Sunday, January 31, 2016

On A Mission (A Sermon in a Snowstorm)



On A Mission
Scriptures: Nehemiah 8:1-19, Psalm 19,   I Corinthians 12:12-31,  Luke 4:14-21
(Note:  Church was cancelled on January 24 due to a blizzard in Philadelphia that weekend. The sermon for the day is below.)
 
“Going home.”   Just two words, just three syllables, but what a range of emotions the words “going home” can stir up, especially if we’ve been away for a while. For those returning from military service, going home means family welcoming them back.  For those who’ve moved far from home, going home may mean reconnecting with the scenes and memories of childhood.   For many, the word “home” brings up feelings of being safe and loved and cared for.  Simon and Garfunkel’s song “Homeward Bound” may stir up some memories of our own homes:
               “Homeward bound, I wish I was homeward bound
               Home where my thought’s escapin’, home where my music’s playin’,
               Home where my love lies waiting silently for me…..”

For some, though, the phrase “going home” brings up memories, not of safety, but of anxiety, even terror.  If we grew up around violence or other abuse, going home may trigger traumatic memories, memories of fear and pain and anger.  The traumatic places of our childhood may trigger us to hyperventilate and break out in a cold sweat.  On the other hand, going home may bring healing, as we see that the people and places that brought us terror as a child no longer have the power to hurt us as adults – the people who frightened us as children, who at the time seemed ten feet tall, we now see on our level, as fellow adults, older and perhaps wiser, or perhaps not.   We may find that the encounters that terrified us and that are forever seared into our memories, have completely fallen off the radar of those who intimidated us – they may not remember a thing, even though we can never forget.

On the other hand, regardless whether our memories of home are fond or fearful, as the title of a book from Tom Wolfe states, “you can’t go home again.”   Oh, you can travel to your hometown, return to a geographical location.  But you won’t find it as you left it.  Time’s marched on, and people have moved on, and likely some places have changed.  Perhaps the general store where as a child you bought penny candy is now a check cashing place or a pawnshop.  Or if the town has gentrified, maybe a Starbucks.  Perhaps the roads have changed – the two-lane road that used to be a major transportation artery has been bypassed by a new four-lane highway, and so traffic that used to run through town, bringing shoppers and tourists, is now routed around town, and local businesses suffer the loss of traffic.  Perhaps the church building where you attended worship faithfully as a child is now being used by a congregation of another denomination, or even another faith – or has been converted to secular use, perhaps as a performing arts space or loft apartments.  And even if some of the stores and businesses remain the same, the people behind the counter, that used to know you, are gone, and new people are there who don’t know you from a can of paint – they’re perfectly polite, but they’re strangers to you, and you to them.  And you’ve changed as well – you’re not the person you were when you left.  You have more years behind you, more life experience, for good and bad.  You may recognize people you knew growing up and they may recognize you, but they will likely relate to you as the person you were, not the person you are now.  Our memories of home are often fixed, static, frozen in time, but the realities of home have moved on, have changed, for good or bad.

Going home……in our reading from Luke’s gospel, Jesus is going home, returning to his hometown of Nazareth.  Nazareth, where Mary and Joseph settled after the birth in Bethlehem and the flight as refugees to Egypt.  Nazareth, where Joseph worked as a carpenter – the actual Greek word, tekton, is broader, referring to a builder, a general craftsman, mostly used to describe woodworkers, but in some contexts could also refer to stonemasons – from the Greek word tekton comes our word architect.  

Jesus was the local carpenter, builder, fix-it guy.  His neighbors in Nazareth had watched him grow up, probably had bought tables and chairs from his family or brought Jesus items to fix or mend.  Jesus had been away for a short while – he went to John the Baptist to be baptized, and spent 40 days in the wilderness, and then he began his ministry, and word spread of all that he did and taught.  But he hadn’t been away that long.  After preaching and healing in Capernaum and other nearby villages, Jesus somehow felt it was time for him to be going home.  When he returned to Nazareth, people expected Jesus to fit into his usual role as the local carpenter, building, fix-it guy, to do what he’d done for the past 30 years.  But Jesus had been through transformative experiences – the baptism by John – with the spirit coming on Jesus like a dove and God’s voice from heaven calling Jesus “beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” - and the temptation in the wilderness – and Jesus had no intention of going back to making tables and chairs.  Jesus knew that God had called him to something greater.  The Jesus who was coming home to Nazareth after his baptism and time of trial was very different from the Jesus who had left Nazareth just a few short weeks or months before.
So Jesus came home, and went to the local synagogue.  He stood up to read the text for the day, from the prophet Isaiah, and what he read was a description of a prophet Isaiah bringing good news to a desolated people, in its original setting the prophet bringing good news to the Judean refugees who had returned from Babylon – and let’s hear it again:

               "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor."

And then Jesus sat down, and everyone looked at him expectantly.  And Jesus said, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” 

In effect, at least as Luke tells the story, these words are in effect Jesus’ mission statement, his inaugural address as he begins his mission.  Jesus connects his mission to these ancient promises that were made to the refugees returning from Babylon, these ancient promises that still sustained the Jewish people under Roman occupation.  Jesus uses the ancient prophecies to bring message of good news to the people in the here and now of his day …..and he’s not just making a general proclamation of goodwill to everybody, but lifting up particular categories of people who desperately need to hear good news – the poor, the captives, the blind, the oppressed, those in need of the Lord’s favor.  He’s very explicitly saying that these lives, overlooked by most, matter in the eyes of God. These lives matter. Now, all lives matters in the eyes of God – Jesus says elsewhere that a sparrow cannot fall without God’s notice, how much less can a human being suffer without God’s notice – but the poor, the captives, the blind, and the oppressed are the ones who were ignored by the society of his day – and so they are the ones Jesus felt compelled to lift up.  It’s notable that in Isaiah, the words about “the year of the Lord’s favor” are immediately followed by the words “and the day of vengeance of our God” – but Jesus left off those words.  Proclaiming the Lord’s favor was Jesus’ mission; proclaiming God’s vengeance evidently was not.

The peoples’ initial response is favorable – “all spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth”….but it doesn’t take long before they start having second thoughts….”hey, isn’t this Joseph’s son, the carpenter?”  Who does he think he is, anyway, to be instructing us? And as he continues on, he tells them that God’s grace extends not only to them, but to Gentiles such as the widow of Zarephath in Sidon, who showed hospitality to the prophet Elijah, and to Naaman the Syrian, who was cured of leprosy by the prophet Elisha.  By the time Jesus wraps up his sermon, the crowd is ready to throw him off a cliff.

How could Jesus’ proclamation of good news rile up the people in Jesus’ hometown, who had known him for years and years, enough to make them want to kill him?  As Jesus noted, “no prophet is accepted in his own hometown.”  Those who had watched Jesus grow up knew him, knew his family – in Matthew’s and Mark’s version of the same story, they say “Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas?  And are not all his sisters with us?”  They knew the work he had done as a carpenter, a builder, a tekton.  They knew Jesus, all right – knew him just well enough to miss the grace and wisdom that God had bestowed on Jesus in his baptism and temptation.  If some recognized religious authority had spoken these words to them, the folks in Jesus’ hometown would have heard them gladly, at least to a point.  But they weren’t about to receive religious instruction from the local carpenter.

Then there’s that phrase “the year of the Lord’s favor”.  That phrase had a specific meaning for the Jewish people – it was the year of Jubilee described in Leviticus 25, when every fifty years, all debts were to be cancelled and all land lost to debt returned to the original owners, when slaves were to be freed, when the people were to sound the trumpet and “proclaim liberty throughout the land to all the inhabitants thereof” – and if those words sound familiar, it’s because they’re inscribed on the Liberty Bell downtown at Independence Mall.  This year of the Lord’s favor, when debts were to be cancelled and slaves and captives freed, was Jesus’ vision for society.  And indeed, the Jubilee year, the year of the Lord’s favor, is good news – good news for the poor, for captives, for those in debt.  For those who collect on debt and for slave owners, not so much.  And so some in Jesus’ hometown may have felt threatened by Jesus’ words.

And then Jesus went on to proclaim good news, not only for them, but for others on the margins of society – the poor, captives, blind people, oppressed people, even for Gentiles.  The people in Jesus’ hometown were willing to hear good news for themselves.  But good news for others…..that was another matter.  For some there, good news for others sounded like bad news for them.   Jesus was inviting them to see a larger, wider vision of God’s work in the world, and the folks in Jesus’ hometown were offended.  They wanted a God who was small and tidy and predictable, who was focused just on them, and not a God so unpredictable and extravagant as to care for outsiders and even Gentiles.

Where do we find ourselves in this story?  How do we hear Jesus’ words of good news – words that are good news for us, but not only for us.  Are we willing to hear God’s word, even when spoken by the most unlikely people?  Are we able to hear God’s word of good news, even though it may cause disruption in our lives, even though it may cost us?  Are we willing to be God’s living word of good news to others?  And what would that look like?

“Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”  May these words from Isaiah quoted by Jesus be fulfilled among us.  May we at Emanuel bring good news to the poor and liberation to those in captivity – captivity to addiction, to discrimination, to injustice.  May we hear God’s word of good news for ourselves, and proclaim it to our neighbors who are dying for a word of good news.  Amen.

Whatever



Scripture:  Isaiah 62:1-5, Psalm 36:5-10 , I Corinthians 12:1-11, John 2:1-11



A question for the married couples among us – what do you remember about your wedding day?  Of course it was a magical day, but were there any surprises?  Last minute hitches?  I remember a long-ago wedding I attended, at which I locked my  keys in the car. The groom and his party ended up helping me get my car door open so I could get my keys.   It wasn't the wedding present I'd intended, but I was - and am - grateful for their help and patience.

Today’s Gospel reading gives us a lovely story about Jesus and his family, specifically his mother.  It’s a very human-scale story – Jesus and his mother and Jesus’ disciples are at a wedding in Cana, a small village about nine miles north of Nazareth.  For the people of that day, the vast majority of whom were very poor, their wedding might be the one time in their lives where they could have a big celebration with plenty of food and drink.  This wasn’t just a one-night reception at a catering hall or firehouse; in those days the feasting and drinking and celebrating for a wedding would go on for a week. 

And so Mary and Jesus and his disciples are at the wedding of a couple, unnamed in John’s gospel, but certainly friends and perhaps even extended family of Mary and Jesus, when something really embarrassing happens – they run out of wine.  The couple probably wasn’t impoverished – we learn later in the story that they have large stone water jars, and servants, so they had some means.  The wine shortage could have just been poor planning.  Or maybe they invited too many guests, or too many guests invited themselves.  In any case, in that culture in which a very high value was placed on hospitality, it would have been a major, if unintended, failure of hospitality, a very unfortunate way for the couple to start their married life together.  If the bridegroom couldn’t provide enough wine for his own wedding, what did that say about his ability to provide for his new wife and the children that would follow?

So Mary comes to Jesus and tells him, “They have no wine”.  Her words are not just a casual observation, but something she’d have said with tension in her voice, as if to say, “Jesus, do something! Fix this!”  And Jesus’ response comes across as cold and uncaring:  “Woman, what has that to do with you and me? My hour has not yet come.”  Addressing one’s own mother as “woman” wasn’t necessarily disrespectful, but it was certainly unusual even in that culture.   He seems to balk at being asked to help the wedding couple.  Today in response to his mother’s words, he’d probably say “Whatever.”  And then there’s that mysterious sentence, “My hour has not yet come.”  Clearly, Jesus isn’t going to be pushed by his mother into getting involved; if he is to do anything, it’s going to be on his own initiatve.

Mary wasn’t about to be put off by Jesus’ apparent indifference – in this story, she really comes across as being forceful, even a bit pushy, seemingly trying to stage-manage the situation as she tells the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”    We’re told that there happened to be six really large stone jars – 30 gallons each - for the purpose of the Jewish rites of purification.  Jesus tells the servants to fill the jars with water.  When that is done, he tells the servants to take some out and bring it to the chief steward.  And the chief steward tastes the water that had become wine, and tells the bridegroom, “Usually folks serve the good wine up front and put out the cheap stuff after everyone’s a little sloshed, but you’ve saved the best wine for last.”  John concludes this story with the words, “Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.”

John’s Gospel doesn’t include nearly as many healings and exorcisms and such as the other three gospels.  John also does not use the word “miracle” to describe the healings and other extraordinary works that Jesus does.  Instead, he uses the word “signs”, and reports seven of them, of which the wine at the wedding feast in Cana was the first.   For John, these seven signs point beyond themselves to reveal Jesus’ glory – reveal who Jesus truly is.

So what is the glory to which this miracle points?  It speaks, first and foremost, about God’s abundance and generosity.   In a situation of scarcity, where there was no wine at an  event when wine was pretty much mandatory, Jesus steps in to provide wine in abundance, likely more wine than they knew what to do with – and not just any old wine, certainly not Boone Farm Special or Wild Irish Rose, but really good, top-shelf wine.  Jesus, a guest at the wedding feast, steps in as the host of the wedding feast, unknown to the chief steward and the wedding couple, but known to the servants.  Jesus told Mary that it wasn’t yet his hour – and through much of John’s gospel, Jesus’ words about his “hour” refer to his crucifixion and resurrection – but it apparently was the hour for Jesus to be a gracious if unexpected host.  Jesus made up for what the host lacked, providing hospitality.  He saved the best for last.

The story also tells us that God wants us to have joy in our lives.  In the other Gospels, Jesus’ opponents accuse him of being a drunk and a glutton, and in this Gospel Jesus provides the wine so that the wedding feast can continue.  Many outside the church see Christians as buzzkills, as killjoys, as people with grim, condemning attitudes, as people consumed with rage and terror that somehow, somewhere, somebody is enjoying themselves.  And some Christians really are like that – Soren Kierkegaard once said that while Jesus turned water into wine, the church does something even more difficult – turning wine into water.  But that attitude doesn’t come from Jesus.  Certainly, there are many people who for health reasons shouldn’t or can’t drink alcohol – I’m incredibly glad and grateful we offer both wine and grape juice at communion - and there are many ways to enjoy oneself without alcohol – but nowhere in Scripture is anything like Prohibition, making alcohol illegal for everyone across the board, recommended.  As St. Paul wrote, “Let those who eat and drink, eat and drink to the glory of the Lord, and let those who abstain, abstain to the glory of the Lord”

Most of all, this is a story about God’s grace.  God’s grace overflows, just like the wine Jesus provided at the wedding feast.  Just as Jesus provided overflowing, top-shelf wine, God’s grace is extravagant, not sparing anything.  And just as Jesus saved the best wine for last, God saves the best for us, not in the past, but in the future.   It’s often tempting, especially in confusing and troubling times like ours, to look back to the past and reminisce about the good old days.  Certainly for this congregation, it’s tempting to say that our best days, when the pews and the plates were full, are behind us.  And yet Jesus calls us not into the past but into the future, saving the best for last.  
The Statement of Faith of the United Church of Christ, which we rarely use but which I like, contains the phrase “the cost and joy of discipleship.”  The cost and joy of discipleship – cost and joy.  It’s a statement that I keep coming back to, because for me it captures the essence of the Christian life.  There is definitely cost – giving when we’d rather keep for ourselves, helping when we’d rather keep to ourselves, intervening in the difficult situations of our neighbors when it may feel like we’re barely holding our own lives together.  Following Jesus can bring about downward mobility in society.  But today’s story reminds us that following in the way of Jesus brings joy and not only cost, blessing and not only burden.  

“Do whatever he tells you”, Mary told the servants.  And Jesus told the disciples to fill up some large water jars – on the face of it, seemingly a silly request.  How could jars of water help with a wine shortage?  And sometimes in following Jesus, it may seem like we’re being asked to do things that are silly, things that are too small and weak and foolish to change anything.  But Jesus turned the water into wine – the story almost has a prankish quality – not quite spiking the punch, but close.  And Jesus can use even our seemingly small, weak, foolish efforts to help bring about the reign of God.  When we feel a clear leading from God, our task isn’t necessarily to try to make sense of the call – even though we might check the call out with a few fellow believers for confirmation.  Our job is to respond to the call, do whatever Jesus calls us to do, however seemingly silly, and trust God for the results.

“Do whatever he tells you”, Mary told the servants.  May we take Mary’s words to heart, and may we be surprised by joy as we follow in the way of Jesus. Amen.

Sunday, January 10, 2016

Beloved



Scripture:  Isaiah 43:1-7, Psalm 29, Acts 8:14-17, Luke 3:15-22



I’d like to start today’s sermon with a few questions:  What does it feel like to be loved?  How do we know we’re loved?  Does it make a difference in our lives to know that someone loves us?  What does that difference look like, feel like?

Today’s gospel reading tells of a moment at the very beginning of Jesus’ earthly ministry.  John the Baptist is by the Jordan River in the wilderness, doing his thing, haranguing the crowds about their sins and baptizing those who repent.   Among the crowds is Jesus, who comes to be baptized.  We’re told that when Jesus had been baptized and was praying, the heavens opened, and the Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove.  And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased.”

And Jesus knew.  Knew that God loved him.  Knew that God would be there for him, no matter what.  Knew that he would never be alone, because he was God’s son, the Beloved.  It was this knowledge, this connection, this trust that God would always be there for him, that sustained Jesus – through 40 days of temptation in the wilderness, through choosing the twelve disciples – knowing that one would betray him and that all of them would disappoint him and fail him – sustained Jesus through his travels to Jewish and Gentile towns, sustained Jesus as he taught and healed and fed, sustained Jesus through misunderstandings from the crowds and the disciples and opposition from the religious establishment – sustained Jesus all the way to the cross, and beyond that, to the resurrection.

The words from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased” were words from God the Father that gave Jesus his commission for ministry.   Words of love began Jesus’ ministry, and the love of God shaped Jesus’ ministry.   At the Transfiguration, just before Jesus began his journey to Jerusalem and the cross, these words were again repeated in the presence of Peter, James and John, the closest to Jesus of the disciples – “This is my Son, the Beloved, listen to him.” 
Think how different the ministry of Jesus could have been, had he heard different words from God at his baptism.  Think of the ministry of John the Baptist, for example.  John’s ministry was aimed at bringing people to repentance…..and he did this by pointing out peoples’ failings, by chastising them, even by threatening them.   “You brood of vipers….Who warned you to flee the coming destruction?”, John ranted.  From John the Baptist the crowds learned of God’s impending wrath.  From Jesus they learned of God’s undying love.  

“You are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased.”  These words of God were heard by Jesus, and they shaped his ministry - but can we as followers of the Risen Christ hear them for ourselves?  Granted that we are not Jesus, granted that there is much in our lives that displeases God, but can we hear God’s words of love for ourselves?  Can we see ourselves as God’s beloved?  

The world tells us that our value as human beings has to do with what we’ve achieved – the importance of our job, the size of our home, the balance of our bank account.  But God loves us, just because we are, just because we exist.   No matter where our lives take us, no matter what others have done to us, no matter what mistakes we’ve made, God still loves us.   When we’re discouraged, tempted to think that our lives are meaningless and worthless – regardless what we think of ourselves, God still loves us.  Regardless of any of that, we are God’s beloved.  Remember these words of Isaiah: “But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.  When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.”  And hear these words from Paul’s letter to the church at Rome:

“Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

“You are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased.”  These words of God were heard by Jesus, and they shaped his ministry - but can we as followers of the Risen Christ hear them for ourselves, but  not only for ourselves, but for our neighbor?  When we are baptized, we become part of a larger community of those whose sinful nature was drowned in the waters of baptism.  We become members of the community of those whom God calls beloved, what the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King and others called “the beloved community” – a community called and formed and shaped by the sense of being loved by God, the community that reaches out with God’s love toward those around us.  If we know that we are beloved of God, and if we know our neighbor is beloved of God, that changes how we interact with our neighbor.  If our neighbor is going hungry, or living without heat in their home…or, worse yet, living on the street, we can’t just turn our back…because, like us, they are human beings created in God’s image, beloved of God.  And in the same way, when we’re going through difficult times, as baptized Christians, as members of the beloved community, we don’t have to go through them alone.  

As baptized Christians we are beloved of God, and members of the great community of all those around the world whom God has called beloved, now and through ages past.    No matter where our lives take us, may we always remember our baptismal identity - that we are children of God, disciples of  Christ, and members of Christ’s church.  No matter where our lives take us, may we always remember that we are God’s beloved. Amen.