St. Paul’s On-the-Hill Episcopal Church

The Rev. Stephen C. Holton, Rector

February 1, 2009; 4 Epiphany

Deuteronomy 18:15-20

Mark 1:21-18

IN WEAKNESS, PROPHETS OF GOD’S CARE

Care, Authority, Responding to Every weakness

When do you feel most weak? It’s an awful feeling, isn’t it? You don’t think you’ll measure up. You’re afraid you’ll fail. If you work for someone, you’re afraid you’ll be fired. If you work for yourself, you’re afraid you won’t deliver the goods your clients need.

In your family you’re afraid your family will fail because you have failed. You’ll never achieve your dreams.

It’s horrible to feel weak.

We all feel weak – most of the time.

Here we can be weak – all of the time.

Isn’t it nice to feel weak, when you can feel weak? And here you can. There is no penalty, no consequence, no sense of failure – for weakness is our natural state before God.

Awareness of weakness is called humility.

Absence of that awareness is called pride.

The Israelites felt weak before God at Horeb – the other name for Sinai – the mountain of God where Moses received the 10 Commandments.

“If I hear the voice of the Lord my God any more, or ever again see this great fire, I will die.”

That is what the Children of Israel said, quite rightly, with a correct estimation of their courage before God or lack of it; their human condition before God’s eternal majesty.

“Then the Lord replied to me: “They are right in what they have said. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their own people.”

God says: they’re right. And because they’re right, and because they asked, and because they identified their own weakness and were honest about it – I’ll do something about it. I’ll meet them in their need. I’ll provide for them. I’ll help them, because they asked.

When we ask, God can come into that empty space provided by our need.

When we ask a friend it is true. How much more true is it of God – perhaps through that friend.

Here we can be weak – nowhere else, where we masquerade in strength. Here we can be weak. Here there are friends. Here we think of God.

We can think of God everywhere. Here we can, in the knowledge that at some point we can confess our sins of which we are ashamed. Things done. Thinks left undone.

We greet one another with open arms, open to other opinions about ourselves, hoping they are loving.

Here, at one point, we kneel, heads down, vulnerable, perhaps hands outstretched, open, hoping that something will be put in them, something useful.

Something can only be put in if those hands are open, not holding money, weapons, any insignia of power.

Open hands, open heart, hoping for fullness.

It fills the heart, the soul. Those hands of friends hug the body. Hopes and prayers fill the mouth. Perhaps smiles return. Strength returns.

We have experienced God in our weakness, because we were open in our weakness. We did not close it off to him. We allowed him to enter.

Those people in Capernaum allowed Jesus to enter their lives. They came to him. They listened to what he had to say. It says:

“They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.”

Have you heard that worst condemnation of beautiful music? ‘They were technically perfect,’ someone will say – meaning they had no soul, no energy. Contrast that with some fair to middling band that puts all their soul and energy into something.

That second group plays music with authority. They make something happen in your soul. They really move something in your soul. They don’t simply move your eardrums.

You leave – moved, changed, not simply entertained.

They have authority. They make a difference.

What words have made a difference in your life? What words work? What music, what art, what experiences?

They had authority. They worked. They made something happen – not like the scribes, who simply made an impression on the ear, not on the heart; not like doctrine, which is taught. This is faith, which is felt.

Perhaps we can pass on this Godly energy and Godly love too, responding to everyone’s need; passing on our faith which is felt, even if it doesn’t pass muster as a doctrine to be taught. This is what has made a difference in our hearts and lives, even if it doesn’t ring beautifully in our brains.

When we are honest, vulnerable, weak, God can respond to our needs. When we open our hands, open our hearts and express whatever lies down there, God can bless those thoughts, those feelings, and heal them, love them, come into them, sending us out in strength with him.

Having strength all by ourselves isn’t much good. Then it’s just our little lonesome against the world, trying to help others.

Strength with God, starting by identifying our weakness and need for him – is something else again. Talk about having a big friend.

It happens if we open up to the worst of our weaknesses, the most vulnerable. Happily God will keep after us until we do – tempting us with the possibility of comfort and healing, and the promise that we do not have to be strong forever, invulnerable forever.

It’s allowed to be dependent on him, dependent on others, no longer the rugged, lonely, isolated individualist.

It’s okay to love and be loved.

We become prophets of this. Having felt God’s love we can talk of it, with authority. Having felt the touch that healed our souls – when we spoke of ourselves to him – we can be prophets of his soul healing. We can speak of God in effective ways for he was effective with us.

We speak now with authority, having felt God’s, having opened ourselves to it.

Soon, perhaps, in our loving embrace, others will permit themselves to be weak, to be vulnerable, to be open – to the possibility that God may come into their weakness too.