1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:08,000 I speak in the name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 2 00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:14,520 Amen. 3 00:00:14,520 --> 00:00:20,060 So all this week I will be serving on staff for a week-long camp session for adults with 4 00:00:20,060 --> 00:00:23,240 physical and mental disabilities at Camp McDowell. 5 00:00:23,240 --> 00:00:28,100 I actually got up at 5.30 this morning from Camp McDowell to be here and right as this 6 00:00:28,100 --> 00:00:31,120 service ends I will head back. 7 00:00:31,120 --> 00:00:35,680 My husband and I have been staffing special session together for roughly 12 or 13 years 8 00:00:35,680 --> 00:00:42,480 and he's been a counselor for even longer than that since he was about 16 years old. 9 00:00:42,480 --> 00:00:48,680 Special session has always been for me the thinnest of thin spaces between heaven and 10 00:00:48,680 --> 00:00:49,680 earth. 11 00:00:49,680 --> 00:00:56,540 A glimpse of what earth could be like and what I'm quite hopeful heaven will be like. 12 00:00:56,540 --> 00:01:00,320 Special session is a week where people are loved and cherished for who they are, where 13 00:01:00,320 --> 00:01:06,680 you can lay down the oh-so-heavy burden of pretense and pretending the exhausting pull 14 00:01:06,680 --> 00:01:13,780 to be better, to do more, to produce, to achieve, where we can simply enjoy being ourselves 15 00:01:13,780 --> 00:01:17,320 together for a stretch of time. 16 00:01:17,320 --> 00:01:22,440 It's a week where people are reminded that we, all of us, are bearers of the image of 17 00:01:22,440 --> 00:01:29,680 God made in the very likeness of our Creator, that we all reflect the infinite facets of 18 00:01:29,680 --> 00:01:33,640 God that God thought needed to be shared with the world. 19 00:01:33,640 --> 00:01:38,760 And that's a powerful message for all of us, especially those of us who have never 20 00:01:38,760 --> 00:01:43,040 been told that we hold such a precious gift. 21 00:01:43,040 --> 00:01:48,600 Treating people with dignity, seeking and serving Christ and others, and having absolutely 22 00:01:48,600 --> 00:01:53,880 a wonderful time while doing so are the hallmarks of special session. 23 00:01:53,880 --> 00:02:01,120 It is not always glamorous, it's not always easy, and it's usually pretty sticky and sweaty 24 00:02:01,120 --> 00:02:03,580 and chaotic. 25 00:02:03,580 --> 00:02:10,440 But it has been, and I'm certain will be this year, a highlight of my month, of my year, 26 00:02:10,440 --> 00:02:14,080 of my life. 27 00:02:14,080 --> 00:02:20,240 The best part of special session, it's actually our motto, is that everyone belongs here, 28 00:02:20,240 --> 00:02:21,240 absolutely everyone. 29 00:02:21,240 --> 00:02:24,440 And it's not just our campers who need to hear that. 30 00:02:24,440 --> 00:02:30,920 We are, all of us, constantly searching for the people and the spaces in which we feel 31 00:02:30,920 --> 00:02:36,600 like we can truly be ourselves, with all of our idiosyncrasies and our quirks and our 32 00:02:36,600 --> 00:02:38,760 faults and our flaws. 33 00:02:38,760 --> 00:02:45,720 And to have someone tell us that we are good and welcome just the way that we are, and 34 00:02:45,720 --> 00:02:49,840 to have them truly and deeply mean that. 35 00:02:49,840 --> 00:02:57,260 It is in these spaces where we can finally rest and renew, where we can share even the 36 00:02:57,260 --> 00:03:03,440 most vulnerable parts of who we are and learn to fully appreciate others, with all of their 37 00:03:03,440 --> 00:03:07,720 quirks and their flaws as well. 38 00:03:07,720 --> 00:03:12,120 This is the kind of community that Jesus invites his followers into. 39 00:03:12,120 --> 00:03:17,760 This is the kind of community that God would have us inhabit now and for all eternity. 40 00:03:17,760 --> 00:03:25,160 But as we know too well, the world can be so very unkind, and people can get stuck in 41 00:03:25,160 --> 00:03:30,900 their own way, and we all fall just a little bit short of the people that God created us 42 00:03:30,900 --> 00:03:34,560 to be. 43 00:03:34,560 --> 00:03:36,760 Today's Gospel reading is absolutely full. 44 00:03:36,760 --> 00:03:40,760 It's a blockbuster set of uns-stories for us to unpack. 45 00:03:40,760 --> 00:03:45,560 And in each one of them, Jesus goes about the work of restoration, of bringing people 46 00:03:45,560 --> 00:03:49,400 back into the community of God. 47 00:03:49,400 --> 00:03:55,140 In the first of our three stories, Jesus encounters Matthew the tax collector. 48 00:03:55,140 --> 00:03:59,960 Tax collectors were a notorious group of individuals known for preying upon their neighbors, their 49 00:03:59,960 --> 00:04:05,640 own people in order to make money for themselves, and not just for themselves, but also for 50 00:04:05,640 --> 00:04:11,480 the Roman government, which was brutally oppressing the Jewish people. 51 00:04:11,480 --> 00:04:13,200 Tax collectors were despised. 52 00:04:13,200 --> 00:04:14,200 They were appored. 53 00:04:14,200 --> 00:04:15,200 They were ostracized. 54 00:04:15,200 --> 00:04:21,200 And yet in this scene, it is Jesus who initiates the conversation with Matthew. 55 00:04:21,200 --> 00:04:30,680 It is Jesus who initiates Matthew's repentance with a simple invitation, follow me. 56 00:04:30,680 --> 00:04:33,880 If Jesus said more, our Gospel does not reflect it. 57 00:04:33,880 --> 00:04:36,760 Just two words are enough. 58 00:04:36,760 --> 00:04:38,960 Matthew goes. 59 00:04:38,960 --> 00:04:45,440 And not just Matthew, our Gospel tells us, but a whole host of tax collectors and sinners, 60 00:04:45,440 --> 00:04:49,760 people who have spent their lives preying upon others. 61 00:04:49,760 --> 00:04:53,220 They too accept the invitation to follow. 62 00:04:53,220 --> 00:04:55,960 They share a meal with Jesus and his disciples. 63 00:04:55,960 --> 00:05:00,960 A scene, one of the commentaries I read this week, says, points to the coming kingdom of 64 00:05:00,960 --> 00:05:07,960 heaven, where all of us will find a place at the banquet table with God. 65 00:05:07,960 --> 00:05:12,400 Jesus's choice of dinner companions scandalizes the religious leaders of the day, those who 66 00:05:12,400 --> 00:05:17,700 are so assured of their own goodness and righteousness. 67 00:05:17,700 --> 00:05:22,680 This first of our three Gospel stories invites us to consider who we might be scandalized 68 00:05:22,680 --> 00:05:27,360 to find sitting at the heavenly table with Jesus. 69 00:05:27,360 --> 00:05:30,680 Who might we be shocked to see eating? 70 00:05:30,680 --> 00:05:34,360 Who might we be shocked to see sitting there? 71 00:05:34,360 --> 00:05:38,760 And how can we begin to more fully imagine a bigger table with enough seats, with enough 72 00:05:38,760 --> 00:05:41,260 food for everyone? 73 00:05:41,260 --> 00:05:47,300 And how can we in this lifetime start inviting people to that table now? 74 00:05:47,300 --> 00:05:48,720 Our Gospel moves on. 75 00:05:48,720 --> 00:05:51,120 The next story is a two-for-one miracle. 76 00:05:51,120 --> 00:05:55,460 Jesus has been approached by a man whose daughter has died. 77 00:05:55,460 --> 00:05:59,440 His desperation and his heartache are clear. 78 00:05:59,440 --> 00:06:03,440 But it is his hope that speaks most powerfully in this story. 79 00:06:03,440 --> 00:06:10,040 He has heard enough about Jesus to think that if anyone can help, he can. 80 00:06:10,040 --> 00:06:15,200 So he approaches Jesus with the most outrageous of requests, come and bring my daughter back 81 00:06:15,200 --> 00:06:17,800 from the dead. 82 00:06:17,800 --> 00:06:22,080 In a turnabout from the scene we just saw with the tax collector, Jesus is the one who 83 00:06:22,080 --> 00:06:25,840 gets up and follows the bereaved father. 84 00:06:25,840 --> 00:06:30,960 But before he can arrive at the man's home, Jesus has another encounter, this time with 85 00:06:30,960 --> 00:06:37,760 a woman sick and suffering from hemorrhages for 12 years, over a decade. 86 00:06:37,760 --> 00:06:42,400 She touches the hem of Jesus' garment and is healed. 87 00:06:42,400 --> 00:06:48,440 She like the grieving father is driven by despair, but also by intrepid hope and daring 88 00:06:48,440 --> 00:06:54,760 courage as she approaches Jesus in the belief that he can heal and fix what nothing else 89 00:06:54,760 --> 00:06:58,680 in the world has been able to. 90 00:06:58,680 --> 00:07:03,800 Jesus' compassion is on full display here as he tenderly acknowledges the woman, calling 91 00:07:03,800 --> 00:07:06,640 her daughter. 92 00:07:06,640 --> 00:07:10,800 To be sure, Jesus does the healing, but it is this woman's faith that puts her in the 93 00:07:10,800 --> 00:07:16,980 path of Jesus and Jesus commends her for it. 94 00:07:16,980 --> 00:07:22,840 Jesus then continues on in his original purpose to the home of the man who has lost his daughter. 95 00:07:22,840 --> 00:07:28,000 When Jesus does arrive, the funeral is already in progress with the customary musicians and 96 00:07:28,000 --> 00:07:31,380 the mourners assembled. 97 00:07:31,380 --> 00:07:33,680 This father seeks no mere healing. 98 00:07:33,680 --> 00:07:38,320 This father approaches Jesus to bring his daughter back. 99 00:07:38,320 --> 00:07:43,480 He has the faith to believe that Jesus can do it, so much faith that he risks missing 100 00:07:43,480 --> 00:07:48,380 his own daughter's funeral to bring Jesus to her. 101 00:07:48,380 --> 00:07:55,920 His faith in Jesus is of course well founded and Jesus does bring his daughter back. 102 00:07:55,920 --> 00:08:03,600 All of these stories showcase Jesus' power, his mercy, his kindness, his compassion. 103 00:08:03,600 --> 00:08:09,200 In this series of events, Matthew begins to unravel for us the mysteries of heaven and 104 00:08:09,200 --> 00:08:15,400 points us toward a better, fuller understanding of God's coming kingdom. 105 00:08:15,400 --> 00:08:24,400 Jesus teaches and heals, Jesus calls and people respond, and so importantly, Jesus restores. 106 00:08:24,400 --> 00:08:29,840 He brings people outside of the community back into it and gives them a place to belong. 107 00:08:29,840 --> 00:08:33,080 He invites them to come to the banquet table. 108 00:08:33,080 --> 00:08:39,000 In these stories in our gospel today, nothing, no one is too far outside of the community 109 00:08:39,000 --> 00:08:41,560 that they cannot be reached. 110 00:08:41,560 --> 00:08:46,400 The tax collectors and the sinners, people who have chosen paths that hurt others, they 111 00:08:46,400 --> 00:08:52,120 too can be and are redeemed by interacting with Jesus. 112 00:08:52,120 --> 00:08:57,760 The woman, ritually unclean for 12 years, over a decade, living what we can only assume 113 00:08:57,760 --> 00:09:03,900 was a difficult and solitary life, unable to be with friends or family. 114 00:09:03,900 --> 00:09:08,320 She too is restored in her encounter with Jesus. 115 00:09:08,320 --> 00:09:13,620 She is healed, but more importantly, our gospel says that she is made well, she is made whole, 116 00:09:13,620 --> 00:09:18,240 she is brought back, restored and renewed. 117 00:09:18,240 --> 00:09:24,520 And finally, and perhaps most importantly, not even death can separate us from God's 118 00:09:24,520 --> 00:09:30,400 great community, the family of believers stretching throughout human history. 119 00:09:30,400 --> 00:09:32,340 Even in death, God will find us. 120 00:09:32,340 --> 00:09:38,520 Even in death, God will restore us and bring us more fully into relationship with God and 121 00:09:38,520 --> 00:09:44,680 with each other, into the community of God's beloved people. 122 00:09:44,680 --> 00:09:47,600 This is the community we are promised a place in. 123 00:09:47,600 --> 00:09:52,000 This is the community that Jesus will spare no expense to make sure that you and I and 124 00:09:52,000 --> 00:09:55,800 all people are invited to be a part of. 125 00:09:55,800 --> 00:10:01,720 And we are so very fortunate to have glimpses of that community here on earth. 126 00:10:01,720 --> 00:10:06,320 A foretaste of what it will be like when all people belong, when they are welcome and cherish 127 00:10:06,320 --> 00:10:10,920 and appreciated for showing up simply as they are. 128 00:10:10,920 --> 00:10:15,980 Where they are reminded that they are created wonderfully in the image of God, full of dignity 129 00:10:15,980 --> 00:10:18,440 and worth. 130 00:10:18,440 --> 00:10:23,200 My hope is that your life is full of these spaces with your friends and your family, 131 00:10:23,200 --> 00:10:26,140 perhaps even at camp. 132 00:10:26,140 --> 00:10:31,420 My hope is that we take the task of creating these spaces seriously, that we work diligently 133 00:10:31,420 --> 00:10:36,000 to create and maintain those thin spaces here and now. 134 00:10:36,000 --> 00:10:41,240 May we go about the work of pointing others to the coming heavenly banquet and assuring 135 00:10:41,240 --> 00:10:45,360 them that they too have a seat at that blessed table. 136 00:10:45,360 --> 00:11:02,080 Amen.