Preached by Frank Faine at the Sunshine Cathedral on Sunday, July 23, 2006
The Light of the Ages
Malachi 4:1-2
1“That Great Day is right around the corner,” says the Almighty One. “It will be as hot as a furnace. All arrogance and evil will be like dry grass before a raging forest fire. Nothing — not a root, not a branch — shall be left that is not good! 2But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings, and you will go out dancing like calves released from the stall.”
The Light of a Teacher of Truth
Scientific Christian Mental Practice
Miracles are nothing to the power of… faith or firmness, when it is once liberated by you by your firm holding out for the omnipotence of Good, for the omnipotence of the truth of Good, for the certain action of the principle of Goodness. This was so plain to Jesus that he said one grain of faith would move a mountain.
Faith in Goodness will feed itself and increase itself in the same way, till we rise and work miracles by reason of it. We do not seem to handle our faith. It handles us. We become faith. We always were our faith. It is, in its intrinsic nature, God. So, one name for God might be Faith.
Selection inclusified
The Light of the Master Teacher
Mark 8:22-25
22As Jesus and his followers arrived in Bethsaida, some people brought a man to him who could not see. They begged Jesus to give him the healing touch. 23Instead, he took the man by the hand and led him out of the village, away from his friends. Then he put some spit on his eyes, and asked him, “Do you see anything?”
24The man looked up and then answered, “I see people over there. But they look like trees walking around.”
25Jesus put his hands on the man’s eyes again. Then the man opened his eyes again, and he discovered that he had perfect eyesight. He could see everything perfectly clear!
Three guys were fishing on a lake one day, when Jesus walked across the water and sat down with them in the boat. When the three astonished men finally settled down enough to speak, the first guy humbly asks, “Jesus, I have suffered from low back pain ever since I took shrapnel during the Viet Nam war. Could you help me?”
“Of course, my son”, Jesus said. When Jesus touched the man’s back, he felt relief for the first time in years. The second man wearing thick glasses due to vision problems and had difficulties with reading and driving asked Jesus if he could do anything about his eyesight. Jesus smiled, removed the man’s glasses and tossed them into the river. No sooner did they hit the water, the man’s eyes cleared and he saw everything around him distinctly.
As Jesus turned to the third man, the guy puts out his hands up and cries defensively, “Don’t touch me, I am on long-term disability.”
We laugh at the punch line to this story. But I wonder is it because it catches us by surprise? Or perhaps through a bit of humor it exposes some truth about the condition of our faith, about our willingness to see and be touched by Jesus?
These lines from a popular gospel song have become somewhat of a refrain this week as I’ve pondered today’s readings: “Open the eyes of my heart, Lord. I want to see Jesus”. In many ways they would seem to capture the essence of the themes we find in these texts: the prophetic hope of healing from Malachi; the power of our faith to become the very Goodness from God we desire in the words from Emma Curtis Hopkins; and finally a story from Mark’s gospel of just how our spiritual sight may be healed and restored.
Yet, these same lines point us to other sacred texts—your life and mine. I am reminded here of words of the great spiritual writer Henri Nouwen. He notes: “The great vocation of the minister [and I would add the preacher] is to continually make connections between the human story and the divine story.” Our lives are in fact stories woven by God who is the great storyteller. You and I are called by God to participate in the telling of our tales, to illuminate a living gospel in the very details of our daily narratives.
So, this morning I would like to reflect on today’s texts through the lens of my own story. Not only is this the one I know best, but it one that has also been shaped by all of your during this internship year. And in this telling I also want honor you for your faithfulness to me on this part of my journey toward ordained ministry.
Like the blind man from Mark’s gospel, I was initially brought to Jesus by others. I have no doubt my Jewish heritage (my great-father was a cantor in a Russian synagogue); extensive involvement in my local congregation from an early age; as well as my foundational desire for a personal, intimate relationship with God; all would lay the groundwork for my encounter with a zealous group of folks from Campus Crusade for Christ while a college freshman.
Through them and others with a similar evangelical bent in the following years the redemptive message of Jesus Christ would begin to take shape for me. Fuzzy at first, I argued much of the theology behind it; especially the idea that I was a “sinner” and needed to be “saved” Yet, my spirit hungry for such a touch by Jesus grasped what my intellect could not and many times would not. With persistence and love they, along with others, like them, would in the succeeding years walk alongside me. . In their prodding and encouragement my vision began to clear. A faith would begin to emerge, one rooted in the reality of God’s unconditional love as manifested in Jesus power and presence in the affairs of my life.
During this period I would also be introduced to MCC and the newly forming churches in Miami and Tampa. Looking back it seems apparent this experience was “spit” placed on my eyes, like the blind man from today’s gospel. In the early 1970’s churches dedicated to assisting LGBT persons to reconcile their Christian faith with their sexuality were highly “un-orthodox” just like Jesus healing methods in our gospel story. These young communities of faith invited me to experience the liberation and transformation that was indeed possible as I allowed God to touch my life in the area of my sexuality. And it would be my involvement with these churches and this message that would later blossom into my desire to seek ordination as an MCC pastor.
It would take more than 30 years and many more repeated applications of “spit” to bring me to where I am today with you. Along the way I would be rejected from the ordination process by two different denominations, one because I was gay. A few “detours” caused by unforeseen personal and financial circumstances marked this path, too. And my own cloudy vision would at times make it difficult to see where I was headed.
However, this same spit became the healing balm to further clear my spiritual vision, These years would also be a time where I learned to companion with persons in personal and spiritual crisis, especially those with HIV/AIDS; where I discovered my interest and gifts for encouraging spiritual growth in others; where my call to ministry was tested and I began my formal preparation for ministry as I entered seminary and the ordination process within MCC.
The saying from a plaque I was given some years ago comes to mind as I survey these events. It read, “The will of God will never lead you where the grace of God cannot keep you.” I believe it is this grace that has held me all these years, that has enabled me to serve among you this past year. As we have worshiped and prayed together in our Sunday celebrations, Evensong and Friday morning prayer; as we have dialogued and shared in our times of retreat and study; in the many ways we have worked alongside each other to care for one another and our community; in these and many more I have experienced this grace in action.
My time with you has also been yet another application of “spit” But this time, its effect has been more profound. You have opened my eyes to see God at work in me and us in new and wondrous ways. In the words of one of our Eucharistic prayers you have become a visible and visceral demonstration of how “we are bread broken and wine offered for a hungry and thirsty world”.
This morning I want to thank you for becoming a “living gospel” with me. Our journey together this past year has been yet one more way, God has used to “open my eyes” so “I might see Jesus.” I hope and pray that as a community of faith we will continue to be the spit so we may open each others eyes to see Jesus in us and through us.
May God touch all of us today with the grace that we “see Jesus” and that this grace becomes the rhythm of our lives now and always.
God is the Divine Source.
Through Jesus I receive God’s goodness.
In Jesus I see and receive healing.
In Jesus I see and receive my prosperity.
In Jesus I see and receive wholeness
for my body
for my mind
for my spirit.
I rejoice in God’s abundant Goodness .
And so it is AMEN.
