ARISE!

Sermon for the 16th Sunday after Trinity

“That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.”

“And He said, Young man, I say unto thee, Arise!”

Can you put a value on yourself? What are you worth?

     A real estate agent will tell us that the market price of anything, especially real property, is whatever someone else is willing to pay for it. On eBay.com , the internet auction marketplace, this is really true. You may or may not get what you pay for, but you certainly put a value on it and pay what you bid. That becomes what the thing is worth. Chemists tell us that our bodies, if reduced to their base chemical components, are worth perhaps $2. They're mostly carbon and water: the elements of the earth. Were not worth much in chemicals.

      Some entertainers and sports figures set a price on their services in millions of dollars per year. That may not last long, but while they're earning, they are high-priced. A minimum-wage earner, on the other hand, may make less than $12,000 annually, even if fully employed.

      As an electorate, in this election year, each of us is worth the number 1. One vote per person among the millions. (Except in Florida, of course.) 

      When sold as slaves, people are examined for their work-hardiness and evaluated for what they might produce in labor. Or if she is a woman, for how many healthy children she might produce. This is a hard thing for us to think, for did away with slavery and we don't own people as slaves any more. But what would you pay for someone you love?

      It's a true story. A man traveled to the South Sea islands and visited an island called Kiniwata . As he was there, mostly for pleasure, but for business as well, he sought a guide to show him around the islands and help him trade for local valuables, like pearls. Everyone recommeded the same man to him: Johnny Lingo . Johnny Lingo was by far, even as a young man, the most experienced and dependable guide and knew the ins and outs of the islands. He could size up a bargain and knew the right price for purchasing everything. But it was when they said this, they got a funny light in their eyes and smiled as though a private joke was known, but not shared with the visitor. Little kids would hear Johnny Lingo's name and say, “Yeah, Johnny Lingo: he really knows how to strike a good deal!” and then they'd run off giggling wildly.

      This led our visitor to ask, injured at first, whether they were all having a joke at his expense, recommending some loser to him while giving him false commendations. They were quick to correct his apprehension, however, and affirmed that Johnny Lingo was the best guide and bargain driver in the islands, but that he had done one thing that still baffled all the people of the island group. It concerned a woman named Sarita .

      They told him that five months ago, Johnny Lingo came to Kiniwata from his home on Nurabandi, another island close by, to attend the annual festival and to find himself a wife. He sought the hand of Sarita and offered her father eight cows! The visitor knew of the local customs enough to understand that this was a truly spectacular number of cows to offer the father of a prospective bride. The custom was a gift to obtain the permission and blessing of her father for the prospective groom. While an average woman might fetch 1 or 2 cows, a most desireable woman could expect to get her father 5 or 6 cows richer. No one had ever heard of 7 cows being offered. 8 was beyond imagining.

     “She must be a very beautiful woman, this Sarita,” the visitor commented.

     “Not at all. She's not pretty. In fact, she's quite ordinary: skinny, face downcast, unsociable; a real loser. Her father wondered if he was even going to be able to marry her off. When Johnny came to make the deal, he was going to ask 3 cows, but was willing to go down to 1 if he had to. When Johnny offered 8 cows right away, he didn't know what to do but agree. We've been wondering what Johnny Lingo was thinking, giving 8 cows for Sarita, ever since that day.”

     “I've got to meet this Johnny Lingo,” said the visitor.

      Not long after, he was able to make his way to the island Nurabandi, and while there he asked the locals for directions to the home of Johnny Lingo. They too seemed amused by the idea of Johnny Lingo and his unpresidented purchase of a wife for 8 cows. He followed their directions and came to Johnny Lingo's house. There he met the very poised and serious young man everyone held in a balance between admiration and amusement, and began to wonder anew what the man's obsession with Sarita could mean.

     “You come over from Kiniwata?” Johnny asked.

     “Yes.”

     “They talked to you about me on that island?”

     “They said you were the best guide in the island group, that you can provide me with anything I need, that you are intelligent, resourceful and the sharpest trader in the islands.”

Johnny smiled briefly and said, “My wife is from Kiniwata. Did you know that?”

     “Yes, I had heard.”

     “They speak of her?”

     “A little.”

     “And what do they say of Sarita?”

      The visitor was somewhat speechless. He obviously couldn't report all that he'd heard, but managed to say he knew they met and were married at festival time.

     “And did they not say anything else about her?”

     “They said you gave her father 8 cows for her... Nobody seems to understand why you did that,” he finally admitted.

     “Do the people on this island share their curiosity?” Johnny pressed his inquiry further.

     “Yes. No one can remember anyone getting 8 cows for any woman.”

      Johnny seemed pleased with the legend about his outrageous blunder in buying himself a wife for 8 cows.

      Right at that moment, a curtain was parted and the most extraordinary beauty entered the room carrying a tray of drinks and fruit. She was erect and stately; not proud, but self-assured and graceful. Her face beamed with love for her husband and joy in herself and in life. In a soft, feminine voice she asked if anything else was wanted and Johnny lovingly told her no. She left and a light seemed to go out of the room.

     “What do you think?” asked Johnny Lingo.

     “Of her? That was the most beautiful woman I have seen in all my life. That certainly wasn't Sarita, was it?”

     “That was Sarita.”

     “Not the Sarita they speak about, the one you paid 8 cows for?” the visitor said, but his voice began to show he was putting things together at last.

     “There is only one Sarita,” Johnny said. “Five months ago I went to Kiniwata and there I met and fell in love with Sarita. I knew I wanted her to be my wife. I offered her father 8 cows for her and he agreed, to my great pleasure and blessing. I know that no one has ever paid so much, but just think on this. How does a woman feel when her husband has paid a low price to have her? She is worth only 1 or 2 cows. She will always hear how her friends were worth twice as much to their husbands. Her value is so low, her life doesn't ever come up to what it might have been. And that is what her husband has all his life, too.”

     “You could have had any woman in the islands for that kind of price.”

     “But I wanted Sarita.”

     “You could have had her for 2 or 3 cows,” the visitor continued to express his confusion.

     “Yes. I might have paid even 1 cow for her and her father would have agreed. But I wanted an 8 cow wife.”

      How we value each other impacts how we value ourselves. Husbands, wives, parents, children: they must all know how much they are of great value to you. Show them every day how much you value them. It will bless them and it will bless you as well. You'll get a better person there who appreciates the love and confidence you have in them.

      There is someone who has shown you how much He values you. And He paid more than 8 cows for you, too. “What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.” 1 Cor 6:19-20. “These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” Rev. 7:14.

Jesus was willing to pay dearly for his Bride. Even when we had no value at all. See the scene: Jesus going to Satan and demanding: “Release the humans.”

     “No. Why should I?”

     “I want them back.”

     “Them? Do you see them? Do you know what they've been up to?”

     “I want them.”

     “What will you do for them?”

     “I will die for them, shed my blood for them, go down into the pit to see them set free.”

     “Done!” the devil shouted with glee...

      Jesus walked toward a funeral procession one day and saw a woman, a widow and now bereft of her son, her only support. Christ's powerful presence came to the mourners and he touched the stretcher. They halted and waited for Him to speak. “Young man, I tell you, Arise!” He said.

What is a dead man worth? $2 in chemicals. Zero votes, (except in Chicago, of course). No cows. Jesus didn't have to do that, but He saw the woman destitute and He loved her. “Arise.”

      He calls us out of slavery, out of worthlessness, out of whatever we've sold ourselves to: sex, drugs, rock&roll, depression, self-hatred, sinful: it is all unworthy of Christ's Bride.

      Arise.

      He has bought us with a price. His Blood, more valuable than the universe, was paid for you, for me. You've been given a new life. Live it. Let your life show the value that He has given your existence.

      Arise.

 PFH+