Lent V - April 2, 2006
A Message: “Where is Jesus?”
If I were to give today’s message a title it would be, “Where is Jesus?”
I spent some of this week
under the weather…in fact I hope I don’t hack my way through this message and
ruin your day and mine. The funny thing about being
under the weather…it gets you to thinking about a lot of stuff or at least it
gets me to thinking about a lot of stuff with respect to the worship experience.
My main concern when I get a
cold or flu is getting through Sunday worship. Getting the message together,
remaining composed enough that worship is led and then falling apart, if
necessary after the service. It must be a ministerial
thing…I just heard about a colleague who felt ill in the pulpit, arm and chest
pain, that kind of thing and told himself to just press on and get through the
service…his partner, much more sensible…insisted on a hospital visit after
worship and sure enough it was a heart attack he was having. Thank God for
sensible and caring partners. One of the things I got to
thinking about this week was prayer. Prayer and the presence of Jesus. You heard
me read, “where I am, there will my servant be also” as part of the John
reading. Of course there was a lot in the John reading worthy of exegesis and
exploration but in my sermon preparation it was that phrase that jumped out at
me. “Where I am, there will my
servant be also”…where is Jesus? Where would you expect to find Jesus in the
Spring of 2006? Perhaps people have
different ideas about that but I suspect that if I were to ask you, “would you
expect to find Jesus with the person I just mentioned—a colleague trying to
share the word of God through the trouble of personal health?” you might say
that, yes, Jesus could expect to be found there. If I asked you, if you would
expect to find Jesus with the Christian Peace Maker Teams that have gone to Iraq
and sought to offer a tangible witness amid the chaos that is going on in that
country just now, you would probably agree that Jesus could be found there.
How about the person that
wrestles with a loss that leaves them disoriented and a shell of their former
selves; would you expect Jesus to be with them? I think that scripture has
more than enough stories to show us that in all of these examples, the presence
of God can indeed be expected. I admire people like James
Loney, who say goodbye to loved ones in order to follow their heart at Peace
Making half a world away. It rather sounds like something else we read in John’s
gospel, “Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in
this world will keep it for eternal life.” I believe that the work of
that team has captured the hearts of many people over their long captivity since
November 26th in which James Loney from Sault St. Marie, Harmeet
Sooden from Montreal, Norm Kember from London England and Tom Fox from the US,
disappeared and were all feared dead…we don’t know much about the work of these
folks prior to their capture but as soon as they fell into the hands of their
captors their plight moved them to the centre of our interest…I can’t imagine
how many people have been praying for the safe release of James and his
colleagues. As an aside this week, I
heard, as perhaps many of you did too, something about James’ home life…how sad
it was that the family had to keep, perhaps the most important person in his
life, his partner, Dan Hunt, a secret for fear that that his treatment would
degenerate if word of his sexual orientation should reach his captors. While
family members made appeals for Loney's release during his hostage ordeal, the
homecoming marked the first time Hunt appeared before the media. “In 2001, Amnesty
International reported that Iraq's constitution was amended to make
homosexuality a crime punishable by death. At present, the status of gay and
lesbian rights remain unclear in that war-torn country.” “Loney, 41, Fox's bullet-ridden body was
found dumped on the streets of Baghdad on March 9. Last Thursday, coalition
soldiers raided an otherwise empty house near Baghdad and rescued Loney, Sooden
— who now lives in Auckland Signs reading, "Prayers
Answered — Welcome Home James" decorated several city buildings in Sault Ste.
Marie. The Sault Star also
published a full-page colour photograph of Loney for residents to post in their
windows "so that Jim, his parents Claudette and Patrick, and other family
members could see the joy of an entire community as he arrived home."
Good on the media to not
seize the opportunity to sensationalize James’ plight by outing his personal
life but it is still a sad commentary on our times that one peacemakers struggle
to survive a kidnapping ordeal could hinge on whether or not his captors might
become aware of his sexual orientation. Yes, I think Jesus was with
James Loney, Harmeet Sooden, Norm Kember, and Tom Fox, in their ordeal
and that Jesus chooses to be with everyone who hurts in any form. Peoples struggling for
freedoms that allow them to live as God intended, free to love their families,
free to work with their neighbors to develop a world that honors the earth and
life upon it. I was proud of James Loney’s
family on Canada AM sharing their belief that James and his partner should be
supported and encouraged and that now that the family is reunited on Canadian
soil they are committed to raising awareness of their right to live as folks in
committed relationship without their sexual orientation being a secret but
instead only one part of their lives and for most of the world, a pretty
insignificant part of their lives. When you think about it, how
much a part of your life, is my sexual orientation? Or how much a part of my life
is your sexual orientation…pretty insignificant isn’t it? One of the things I found
myself thinking about this week was, “I wonder how some of the people who were
praying for Loney felt when they heard that they had been praying for a gay man?
Did they think that their prayers were coerced? Did they thing that their
prayers were disingenuous? The beauty of our global
community is that we can be aware of needs a half a world away…we can be invited
to share in those needs through out gifts of time, talent and prayer. And in
some ways it is the great equalizer to be praying for someone
because they need our prayers not because they live up to some
standard that we set for them or some expectation that we may choose to hold out
for them. Yes I think that where Jesus
is, we are, sometimes in spite of ourselves and that can be a wonderful thing.
Our hearts are open simply
because they ought to be, not because they ‘must be’ or are ‘commanded to be’
but simply because it is our, Christian and human response to a need. Continuing on this theme of
prayer and the presence of God I want to share another story with you…a story of
prayer that also made the news this week. You may be aware of studies that speak
of prayer and its affect on hospital patients. Over the years I have heard
of many such studies. Most have said that there is a direct relationship between
a person’s ability to get well and the amount of prayer that is being offered in
their name. This report says that prayer
has no affect at all on the well being of a patient in hospital. You can read about this
study in the American Heart Journal. Researchers wanted to examine the
effect prayer might have on the recovery of 1,800 heart bypass patients. The study was made over a
ten-year period. The John Templeton Foundation funded the study with $2.4
million in the hope of casting some light on the power of prayer for people who
are ill. In fact, the study concluded
that 59% of patients knowing they were receiving prayers had Complications After
Surgery. What truth
in your experience do you know so deeply that it is beyond the explanation of
mere words? Think about that study for a
moment, Does it mean that knowing people are praying for you is bad for your
health? Some say that the stress of thinking ‘I must be really ill if people are
praying for my health' may itself contribute towards health complications. Prayer is love focused and
whether it is directed at the sick, the needy, or just someone you wish to
direct love at for no other reason than to live the love that God has placed
within your heart, it is all good. Jesus, can be found in many
places…places that surprise and delight us, and even confuse us as many of his
contemporaries were confused. But as those who seek to be
where Jesus is, we can be sure that we, like those Greeks that came and wished
to see Jesus, and did—we also do! In fact we see the evidence
of Jesus presence more often that we care to admit. But rather than shy away
from that presence or to fear that if we wish to see Jesus we must really be
sick—instead, let’s embrace the comfort that knows ‘in finding Jesus, we find
life and hope, and love to be shared—not fear.’ Amen.
According to Dr. Charles Bethea, Oklahoma City, one of the co-authors of the
study, “Intercessory prayer under our restricted format had a neutral effect.”
Do you think that Jesus is with a patient who seeks to be found in the centre of
God's will for them? I sure do and the reports of those who have had to spend
time in hospital and have shared their experience with me would seem to bear
this out.