June 18, 2017 – Genesis 18:1-15, 21:1-7; Romans 5:1-8; Matthew 9:35-10:8-23
Genesis 18:1-15, 21:1-7; Romans 5:1-8; Matthew 9:35-10:8-23
What Would Sal Do?
Lectionary 11A – June 18, 2017
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
It’s important to remember that Jesus’ world was in some ways not so different from our own.
He lives and works in a context of suffering.
People are poor, people are sick, people are lonely,
people struggle with grief and disappointment.
And Jesus looks around him, and Jesus is filled with emotion over all this.
He is filled, Matthew says, with compassion, with mercy – with love.
He wants to do something about it.
Like us, Jesus feels that human connection to those around him –
and he wants to do something about human suffering.
So he looks at the disciples and says, “Pray for God to send people to do something about this.”
Pray for labourers – for God wants to harvest some salvation, some healing, some wholeness.
God just needs someone to labour for that.
So pray that God will send someone.”
I looked at this one afternoon during Study Conference.
And as I was thinking about it, staring off into space,
I had an epiphany when I read the whole story.
Because shortly after he asks the disciples to pray for God to send people to work for healing,
What does Jesus do?
He equips the disciples to be able to heal and . . . sends them out to work salvation or healing!
Ahahahaha!!!!!!!!
The disciples are the answer to their own prayer!!!!
The answer to their prayers is . . . themselves!!!!!
Ahahahahahaha!!!!
Now we all recall that the disciples are not the most, uh, capable of people.
They are regular people, with their own shortcomings and limited abilities.
They do not have M.D.s, they do not have nursing degrees, they do not have psychology degrees.
Heck: they don’t even have M.Div.s!
They are regular folk.
And spiritually how equipped are they exactly?
They will doubt and they will be lazy at times and and they will be fearful.
One of them will lose all his integrity and betray Jesus to the authorities –
yet Matthew records that even Judas was given the ability and gifts for healing.
Not a promising group, really.
And yet – what happens?
They cure the sick, they feed the hungry, they forgive the sinful, they repair relationships –
and they even raise the dead.
They do what Jesus does.
They are the answer to the prayer for someone to bring healing and wholeness and well-being
into a death-filled world.
They are equipped by Jesus and given what they need.
The answer to their prayer is . . . themselves.
Like the story of Sarah in Genesis this morning, God brings life where it seems most unlikely.
And God brings life through those who seem mostly unlikely.
God brings life to the hopeless, through the hopeless.
Paul speaks of hope this morning.
And these readings this morning are filled with hope – they are a rich feast.
Sarah’s unlikely hope that she will bear a child is fulfilled.
Paul speaks of hope in the midst of great, overwhelming suffering.
Jesus brings hope to a very struggling world through the seemingly hopeless disciples.
At Study Conference, this week, Melinda and I heard our speaker Anna Madsen talk about hope.
Hope, says Dr. Madsen, is not the same as optimism.
Optimism expects what can reasonably be expected.
Hope, on the other hand, hopes for what cannot in the least be reasonably expected.
So, for example,
I’m optimistic my 14 year old will ask my how my day has been when I get home.
But a Father’s Day gift and card?
That requires hope.
Believing a 100 year old woman will conceive and bear a child requires hope.
Trusting that salvation and healing will come through some seemingly hopeless disciples
requires hope.
Yet, we have a God of hope – and so, with Sarah, we can laugh.
My 14 year old Theo and I laughed a lot this winter at Crave TV’s sitcom What Would Sal Do?
The title character, Sal, is, well, hopeless.
He is a 30 year old unemployed self-centred slob who lives with his mother in Sudbury.
Sal is awful.
He is selfish, he is mean, he drinks too much, he is awful to his friends.
In the first episode, though, we discover something amazing about Sal:
his mother Maria reveals to him that
she was a virgin when she became pregnant with him.
As a result, both she and her priest believe he is the Second Coming of Christ,
and that through him God will save the world.
Sal is, not surprisingly, unbelieving.
Yet his mother and his priest have hope in him –
and so they encourage him to do good deeds, do miracles, and gather followers.
Great comedy ensues, as Sal gets into one awful situation after another and –
almost miraculously – ends up doing good and bringing healing.
Finding himself in prison, his priest gives him advice about how to handle himself.
“First thing: find the biggest, meanest guy you can find and punch him in the face.”
So Sal does.
Turns out not quite to be a fair fight as Sal clocks the biggest meanest guy . . .
who, unbeknownst to Sal, turns out to be blind.
Whoops.
But after hitting him . . . the blind man . . . is able to see!
In another episode, Sal and his friend break into a house – only to find
the owner on the floor choking on mozzarella sticks.
Sal immediately performs the Heimlich manoever on him and . . . saves his life.
The paramedics say after that it’s a miracle.
In yet another episode, Sal speaks up at a condo meeting for his erotic massage friend
who is about to be evicted because of what she does for a living.
Sal, though – who lives among the lowly and is privy to all kinds of information –
exposes the sins and misdemeanours of the members of the condo board,
and threatens to go public with them unless she is allowed to stay.
And so he ends up doing another good deed.
His motives are mixed, his means are often less than worthy and yet, and yet,
Sal makes a difference in the lives of those around him.
True to his name, he brings a measure of salvation to Sudbury,
a measure of healing and well-being.
I think the point of the show is not that one person is or will be the Second Coming.
I think the point of the show is that we all have it in us.
Each of us is in some way the Second Coming: it is how Christ comes: through us.
Just like Sarah, just like Abraham, just like Paul and those whom he wrote to,
and just like the disciples had it in them: we have it in us.
The answer to our prayers is . . . ourselves.
There is a lot of hope in that.
The good news this morning is that none of us is hopeless.
Abraham and Sarah were not hopeless, despite their many faults.
Paul was not hopeless, despite his shortcomings.
The disciples were not hopeless, despite tremendous weaknesses and flaws.
The truth is, not a single one of us is hopeless.
It is Jesus and the Spirit who equip us with what we need to make a difference in the world.
To bring a measure of healing, and wholeness, and well-being.
To bring a measure of salvation.
We are not hopeless – and the thing is, neither is the person sitting next to you.
Or the person you meet on the street, or at a concert, or at work, or at home.
To them, you might just be the Second Coming.
And they just might be the Second Coming for you.
Yes: it is unexpected.
Yes: even an optimistic person might doubt it.
But a hopeful one?
One who trusts in the God of surprises, the God who loves to evoke laughter,
the God who is in the business of confounding expectations?
Such a person has reason – great reason – to hope.
So with Sarah and Abraham, with Paul and the disciples, and even with Sal, let us be hopeful,
and let us say, “Amen.”
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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