September 2, 2007

One of the medical sites on the internet informs me that this can be caused by congestive heart failure, by kidney problems, diabetes, and other causes

If the condition is related to diabetes, the patient may have an insatiable thirst. The patient is always thirsty. This symptom is ironic. A thirsty person is also retaining too much fluid, and the body becomes bloated. In the ancient world it looked like a person was becoming waterlogged, and yet wanted more water. In the ancient world it looked more like an addiction than affliction. The thinking was that if the person could just have the sense to drink less water, the swelling would abate.

Because of the compulsive thirst, it seemed like the patient's fault.

It is interesting that this disease is the one healed just as Jesus turns the discussion to people jockeying for social position. The thirst for recognition is a powerful force in human life.

What confers status for us? It's a complicated formula. Money comes to mind immediately, but that's not the only measure. How about that "in-crowd" pleasure of knowing something before others know it. The desire to be the first, richest, best informed, widest read, fittest person in your life decade, and the list is endless. (sailing)

I once was crossing the body of water known as Green Bay in a chartered sailboat, and from almost a quarter of a mile away someone was yelling at me how to adjust my sails for a more efficiency. I never answered him once, but the shouting went on for quite a while. That's how much he wanted me to know that he was a better sailor than me. He couldn't deny that urge.

There is something inside of us that is athirst.

Jesus wants to alleviate that thirst, and the bloating that comes with the mania for accumulation.

"Sit at the lowest seat." Says Jesus, so your host may say, "Friend, go up higher." Jesus is quoting wisdom from Proverbs 25, our first lesson.

Great advice, yes, but the ego never rests. For the religiously astute, modesty is a trait most to be coveted and pursued with the manic resolve to become that person least affected by status symbols and peer pressure. Lutherans pursue this strategy with competitive zeal.

Some wag has pointed out that if everyone pursued the golden middle, the prudent course of avoiding all selfish extremes, if THAT were the benchmark for status, then it follows that being a middle aged professor of philosophy making a median income at a middle-sized college in the Midwest would be the pinnacle of perfection.

I think Satan wants us pursuing things, and Satan laughs loudest when we begin to covet that which is modest, so we won't seem too covetous. The logical extension of this is fighting over shabby merchandise at a garage sale.

Jesus quotes ancient advice, and does not contradict it. But he is after much larger game here.

"HUMBLE YOURSELF" That's not merely a good social grace. If a person ACTUALLY invited the poor into their home for a dinner, it might indeed be a humbling experience. Hosting an elite dinner makes the claim that WE belong to the elites. To invite the poor is to imply that we belong with them. According to Jesus we do. "The poor you will always have with you and you can help them whenever you want..."

When do we "WANT" to help the poor? When do we associate ourselves with them? What excuses do we find for not doing it? Kierkegaard talked about a religion that "ADMIRES JESUS" rather than a religion that is "FOLLOWING JESUS." These are not at all the same.

Here we are gathered to do what? To admire Jesus? TO admire one another for having the humility to attend worship? Are we practicing the prudence of those who sit humble in order to be raised higher? A calculating humility is not real humility.

Gandhi pointed out that the Bible contains dynamite. There is no symbolic interpretation of the challenge that Jesus poses here- he means take care of the poor and hungry. He means do this personally.

Yet the more seriously I take this directive, the more I am inclined to look at the enormous needs of the world and say my little bit of help just won't matter.
What is to keep me from giving up?

But here again the ego gets involved. If I can't save the world then I should quit? Who appointed any of us to be Messiah? The help we offer our neighbor will never be all that impressive.

See how this text causes us to be humbled? The word of God puts us on a par with all people. All have sinned and fallen short of God's glory. Everyone is someone with a hunger and a thirst and a crying need.

The Word of God pushes us to cry Uncle. To drop pretense. To resign from control. To turn back from the illusion that we can redeem the world or even ourselves.

Jesus healed the man with dropsy. He did not scold the man and tell the man to quit drinking so much water. He cured him of that which caused the manic urge for more, more, more.

He was released from torment.

The mercy of God is a release from sin, from ego, from all the desires that rule us.

It is in this freedom that we can take up tasks for our neighbor. The help we offer may indeed be small in the grand scheme of things, but it matters.

There is a story circulating that you may have heard. A strange tide in the ocean has washed all the starfish ashore. Out of the water, they will die. There are tens of thousands of them on the beach. A man is walking along throwing them back to the water one by one.

Another beach walker comes along and comments that with so many starfish on the beach throwing them back won't matter.

The man replies, "To every starfish I throw back, it matters very much."

God is both hidden and revealed in this world. The revealed God is the one who speaks through every act of mercy. Your acts of mercy are the face of God's mercy in the world.

That's the revealed God.

The hidden God is the one who moves us all to call upon God for forgiveness of sins, for life and salvation.

Maybe we are too afraid to open our own homes, too afraid or too stubborn. But as the body of Christ we can certainly throw a few starfish back in the sea with the ministries we support- food shelves, homeless shelters, refugee resettlement, anti-poverty initiatives in law and in the economy. Each starfish will be grateful.

And there is this meal too. God sets a banquet- not a material one for nutrition, but a spiritual one- this Lord's supper is the banquet that is given freely, this is the banquet where none of us can repay the host.

It is finally God who gives all mercy. And everyone who tastes this meal is a beggar, in need of what God has to offer, what God DOES offer, that we may be cleansed, freed, and nourished and healed.

When the urgent thirst is cured, it's possible to share.