Sunday, August 24, 2025
Proper 16C, 2019
Jeremiah 1:4-10
Hebrews 12:18-29
Luke 13:10-17
Last Sunday was a wonderful welcome for me. Thank you again for that. I’m grateful for the work you did in getting the parsonage ready for me and my stuff moved across country. I’m finally settling in and am enjoying the parsonage. I have been noticing more details as I set up my kitchen and my bathroom and my bedroom. Someone painted and fluffed and installed new fixtures and stuff like that. This left me humbled because no one told me those details - I had to discover them.
And it was a long journey from the time I packed that tube of toothpaste or that can opener I’d forgotten I owned. You know, it’s a bit like Christmas - opening all that stuff after a long journey. But we journeyed together and I feel home now. So thank you for getting me here.
In my sermon last week, I invited us to consider the new leg of our journey which we are beginning together. I said in that sermon, “Let’s allow the Grace of God to be the foundation for all of our efforts, all of our relationships, all of the love that flows between us, all of the love that flows from us into the larger community.” So today I am picking up on that journey theme in these stories from these lessons.
Isaiah says this morning that God will guide us continually - but, well, with some conditions. We have to do our part first. The prophet tells us that if we remove the yoke from among us, and stop pointing the finger, and stop speaking of evil . . . if we offer food to the hungry, and satisfy the needs of the afflicted and refrain from trampling the Sabbath. We also are expected to refrain from pursuing and serving our own interests. (Condensed version mine)
That’s actually a pretty short to-do list for all the many ways we will receive healing and happiness in return. Just read on in that passage and you’ll see the big return. Among many promises, we will be less gloomy, we will be satisfied in parched places, and have strong bones - I particularly like that promise! And we already do all of that stuff of trying anyway not to point the finger, or speak evil and we do feed people and refrain from selfishness - though we could always do better in all those categories.
The author of the letter to the Hebrews (scholars think it might not be Paul) says, “you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, . . . and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn . . . and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus . . . And then he says this about what to do once you get there: “See that you do not refuse the one who is speaking.”
Now, he’s not talking about just listening to this sermon or any particular sermon. He’s talking about the imperative for us to listen to God, to listen to Jesus, to listen to the Holy Spirit and all of the prophets. But first you have to get there.
The Gospel lesson this morning tells a story about a time when Jesus was teaching and healing on the sabbath and upsetting the powers-that-be. I know it seems obvious that we should focus on the healing of this poor woman who has been bent over for a very long time. Or maybe we should focus on that familiar theme of Jesus sparring with the powers-that-be over the law, particularly that law about not working on the sabbath.
But it’s the journey I want to look at. Because all of those folks gathered in that temple that day journeyed there - and while most of our homes are not far from this place so it might not seem so, we too have journeyed a long way to be here today, just like any Sunday. Each Sunday, each bible study, each prayer, each a step along the Way - all of our spiritual life is a journey.
I love Appalachian Trail stories. You know, those amazing people who through hike the entire 2200 miles from Georgia to Maine and then tell their story of the journey, the challenges and times they almost quit. I couldn’t have imagined doing that even when I was in my best shape and 22 years old! It’s nearing that time of year when we start to see who will make it this season.
My favorite of these stories is from 20 years ago. It is the story of hiker Bill Irwin (who died in 2014 at the age of 73). He did the entire trail back in 2004.
When Bill hiked through Damascus, a friend who had joined him for part of the hike fell and broke her leg and ended up in the emergency room at Bristol Regional. My sister-in-law was working the ER that day and became Bill’s friend’s nurse. Bill came off the trail to see about his friend and he inspired my entire family by his story (even though only one of us actually met him in person).
What’s impressive about his story is that Bill was completely blind. He was the first blind person to make the through hike. Maybe he inspired those who have done so since. His seeing eye dog, a German Shepherd named Orient, helped him. His friends helped him. But he took every step of that journey himself. And he fell - a lot. He got discouraged. But he kept going. And he made it from Springer Mountain, Georgia to Mt. Katahdin, Maine.
He told us in his memoir about the trip that his was a spiritual journey in which he decided to practice his faith after having been reunited with Jesus at a crucial time in his difficult life. Bill may not have been healed from blindness, but healing was definitely a part of his story.
The bent over woman in today’s Gospel lesson meets Jesus in the very middle of the Gospel story according to Luke. Both of them have been on a path, a journey, headed somewhere or maybe, for her, just putting one crippled foot in front of the other and doing the best she can. But this woman probably traveled a long way and felt she was at the end of her journey - perhaps the end of her rope.
Jesus has set his face to Jerusalem as we are told in a previous chapter. Jesus has a definitive destination - the cross. The crippled woman somehow traveled to the synagogue that day, probably to see Jesus, to hear him teach, perhaps she hoped of being healed, perhaps she merely wanted to hear a message of hope.
They both traveled a long way and their paths crossed at this point.
It’s not just because I recently drove across the country and am in the middle of sorting all my stuff. It’s not just because I love travel and enjoy the memories of the few trips I’ve taken or my hope to return to those places (and go to more places). It’s not just because of the truth of understanding life as a journey from birth to death to heaven. It’s because the bible is a journey. That’s why I’m full of journey images in most of my sermons.
It may seem cliche or perhaps you are tired of the image of the journey as a metaphor for our faith, but the story of the Israelites - who journeyed to the promised land from Egypt and later home again from Babylonian captivity - this is our story too. The story of Jesus is also a journey. He took his first trip as a baby to Egypt and back home three years later. Then his ministry itself was all bout leading his followers to the cross and on to the resurrection.
So, we can’t stop considering this point of reflection in our faith unless we stop following Jesus. And I know y’all don’t plan on that.
So let’s pull out the map and see where we are at this point. We are right in the middle of Luke, we are right in the very middle of this season of Ordinary time which calls us to look at how we’re doing in our best efforts to follow. And Jesus is in the very middle of his ministry journey in this part of the story.
One of my favorite movies which I used to watch with my Dad when I was little, was the old classic called The African Queen. Do you remember that one? The name of the movie is the name of a boat on which Katharine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart endured maladies and dangers as they sailed down a river in Africa on a makeshift mission to sink a WWI German Warship. It’s a crazy plot but they make it through three sets of rapids and waterfalls and gunshot until they get stuck in the mud of the marshes.
And then they give up.
Today, I ask you to consider the times in your life when you crossed paths with Jesus, when you had extraordinary experiences with the Holy Spirit along the Way, when you stopped in your tracks as you gained a new awareness of the nature of God.
When Humphrey Borgart and Katharine Hepburn gave up in that movie. They lay down exhausted in the crippled boat and stared up to the heavens.
The camera panned out into an arial view of the little boat and the audience could then see what the characters could not. They were mere feet from their goal. They decide they would die and prayed to get into heaven as they went to sleep and while they slept a steady rain filled the waters of the river and lifted the boat out of the mud and through the marshes to complete their journey. They awoke to friends from their side of the conflict and they were saved and then they completed their mission.
Jesus and this bent-over woman met each other along the Way, the Way of Love. They answered the invitation to join together for the event of her healing. And everyone there that day was transformed by showing up. They were transformed by meeting each other in the middle of their journeys.
Hero’s like the fictional African Queen characters or the very real Bill Irwin and his dog Orient remind us of the beautiful, messy, challenge that is our life’s journey and they remind us to persevere - even in our blindness. And we won’t give up because just around the river bend may be the next best thing, the greatest joy of the journey, the clarity found when we answer God’s longing for us, when we answer God’s call for our lives. Because if we show up and keep following that call we will meet Jesus on the Way, over and over again, and he will heal us and make us whole and then we will know where next to go and we will be strong enough for the rest of the journey - with strong bones and hopeful hearts.
The bible tells us that each of us was known and hoped for and purposed by God before we were even born (See Psalm 139 and Jeremiah 1). God has longed to guide us on our journey ever since. Sometimes on our journey we have faltered but we came back and we tried again.
And we are here today.
At some point in our journey each of us encountered the living God in such a way that we committed ourselves to that God, we experienced joy, relief, clarity and gratitude in those encounters. Other times we felt lost, we felt discouraged, we fell down a lot, but we kept going and encouraged each other.
And we are here today.
So friends, let’s keep the faith and keep on the path of following Jesus on the Way. We’ll have to check on each other along that way. We’ll need to encourage the doubtful, carry the waters of hope and love in our pack and be willing to participate in the amazing healings along to Way too. Mostly, I think we need to focus on the togetherness of our journey. None of us is in this alone.
But if we are able to stop pointing the finger and speaking evil, and refrain from selfishness and feed people, we will find healing for each individual and for the whole community of believers. Then we will for sure join “the entire crowd in rejoicing at all the wonderful things that Jesus is doing.”
Amen.
The Rev. Dr. Kathy Kelly