Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

It was the Enlightenment that brought serious criticism of the miracle stories to bear on biblical narratives. From the Seventeenth Century through the end of the Eighteenth Century, the work of scholars could openly question whether miracles really happened. The Enlightenment critique was a powerful force which began to challenge the authority of the church, Roman and Protestant. There was an assumption that if the miracle stories in the Bible could be shown to be without historical verification, then the whole Bible could be dismissed as human fantasy.

Now there were several general responses to the Enlightenment critique. The Rationalists accepted it and then sought to find some kernel of truth in the primitive stories about miracles. The Naturalist response also accepted the critique of the Enlightenment and sought to find a natural explanation of miracles. For example, Jesus healed the man who was deaf and unable to speak clearly by removing a foreign object from his ear and, thus, allowed him to hear. The other major response to the Enlightenment critique was what we call Fundamentalism. This movement came into its own by the end of the Nineteenth Century. Fundamentalism tried to build a hedge around the Bible by making belief in the historical accuracy of the biblical narratives a tenet of faith. In other words Fundamentalists tried to cut off debate on the meaning of the miracle stories by making the central issue the reality of the miracle stories.

The rise of Fundamentalism was not the victory of Biblical faith but actually its demise. In some ways Fundamentalism with its insistence on the historical and scientific accuracy of the biblical accounts succumbed to the Enlightenment agenda. Fundamentalism insists that one believe in the historical and scientific accuracy of the Bible, before one actually takes up the Bible and reads it. The picture that develops over the last centuries of Western history is a battle between Fundamentalism and Enlightenment which are at loggerheads with one another. Each demands a loyalty to its position on the Bible before one even starts to read the Bible.

Twentieth Century Biblical scholarship has gone around this cultural standoff between Fundamentalism and Enlightenment. The solution has been a Renaissance of biblical literature, a call to return to the source, the Bible. Current biblical scholarship actually serves the church by calling us to the biblical narrative. “Take up and read” (Augustine) is the call. One sees this in our own denomination with the emphasis on the “Book of Faith” project. In the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America the call has gone out to take up and read. The project is filled with material that enriches the reading of scripture without being caught in the cul-de-sac of the Enlightenment-Fundamentalist controversy. For example, our own Lutheran heritage is filled with biblical interpretation that speaks to the church as the people of God under the demands and the promises of God. To read St. Augustine or Luther is like a breath of fresh air when one considers the stultifying approaches of Fundamentalism and Enlightenment criticism.

Now we can read miracle stories like those in the Gospel today without being totally side tracked by false alternatives. This statement does not mean that we must ignore the Enlightenment or Fundamentalism for that matter. What we are doing is going back to the narratives and asking a different set of questions. The primary question for us in the Twenty-first Century is not, “Did these miracles really occur.” The primary question for us is why did the early church tell these stories? Why do we continue to read these stories? What do the stories do?

The answer comes to us in the proper study of scripture from the literary study of the Bible. It is clear from today’s readings that the miracle stories are used to confront us in the awareness of our own limitations as mortal creatures. But they are also there to quicken in us the awareness of the gracious powers that encompass us in this dark and foreboding world.

By gracious pow'rs so wonderfully sheltered,
and confidently waiting come what may,
we know that God is with us night and morning,
and never fails to greet us each new day.

—Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The church continues to remember Jesus as the one who brought the good news of God’s presence not just where it is beautiful. (Nature is a temple.) But the message of Jesus and the intrusion of the kingdom of God into the Palestine of the Jews and in today’s reading, in the Gentile world of the pagans, tells us that God is present right there where we are so sure that God could not be. Jesus so perfectly embodied the power of God that we must expect that wherever he went, there were irrepressible signs of God’s rule.

Jesus brought great offense in his day when he ventured into the land of the Gentiles, bringing healing to the Syrophoenician woman’s daughter and to the man who could not hear or speak clearly. Jesus thereby fulfills the promise made to Abraham that through him all the peoples will be blessed. That promise was reiterated in the first reading today.

Say to those who are of a fearful heart, "Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God. He will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense. He will come and save you."

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy. (Isaiah 35:4-6a)

Dear congregation, why did the church preserve and circulate these stories? Because they give witness to what we continue to encounter in the midst of chaos, death, sickness, failure and injustice. God is present. Events do not have to occur in predetermined ways. There is always the surprising element of joy that speaks to the Lordship of God over creation that God has not and will not abandon us. Nor will God ignore or abandon you.

When those well-meaning people come with their promises of a miracle that will save us from the snare of death, let us not put our faith in their beliefs. Let us put our faith in the God who is revealed in the cross of Jesus Christ. For it is the cross that teaches us not to turn our heads from suffering and tribulation. In the cross we see God at work where we do not even want to go. So let us go there so that we praise God for opening our ears and tongues and thus, find our consolation and rest in God’s goodness and mercy.

And the peace of God which passes all understanding guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.