Isaiah35:4-7a

Psalm 146:4-9

James 1:17-27

MARK 7:31-37

Sermon – September 10, 2006

September 11. Afghanistan. Iraq. Katrina. Ongoing tragedies and challenges from all four. Tsunami. Avian flu. Lay-offs. Disappearing health insurance and pensions. Oil prices. Terroristic threats. Drugs. Fear and depression. Depression and fear.

Anybody ready for some GOOD news?

“Say to those who are of a fearful heart, ‘be strong, do not fear! Here is your God…He will come and save you!”

The words we heard this morning of the great, unnamed prophet included in the Book of Isaiah were not first spoken to a people living in security and prosperity. They were spoken to displaced persons, to use the World War II term – long-term refugees, we would call them. They were Israelites who had watched their nation be conquered, their capital city burned to the ground, their holy temple be utterly destroyed, their King captured, blinded and led away in chains – accompanied by themselves. “How can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?”, lamented the composer of the great psalm of the exile.

There they stayed, hundreds of miles from home, under the thumb of their gloating pagan captors, despairing that they would ever be free again, despairing that they would ever see their homes again, perhaps most of all despairing that their children growing up there might forget who they were and join the people who had conquered them and brought them to – Iraq.

And then one day, perhaps during anguished synagogue prayers, someone stood up and said what we just heard from Isaiah 35. God is not dead. God can and will deliver us. And God will heal both people and the creation.

The people may have mocked the prophet, told him not to be ridiculous, perhaps even thrown him out…until his words came true. The Babylonian Empire fell, in one dramatic battle, and King Cyrus of Persia – Iran – told the Jews they were free and could go home and rebuild their temple, even with the help of a check from the Imperial Treasury.

You never know who God will use to accomplish God’s purposes!

And during the restoration of Jerusalem and the struggles that followed, the people of Israel remembered the words of many prophets, and the glorious vision that had not yet been fulfilled but which God had granted them of the world when God was finished with it: a world in which “swords would be beaten into plowshares”, and the world in which “the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped”, a world in which “the earth shall be filled with the glory of God as the waters follow the sea.”

And then one day, when the people of Israel had once more been conquered by a mighty foreign, pagan power which occupied their land, planted ruthless, puppet rulers over them, and fought endless battles with terrorists which left many in fear, more words from the Book of Isaiah were read in a synagogue. This synagogue was in the upcountry “hick” town of Nazareth. The reading was followed by words no listeners had ever heard before: “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

That was Jesus’ first sermon.

And then he began living the fulfillment of those words – not in Never-Never Land, but in a country bedeviled by terrorism and oppression, with no health insurance, no pensions, lots of incurable diseases and an infant mortality rate so high that one historian estimates that 28% of the children born in the Roman Empire did not live to be one year old.

And what did people say to those who suffered losses, or struggled with disability or disease? You don’t have to be able to read Aramaic to know the answers to that. I suspect we’ve all heard at least some of these timeless remarks ourselves. Timeless, cruel – and wrong.

“It must be God’s will.”

“It could have been worse.”

“It’s your fault – God is punishing you.”

When Jesus healed people, he was doing more than healing individuals, dedicated as he was - and is - to that. Jesus was – and is – making a statement about reality, and about God, and about the future.

He never told someone their affliction or tragedy was their fault.

He never told them God was punishing them, and to just take it.

He never said “It could have been worse.”

He never said “It must be God’s will.” And he knew what he was talking about.

He just healed people. Like the man in today’s Gospel. And in so doing he stood up for wellness – and against fatalism, against cruel put-downs by the smug, against the banning of those with illness or disability from worship and from community – and for every manifestation of courage, commitment and compassion for the well-being of another person.

“Ephphatha” – the Aramaic word he spoke to the man’s ears – applied to the minds of the bystanders as well: “Be opened.” This word applies to us too: we must be open to the Good News of Jesus Christ. Hear it, let it fill us and lift us from depression and fear into calm strength, deep joy and serene commitment that God’s love is alive and loose in the world. WE are called to be fully “infected” by God’s love and God’s vision of what the world will (not might, but will) be like when “the earth shall be filled with the glory of God as the waters cover the sea.”

When the people of Israel were in exile in Babylon, it was vitally important for them to not give up. When the people of Israel were still struggling under the Roman yoke and the conflicting dictates of different religious sects, it would have been easy then, too, to become cynical and fatalistic. To them, Jesus said, “the Kingdom of God has come near.” He healed people, he fed people, he taught people, he gathered a community of believers the likes of which the world had never seen before – and he gave them his love, his guidance, his teaching and ultimately, the Holy Spirit.

Jesus is still doing all these things. Just ask Will Jiméno, NYPD, who was trapped in the rubble of the World Trade Center and received a personal vision of Christ which sustained him and gave him hope when he was helpless. This vision is even in the movie, too.

We have many challenges in our time as well – as individuals, households, communities of faith (from local to worldwide), all-inclusive communities from neighborhoods to the planet Earth. If we give in to depression and fear, we will not be part of the solutions which God is already crafting.

The moot, often-repeated commandment in the Bible is: “Fear not.”

The world has major problems, many of them as a result of human beings using their free will badly. But the world will ultimately be transformed, and we can see glimpses of the nature of that ultimate transformation in the words from Isaiah and in the deeds of Jesus.

This is the ultimate future. Take heart. Have hope. And – not least – let’s keep

working for healing in all senses, for justice, peace, righteousness and love. We are called as James says to be doers of the word, and not just hearers. We all can be part of God’s vast team of servants, leading with liberating love.

(The Rev.) Francis A. Hubbard

St. Barnabas Episcopal Church