On Thelma on Concourse B and Glimpsing Faith in Unexpected Places

Luke 7;1-10

I flew to Atlanta last Sunday for the Festival of Homiletics. It was powerful, as always, and I am glad I went. One of the most amazing stories I have heard in a long time, though, was one I encountered before I even got on the plane.

I thought my time would be tight, but I was randomly selected for the TSA Pre-Check so I was there with time to spare. I sat down for lunch and then decided to walk. No doubt my steps were meandering so I was an easy mark for the woman trying to sign people up for an alternative electricity supplier tied to bonus airline miles. She stepped in front of me and asked if I lived in Illinois. Perhaps I should have kept moving. I'm glad I didn't. For while we waited for forms to download on her tablet I took the chance to ask her name. Smiling, she said it was Thelma.

Thelma's accent was vaguely familiar to me, but since I couldn't place it, I asked. "I'm from Liberia," she offered. Over the course of the next couple of minutes she gave me the condensed version of her people and her country. "My ancestors were freed slaves," she said. "They moved to Liberia in 1850." I did know some of the history of her country. I had not recalled the exact timeline of that wave of emigration and I marveled that this was even before our Civil War.

She went on to tell me that she had moved here ten years ago, living first in Minneapolis where she had work as a telemarketer. Her husband was already here, living then and now in Chicago where he is a child psychologist. Several years ago she got the job she currently holds and so she was able to join him in Illinois.

Together Thelma and her husband have a 2 1/2 year old little girl and a 12 year old son. Her eyes lit up to tell me about them. Only their son still lives in Liberia with his grandmother, her mother. Try as they might, they have not been able to bring him here yet. She said she last saw him six years ago: the last time she could afford to travel there. She worried when the Ebola virus hit her hometown and called her mother every day to offer advice on how to avoid it. "Wash your hands," she told her. "Don't let strangers in the house." I commented that it must be hard to be away from her son. And her reply? She spoke aloud to me the very promises of God, quoting Hebrews 13:5, "I will not leave you nor forsake you." She told me that has been true all of her life and she is more than confident this will always be so.

I walked away from that encounter changed somehow, with my eyes opened to how God works faith in unexpected places. Indeed. I could hear the voice of Jesus saying, as he does in today's Gospel:  

 "I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith."

For it is so that my faith has not been tested as Thelma's has been.

• I have always lived within easy reach of family. 

• I have never really had to sacrifice or put myself at risk to be near those I love. No, I have never had to pull up my roots and move myself half way around the world to be with or to provide for those I love.

• I have never had to worry that ones so dear to me might be taken by a virulent disease; never had to use up my cell phone minutes to do what I can to watch out for them.

• I have never had to fight powerful systems in order to ensure that I might one day have all my loved ones in one place.

• And no, I have never had to overcome the barriers which differences in race and skin color and an unfamiliar accent can place in the way of so many of our neighbors.

Oh, it is so that my life has had other challenges, yes, and like Thelma, I have known the truth that "God does not leave me nor forsake me," but even so. I found myself surprised last Sunday afternoon to encounter such a deep witness of faith in one who to me was a profoundly unexpected person: in one who claims to have known great blessing, yes, but who has also experienced great heartbreak.

It seems to me there are a number of gifts for us in the story of the healing of the centurion's slave in today's Gospel from Luke. Surely, the authority which Jesus holds over life threatening disease is a place where I pause as well. Even so, for now I am taken with the wonder of being able to witness how God is often at work in powerful ways in people's lives and I am grateful to encounter it from time to time as I did last Sunday afternoon. Oh yes, God's amazing gifts are known in many ways, not the least of which is in building and sustaining faith in God's people. Like with the centurion. Like with Thelma on Concourse B. And from time to time when I pause long enough to know the privilege of being able to glimpse it? I know myself to be most blessed.

• Church Innovations teaches a Missional Practice; Dwelling in the World, which equips us to have just the kind of encounter I had last Sunday afternoon. If you are interested in learning more about it, follow the link above.
• When and where have you encountered deep faith in a surprising place or person? What story did you hear?
• How have you been changed by encountering such faith in others? How did it strengthen you? How did it challenge you?

The Authority of Jesus

Luke 7:1-10

There are, of course, things going on in this story which we don’t see through our own cultural lens, particularly since the world Jesus lived in was ordered so much by ‘class’ in ways we may never fully understand. 

Recognizing my own ignorance, I know I need to wonder, for instance, why the centurion would give so much credit to Jesus.  They come from different worlds, and the world Jesus comes from is one beneath that of the centurion in most every way.  It was not to be expected that the centurion in the story would turn to one such as Jesus for help.  

Even so, the centurion had heard about Jesus.  And to hear about Jesus would be to know that Jesus had no issue with crossing all kinds of social barriers.  To hear about Jesus was to know that Jesus consistently reached out to people ‘beneath’ him.  And to hear about Jesus was to know that Jesus was one who offered something which could bring wholeness again to the centurion's highly valued slave.  I expect the centurion's whole life had taught him that sometimes authority is given.  And sometimes authority is earned.  No doubt, he recognized in Jesus both sorts of authority.  And so in spite of all that might keep him from doing so, he turned to Jesus when he needed him most.

I think it still happens.  I have known this to be so --- that people in impossibly dark places look to Jesus.  And from time to time you and I are called to be bearers of the gifts of God, and by association alone we carry some of the same authority the centurion in this story recognized in Jesus so long ago.

I found this to be so last week.  The call came at 4 a.m., jolting me out of a sound sleep.  I was on call at the hospital and they had a family in need.  A baby had died. Would I come?

I have always been one who could wake up quickly when needed and I was glad for this then.  Only being so fully awake I also found myself deeply aware of the terror I was feeling then.  I had knelt down to pick up something off my bedroom floor and I found myself staying on my knees, breathing deeply, praying the simplest of prayers: “God, help me.”   

For you see, I did not know these people whose pain was unfathomable.  I did not know what to expect when I walked in there.  I only knew it would be awful.  For that matter, they did not know me.  They only knew to say 'yes' when asked if they wanted a chaplain.  They were looking for someone, anyone, to walk in and say or do something, anything at all.  As I walked across the parking lot to the hospital, I found I was still shaking inside, knowing I did not know what I would say or do.  It doesn’t matter that I’ve been doing this for 25 years.  I still go in scared sometimes.

When I entered the room, the baby’s mama was holding him close, weeping.  I knelt down next to her and in an act of attentive kindness the hospital supervisor tossed me a blanket to cushion my knees.  When the young mother looked up and saw I was the chaplain she pleaded with me to baptize him. 

Now I was taught in seminary that it is not right to baptize those who have died.  I know this is so for baptism is not some trick we perform to open up the arms of God.  I knew to my bones that little one was already with God.  Only I knew my simply saying so would not have been enough.  So I was brought some water and we baptized her baby as his mother held him.  In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit we baptized him then.

Mostly I stood nearby after that as family and friends arrived.  Soon another family member called her priest --- who came as well.  Leaving the hospital, leaving that baby behind, was excruciating for the child’s mother, of course.  She clung to me in gratitude when I offered to walk with him down to the morgue, something that turned out to be unnecessary as the coroner came directly to receive him then.

I walked the family to the parking lot a while later.  I did not know if I would ever see them again, but have been watching the obituaries ever since.  I thought perhaps I would ask the funeral director to see if it would be all right if I attend the child’s funeral.  Yesterday he made a connection with the mother and gave her my number.  They had been trying to find me, she told me when we finally spoke. For I had baptized him.   Would I speak at the funeral lunch on Friday?  Would I get up and say a few words?  And later, sometimes, when all this is past, would it be all right if we talk again?

I did not know what to say that long night turned into morning. Still, I went not on my own authority, but on the authority of Jesus himself.  Jesus who walked into dark places of unspeakable pain, promised to go before me and so I was able to go. I did not think at the time that I said anything particularly profound.  I felt I had nothing to offer which could take away the cause of her wrenching grief and guilt and pain.  On the other hand, what I did was speak aloud the name of the One who could and would and will.  I named the one who has ultimate authority over life and death.  This was what this young mother was looking for.  I was blessed to be the one to carry it to her then.

The centurion in this account in Luke’s Gospel knew about authority.  He knew what it was to speak and to be obeyed.  In spite of all that might have kept him from seeing it, he recognized authority in Jesus, too. Now this authority was not one which would command armies, rather Jesus had the authority to cast out sickness and death, suffering and pain.  You and I, people of God, we also are called to act on that authority.  This is what this young mother recognizes in me.  And yes, sometimes I walk in afraid.  Perhaps this is true for you as well.  Still, somehow I am able to put one foot in front of the other and go, knowing I don’t ever go alone.  Jesus walked into dark places and so I can, too.  And people recognize God in that, they do. 

After nearly twenty-five years of taking late night calls sometimes this is all I know for sure.  If I simply get up and walk into the darkness itself, God will find a way to act.  Sometimes through me. Perhaps more often in spite of me.  It seems to me that Jesus' authority was earned, at least in part, by his willingness to step beyond where most would be comfortable.  Where fear threatens to overcome hope.  Where darkness seems to prevail.  And then that is where God works.  That is where God always works.  This is still true today.  I have seen it to be so.

• Why do you think the centurion in Luke's account shows such faith?  Have you ever witnessed such faith?
• Is Jesus' authority given or earned or both?
• When have you walked into darkness and then seen God work?  When have you carried the authority of Jesus?