October 25, 2009
Grace Church
Rev. Robert E. Hensley

Job 42:1-6, 10-17; Psalm 34:1-8, [19-22]; Hebrews 7:23-28; Mark 10:46-52 

      Let us pray.  “O Lord, by all your dealings with us, whether of joy or pain, of light or darkness, let us be brought to you. Let us value no treatment of your grace simply because it makes us happy or because it makes us sad, because it gives us or denies us what we want; but may all that you send us bring us to you; that knowing your perfectness, we may be sure in every disappointment you are still loving us, in every darkness you are still enlightening us, and in every enforced idleness you are giving us life, as in his death you gave life to your Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.  (Phillips Brooks (1835-1893), Episcopal bishop of Massachusetts.) 

      There is a story going around about the patient who went to his physician complaining of pain in several places. The doctor asked him to indicate where it hurt. He pointed first to his leg, then to his back, then to his side, finally to his head. "Every time I press on these places, it hurts." After a careful examination, the physician diagnosed his problem: "You have a broken finger." 

      Do you believe in miracles? 

      It seems to happen fairly regularly, about once a year or so. On an otherwise "slow news day" some media person gets wind of yet another "miracle story" and runs a camera crew out to film the big event. In their most frequent incarnations these momentarily newsworthy miracles usually take the form of some sort of a vision of the divine. 

      But, let’s be honest.  These are pretty puny epiphanies! You know the kind I am talking about.  Where the face of Christ miraculously appears in the cracked bathroom window of some rundown house. The image of a descending angel miraculously floats above the landscape scenery of some cheap painting. And of course who can forget the miraculous transformation of a home-fried tortilla into an icon by the silhouette of Jesus that emerged upon its surface. 

      Now, I don’t know about you but all of these supposed "miracles" make me sad and a little bit angry.  It is so unfair that God could appear as a pillar of smoke by day and fire by night to the escaping Israelites, that Jesus could walk on the water and bring a dead man back to life in first-century Palestine, while we here at the beginning of the 21st century are supposed to squint our eyes in order to think we can see a miraculous figure on a piece of fried dough!

      This leads me to a second question:  Do miracles still happen? Or, as some "cessasionists" claim, did God stop working through miracles after the apostolic era? This has been one of the biggest and longest-running controversies in the church. For at least five hundred years believers have been asking, "Can God in fact do miracles today?" The Renaissance, the Reformation and the Enlightenment each added more and more bricks to the walls of reason and logic and quantifiable evidence that the best and brightest were helping to build between miracles and our daily lives. But it took the Industrial Era to really start erecting a miracle-proof barrier between the ongoing transformative work and presence of God in this world and the "scientific" view of the universe being developed. 

      As these walls have grown higher and wider, the separation between those who continue to believe in the presence and possibility of miracles and those who utterly deny this kind of experience has become taller and deeper. How ironic, then, that as we move ever deeper into the postmodern era, miracles appear to be making a comeback. 

      For example, let’s start with the great debate over a supposed long-ago miracle that many contemporary folks have a problem with: the virgin birth. There are few issues that have caused such historic histrionics. Churches have been split and thousands of books have been written on the possibility or impossibility of a miraculous virgin birth. There have been heresy trials and ministries have been ruined for the sake of this issue.  

      And the debate often has been ugly and nasty on both sides. Reams of papers and teams of scientists have marched before virgin-birth believers, denouncing the belief in that miracle as anti-science, anti-rational and anti-intellectual. Unfortunately, many of the defenders of the virgin birth miracle considered such designations as a compliment.  To my way of thinking the evangelicals and fundamentalists adhering to the old "not-since-the-apostolic-era" mandate against miracles are just as restrictive and closed-minded as the clinical white-coated skeptics. 

      So where does this leave us today? Today, we live in a world where science makes it possible for virgin births to happen every day. We call the process "in-vitro fertilization" and the results "test-tube babies." Isn't it rather amusing that those people who refused to admit the possibility of God doing a "virgin birth" are in a posture today of watching science do "virgin births" every day? Isn't it amusing that those fundamentalists who would refuse to allow God to perform miracles in the dawn of the 21st century, have no problem at all with allowing human scientists to do the same thing? Why is it that science gets all the miracle-making, wonder-working powers, and not God? Why is it we cannot say, "God can do anything God wants to do?" 

      But what constitutes a "miracle" today? Miracles are not divine holograms floating in the sky or bizarre appearances in a bowl of spaghetti. A miracle is when God makes a way. As in Isaiah 43:16-20, God can make a way in our lives when there seems to be no way. Miracles are a sign of God's active partnership with us – helping us to deal with the issues, remove the obstacles in our lives and in the life of this world. 

      As one contemporary pastor has put it, God doesn't solve problems for us. God solves problems with us." 

      In today's gospel reading, the real miracle is the eruption from within the blind Bartimaeus of such a powerful faith that it will neither shut up nor hold still. In this healing story, Bartimaeus comes to Jesus. Jesus does not approach some sedentary, helpless figure. It is the miracle of faith, a divinely given gift that makes possible the restoration of Bartimaeus' sight. In the life of the blind roadside beggar, God made a way when there seemed to be no way. 

      You might be caught up short and stutter if someone asked you point-blank: "What miracles has God performed in your life?" We haven't been taught to think about events in our lives as "miracles".  Rather, we have been trained to look for threads of logic and reason and fact to hold the fabric of our lives together. But what if you were asked, "Where has God made a way in your life when there seemed to be no way?" 

      As you ask yourself this question, think about your own experiences. You might be surprised to find how many miraculous ways that God has opened for you. 

      Think about a time when someone simply held your hand.  Has there ever been a moment in your life when the miracle of a compassionate, sympathetic touch has transformed solitary anguish into comforting companionship?  Or, perhaps, the miraculous hand you recall is very small – the instinctive grip of a newborn's reach or the trusting squeeze of a grandchild's grubby paw. What "hand-held miracles" have you felt? 

      Or how about a time when you just couldn't stop laughing. Why do we always think of miracles as sober and somber events? Even those that may have joyous results are usually considered serious stuff. The truth is that one of the greatest miracles of life is laughter. Laughing lowers blood pressure and reduces stress. Unrestrained joy is the way God gives us a sneak preview of the coming kingdom. The miraculous way of laughter is one of God's greatest gifts. 

      If you need a good laugh, there are several places you can go online to get a daily ‘laugh fix’.  When I was living in Dallas you could even call Southwest Airlines for a laugh.  One of the prerequisites for being hired by SWA is a sense of humor. You used to be able to call their 800 number, 1-800-I Fly SWA, just to hear the jokes.  They don’t tell you a joke anymore, but they do tell you that you have the option of ‘standing in line and waiting for the next available operator. 

      My own experience lately with what has been going on with my health and the fact that chemo has been put on hold until some other time is something I am willing to consider as an ‘almost’ miracle.  Definitely an answer to a prayer and Bishop Cederholm who has been my spiritual companion along this journey believes it, so I guess who am I to dispute it?  His point has been to remind me that I need to take seriously the presence of God in my life and in each of our lives.  That miracles are both desired and doubted because they testify to the activity of God on our behalf. God does make a way for each one of us – but it's up to us to step out on that path.  And as he is always quick to reflect my own philosophy back to me:  Instead of asking “Why me?” questions, turn them into “Why not me?” questions. 

      Why would God love us in this community?  Why wouldn’t God love us.  We of all people should know the answer to that apparent miracle.  The word for it is Grace.  Amen.