby that she thought was dead… until the baby breathed. The mother had HIV and had stopped breastfeeding the 9 month old, for fear of passing it to her child, but there was no other food for the baby or the mother to eat. None, at all. The missionary pleaded to take the baby to a hospital, scooped the infant up in her arms and also purchased formula.

She brought the child into her home to nourish the little girl back to health. She wrote “For the first 24 hours, I could hardly stand to look at sweet baby Patricia … The hurt and the hunger in her lifeless little eyes was simply unbearable…”

“I am sad and I am angry…but this is my blog and I am going to say what I feel like. I am MAD. I have been sad and broken for these children for so long and it has finally turned into a hardened anger… I am angry that in the “Pearl of Africa” and the most fertile region of it at that, a mother has literally NO food to feed her baby, not to mention herself or 6 other kids. I am angry that the result of this is that these sweet ones suffer in their innocence.

“I have said it before and it still holds true: I DO NOT BELIEVE that the God of the universe created too many children in His image and not enough love or food or care to go around. In fact I believe that He created the Body of Christ for just that, to help these little ones, the least of these. And I believe that except for a handful, the Body of Christ is failing…

“According to several different resources, there are 168.8 million needy children like … Patricia. Seems like a big number, huh? It shouldn’t, because there are 2.1 BILLION people on this earth who profess to be Christians. Jesus followers. Servants. Gospel live-ers. And if only 8 percent of those Christians would care for just ONE of these needy children, they would all be taken care of.” (http://kissesfromkatie.blogspot.com/)

Katie the missionary is right – there are 2.1 Billion people on this earth who profess to be Christians… but Gospel live-ers? That might be a different story.

In our epistle from James, his main concern is that people aren’t living out their faith. They aren’t letting God’s truth become planted in their lives. And in verses 22-25 he gets to the root of this problem. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that you are a listening when you let the Word go in one ear and out the other. You have to ACT on what you hear! If we just hear the word and do nothing about it , then you are like someone who looks at themselves in a mirror, walks away and two minutes later has no idea who they are or what they look like.

It’s the same wisdom that school teachers know well. Edgar Dale once said that we remember 10% of what we read, 20% of what we hear, 30% of what we see… 70% of what we discuss with others, 80% of what we personally experience and 95% of what we teach others.

We can spend all the time we want reading the bible or listening to sermons – but if we aren’t actively engaging with the Word of God – if we aren’t discussing it with one another, and living it out – then we quickly forget what God has said.

Real religion, James says, is reaching out to the homeless and loveless in their plight, orphans and widows in their distress, and keeping oneself unstained by the world.

Real religion is for merely 8% of us Christians to live out the gospel by caring for the orphaned, hungry, homeless children of the world.

Real religion is speaking up on behalf of the “least of these” in our country – the homeless, the unemployed, and the underinsured.

Real religion is listening for who God wants us to care for here in Marengo, Iowa and getting on board behind it 110%.

And… real religion is clothing ourselves not with excuses for why we can’t do something, but with the whole armor of God.

The thing I realized, just this week as I felt God calling me to speak up and say something concrete about health care reform, is that it was incredibly scary. I felt very ill equipped and I was incredibly worried about what other people might think. About what you might think.

Perhaps you have noticed this, but I tend not to take sides in big issues. I would be willing to bet that most of you don’t know who I voted for in the past three elections and that most of you would be surprised at the answers. And that is intentional. Because I take seriously the call in James to be quick to listen and slow to speak. I have been working very hard at biting my tongue so that I can be the pastor to all of you: republicans and democrats, liberals and conservatives, libertarians and well, whatever the opposite of a libertarian is.

But when I read from Ephesians the passage about being strong in the Lord and the strength of his power, I felt like God really wanted me to respond. In particular, verse 12 spoke to me because it reminds me that our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh – this is a life-or-death battle with cosmic powers. In this debate about health care, we are not enemies because there is a more important battle to engage in.

“But in the framework of hope for God’s kingdom they [stories of Jesus healing] cannot be forgotten, for in that framework they become reminders of hope.
“All severe illnesses are heralds or foretokens of death, and we have to see Jesus’ healings as heralds or foretokens in just the same way: they are heralds of the resurrection… In every serious illness we fight for our lives. In every healing we experience something of the resurrection. We feel new-born, and as if life had been given back to us.”

– Jurgen Moltmann, Jesus Christ for Today’s World.

(remainder of sermon to be posted later)