September 10, 2006 PASTOR SCOTT FULLER
IS 35:4-7a; PS 146; JA 2:1-10, 14-17; MK 7:24-37
Leap of Faith
Prepare our hearts, Lord, to receive your Word. Silence in us any voice but your own that in hearing we believe and in believing we obey your will revealed to us in Jesus Christ. Amen.
Dear friends in Christ: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Picture yourself walking through a forest of towering Ponderosa Pines. Each step you take is cushioned by layers of pine needles. The baking heat of the sun unlocks the aroma of their sweet, savory smell. In one little glen your eyes are drawn to the ramrod straight affect of the trees, and follow the sight lines from forest floor all the way to the sky above.
Then suddenly you notice overhead a lattice-work of steel cables and thick ropes that enmesh over a dozen trees in a series of ladders, tightropes, platforms and swings. You have arrived at the “high ropes challenge course” at Flathead Lutheran Bible Camp.
Yet as stunning as it is to see it from the ground, those who are able and brave enough to accept its challenge, are treated to an experience and view that are hard to compare. My wife, Carolyn, is a climber in this group, and our daughter, Rachel, is one of its guides. Here their traditional roles have been reversed. The daughter has become the teacher while the parent must learn to obey the rules and accept the assignments placed before her.
Believe me, it’s tough enough just to begin. The only way up is the first obstacle: through a circular rope “tube.” This vertical climb of about 25 feet will sap the upper body strength of many who try it. But Carolyn has it nailed thanks to a strong heart, a determined will, an athletic body and perhaps some special coaching from her daughter??
She completes her climb, and begins her journey around the course alternately swinging with ease and working herself into tight spots that leave her feeling stuck like a fly caught in a spider’s web.
Soon Carolyn makes her way to the defining moment of her journey through the trees: the dreaded platform jump. It is made up of two resting areas maybe four feet square separated by about five feet. The goal is to jump from one to the other…the only catch? It’s over a thirty foot drop to the forest floor below. She knows she is secure with not one but two safety ropes, independently clipped to the cable above. But what her mind knows and what her eyes see are fighting to tell her heart what to believe.
Flashback to the way things used to be. Rachel is a child…one day she will grow up and win races on Pacific Lutheran University’s swim team. But on this day, she is scared to death of jumping off the diving board. Standing over the pool, upper arms secured by inflated swimmies, she pauses to look at the water below. And though it’s only a three foot drop, and though her mother is treading water directly beneath her, and though she’s being coaxed with promises that she will be caught, held, cared for and kept safe, she is scared. What her mind knows and what her eyes see are fighting to tell her heart what to believe. The temptation is great to go back down the way she climbed up to the safety of the deck beneath.
Jump ahead to Carolyn standing on her platform in the trees…one simple jump away from the next stop on her journey. She pauses to look at the ground below…and though it’s only five feet across, and though her daughter is close by giving encouragement and instructions, and though she’s being coaxed with promises that she will be caught, held, cared for and kept safe, the fear is strong… and the temptation is great to go back down the way she climbed up to the safety of the ground beneath.
Now turn your attention to the woman in today’s Gospel lesson whose daughter is tormented by a demon. She has no safety cable or swimmies…She has no one as a loving coach, she has no strong arms waiting below or strong ropes secure above. In no way, shape or form, is this a game. She cannot go down the way she climbed up, there’s no return to the safety of how things used to be.
She is alone on the diving board, alone high in the trees…and, frankly, Jesus doesn’t appear to be a very good coach. In fact, his response to her request for help has to rank as one of the rudest of all time. When she begs him to cast the demon out of her daughter, he says “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”
The woman has a few cultural strikes against her. She is, after all, a foreigner and he is an Israelite. She is not even Jewish while he is a rabbi. She is a woman and he is a man. She has no right to come to him and… he is on vacation! Says verse 24: He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there.
So I don’t know if he’s teasing the woman or treating her with contempt. Did Jesus sense a light in her eye, fire in her belly, a spark in her spirit that led him to trust that when he pushed, she’d shove right back? My good friend, Pastor Mike Keys, is sure that we’re seeing the human Jesus who is both cranky and convinced that his first ministry is to the children of Israel.
But something inside that woman drives her to breathe deeply and…take that leap of faith. A little girl finally jumps into the water; years later her mother vaults to the other platform; and this foreigner, this woman, this intruder upon the peace of the Prince of Peace, pushes past his prickly perimeter and leaps…trusting that she will be caught, that her daughter will be cured, that her courage will be met with compassion, that her love for her daughter will be reflected in the love of Christ for all God’s children.
You and I have had our own diving board or high ropes course or sick child scenarios…or will. You and I have stood in those places of fear knowing that we cannot go back down the way we climbed up to the safety of how things used to be. You and I have coaches and safety lines to help us in those moments of crisis…and even then we’re not sure that we’ll survive the fear, the risk of rejection, the pain of loss.
Now think of all those people out there…neighbors, co-workers, strangers, friends. They too all have diving board or high ropes course or sick child scenarios…or will. They too have stood in those places of fear knowing that they cannot go down the way they climbed up, that there’s no safe return to how things used to be.
Here is the task set before us by our God. You and I are called by Jesus Christ to share God’s love with those who do not know it: to comfort a child that is scared about jumping into life, to coach a parent who is paralyzed by fear, to say yes even to someone who has no right to ask us for help.
We are not called to save the world, but to empower people, to help them trust that God Spirit is with them as they risk that leap of faith. Amen.