Taking Risks
Year A
Genesis 12:1-9
Psalm 33:1-12
Romans 4:13-25
Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26
May the words of my mouth O God… speak your truth…
Raise your hand if you consider yourself to be a risk taker… no wait… stop… don’t just… yet… maybe it would help to define the kinds of risks I’m talking about… what about speeding up instead of slowing down when you see the traffic light turn yellow… what about rolling through a stop sign when no one else is around… what about going five… no ten… oh let’s make it fifteen miles an hour over the speed limit… those are all risks… because you might get stopped… or ticketed… or fined… or you may cause an accident and injure innocent people…
But now… what about if you overhear someone telling a derogatory racist… or homophobic… or ethnic joke… and you call out that behavior… or what if you see someone being bullied… or beaten… or robbed… and you intervene… those are all risks too… that you’ll be ignored… or told to mind your own business… or pulled in to what’s going on in an unfavorable way… or hurt and robbed yourself…
And now… what if you discover something more heinous… like some kind of abuse… or widespread and ongoing environmental pollution… or corporate espionage… and you point fingers… or blow whistles… or publish some irrefutable evidence… these are all risks too… with other kinds of life-changing consequences…
Taking risks… can be risky business… taking risks can leave us disappointed… or penniless… or heartbroken… taking risks can leave us worse off… or no better off… but taking risks can leave us much better off by opening us up to new opportunities… to new life… and to being healed…
Abram took some real risks… he was seventy-five years old when God promised to make of him a great nation… and he left his country… and his kindred… and his father’s house… God promised him that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the sky… but Abram lamented that his heir would be El-iezer of Damascus… a slave born in his own house… and God said Nope… but Sarai did not conceive… and God said Just wait… in the mean time… Sarai encouraged Abram to conceive with her Egyptian slave Hagar… and Ishmael was born… and then… when as Romans says that Abraham was just about dead… at one-hundred… and Sarah was ninety… God appeared by the oaks of Mamre as three men… and promised that in due season… Sarah would have a son and name him Isaac… which means one who laughs… as Sarah laughed when she overheard God tell Abraham that she would bear their son…
Matthew the tax collector took some really big risks… and likely put his life… or at least his safety… on the line… John Shea writes that from the point of view of the scribes and Pharisees… he’s a collaborator with the Romans… and most probably… an extortioner… his profession and his behavior put him outside the Law… and therefore outside those who obey the Law… righteousness demands that he be ostracized… but the one who said to his disciples that their righteousness must surpass that of the scribes and the Pharisees (Matthew 5:20) makes contact… Jesus seeks out the one whom others avoid… and that in itself can be risky… like befriending that kid in the schoolyard who’s being bullied…
Today’s Gospel passage doesn’t name the leader of the synagogue… but it’s Jairus… we know that from Mark and Luke’s account of this story… and what’s fascinating… is that Jairus is someone who took great risk by coming to Jesus… because as a leader… guilt by association would sully his reputation… but he comes out of love for his daughter… who has died… he was as certain as he could be… that this God.man… this God who spoke creation into being and gave life… could lay hands on and give life to his daughter again… and how could his reputation have mattered anymore… when he had nothing left to lose…
The hemorrhaging woman was a real risk-taker too… ritually impure… disallowed from being in public… especially crowded places… running the risk of tainting others… and certainly prohibited from touching a man… but she had faith…
Now as a Temple leader… Jairus’ faith was an educated and well developed faith… and while I have tended to think of this woman’s faith as being deep… it may have been little less than a mustard seed… but what seems clear… is that in the moment… the risks these two are taking… rise up out of the faith of desperation… when the status quo no longer matters… when positions of power fall short… and where the purity code does nothing more than get in the way of relationship… sometimes… something must die… to make room for a new kind of faith which is unencumbered by convention…
These stories are all about taking risks… when Abram followed God’s call… he risked leaving the familiarity of not only his home but his homeland… in favor of a complete unknown… when Matthew got up… and left his tax booth… and followed Jesus… he left his position and status behind… and at the least risked the ire of his fellow Jews… when the leader of the synagogue sought out Jesus… because of what he had heard about him… he risked his standing in the Temple elite… and when the hemorrhaging woman came up behind Jesus and touched just the fringe of his cloak… she risked public humiliation and more in order to be healed of the culturally imposed shame she’d carried for twelve years…
But when I remember that God emptied God’s self into Jesus’ physiology… without regarding equality with God as something to be exploited (Philippians 2:6)… but that Jesus humbled and opened himself to rejection and condemnation… even to the point of death… in order that death itself might die… I think that Jesus has taken the biggest risk… and not for himself… but for us… it seems to make all the risks we take… no less real… but perhaps seen in a more balanced perspective…
The world seems to be getting crazier each day… unprecedented wildfires in Canada spilling so much smoke that earlier this week NYC was the most polluted place on Earth… the unprecedented indictment of a former President on federal charges… the ongoing war is Ukraine… a rise in mass shootings… and an unprecedented number of hate crimes against members of minority groups… and it may have seemed just as crazy two thousand years ago… for Jesus and the disciples to eat with tax collectors and sundry other sinners… and so when the Pharisees asked about it… Jesus overheard them… and explained… Those who are well have no need of a physician… it’s those who are sick who have such a need… one way of understanding this… is to say… that those who follow God’s timeless Laws… Laws which are based in justice and righteousness… and which protect and benefit all people regardless of the categories listed in our welcoming statement… in God’s eyes… those people are well… but those who follow laws which were written to benefit only one class… one category… one group of people… all too often at the expense and detriment of others… it’s those people for whom Jesus came… and it even feels risky framing Jesus’ words in this way…
Protestants tend to talk about God… Pentecostals tend to talk about the Holy Spirit… and Evangelicals tend to talk about Jesus… and I wonder if the world needs more Jesus… but not in a way that our progressive Christianity would reject… but in a way that could enable all of us to take a risk… and give up anything… like myopic theologies and antiquated laws… which get in the way of healing our relationships… so we can love… and treat… our neighbors as ourselves… and end some of the craziness… and embrace the new life that God offers us over and over again… new life that God gives us in Jesus…
There are some people who think the world needs saving because we’ve become far too welcoming and inclusive… and some people who think the world needs saving because we haven’t become welcoming and inclusive enough… Jesus seems to lean towards the latter… and it makes me wonder what we’d be willing to risk… and leave behind… to have the new lives and life… described in today’s readings… I wonder…
