Sermon: Expansive People of Grace

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Expansive People of Grace

By Charles Rush

June 14, 2009

[ Audio (mp3, 6.4Mb) ]

is is a true story. The famous painter Salvador Dali had a very serious eye ailment that threatened his sight. He went to see the leading specialist in Spain who treated his eye successfully and saved Dali's vision. Dali was overwhelmingly grateful and promised the physician that he would do a painting in his honor, which he did. It was a huge canvas, several yards by several yards. The main part of the painting was a huge eye with the cornea and pupil, massive in size. In the reflection of the eye, Dali had painted the reflection of the doctor, examining his eye, with the light in his hand, his physicians gear on.

The painter, as you probably know, had quite an ego. He presented this massive painting to the physician, unveiled it. The physician was taken aback at this huge picture of Dali's eye and this tiny reflection of the physician in the corner of the eye. The physician walked from side to side, not saying much. Finally, Dali prompted him saying, ‘What are you thinking?' The physician swept his hands broadly at the sheer size of the eye and detail of the painting and said, “Actually, just now, I'm thinking just now that I'm glad I'm not a proctologist.”

Salvador Dali had a way of getting Dali in the middle of everything, even his gratitude, as only he could. Genuine gratitude, however, is quite another matter.

A colleague of mine told me about shared with me an experience from his early years as a pastor, visiting two different women in the hospital who were both dying. One of them was in her 70's, a relatively prosperous woman, extensively traveled, educated, seemingly influential in her community.

The other woman was in her late 30's, three young children that had taken most of her time in the past decade, also educated, of modest means, with a devoted husband. They both went to the same large church in Texas.

The seventy-year-old was acerbic, sarcastic, and angry. Often when her relatives would come to visit her, she would comment to the Minister after they left how these relatives had been a disappointment to her, usually accompanied with a story that ended with some rolling of the eyes. She was bitter that she had contracted this disease, irritated with all the procedures and chemotherapy that she had to go through, and short with her physicians that they hadn't figured out a cure. Week after week, this went on. Family members were solicited to try to change her attitude to no avail. Everyone just shrugged their shoulders as they left her room, saying, ‘that's Martha'. My colleague said that family members visited, but it was short, perfunctory, and subconsciously they just stayed away. Only her youngest granddaughter could bring a smile, a baby. She was prickly all the way to the end.

The thirty year old was on the same floor. She went through an equally elaborate ordeal that was ineffective and she was very weak at the end of her life. My colleague said he that what struck him about her was her eyes. Even when she was tired, she was capable of radiating love and grace with her eyes. And her touch- there was something warm and tender about her touch. At some point in her treatment, the doctors told there that there was no more treatment left and shortly afterward she began a series of short conversations, blessing people really, though without ever saying so, telling them they were good and they would be strong and productive, not to worry about her. It was very difficult but very moving.

And her graciousness was infectious to all those around her as well. My friend said he was talking to her husband right at the time of her death, asking him if he was frustrated and angry, maybe at God, for her relatively brief life and the prospect of raising children alone. The husband said he had a lot of emotions, to be sure, but then he added, “I never deserved to have her in the first place. She lit up my life from the first day I met her. I'm just grateful for the time we had together.”

How is it, my friend asked, that two people from the same place, who attend the same church, can have such different spiritual dispositions? Furthermore, since we are all a mixture of both of these personalities, how can we cultivate that spiritual disposition of grace? How can we live out of a sense of gratitude and grace?

In our text this morning, Jesus walks by 10 people that are sick with leprosy, and he heals all ten. Only one returns to give thanks and he is a Samaritan, not even a full Jew. Presumably, Luke thinks the others were not grateful because they were presumptuous about their entitlement as Jews. Jesus singles out this one Samaritan that returned, and he blesses him. In effect, he says, “Live out of the grace you have known, be grateful and gracious to those around you.” Return to that disposition for spiritual health. Jesus doesn't tell him to do anything religious: he doesn't have to say 10 hail Mary's, or go on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, or spend his life in celibacy, devoted to prayer. He just blesses him, “you faith has made you whole (or healthy)”. Live out of the blessing you have known. Be grateful and gracious.

It is something we have to return to because there are a lot of other forces that we could live from, many that seem to dominate us and control us, if we aren't watching them. Fear, anxiety, desire for certain stuff, control, anger, sexual libido. They are all out there, vying to be the central motivator of our ego, all successfully in gaining control from time to time.

Most of us allow our egos to run amok like a dog I heard about that somehow wandered onto the field of a Kansas City Royals baseball game. None of the players or the umpires could catch the dog, so they tried shooing the dog off the field. The dog went this way and that, running to and fro. The players yelled at him, the umpires hollered at him but the dog only became thoroughly confused, eventually plopping himself down on third base where he refused to move.A sports reporter, covering the story wrote, “The problem was that the dog could hear no dominant voice.”[i] Most of us are like that too, if we are not spiritually intentional and return our focus to what is important, we hear no dominant voice.

And they are powerful voices too. Right now, a whole bunch of us are hearing the voice of fear around us. Some of us are looking for work in an environment that is not generally very promising, and if you are in certain fields, your whole field is tanking. But a whole bunch of us are living in a background environment of fear in our companies, a serious change of disposition from just a couple years ago. Just a couple years ago top executives were encouraging people with bold imaginative plans, praising those who dared to take risks. How quickly that environment has reversed itself. With fear around us, people are hiding from responsibility, blaming others, covering their backsides just to keep their jobs. Fear permeates our background environment and it is not creative.

And anger. The characteristic New York disposition… I remember reading Susan Lee's piece years ago for the Wall Street Journal about visiting the construction workers, police officers, and National Guard that were cleaning up the site at the World Trade Center. “When pressed”, she writes, “most people described their thoughts in terms of personal feelings, using adjectives like ‘sickened' or ‘sad', but they said they felt good to be helping out. Half admitted to crying each day after they left the site, but they shrugged as they said it (That is a New York thing Susan); while the other half said they had trouble sleeping because of their anger.”[ii] Anger can be like that, just creep up, wend it's way into all facets of our life and dominate us.

And control. Iranians suffered political reversals in the Iraqi elections, then in the elections in Lebanon, and they just couldn't take that loss of control in their own elections. The result was a contested election and riots in the streets on the biggest scale in decades. I suppose the Mullah's of Iran win this weeks award for those most in need of control. The power control is great and once under it's grip, the shadow of it's influence is long.

All these dispositions vie with each other to pilot our egos. No, we have to return our gaze to the disposition of the blessings in our lives around us, to find the gracious spirit of living. It is all around us, but we have to return to it as the dominant voice, the others being so loud in our lives.

Sometimes you have to bring to mind that sense of blessing that you have known. My oldest daughter had been studying in France. I kept talking about going to see her but I didn't think I could afford it, didn't have the time, but it was a dream I had envisioned almost twenty years ago. Things came together to make it affordable… so I went and met her in Paris. My wife couldn't go, wanted me to go instead, didn't want to fly together right now, etc.. So I went alone. I had thought of this trip so many years ago, I had almost forgotten the dream, and suddenly I was living it.

I met my daughter and we walked straight to the Paris Opera House to see if there were any possible tickets to anything. This was part of the dream too. Alas, there were none. This was not right, so we walked outside dejected to see the scalper dude. Two tickets left to the ballet Giselle that night, top tier box, back row- so what. We got dressed and went. As fate would have it, the people in the two rows in front of us didn't show for the curtain, so we got to scoot down to the rail. As the lights went down, my daughter is in front of me, I was watching her watch the ballet, thinking back to when she was a baby.

She had colic as a newborn and cried a lot at night. We had two children within one year, so we took turns walking her at night (and I am not suggesting it was 50/50… it was not). I was learning Greek at the time. I would hold her over my shoulder, burping her, with the Greek grammar book in my other hand, memorizing Greek paradigms and Greek vocabulary: pistis, Basileia tou Theou, dikaiosyne, skubala. Sometimes, if she was still cranky, we would bundle up and walk in the snow. Her little eyes, wide awake in the cold. She was the cutest baby in the world. I loved that child.

And I dreamed that one day, we would go some place far away, some place without diapers, without colic, without Greek homework and student poverty, some place like Paris- yes, Paris. I'm sitting there watching her watch the ballet, so elegant, so grown up, so interesting to talk to… and she even knows French. What a blessing to live to see this day. What a blessing to watch her bloom before my eyes. We are surrounded by blessing. We have been graced. It is only one voice out of many voices that command our attention, but Jesus suggests that the spiritual challenge is to return to it and allow it to be the dominant voice and to live a life of gratitude blessing others and reflecting the grace.

My hope is that you can let it infuse your life. My hope is that you can be a grateful and gracious giver. It is not easy in this environment to keep on that voice but it is being done around us. I was talking with someone recently about philanthropy in this anxious economic environment. Their home had a family discussion about values and priorities. They decided to keep their philanthropy steady. If other things needed to be trimmed back, and they would, but they would continue to support the values they have that matter.

My hope is that you can be like that. And make no mistake, I hope you are generous with your pledge to Christ Church. We need the money, let me be clear. But I think this is a community that is worthy of your gift. I think of Christ Church as a catalyst that generates a lot of blessing- people that lift up and support each other, spiritual values that bless us and our children, connections with missions locally and around the world that open up our minds with a vision that is global. We need to support our programs, our mission giving, our staff,- everything that makes community go. And I know that for many of you, this is going not going to be just cream off the top, it is going to look more like a leap of faith. Living out of your gratitude has a way of working out these things, even difficult things.

Robert Fulghum attended a conference on the Island of Crete led by the renowned Greek philosopher and politician Alexander Papaderos. At the end of the conference with a score of other intellectuals, Papaderos led the closing session. He closed by saying, “Are there any questions.” There was a silence. Fulghum raised his hand and asked, “What is the meaning of life?” It brought a round of laughter from all the intellectuals that were gathered. To their surprise, Papaderos took out his wallet and pulled from it a piece of mirror that he carried with him everywhere. He had found it as a child after a German motorcycle had wrecked and he played with it from then on, illuminating the dark. Papaderos said “As I grew older I learned that reflecting light is not just a child's game. It is a metaphor for what I might do with my life. I came to understand that I am not the light, or the source of the light, but I can reflect the light. The light- truth, understanding, knowledge- is always there, but it will not shine into the darkest places unless I reflect it. I have come to understand this as the meaning of life.” That's not too bad for a philosopher. We theologians would simply add that truth, understanding, and knowledge, important as they are, must be delivered with the spiritual disposition of grace, gratitude, and love. May you be filled with grace, gratitude, and love. Blessings are all around you. Amen.

[i] From Ray Leblanc Augsburg Sermons 3 (Augsburg Minneapolis: Gospels, Series C, 1994), p. 118.

[ii] Susan Lee “More Than Zero” from the Houses of Worship article in the Weekend Section, Wall Street Journal, (November 16th, 2001), p. 17.