Sermon for June 8th

“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”

Martin Luther explained that there are two ways looking at the world. Two ways of reading scripture. Two ways of talking about God. Two ways of talking about ourselves. These two ways, or two paths, though similar, lead us in very different directions. One path leads up to heaven. One path leads down to earth. One path is the way of glory. The other is the way of the cross.

The way of glory is quite magnificent. It is the way we are taught in school, “Good, better, best. Never let it rest. Till your good is better and your better is the best.” We pray that God will bless us and our families with health, wealth and opportunity. We want to be proud of ourselves and our accomplishments. Even our country is founded on these basic principles: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We are always in pursuit of glory.

The way of the cross is not magnificent. It is awful. This is the path that we are taught to avoid. When you walk down the streets of New York—not the streets you are supposed to walk down, the streets that haven’t been cleaned up—that’s where you find the people who are pointed at and whispered about because of their lack of glory. “I don’t want to end up like them,” people. “I feel so bad for them,” people. “Don’t stare at them honey,” people. “They’ll just spend it on booze,” people. We all learned somewhere that those kinds of people got themselves into that mess, or their parents did it to them, or they are sick in the head. Either way, none of us wants our kids or grandkids near them because they are dirty, dangerous and sick. We pray that never happens to us. It is a pitiful life. It is a shameful life.

There are two ways of looking at the world, the way of glory and the way of the cross. There are also two ways of reading scripture. The way of glory and the way of the cross. Beginning with the creation of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, this is how the story is usually told.

God created a perfect man and a perfect woman in perfect relationship to God. But they were tempted. They sinned. They fell from grace. Sin and suffering entered the world. From that point on people got sick, they fought with each other, they had to wear clothes instead of fig leaves, and, most distressingly, they died. According to this story, Jesus’ death on the cross is thought to be God’s answer to all this sin, suffering and death. To get rid of sin. To make us perfect again just like we were back in the garden of Eden. It’s like one big repair job and God is the master mechanic who restores creation to its original glory. A fall from glory and then a return to glory. It is finally a story of glory.

But in the shadow of the cross, the story sounds different. In fact, from this perspective, it sounds like an altogether different tale. According to the actual words written in Genesis Adam and Eve don’t appear that glorious. They are created to take care of the earth. They are made to take care of each other. They are told to be fruitful and multiply. They simply rely on God for everything. Not glorious enough, it seems, for they wanted to become more. Become like God. Become creators rather than creatures. Just being creatures was not enough.

This is not so much a story of lost glory, but of a desire for more glory. There was no fall at all. It was more like a leap! Adam and Eve competing for the gold medal in the high jump. Seeking a way beyond the high bar of God’s authority. They wanted to be on top. And we have been seeking that very same glory ever since.

Jesus’ death on a cross looks very different according to this story. The cross is not a repair job for fallen creatures. The cross is an attack against sin and sinning creatures. Jesus dies on a cross not to make you more like God, but to make you more like a creature. Not so that you will look more glorious, but so that you will look more to God for your salvation. Not so that you will look more glorious, but so that you will look more to God for your healing. Not so that you will look more glorious, but so that you will look more to God for your daily bread.

“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.” Because there are two ways of looking at the world and because there are two ways of reading scripture, there are also two ways we talk about how God works in our lives. The way of glory and the way of the cross.

There were two stories of healing spoken of in the gospel today. The healing of a young child, who was dead, and the healing of a long suffering woman. When the focus is on the way of glory, we can only see that Jesus powerfully works in these peoples’ lives to restore them to health. That is the miracle. He gives them the ability to live fuller lives or to try and believe in him. But, remember, Jesus only did ministry for three years. That’s it. Not long at all. So the cross becomes to look a little bit disappointing in our eyes. Just imagine all the good Jesus could have done if he could have just lasted a little longer! The cross becomes the problem. It gets in the way of all the glory Jesus was doing. We’d rather look past the cross instead of looking at it.

But when the focus is on the cross, these two healings are not finally where we can place our hope. Can you imagine that poor little girl after she was raised from the dead! Her Father probably never let her out of the house again for fear that she might die again! Would Jesus be within walking distance the next time? Jesus’ acts of healing finally force us to realize that we cannot place our trust in those healings alone. We must place our trust in the God who is the power behind these healings—God who has the power to heal, the power over both death and life. Even when we are healed miraculously, the fear of death remains.

After Jesus has healed, after Jesus has cast out demons, after Jesus has fed five thousand people, after Jesus calms the storm Jesus hangs from his hands and feet, because there is still that problem of sin. Real sinners placed Jesus on the cross, not just people who needed a little help improving themselves. Jesus said that it was necessary that he die for the sake of the world; not just to fix us up, but to destroy our hopes of finding glory anywhere else. We can only find our glory in Jesus’ death on the cross. The last place we would think of looking. The last place we want to look.

Jesus finally has to save us even from healing. He needs to save us from a life of sin and suffering where people need to be healed of their sicknesses. He needs to save us from a world the Devil still runs rampant and destroys peoples’ lives. That means that we are left in a very inglorious position. As creatures—nothing more and nothing less. And so we go to the doctor, and pray for the healing of depression, and visit psychiatrists, and go to chiropractors because we are doing what God has created us to do. We are taking care of one another. We are taking care of God’s creation, knowing that even God’s healing finds its completion at the cross.

As I said at the beginning, there are two paths to take. One path leads to heaven. One path leads to earth. Of course, our first reaction, our natural tendency, is to take the path that leads to heaven and leave the earth, our relationships, our bodies, and our sufferings behind. To say good riddance. That is the road to glory; the road we all choose to take. However, it is only the path of the cross that leads to eternal life. The path where Jesus dies very ingloriously at our hands. The path where your feet are securely on the ground and God comes down to show you the depths of his love.

The way of glory assumes that people are doing fine on their own, but that they just need a little boost from God to make that final step to glory. The way of the cross assumes that people are sick and cannot get better by themselves. They are in need or more than a boost into heaven . . . they need a savior.

“For those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”