Here we are at the circus in Chicago! Under the big tent, we stare, amazed, at the trapeze artists, high in the air above our heads. A motorcycle roars across the highwire. Next, a couple comes out and juggles, and then they climb to the high wire to continue their act.
Seconds into this part of the act, we gasp, and then scream. Some of us cover our eyes as Luciano Ananstasini plunges to the floor 50 feet below him, lands hard, and lies motionless.
Luciano Anastasini came from an eight generation circus family who had performed daredevil acts for hundreds of years. By the time he was 12, he was an acrobat and juggler, and then he moved to the highwire acts. The circus was his whole purpose in life.
And now, with one mistake, his career had ended. Luciano was lucky. The dramatic fall resulted in a punctured lung, a broken wrist and a shoulder. The doctor told him he would recover, but that he would not recover the strength he would need to return to his high-flying acts.
For the next two years, Luciano could do nothing but hang posters and sell tickets for the circus. He was miserable. He had prayed over and over that God would restore his strength, give him his old body back, but his prayers had gone unanswered.
Luciano says in the story he wrote for the July issue of Guideposts that one day inside the ticket booth, he prayed and asked God what was next for him, a man who was all washed up, finished, no longer able to fulfill his purpose, which was to perform, and to be in the spotlight.
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Sooner or later, all of us reach an impasse in our lives. We feel washed up, unable to do what has given us meaning in the past. Maybe our bodies have betrayed us, or we’ve found ourselves in unfulfilling jobs—but the bottom line is that we’re stuck, and frustrated, and depressed.
Where exactly is God in this dark place? Where is God when your body hurts all the time? Where is God when your family is falling apart, or when your job drags you down? Or when disease eats away at someone you love more than life itself?
Mark makes new beginnings sound so easy. Jesus casts out demons, touches people and heals them. The people say, “He has done everything well—he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”
Our new beginnings don’t seem so simple.
In fact, in our darkest hours, these healing stories seem to be nothing more than fairy tales about a man who could work magic—a fairy tale that has nothing to do with us.
Why would we even count on a magician who lived over 2000 years ago? Why did the people in the gospels count on this man, Jesus?
Each one of them—the Syrophoenician woman, the friends of the deaf man who brought him to Jesus, the deaf man himself—all had something in common. They all had faith.
In the book of Hebrews the writer gives the following definition of faith. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
The woman hoped for healing for her daughter, and was convinced that Jesus could provide that healing. The friends of the deaf man hoped that Jesus would heal their friend, and they brought him to Jesus because of their conviction.
I think part of where we get stuck with the stories of healing in the Bible is that the people were restored to their former good health. But you know as well as I do that even the most faithful people in the world can pray without ceasing and the circumstances of their lives don’t change. They still hurt, someone they love is only getting worse…the list could go on.
So what is the point of having faith? Sitting around praying for something we know probably won’t come true?
Here I have to turn to the wise words of James. James says that “faith, by itself, if it has no works, is dead.”
Martin Luther says that faith involves holding God to be true to God’s own character. And the character of God is love—from the beginning of our existence on this earth, God has promised us good things—and not only for us, but also for creation itself.
Isaiah says that God will come and save us—God will open the eyes of the blind, unstop the ears of the deaf, the lame will leap like a deer, and the tongues of the speechless will sing for joy.
And for creation—waters shall break forth in the barren wilderness, and the desert will be filled with streams. The burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water.
To have a lively faith is to have hope that God really does long for the best for us, that God will give us what it is that we need to be healed.
And to have faith is to have the audacity to ask for what it is that we need— even when we don’t know what we need.
It’s more than just returning to who we used to be, to reclaim the health we used to have, or to become young again.
It’s to ask the same question that Luciano asked—“What’s next for me, Lord?” and to ask that question with our ears open to hear God’s answer—because God will have an answer, often surprising and unexpected, to this question, and the answer will come out of whatever it is that has you stuck or washed up.
And then we’re ready to move forward in the darkness, hoping in our God of love who says to each and every one of us, even in our darkest moments—“Be strong, do not fear!
God lays out the work for us to do. And we know that the works that we are given to do are from God if those works involve love, if those works mean that another person’s life will be better, that God’s love will be visible on this day, in this world, based on what we discern God has given us to do.
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After he prayed, Luciano stepped outside the little ticket booth. He thought back to his childhood. As a child, he had had a knack for training dogs.
And he wondered. He could never return to the high wire, but perhaps he could train dogs again and regain his sense of purpose.
Now here’s my favorite part of Luciano’s story. Luciano decided that he would train dogs that no one else wanted.
He went to the shelters and took dogs that had been turned in because of their faults—digging holes in the yard, jumping up on counters and stealing food—he took dogs that ran in circles, dogs with bad tempers. Luciano could see the potential in each of these washed up dogs.
Luciano had faith in the dogs, and he gave each one of them something positive to do as he trained them.
Luciano says that after his very first backyard performance with his dogs in front of family members and friends, as the audience cheered and applauded, he stood there, fighting back tears.
He offered up a prayer of extraordinary gratitude. He felt like he was back under the big top. And pretty soon, he was. Since 2003, he has taken his act, Luciano’s Pound Puppies, all over the country. He’s added more performers, all of them rescues, all of them needing a second chance.
“I once thought the high wire was daring,” Luciano says. “But there is nothing so daring, or rewarding, as trusting your faith to take you to new heights.”
So today, no matter how washed up or stuck you may feel, no matter how much you hurt or how discouraged you are, dare to hope.
Do not fear.
Have faith.
God passionately loves you, especially those places in you that are broken– In fact, God desires the best for you to come directly out of those impasses and stuck places that are keeping you captive.
Ask God, “What’s next for me, Lord?”
And open your ears, because God will answer.
Amen.
Links – Luciano’s Pound Puppies