10 LECTIONARY GLORIA DEI, ANCHORAGE
JUNE 8, 2008 PASTOR SCOTT FULLER
HOSEA 5:15-6:6; PSALM 50:7-15; RO 4:13-25; MATT 9:9-13, 18-26
Hoping Against Hope
Dear friends in Christ: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Let us pray:
Prepare our hearts, Lord, to receive your Word. Silence in us any voice but your own that in hearing we may believe and in believing we may obey your will revealed to us in Jesus Christ. Amen.
Three strikes and you’re out: that is a fairly hard and fast rule in the game of baseball/softball as played here in the good ol’ U.S.A. Umps behind the plate don’t much care how the count proceeds… but a missed swing or a called strike on the third pitch…is almost always an automatic out.
Three strikes is also the slangy title given to those state and federal laws about mandatory prison sentences. They require that a person, who is convicted of committing three serious felonies, must spend a lot of time behind bars, if not a full life sentence.
In fact, this notion of three-strikes-and-you’re-out is so ingrained in our American psyche that it can be used almost anywhere without explanation. To no one’s great surprise, it’s found in the 1942 movie Pride of the Yankees. In the story of Lou Gehrig and his fight with a fatal disease, this phrase is used as a metaphor to explain the severity of his condition.
Lou asks his physician: Is it three strikes, Doc?
The medical man asks, Do you really want to know?
Give it to me straight, says the baseball legend.
It’s three strikes, the doctor replies. Later, says Lou, All the arguing in the world can’t change the decision of the umpire.
Now, from solemn stories like this, we can jump to virtually any other genre:
- science-fiction movies like I, Robot,
- cartoons like SpongeBob SquarePants (1999, Dying for Pie/Imitation Krabs, #2.6) and
- comedy like the t.v. show Frazier, (1993, Frazier-Lite #11.12),
strike one, strike two, strike three! – whenever we hear these words, alone or in combination, we know what they mean.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus strikes out – with the Pharisees, that is…those:
- who consider themselves the umpires,
- who hold fast to the “rule” book,
- who stoically stand and stare, criticize and condemn, rebuke and reprove.
Yet Jesus is most certainly not playing a game,
nor is he playing to the crowd,
nor is he even playing it safe.
No, in everything he says and does, for every person that he helps, these so-called “umps” can only see strike one, strike two, strike three!
So whom does Jesus help and why are they strikes against him?
-eating with tax collectors and sinners (v. 10)
-letting an “unclean” woman touch him (v. 20)
-touching the hand of a dead girl (v. 25)
The religious “rules of the game” stated that a meal was a most intimate experience – good, righteous people were only supposed to break bread with other good, righteous people. It was a celebration of the community, of the family, of God’s blessings…upon them.///What hope could tax collectors, prostitutes and other sinners have to get on the guest list? Strike one!
The woman who had been bleeding, hemorrhaging for twelve long years, had also run afoul of the rule book…for the very simple reason that she was, well, bleeding! She should have distanced herself from the healthy, wholesome crowd, crying Unclean! Unclean! to warn them all away.
But she didn’t – in fact, she dared:
- to hide her condition,
- to push through that crowd,
- to reach in between that crush of bodies with her “unclean” hand, and
- touch the hem of Jesus’ robe. What hope did she have that it would do any good and that she wouldn’t be caught and condemned? Strike two!
The very last entry in the rule book under the category of those-who-were-considered-unclean: is people…who had died. In the parable of the Good Samaritan, many scholars think that the reason why the holy men crossed the road to avoid the victim, is because they believed he was dead – and to touch him would be to render themselves unclean…and unfit for duty.
So, when this Jewish leader comes to Jesus for help, he publicly warns the Lord what he’s asking: My daughter has died…What hope did he have that Jesus would break that law for the sake of a little girl? Strike three!
The hard-heartedness of the Pharisees makes Jesus piqued, perturbed, pretty well put-out at the whole pack of those peevish pinheads. Turn to the lesson from Matthew and look at vss. 12 & 13 – let’s read Jesus’ response together:
“But when he heard this, he said, Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”
Hmm…
Throughout our lessons for today, we encounter people who are hoping against hope that somehow, in some way, someone will offer some help.
- From Hosea, where people feel they have suffered the judgment of God;
- to Abraham, whose body, says Paul, was already as good as dead,
and Sarah, whose womb was barren;
- to those tax collectors and sinners who ate with Jesus and the disciples;
- to the bleeding woman who, for twelve long years had endured her
disease and the town’s disgrace;
- to the little girl who had died and her grieving father…
Who were they to hope against hope? The Apostle Paul uses that line – the only place in Scripture it’s found. And though I’m not exactly sure what it means… I think I know what it means…do you know what I mean? In other words, with no reason to hope, still they dared to hope…
And for that matter, who are you and I to hope? We:
- who sometimes feel like we’ve suffered the judgment of God;
- whose lives in some ways are barren and, in many ways as good as dead;
- who are tax collectors and sinners in the things we think, do and say;
- whose bodies, souls and hearts have been bleeding for years;
- whose loved ones have died and left us to grieve…who are we to hope?
I’ll tell you who we are – we’re the very ones whom Christ came to bless with hope…and along with us, all people who find themselves with three strikes against them for whatever reason. With no proof to point to, no evidence to display, in their-and-our implausible, improbable, incredible way, Jesus urges us to hope against hope, to trust the Word that has been heard, and to have faith in the God:
- who desires mercy, and not sacrifice;
- who came to heal the sick, not the well;
- who came to call not the righteous, but us sinners.
Here we are, Lord… help us hope, and trust, and live. Amen.