Living in the here and now

Short homiley from the 8am service on 21st October 2018, based up the readings for St Luke's day; Isaiah 35.3-6 , 2 Timothy 4.5-17 and Luke 10.1-9

There’s a very strong tradition here at St Michael’s of celebrating the Feast of St Luke with a service of Wholeness and Healing, and that’s what we’ll be doing later this morning. St Luke in tradition was a physician and we just heard the words from Luke’s gospel where Jesus commissions the disciples to cure the sick they find on their travels.

I wonder how many of you, like me, are people who look to  the future? Not in a healthy way but in a “things will be better when…” sort of a way, or an “if only…” sort of way.

I often forget to live in the here and now, especially when things are difficult or stressful, I want to look ahead to the good things which are coming, the time when things will be better, when I’ll be a better person.

In a more serious way I see this with my patients, they need the hope of looking forward, of hoping they’ll be healed of their cancer, of regaining their strength and living that abundant life we’re promised. For them it often feels like someone has hit the pause button.

How do we live in the here and now when right now we’re hurting or broken? How do we make sense of it when the healing we long for seems so far away?

We see the vision in Isaiah of how things could be, what sounds like a vision of a healed world, but the reality we know is very different.

My marriage sermons usually include the line that life isn’t perfect because perfection is an illusion, and our idea of what our perfect, healed and whole lives will be are also just an illusion.

We live in the here and now, God is with us in the here and now, whatever that may look like. We’ve been made imperfect and God loves our imperfect selves and extends forgiveness and grace to us just as we are. Healing and wholeness come when we let God in, when we accept ourselves the way God accepts us.

Whatever and however we find ourselves God has called us now, as we are, not how we will be or should be. Like the disciples we’re also commissioned and sent out and we have Isaiah’s vision in our hearts, to proclaim with our lives “be strong, do not fear”, to signpost for those we journey alongside “here is your God”. We’re sent to open people’s eyes and ears to God, to give them a glimpse of that joy, to be agents of healing for others in our communities; we each have this ability.

God uses us no matter what our condition, state of wellness, what baggage we bring…all that matters is that we trust God and the path God sets out for us, knowing we each have a commission, a purpose, and a ministry.

At the service later today we’ll offer special prayers and anointing. I see anointing as marking something special occurring, that could be the start of something or the end of something, it may bring comfort to the sick or dying or be a symbol of consecration.

I invite you, only if you wish, after you’ve received communion or a blessing today to stay standing if you wish to be anointed, as a symbol that you are chosen and loved by the creator of all things. You are special and part of God’s purpose.