Worthiness

God of light and life, your fire fuels our lives and illuminates our paths. Help us to know your presence as we journey. Amen.


Are we really worthy of God’s grace?

What does it even mean to be worthy? John says “āmi hikanos lusai ton himanta tōn hupodāmatōn autou.” That is “I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal” as we are used to hearing it. We usually think of being worthy as being good enough, or at least I do. This would mean that John is not good enough to even be a slave of Jesus. I do not think this is what John meant when he said this.

This word “hikanos” is not used to denote social position, so John isn’t talking about being socially acceptable as the slave of Jesus. It does not refer to wealth, so John isn’t too poor or too rich to be Jesus’ slave. It doesn’t have anything to do with intelligence. John is not mentally unable to be Jesus’ slave.

So what does it mean. There are two possibilities. The first is a bit unlikely. “hikanos” can be about size, speaking of a large number or quantity. But somehow I don’t think John was saying that there were not enough of him to untie Jesus’ sandal, though I guess he could have meant that he was metaphorically not big enough, whatever that might have meant.

The other meaning of “hikanos” refers to being physically capable: having the strength, the skills or the training. This meaning of worthy fits very well with my understanding of our relationship with God. John did not have the skills necessary to serve Jesus. John’s great gift from God was the ability to prepare the way. To start to teach people so that they were ready to hear the much greater message that Jesus was to bring. But he was not called to follow Jesus and assist him in his ministry. That just was not what the Holy Spirit had enabled him to do.

John’s second great gift was that he knew his own abilities and his limitations. John was gifted with the ability to see things very clearly. He could tell who was coming to be baptised with the intent to work at making their own life better. He could see that many who came to him believed that the ritual alone would save them. They saw it as an easy way to “wash up” with no intent of working on their way of life. In a while they would simply “wash up” again. He could also tell who was just going through the motions because it was expected of them. He could see peoples’ motivations.

John was certainly “good enough.” He was just the wrong man for the job.


We have another text that we will read today which speaks of “worthiness.” “We are not worthy so much as to gather the up crumbs under thy table.” If this does not mean that we aren’t “good enough” to deserve even the cast offs from Jesus’ table, what does it mean? And what are the “crumbs” anyway?

The Gospel of Mark talks about crumbs. In it we hear about a woman from Syrophoenicia and her conversation with Jesus. “He said to her ‘Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.’ But she answered him, ‘Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.’ Then he said to her, ‘For saying that, you may go – the demon has left your daughter.’” In this case, a crumb is an act of God. It is the healing of a girl afflicted with a mental disease by Jesus. Matthew tells a similar story involving a Canaanite woman. In both cases, the “crumbs” are the ministry that happens around the edges of Jesus’ central message. They are the ministry that is a by-product of the Christian way of life.

These are the “crumbs” which we do not have the skills, or gifts, to pick up and carry out. We are not worthy. By ourselves, we do not have the ability to carry out God’s plan as seen in Jesus Christ. Only God can do that.

But here is where we find an amazing gift of grace. By being in communion with one another and with God, we are enabled. We are given a special gift. A gift of becoming bigger than ourselves. We come to Christ’s table as individuals. We all have gifts. We all have failings. Not one of us is perfect, which in Biblical terms means complete.

We bring our individual gifts to that table. They are cleansed of our failings through the grace of God. They are merged with other gifts which have been laid upon the altar. They are made perfect.

As individuals, we are not worthy to bring about the Kingdom of God. When we enter into the Body of Christ, the Communion of Christ’s earthly followers, together we become complete. The Kingdom of God is present in the Communion of all of God’s people. Together, bringing all of our gifts to the table, we can carry out God’s work.

Thanks be to God.