Matthew 9:18-30a
March 23, 2014
First Presbyterian Church, Sterling IL
Christina Berry
As we enter
this third week of Lent we continue our series, “Sensing the Glory of God.”
We’ve been looking at stories in the gospel of Matthew through the lens of our
five senses. I hope you’ll take a few minutes today to look at the display in
the narthex of the items people have shared that reflect God’s glory,
that demonstrate hope, abundance and courage.
This week,
our sensory focus is on touch – specifically, the touch of Jesus. Our scripture
reading calls our attention to three different healing stories of Jesus from
the 9th chapter of Matthew, verses 18-30. Let’s open ourselves to
the healing touch of Jesus as we listen to these stories:
18 While he was saying
these things to them, suddenly a leader of the synagogue came in and knelt
before him, saying, "My daughter has just died; but come and lay your hand
on her, and she will live." 19 And Jesus got up and followed
him, with his disciples.
20 Then suddenly a
woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years came up behind
him and touched the fringe of his cloak, 21 for she said to herself,
"If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well." 22 Jesus
turned, and seeing her he said, "Take heart, daughter; your faith has made
you well." And instantly the woman was made well.
23 When Jesus came to
the leader's house and saw the flute players and the crowd making a commotion, 24
he said, "Go away; for the girl is not dead but sleeping." And they
laughed at him. 25 But when the crowd had been put outside, he went
in and took her by the hand, and the girl got up. 26 And the report
of this spread throughout that district.
27 As Jesus went on
from there, two blind men followed him, crying loudly, "Have mercy on us,
Son of David!" 28 When he entered the house, the blind men came
to him; and Jesus said to them, "Do you believe that I am able to do
this?" They said to him, "Yes, Lord." 29 Then he
touched their eyes and said, "According to your faith let it be done to
you." 30 And their eyes were opened.
The shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa had a beautiful tea bowl. When
Ashikaga Yoshimasa’s tea bowl broke, he did not simply throw it away. In the 15th
century, such a thing would have been unthinkable. Japanese tea ceremonies are
not just about pouring and drinking tea; they are elegant and beautiful rituals
of manners, of hospitality. So Ashikaga Yoshimasa sent the bowl away to have it
repaired.
When the bowl was returned, it was repaired, but it was no
longer beautiful. It was in one piece, but was disfigured by ugly metal staples
that held it together. Ashikaga was disgusted and looked for a more pleasing
way to repair the bowl. Eventually, he hit upon a solution: he added gold to
resin, and filled in the cracks with gold. Not only was the tea bowl stronger, it
was more beautiful than it had been before.[1] The
art of this kind of repair is called kintsukuroi – to repair with gold.
A woman came to Jesus, a woman
who wanted to be healed. She did not intend to ask anything of him, but she
pushed through the crowds, just to touch the hem of his garment. She touched
the fringe of his cloak, and she was made well. After long years of suffering,
just one touch healed her. She could return to her family, her community, to
full life.
Jesus continued on his way and
went to the bedside of a child who had died, a little girl. He said she was not
dead, but only sleeping. They laughed at him. She had died, and the funeral was
about to begin. But Jesus wouldn’t accept their point of view. He brushed past
the crowds and went to the child. He took her by the hand, and told her to get
up. She got up, and she was well, and she was strong, and she was alive. His
touch restored her to life.
And as he left that home, two
blind men approached. Take away our blindness, they asked. Restore our sight. Do
you believe that I am able to do this, he asked them? Yes, Lord, they answered.
He touched their eyes, and their sight was restored. One touch, and they could
see, perhaps for the first time in their lives.
The touch of God in our lives –
to heal, to restore, to transform -- like the touch of a potter’s hands on
clay. The prophet Isaiah said, speaking to God, “We are the clay, and you are
our potter. All of us are the work of your hand.” In 2nd
Corinthians, chapter 4, the Apostle Paul carries the image further: “… we have
this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this
extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.”
It’s an interesting thought, this
idea that we are clay, shaped by God. Potters have to prepare clay, -- it’s
called wedging -- to remove air bubbles, to mix it properly, to get the
moisture content properly dispersed. The clay must be cut and rejoined, slammed
down onto a table, pressed and turned. It’s a little like kneading bread dough
– and it takes a lot of wedging – 75 to 100 times – to get clay into shape. Then,
the potter rolls the clay repeatedly. Only then is the clay shaped into a
vessel.
I rather like the idea of that
touch of Jesus, like a potter, shaping and smoothing us, taking away the rough
edges, mending the cracks and broken places with gentle, healing hands. Jesus
was never afraid to touch people – even though the purity codes prohibited it- a
man should not touch a woman who was not his wife, and touching the sick made a
person ritually unclean. Touching the body of one who was dead was forbidden. But
Jesus touched people, laid his hands on them, leaned down and held out a hand, lifted
people up. He touched people particularly when he healed them.
The sensory experience of touch
was somehow part of healing. This is true even now – medical and mental health
professionals frequently emphasize the significance of appropriate healing
touch. It isn’t anything unusual –massage, reiki, reflexology – all of them
deploy the sense of touch in ways intended to be healing, or at least helpful.
Human touch is powerful – so important that babies who don’t receive it
can actually die, so crucial to well-being that many nursing home workers are now trained in ways to appropriately and
regularly touch residents, to hold their hands or rub their backs, to gently
stroke their arms. Those of us whose work includes visiting the sick are taught
the importance of taking a hand, or offering a gentle touch on the shoulder.
Of course, there are some kinds
of touch that are hurtful, exploitive, unwelcome. But the touch of Jesus is
never that, never as punishment, never as pain. It is the touch that heals and
revives, that refreshes our vision, and reassures us. That touch also shapes
us, forms us into something – someone new.
The touch of God is the touch of the
potter’s hands.
It is the touch of the potter
that makes a clay vessel beautiful.
It is the will of the potter that
makes a clay vessel useful.
It is the skill of the potter to
restore that makes a clay vessel whole.
From time to time we get dinged
and chipped and maybe cracked up a bit by life. Maybe we overestimate our
strength, maybe we misuse our bodies, and maybe there is nothing wrong that we
have done, but something, somehow, cracks, something breaks, something comes
apart. The touch of Jesus puts us back together. The potter’s hands smooth the broken places and
fill them with gold, to make us even more beautiful than before. Kintsukuroi
– repaired with gold.
As you came into the sanctuary
this morning, you were given a small bag of clay.
That clay is just a small lump,
not much to look at. Maybe that is where you have been, maybe it is where you
are. Maybe you’ve never felt like a formless lump of clay, but it could be that
someday you will – There may be things in your life that can’t be put back
together, at least not in this life. Maybe you have felt, or feel now, like a
broken vessel, a shard, in pieces.
We are clay vessels, fragile,
easily damaged.
But we have this treasure in clay
jars, and from the healing touch of the master’s hand, our broken places shine
like gold. “to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”
God’s touch can put us back
together, mending us, restoring us, making
us stronger at the broken places, healed,
golden, beautiful, more beautiful for having been
broken: mended vessels, touched by
Jesus, to show the glory of God.
Amen.
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