Year C Proper 16 2022 Worth

 Year C Proper 16,  August 21, 2022

St. James the Less Episcopal, Ashland, VA

“Worth”

Collect: Grant, O merciful God, that your Church, being gathered together in unity by your Holy Spirit, may show forth your power among all peoples, to the glory of your Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Jeremiah 1:4-10

The word of the Lord came to me saying,

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,

and before you were born I consecrated you;

I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”

Then I said, "Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy." But the Lord said to me,

“Do not say, 'I am only a boy';

for you shall go to all to whom I send you,

and you shall speak whatever I command you,

Do not be afraid of them,

for I am with you to deliver you,

says the Lord.” 

Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth; and the Lord said to me,

“Now I have put my words in your mouth.

See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms,

to pluck up and to pull down,

to destroy and to overthrow,

to build and to plant.”

Luke 13:10-17

Now Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, "Woman, you are set free from your ailment." When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, "There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day." But the Lord answered him and said, "You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?" When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.

In our world, so many of us are reduced to transactional relationships. Scratch my back and I will scratch yours. We are seen not as human beings but consumers by the corporations who mine our data so they can mine our pockets.  Every minute of our lives become marketing opportunities so that we can trade our days for economic opportunities. 

This has hit home particularly this summer looking at colleges with my oldest. It is deeply disturbing to me and my liberal arts education when on tours one of the main “selling points,” and notice those words, by the way, “selling points,” of a school is the hire-ability of its graduates.  Like the only reason you would go to school is what type of money you can make when you get out. Learning for learning’s sake is no longer of importance or appreciated.

The other area where this came out was when my oldest got a job, trading hours for money. Sweat and time for dollars. We broke it down to how many minutes for every dollar. It was quite an education for both of us.

What is a minute worth to us?

What is an hour?

What is a day?

What is the value of a life? What is its worth?

At what point do we stop making life transactional? When do we value it for the priceless and precious commodity that it is?

We put so many things on our lists before the value of the breath in our lungs. With my father dying early I was taught far too young the value of life itself. None of us are promised another day. I made vows that I would live a life worth living, a life of value, or better put, a life of values. My life and those I love are worth so much more than any single thing I own or ever could.

We all know this deep down, and too often it is so deep down that we let it slip by unnoticed.

Repeatedly we see the Worth of each of us in today’s readings. And we must make the Worth of each and every child of God a priority in what we as a church do. In our clinic, in our Sunday Schools, in our Youth Group, Grief Group, 4th Quarter, or Worship. Each and every soul is worthy of love and respect.

Jeremiah heard it from God’s own lips, 

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,

and before you were born I consecrated you…

and,

“Do not say, 'I am only a boy';

for you shall go to all to whom I send you,

and you shall speak whatever I command you,

Do not be afraid of them,

for I am with you to deliver you,

says the Lord.” 

The Call of God is not just for the special, the elect, or the elite. 

If you are a Child of God…  

if you have breath in your lungs… 

then the fingerprints of God are on you, 

and the Call of God can shape your days.

You are of Worth beyond measure, and there is nothing, absolutely nothing that can separate you from the Love of God, the Call of God, or the Image of God reflected in your very soul.

We see this in moments of clarity. Often with weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Worth is such a precious word to me. My father’s middle name was Worth. A family name shared down the generations, and Worth has such meaning unto itself as well. A thing of Value, of great price, expensive, royal. Our worthy is only in question to those who do not know and love us.

Liam Neeson portraying Oskar Schindler in Schindler’s List has the cathartic scene after the war is finally over. He traded his fortune made as a war profiteer for hundreds of workers in his factory, making bribes and trading favors so that 1,100 souls would not be destroyed in the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps. Driving away ahead of the Allied forces, he is sent away with a ring of gold made from the fillings and teeth of those he saved out of thanks for their very lives. And it hits him. The pin on his lapel could have been another life saved. The car he is about to drive a few more. Every wasted ounce of gold spent on illicit things and food and drink could have been another Child of God redeemed from the death camps. It is quite the image. Do we see it as true?

I ask again. What is the Worth of a soul?

Obviously for God there is nothing of any more value, no greater worth. He loves us to death, even death on a cross.

We put so many other things in the way. We put up rules and strictures, and then elevate them instead of the thing itself. As Jesus said in Mark 2(:27): “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath

The petty tyrants ranted about the Sabbath, but Jesus could show in seconds the hypocrisy of what they were saying.

“Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?”

What is the worth of a beast, whether ox or donkey, in comparison to a daughter of Abraham? Once it is so clearly shown one is a beast of burden given refreshment, and one a burdened child of God delivered from something plaguing them 18 years!

The choice is so obvious. To them. To us.

But I hear the angry voices raised denouncing so many things, race, color, heritage, who we love, who we are, so many lines we draw. And I see Jesus weep. I see him healing on the Sabbath out of love for the woman hurting and bent for 18 years. I see him erasing all those lines we draw. I often wonder if Jesus walked in here on a Sunday what lines have I drawn would he need to erase? What child of God have I excluded that he would embrace? What one that I declared worthless would he say is Worth all his love, his very life?

Friends, this radical declaration of Worth is still revolutionary. It is a message we need not just hear, but embody, and then boldly proclaim here in Ashland and Hanover County.

We hear denouncements when things are not what is expected, what used to be the norm. We are living in times where change is so drastic that our heads spin, and often the urge is to go back to the way things used to be. So easily wished for and so hard to do.

Friends, we have been given the gift of living in such a time as these. You have been equipped and enabled by living the life you have lived to proclaim a Gospel of radical Acceptance and unlimited Worth to each and every Child of God you meet, as am I. The nay-sayers urging us to keep things calm, to keep the peace, do not see the cost demanded of those who need Grace and Love today. TODAY! Not tomorrow. Not when you get comfortable, but 18 years ago so Today will have to do.

To name another movie, at the end of Saving Private Ryan, the main character leans into the eponymous character Private Ryan. Ryan is given a message that he must go home to his mother who had lost all her other sons on D-Day. With his dying breath, and after most of his unit is killed delivering the message, the main character whispers, “Earn this.”

He did not say Ryan was not worth this price. He is saying that the price that was paid was a high one. He is to live a life of value, the value of so many who gave their all for him to live a life of Worth, worthy of the price that was paid.

Friends, we all have lives which are given to us paid for dearly. We owe so much to so many. But Jesus does not say to us that there is a debt we owe, but to declare our freedom in word and deed. The crowds around the healed woman who had been bent over for 18 years rejoiced. It gave them hope, and may it give us hope, too. It gave them an image of who God is, and maybe who we are in God. May we, like them, “rejoic[e] at all the wonderful things that he was doing.” Was doing, and is doing. His declarations of freedom and release continue to this day. Thanks be to God!

You are Worth the world to the only One who can give it to you. Hold onto that, and praise God! Amen