Tag: homily

Homily on the Rich Young Ruler: “Being Seen”

This sermon was preached at Saint Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Sherman, Texas, on Sunday, October 13, 2024.

Texts: Hebrews 4:12-16, Mark 10:17-31

Being seen is, I believe, one of the great desires of the human heart. All of us want to know that others see us and care about us. None of us likes to be ignored or to think to ourselves, “No one even knows about me. No one even really sees me.”


And there’s an expression that millennials sometimes use. They’ll say, Ah, I feel so seen. And usually, they’re watching a television show, and there will be something that happens in the show that they relate to. And they’ll say, I feel so seen. What they’re really saying is, “I didn’t know that other people felt that way. I didn’t know that other people had that experience. I thought that was just me. But now I’m seeing it reflected in someone else’s experience.”


I was thinking about this when I was reading through our Gospel reading, because Jesus looking at or seeing the rich young man is the turning point in this conversation.


The Evangelist Mark relates to us that as Jesus was setting out on a journey, a man ran up, knelt before him, and asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus’s response may surprise us. He says, “Why do you call me good? No one is good, but God alone.” It may seem like Jesus is denying that he is good or denying that he is divine.

But this comment must be seen in the context of what the man believes Jesus to be. He’s not approaching Jesus as the Son of God, but as just another ordinary rabbi. Jesus sees that the man is trying to flatter him. “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus is saying, Why do you call me good? Only God is good. Are you saying that I’m God? If so, then you should listen to me. And if not, then you’re just flattering me. So Jesus is not denying his own deity, but rejecting human flattery.


Jesus continues, “You know the commandments,” and then he lists several commandments from the Decalogue. The man responds, “Teacher, I’ve kept all these since my youth.” We can hear in this response some pride, kind of like a student who wants to impress the teacher. “I’ve kept all the commandments since I was young.” He was wanting, perhaps, a word of praise, a commendation.


And then the Gospel text says, “Jesus, looking at him, loved him.” It could also be translated, Jesus seeing him, loved him. Now presumably he had already been looking at him, they were having a conversation, but St. Mark thinks it’s important to relate to us that at that point in the conversation, Jesus saw the man. He recognized something in him. He saw his very heart.


Looking at him and truly seeing who he was and what was important to him, Jesus loved him. And he said to him, “You lack one thing. Go sell what you own and give the money to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come follow me.” In the other account of this event in Matthew, he adds, “You lack one thing, if you wish to be perfect, go sell what you own and give the proceeds to the poor. Then come, follow me.” Sell everything you have, give the money to someone else, and follow me.

This invitation from the “good teacher” just floored the young man. This is not how he thought this conversation was going to go. He was so confident in himself. He thought he was going to approach this renowned rabbi and say, Good teacher, what must I do? And then Jesus would tell him, Do this, this, and that. And he would say, Oh, well, I’ve already done all that. I’ve done it since my youth. And then the rabbi would say, Well, very good. You clearly are going to have eternal life.


The rich young man entered this interaction with confidence, thinking it would end with him being praised. He didn’t think that the rabbi was going to call on him to sell everything he owned.


But even then, it’s less a commandment and more an invitation: “If you want to be perfect.” If you want to have eternal life, keep the commandments. But if you want to be perfect, sell everything you own and follow me.


Jesus commanded him to do this because when he saw him, he recognized that the main thing that was hindering this man’s spiritual growth was his excessive attachment to his material possessions.


And this is understandable, especially given the times in which they lived. Living in the first century Middle East was not easy. They didn’t have the modern comforts and amenities we have. It was a harsh desert landscape, and the Jewish people were under Roman rule. There had not been a prophet in 400 years. Life was uncertain and hard, and many people had begun to feel that God was not really looking out for them anymore. So many looked to wealth as a source of security. “If I can just make enough money, I’ll be okay.” “If I can at least have a comfortable lifestyle, I can make it.”


Whenever a person clings to something too tightly, it’s an expression of their fear. They are afraid of losing something or afraid of going without something. So Jesus saw that for this man, his fear resulted in his excessive attachment to wealth, to material comforts… to his possessions. Jesus saw the fear in this young man, and seeing it, Jesus loved him. Jesus was compassionate toward him because he understood the fear and the striving for wealth and security that had come to dominate this man’s life.


And if this was true in Jesus’ day, it’s certainly true today. So many of us are so worried about money, so worried about the future. And in that worry and fear, we strive harder and harder to make more money, so we can have a nicer house, with nice things, so we can go on nice vacations. We strive so hard for these comforts, thinking, If I just have enough money, I’ll be okay. If I can just be comfortable, I’ll be okay.


Because this is also a hard time to be living, for different reasons. The 2020s got off to a rough start. We had the pandemic, an assault on our nation’s capital, several wars, a toxic political climate. There’s a meme online that says, “You know, I’m really getting tired of living through major historical events.”


It’s understandable if we have fears in our heart. And it’s understandable if those fears cause us to cling to something that we feel will give us security or comfort. But God did not create us to live in fear or to seek refuge in the things of this world.


When Jesus sees you, He sees you completely. Sees you in all that you are. At your best moments and at your worst. With all the scars and wounds of your heart… Jesus sees you. “Before him no creature is hidden, but all are open and laid bare to the eyes of him with whom we have to do” (Hebrews 4:13). And seeing you, he loves you.


If you were the person in this Gospel story, when Jesus saw you and loved you, what is it he’d say? “You lack one thing. If you wish to be perfect, do this.” What is it you need to cling to less tightly? Or perhaps the one thing that you need to take on? Because sometimes the Lord calls us to give up something so that we may take up something else. What is it that God is calling you to give up or to give? Or put another way, what fear is God calling you to let go of?


And when God calls upon us to give up the thing that is hindering us or to take on some new thing we’re lacking, we can respond in one of two ways. We can be like the rich young man and go away sad, unable to let go of our fears and attachments. Or… we can rejoice at the opportunity to become more perfect, more mature, by loosening our grip on the things of this world. Because we know that the fullness of life into which our Lord calls us is immeasurably more valuable than any earthly good.


Let us let go of fear: the fear of scarcity, the fear that there won’t be enough. Let’s let go of fear. And if we’re going to cling to something, let’s cling to God. He is our comfort and security and consolation. And whatever we have given up or given away can never compare with what we receive from His most gracious hands. Amen.

Sermon for the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

A Sermon on the Healing of the Woman with the Flow of Blood and the Raising of Jairus’ Daughter

Text: Mark 5:21-43

June 30, 2024

“Crossing the Boundaries”

Over the past several weeks, we have journeyed through Mark’s Gospel, and we have seen Jesus as the Man of Authority. He has authority over demons, over the forces of nature… and now, over disease and death.

In our Gospel reading today, Jesus brings new life to two women: one a grown woman and the other a young woman, a twelve-year old girl. And he gives them new life in different ways.

For the woman with the flow of blood, Jesus heals her and so gives her a new life— a new existence, unfettered from the restrictions of her condition. For Jairus’ daughter, Jesus literally gives her new life— he brings her back from the dead.

What connects these two women is the figure of twelve years. The woman has been suffering a flow of blood for twelve years, and the dying girl is twelve years old. Both these events (the beginning of the woman’s bleeding and the birth of Jairus’ daughter) occurred at about the same time. They probably didn’t know each other. And yet, in the providence of God, both women would be healed by Christ on the same day.

St. Mark writes that Jairus, a leader in the local synagogue, approaches Jesus and asks to heal his daughter, who is ill and on the brink of death. Jesus agrees and he and the disciples follow Jairus to the house. But the story is interrupted: There’s a woman who has a flow of blood who approaches Jesus as he’s on the way. In the Greek she’s called literally the bleeding woman, but this is variously translated. Some translations say she’s suffering from hemorrhages, others say that she has a flow of blood or an issue of blood. But the problem is that she is continually bleeding.

She’s not named in the Gospel, but there is an early church tradition that her name was Berenice, or in the Greek, Veronica. And this condition, this perpetual bleeding, was something that obviously was very distressing to her, and not just for medical reasons.

This flow of blood rendered her ritually unclean. In the Torah, a person became ritually unclean if they had contact with things that had to do with life and death. So anything involving giving birth: after a woman gave birth she was ritually unclean. Menstruation made one unclean. If you touch a dead body, you become unclean. And if you’re unclean and you touch others, they become unclean. It’s not a sin to become ritually unclean, but to become clean again you had to undergo a ritual immersion, what they call the mikveh. You must bathe your whole body and then stay clean for seven days. And until you’re ritually clean again, you cannot enter the Temple.

Of course, the problem for Veronica was that because this flow of blood was constant, no matter how much she washed, she could never stay ritually pure for seven straight days. She had this condition for 12 years. What this meant was that she could not enter the temple and partake in the worship for 12 years. That would be like if you couldn’t come to church, if you couldn’t enter the sanctuary and worship and receive the sacraments, for 12 years. That’s what it was like for her.

She must have felt profoundly isolated. Isolated from other people, because if they touched her, then they would become unclean and they’d have to do all this cleansing. She must have felt isolated from her religion and its sacred rites. Maybe she even felt isolated from God.

This condition would have prevented her from getting married – or, if she was already married when the bleeding started, it would have prevented her from having relations with her husband and might have been cited by him as grounds for divorce. And this is something that commentators don’t often mention, but I think it’s significant: if she’s always bleeding in that way, she cannot become pregnant. So not only is she constantly ritually unclean, but she cannot bring forth new life.

So this is a terrible condition, from every angle. There was the constant discomfort, the feeling of uncleanness, the isolation from others and from her religion. It made it impossible for her to marry or have children. She spent all her money trying to be healed, with no success. It has impacted her bodily, mentally, emotionally, socially, religiously, financially. This condition basically wrecked her whole life.

And all this plays into how she approaches Jesus. It’s very different from the way Jairus approaches him. Jairus is a synagogue official. He’s a man of some importance in the community. He just goes straight up to him and says, My daughter at the point of death. Come lay your hand on her and she will live. He goes straight to him. But Veronica does not do this. And we can see why.

Maybe she didn’t want to be embarrassed. There’s a whole crowd around. Maybe she didn’t want to say, Hey, I have this condition. Can you please heal it? That’s a very private thing to be talking about in the midst of a crowd. And then, of course, there’s the thought that if he touched her to heal her, he would become unclean and then he’d have to go through the washing and then he’d be unclean for seven days. So maybe she just didn’t want to take the risk of him saying no.

But we see her great faith in the inner monologue Mark gives us. She thinks to herself, If I just touch his clothes, I’ll be made clean. It’s great faith. She is so convinced of Jesus’ holiness that she doesn’t even need to touch him. She’ll just touch something that’s touching him.

So she goes up behind him and she reaches out in faith and touches the hem of his robe. And immediately she feels in her body that the flow of blood dries up. She’s healed. Twelve years of suffering. Ended.

But Jesus feels the healing too. Jesus feels the inverse of what the woman feels, in that same moment. She felt power coming in to her, but he felt power going out of him.

So Jesus stops and says, Who touched me? And the disciples say, Master, there’s all this crowd around you. A lot of people are touching you. What do you mean? And he says, No, I feel that power has gone forth from me.

Veronica sort of stole a healing from him. She didn’t ask for it. She just reached for it. And she’s afraid that he’s going to find her out and then maybe rebuke her— maybe even take the healing back. But she comes forward and she tells the truth of her condition and of why she reached out in faith. And rather than rebuking her, the Lord reassures her. He says, Daughter, take heart. Your faith has made you well. Go in peace. Be cured of your affliction.

But then some people come from Jairus’ house, and we hear that his daughter has died. We hear these two statements right on top of each other:  “Daughter, your faith has made you well.” “Your daughter has died.” But Jesus reassures Jairus and encourages him to have faith.

Jesus enters the house, puts out the mourners, and invites just a few of the disciples and the girl’s parents into the room where the dead girl is. Jesus takes her by the hand— which would have made him ritually unclean— and says to her, “Little girl, I tell you: Rise.” Not just get up or wake up. “Rise.” The same word used in the Gospel for the raising of Lazarus and for Jesus’ own resurrection. And life comes back into the girl, and she is restored to the land of the living.

…

This is a story about boundaries. There are all sorts of boundaries in our world, and in this story. The boundary between men and women, between clean and unclean, between life and death. And over and over, Jesus crosses these boundaries in his love for others. He does not begrudge a healing to someone who was ritually unclean and on the margins of her world. He takes the dead girl by the hand, which technically made him unclean. And then there’s the ultimate boundary, between the living and the dead. And Jesus was willing to cross that boundary too. He goes over to the other side to snatch the young girl back from the realm of the dead.

This story, and many others in the Gospels, show that Jesus is willing to be “unclean,” willing to associate with sinners, willing to be “contaminated” by the mess of human life— by disease and isolation and death. We see Jesus moving across religious and social barriers to offer his life-giving grace.

This willingness to cross boundaries and become submerged in the messiness of human life is prefigured in Jesus’ baptism, when he is plunged into the muddy waters of the Jordan. And it culminates in his willingness to go into the depths of the ultimate uncleanness: death. Even death on a cross.

This story is a powerful reminder that we should not be discouraged by the boundaries that exist between us and Christ. It is true that he is divine, and we are human. It is true that he is sinless, and we are sinful. But it is also true that the Son of God became human and took our sins upon himself and died and rose from the dead, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

And we must always bear this truth within ourselves when we approach our Lord. We can approach him, and we should not be worried that we cannot be in the presence of Christ because of our unworthiness.

You will not make Jesus unclean. He will make you clean.

You will not make Jesus unholy. He will make you holy.

So approach with boldness. With repentance and faith and love, draw near. For we do not merely touch the hem of his robe. We don’t just touch the outer garment of the merciful Christ. We receive him in the most intimate way possible. We receive his very Body and Blood, his very self, so that he dwells in us and we in him. And when we receive him, we are made clean. And we are brought to life.

And like Veronica and Jairus’ daughter, we too will receive new life… and set forth his praise in gratitude. Amen.

Fr. Lorenzo Galuszka is the vicar of Saint Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Sherman (https://www.facebook.com/saintstephenssherman) and Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Bonham (https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61561060276714).

Homily for the Feast of the Holy Innocents, 2021

“Sacralizing the World”

Gospel reading: Matthew 2:13-18

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Today we commemorate the massacre of the holy innocents by King Herod the Great. Most of the feast days in the church year are joyful—celebrations of saints and of events in the life of Christ or the Blessed Virgin Mary. Today’s commemoration is much more sober. My reflections won’t exactly make for a feel-good homily. But there are lessons to be gleaned from this tragic event.

The most obvious is that there are wicked people in the world. There are tyrants who will resort to any behavior, however debased, to hold onto their power. This kind of evil does not discriminate on the basis of age. I actually think this is a round-about argument for infant baptism. Evil does not hold back its fury from the young, and so God does not hold back his grace from them either. We baptize our children so that from the very first they will be protected by God’s grace in a world where evil is visited on young and old alike.

The second lesson is a bit harder to perceive but no less true. It is that our own world is not so different from the world into which Jesus was born. In our own day, we can see the callousness of Herod reflected in different ways.

We see it in a movement that sees abortion not only as an occasional tragic necessity but as an inalienable human right… or even as a blessing, as the dean of an Episcopal seminary once declared.

We see it in instances of police brutality, in which those who are supposed to protect us end up killing those who really don’t deserve to die. We see it when a police officer can kneel on a man’s neck for nine minutes until the life is choked out of him.

The world in which we live is a world where innocents are massacred still.

So what do we say on this day? Do we simply lament that massacres like this happen, and then take the half-step from lamentation to self-congratulation, because, after all, it’s not like we’ve murdered anybody. Yet the issue that this commemoration soberly brings to mind is not just that it’s wrong to murder the innocent. The issue is much deeper, and it involves the human heart. The challenge that faces each of us is not just whether we can avoid murder—most of us can do that—but of whether we can contribute to what has been called “a culture of life.” The remedy for massacres like the one we remember today begins in the human heart and is expressed in how we think and speak.

Just yesterday I went to the gym for a workout and sauna. Sitting next to me in the sauna were two young men in their mid-to-late twenties, though they were acting more like they were in their early twenties. They were talking about their plans for New Year’s Eve—every other sentence included the F-word. They discussed how they planned to “get laid”—with one girl on New Year’s Eve and another on New Year’s Day, if possible. I felt like turning to them and saying, “What is wrong with you? Didn’t your parents teach you not to talk about women that way?”

Here’s why I bring this up. Those two young men were contributing to a culture of death. When we speak about others in a way that fails to recognize the sanctity and dignity and preciousness of human life, we are helping to create a culture in which human beings are not so valuable and so ultimately expendable. It is through language that we create a culture of life or a culture of death—based on whether how we speak recognizes or fails to recognize the humanity of those around us. A culture of death hinges on the dehumanization of those made in the Image of God.

When a man talks about a woman not as a person but as an object to be used for his own gratification, that is dehumanization.

When a person looks at an unborn child in the womb and says, “It’s just a clump of cells” … that’s dehumanization.

Every day I drive to work down 380 and pass a political billboard. It’s a picture of a white man leaning forward, and the caption next to him says, “Stop giving illegals our money.” Not even “illegal immigrants,” but “illegals.” Human beings who face a complex set of circumstances most of us cannot fathom are reduced to one attribute of their behavior—all they are to us is “illegals.” That’s dehumanization.

Each of us has the ability to hallow or profane, to sacralize or desacralize, to humanize or dehumanize, every person in the world by how we speak about them.

If we recognized that our words are not just temporary vibrations in the air but are in fact the raw material which hallows or profanes the world around us, then there would be certain words, certain ways of speaking, that would become intolerable for us: Profanity. Inappropriate humor. Slander. Gossip. Anything that dehumanizes another person made in the Image of God.

As the new year approaches, the real issue for most of us is not whether we’ll participate or be complicit in a massacre of innocent victims. It is whether the way we speak and act hallows our neighbors as the good creations of God or profanes them as something sub-human and therefore as unworthy of protection.

It is hard to speak life into the world rather than death. It requires us to fight against our most deeply ingrained habits. But it’s what the world needs from us as Christians. We can be beautiful in a world filled with ugliness. We can model charity and patience in a country whose public discourse has never been more crude and vulgar. In so many words, we can contribute to a culture of life rather than death. For it is life that Christ came to give us: life abundant, sacred, and unending. Amen.