Hope, Anyway

(Scriptures:  I Kings 17:8-24, Galatians 1:11-24, Luke 7:11-17)

 

 

 

Today’s readings give us, not one, but two accounts of men of God restoring life to the sons of widows from the dead:  Elijah, in I Kings, bringing life into the son of the widow of Zaraphath who had sheltered him, and Jesus, bringing life to the son of the widow of Nain.   The two accounts, while taking place centuries apart, have many elements in common – vulnerable widows who, in preparing to bury their deceased sons, are mourning not only their sons, but the loss of support that these sons would provide, mourning a future for themselves of poverty and hunger.   And in both cases, mourning turns to rejoicing as life is restored to the sons – in the case of the miracle performed by Jesus, the funeral processing is literally stopped in its tracks as the deceased sits up and starts to talk.

 

I suspect most of us have been to many funerals over the course of our lives, and I’ve been to my share.  During the summer after I graduated from high school, I worked for a family owned furniture store in which the same family ran the funeral home next door – that was often a common arrangement in days gone by, as the skills used to make a wooden casket aren’t that different from those used to make a wooden cabinet – and so during that summer, I experienced funerals from a slightly different angle.  And yes, I’ve conducted a handful of funerals, for church members and for non-members.  Each funeral has its own character.  And some have unexpected participants, such as the memorial service held here at Emanuel for a family in the neighborhood a few years ago, whose mom had passed.   It was summertime, and at some point, a sparrow had somehow gotten into the sanctuary – and during the memorial service, the sparrow insisted on flying back and forth from one side of the sanctuary to the other.    And every time the bird flew across the sanctuary, those at the memorial service kept pointing at the bird and saying “It’s her spirit, it’s her spirit!”  So funerals can take unexpected turns.  But they almost always end with mourners leaving a cemetery or church or funeral home grieving and preparing emotionally for life without a loved one by their side.

 

And so I have to confess, I really struggle with preaching on Biblical texts about miracles, and so I struggle to preach on today’s texts…and indeed, my sermon had all sorts of different titles at various points before I went with the title that’s in the bulletin, and even after I settled on a title  so that I could run off the bulletins, as I wrote today’s sermon, it seemed to have wandered in a slightly different direction than I’d planned.  Witnessing the dead restored to life seems so far from our experience.  How do we wrap our mind around accounts like today’s gospel reading?  I know that if I were conducting a funeral and the dearly departed sat up in the casket and started asking whether the Phillies were ahead or behind, I’d run out the door screaming, leaving footprints on the back of anyone who got in the way.  I daresay most of us would do the same thing.

 

And maybe that says more about me, and more about us, than we may think.  We think of death and taxes as the two things that are inescapable.   The death of loved ones brings pain and grief. Sudden or accidental death – such as that of those who were crushed in the building collapse downtown earlier this week – bring shock and even anger – anger at crooked contractors, at inspectors who didn’t do their jobs, even – or especially – anger at God.  Why did God allow this to happen?  And probably the most honest answer we can give is, “I don’t know.”  But we do have resources – our faith in God, the support of the church, the care of friends and family – to carry us through the dark valley of bereavement to come out on the other side.  But what if life springs up in a place in which we expect to find only death?  Are we prepared to handle that?   Or would it send us running out the door screaming?  Might we even be tempted to slam the lid back down on the casket?  I suspect that many of us can, at least some of the time, count ourselves in some measure among the members of the writer Flanner O’Connor’s fictional Church without Christ, where, as O’Connor wrote, “the blind don’t see and the lame don’t walk and what’s dead stays that way.”

 

And yet, as followers of the risen Christ, we can say that it is not the will of God that “what’s dead stays that way.” God’s will for us is not blindness nor lameness nor death, but life, abundant life, eternal life.  Jesus restored life to the son of the widow at Nain – not because she was especially virtuous or had especially strong faith, not because of any particular merit on her part, but rather because the widow and the mourners happened to have crossed paths with Jesus and his followers, and Jesus was moved by her grief and took pity on her. 

 

Earlier I said that seeing the dead restored to life seems beyond our experience…but is that true?  While we may not have an experience exactly like that of the widows in our readings, we worship a God who offers new hope and new life in the most seemingly hopeless situations.   Perhaps we know a friend or family member who at one time seemed hopelessly addicted to alcohol or drugs, who was restored to sobriety.   Or perhaps a relationship with a family member or former friend was seemingly broken beyond repair…but some months or years down the road, one of the estranged gave the other a phone call or sent a short note or email, and eventually the relationship was restored.  Perhaps we know of someone out of work who had lost hope of ever regaining employment, or someone stuck in a dead-end job that they hated, and someone reached out to them with a phone number or the name of a friend to contact, and lo and behold, they’re back in the workforce doing work that fulfills.  Here at Emanuel, we’ve prayed for healing for a number of people, and been surprised with joy at the recovery of people whose health problems had seemed desperate.  And in our congregation itself, we’re experiencing a renewal of life, with visitors finding their way here and becoming members, and with children being mentored in the faith in Sunday school.  These are all situations in which, out of death, God is bringing new life – all situations in which, on the other side of a crucifixion, is a resurrection. 

 

But with new life, with a resurrection, comes the unexpected, comes change.  The family of someone recovering from addiction will find their relationship with that person changing in unexpected ways, as the recovering person becomes more assertive in taking responsibility for his or her life.  We may be delighted at the restoration of a previously broken relationship – but may also find ourselves on the phone more than we had planned catching up on past events with the other person.  Someone returning to the workforce after a long dry spell may find fulfillment – but may also have to adjust mentally to the change in schedule, and may have to make some practical adjustments such as arranging for child care.  We’re surprised and delighted at new life – but also find ourselves having to make adjustments.  New life can be unpredictable, even messy at times.  It can be like that in the church as well… as our congregation is renewed, things may be less tidy and less predictable than before.  A few weeks ago, I saw some drawings in the social hall that were done by our Sunday school kids...and it had been a few years since I’d seen any drawings from Sunday school kids in this church…and as I looked, I just said to myself, “Thank God….thank God.” 

 

We worship a God who brings new life in the most unlikely circumstances – as Abraham and Sarah gave birth to Isaac in extreme old age, as Zechariah and Elizabeth gave birth to John the Baptist in their old age.  As followers of the Risen Christ, we believe that on the other side of crucifixion is resurrection.  So may we live in hope, even when our circumstances seem hopeless, knowing that we worship a God who makes a way out of no way, a God who guides our steps through the wilderness.  May we, like the widow at Zaraphath, have the hopeful generosity to share what little we have with others, even when we feel like we’re at the end of our resources.   And may we have the openness and the imagination to accept the new life God is offering us, even if it brings change and unpredictability.   May God continue to use Emanuel Church to bring new hope and new life to our neighbors in Bridesburg.  Amen.

 

 

Where You’d Least Expect

Scriptures: I Kings 8:22-23, 41-43,   Galatians 1:1-12,    Luke 7:1-10

This passage from Luke, among my favorite passages from Luke’s gospel, is rich with meaning because of the many connections the people in the account make across boundary lines of social position and religion.  It provides a surprising portrait of a Roman centurion – a Gentile, and part of the Roman occupation of Galilee – who, rather than oppressing, overflowed with care for his servant and for the Jewish community in which he was stationed.  In a Roman culture in which slaves were considered just another form of property, to be treated with the level of care we would show for our household appliances, the centurion went to considerable lengths to gain healing for this slave whom he valued highly.  In a Jewish culture which maintained strong boundaries between Jews and Gentiles, this centurion had already gained goodwill among the Jews by building the community synagogue – remarkable in itself - and now reached across ethnic lines to seek the help of the community elders in contacting Jesus.   And the Jewish elders showed surprising compassion and humility as they approached Jesus on the centurion’s behalf.  As Jesus responded to the plea of the centurion as relayed by the Jewish elders, we learn that the centurion overflowed not only with compassion, but with extraordinary faith as he trusted that Jesus could heal his servant from a distance.  So extraordinary was his faith that Jesus told the crowd, “Not even in Israel have I found such faith.”  For our sisters and brothers in the Roman Catholic tradition, a slightly adapted version of the centurion’s words live on to this day in the congregational response immediately before reception of the Eucharist, “Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word, and I shall be healed.”

The original readers of this account would have been reminded of another stories about the healing of foreigners – perhaps most strongly, that of Naaman, the Syrian commander who was healed by Elisha.  Like the centurion in our Luke account, Naaman sent emissaries to the king of Israel, asking the king to refer Naaman to someone who could heal him of a skin disease.  Like the centurion, Naaman the Syrian was willing to approach the Jewish prophet Elisha for healing.  Unlike the centurion, Naaman was furious when Elisha did not personally speak to Naaman, but merely gave instructions through a servant to dip himself seven times in the Jordan.  Fortunately, one of Naaman’s servants talked Naaman out of his anger at feeling snubbed, so that Naaman did as instructed and was cured – and became a worshipper of the God of Israel.

 The original readers of the Luke account might also have been reminded of the healing of the son of the widow of Zaraphath, about which we will read next week.  The widow lived in Sidon, and so, again, she was a foreigner.  Elijah, fleeing from the wicked king Ahab and queen Jezebel, heard the word of the Lord directing him to seek refuge with this widow.  The widow and her son were almost out of food, and about to eat their last meal together before dying – and yet, prompted by Elijah, she shared a little bit of that meal with the prophet.  In response, the prophet multiplied the food so that it lasted many days, and later raised the widow’s son, who had died.

 What are we to say of this?   One thing we learn is that God does not color within the lines we draw, so to speak.   In the Old Testament accounts, God’s generous mercy extends beyond the chosen people to foreigners, who respond with gladness and gratitude.  Amos tells of God’s grace in a way to shame Israel for feeling overly entitled, writing, “Did I not bring Israel up from Egypt, and the Philistines up from Caphtor, and the Arameans from Kir?”  That is to say, God’s gave deliverance not only to Israel, but also to the Philistines and the Arameans.  And Luke picks up this theme – of all the Gospels, Luke’s Gospel has the strongest message about Jesus’ inclusive ministry, and God’s inclusive love, not only of the chosen people, but of all those on the margins of society.  Indeed, in his very first sermon in his hometown synagogue, Jesus proclaimed, “There were many widows in Israel during the famine, but Elijah was sent to the widow of Zaraphath; there were many lepers in Israel, but Elisha was sent to Naaman the Syrian.”  For these words of inclusion, Jesus nearly got thrown off a cliff.  All’s the more wonder that the Jewish elders later were willing to seek Jesus out for the healing of the centurion’s slave – hey, maybe they actually did learn something from Jesus’ sermon.

2000 years later, we in the church are still trying to wrap our minds around the reality that God still insists on coloring outside the lines, that God’s generous love overflows in all directions.  God indeed loves those who have grown up in the church from infancy onward – but not only those once on the church’s cradle roll.  God’s love extends toward many people whom we’ve never met and never will meet, and toward many who are caught in our society’s struggle over who belongs and who doesn’t.  Think of the many debates raging in our country and in the church today.  In Bridesburg, the presence of racial diversity was historically a touchy topic – perhaps still is.  Our country is divided against itself on whether a path toward citizenship should exist for immigrants, and the number of hoops through which immigrants should be expected to jump along that path.  Muslims are routinely demonized, even more so since the 9-11 attacks, and with renewed venom since the bombings in Boston.  Likewise, while consensus is slowly moving at long last toward inclusion, our country is still deeply divided on the extension of civil rights; indeed, on the extension of so much as simple, basic human decency toward the LGBT community.   Pastors who preach about God’s generous love in these situations still risk being thrown off cliffs – or having weights tied around their necks and drowned in the nearest body of water.  And yet, as with the Roman centurion, faith in God can show up where you’d least expect.  We may find ourselves saying that “Not even in the church have we seen such faith.”

 Archbishop William Temple, of blessed memory within the Anglican community, famously preached that “The church is the only institution that exists for those who are not its members.”  Our church’s name, Emanuel, means “God with us.”  But not exclusively with us, and not exclusively for us.  God is with us at Emanuel, so that through our ministry, God can be with others.   

 

In a few minutes, we’ll be gathering about the table to share in Communion.  A strong message of the United Church of Christ, and a practice of Emanuel Church for many years, is that all seeking a closer relationship with Jesus Christ are welcome around the table.  There are no second class citizens in the Kingdom of God.  As we are invited to gather around the table, may we in turn invite others to share in the feast.  May it be so among us.  Amen.

Pastor Dave is back!

Apologies for being away for several months.  Emanuel Church has gone through a difficult transition in lay leadership.  Many of the sermons of the past few months were directed at guiding the congregation through the transition.  Things appear to be settling down, and so I'll be posting regularly again.

Love Without Borders

Scriptures:  Jeremiah 1:4-10, I Corinthians 13:1-13  Luke 4:21-30

 

In January, I heard radical evangelical Shane Claiborne speak.  Shane is the founder of The Simple Way, an intentional Christian community located right here in Philadelphia – their first community house is located on Potter Street, near K & A.  The Simple Way community tries to live according to the description of the early church in Acts, sharing all things in common and helping to improve life in the community.   Shane Claiborne had just returned from Afghanistan, where he met a group of Afghan youth who worked to build a peaceful alternative to the decades of war and devastation that have engulfed that country for decades.  Many adults in Afghanistan have become so beaten down by decades of war that they have given up all hope for peace but these youth…well, for them, hope still springs eternal.  They’ve studied advocates of nonviolent resistance such as Gandhi and King.  They are using social media such as Facebook and Skype to try to make 2 million friends from around the world – a number equal to the 2 million Afghans killed over the past 4 decades of war.  One of the mottoes of these youth is “a little bit of love is stronger than all the weapons in the world.”

 

“A little bit of love is stronger than all the weapons in the world.”  It sounds like the voice of youthful naivete – though these words come from kids who have seen more weapons – more death, more carnage, more mayhem in their short lives than most of us experience in an entire lifetime.  And yet our Scripture readings this morning likewise attest to the power of love, the power of love that can catch us off guard, disturb us, at times even upset us – but the power of love that is nonetheless life-giving and life-renewing.

 

Our reading from I Corinthians 13 is familiar to many of us – it’s often read at weddings – but a wedding was the last thing Paul had in mind when he wrote these beautiful words.  The 13^th chapter of 1^st Corinthians is the conclusion of a long discourse on how sisters and brothers in Christ are to treat one another.  He was writing to a conflicted, fractious church in which the leaders were constantly trying to one-up each other, each trying to prove their superiority in comparison to the rest of the crowd.  Some of these leaders had the very flashy, attention-getting gift of speaking to God in unknown prayer languages.  Because of this gift, these leaders considered themselves closer to God than the rest.  Other leaders claimed special knowledge of God’s will, especially with relation to various religious practices.  Of these people, Paul writes, “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.”  Paul goes on to speak of the church as Christ’s body, with each part working together, rather than the different body parts trying to upstage each other or run away from each other.   And what holds the church, the body of Christ, together?  It’s love.  Love forms the ligaments that keep the various members of the body working together. 

 

It’s notable that these words, which Paul intended for the church, are associated with weddings.  Perhaps this is because Paul’s words – patience, kindness, bearing all things, believing all things, hoping all things, enduring all things – love that never ends – describe what we hope for in a spouse or life partner, after the wedding is over and day-to-day life together begins.   Don’t we all want to know and to be known fully?   Most people have little hope of experiencing this quality of love outside a marriage or committed partnership - especially in our society, in which love is hard to find, in which nearly everything can be turned into a commodity to be bought and sold, in which our society’s materialism attempts to convince us, instead of loving people and using things, to love things and use people.

 

And yet Paul’s intent was for these words to describe, not married life, but how we in the church are to treat one another – and how we are to treat our neighbors outside the church.  Jesus went further – as his followers we are to love, not only our family, not only our sisters and brothers in Christ, not only our neighbors, but even our enemies.

 

And that’s what got Jesus into trouble at his hometown synagogue.  Last week we listened to Jesus begin his sermon.  He spoke of proclaiming good news to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight for the blind, freedom from oppression, and the year of the Lord’s favor.  And he told his listeners that “today, this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”  But then, as far as the congregation was concerned, he went way off message:  he spoke of God’s loving care, not only for Israel, but for the widow of Zaraphath – foreigner – and Naaman the Syrian – foreigner.  For speaking of the wideness of God’s mercy, Jesus nearly got himself thrown off a cliff.

 

Which brings me back to Shane Claiborne’s talk, that I described at the beginning of my sermon.  Considering all the carnage that the Afghan people have suffered over decades of invasion and occupation, it would be entirely understandable if they wanted to shut out the rest of the world and tend to their own wounds.  And yet the Afghan youth seek, not isolation, but connection. That’s the power of love that’s stronger than all the weapons in the world.  The Afghan youth handed to their visitors blue scarves, similar to this one that I have.  The scarves represent a beautiful message from the Afghan youth – that we all share the same blue sky, that one blue sky connects us all.

 

The love of which Paul and Jesus spoke is not the sentimental love of Valentine’s day, in which loved ones exchange chocolate candy and Hallmark greeting cards and whisper sweet nothings to one another.  Rather it’s an action word, an act of will, for, as St. Thomas Aquinas wrote, “Love means to will the good of another.”   Love conveys this message from ourselves to others, “I want you to be.”  It’s not the love that will lead us to stare soulfully into a loved one’s eyes, but rather the love that commits us to standing by and caring for that loved one no matter what. 

 

The love of which Paul and Jesus spoke transforms lives.  A close friend of mine once told me about his formative years, in a family marked by alcohol abuse and violence, in which he couldn’t feel safe around his own parents, in which members of his extended family had felony criminal records.  To this day he is being treated for post traumatic stress disorder, which generally is an outcome of military service, but in the case of my friend, was the result of having grown up in a home that was like a war zone.  And yet this friend is one of the most gentle people you could ever meet.  I asked him once why that was.  He told me that every summer, he got to spend two weeks with his grandparents at the shore.  Those days with his grandparents gave my friend fleeting experiences of human decency, amid all the indecency and brutality he knew most of the time.  Could his grandparents ever know how much of a difference those days at the shore made in the life of this friend?  And can we ever count the number of people whose acts of kindness over the years have helped form us into the people we have become.  And can we ever know how our own acts of kindness and caring are touching the lives of those around us, without ever knowing it.   Love is what helps us keep on keeping on, even when we see no obvious results.  As, for example, it was Jeremiah’s experience of God’s love that empowered him to speak difficult truth to entrenched, corrupt power, even at risk to his own life.  Despite being rejected over and over, love for God and love for his people compelled Jeremiah to continue to try to speak out.

 

We can never fully understand the impact our actions may have on others.  As the Evangelical and Reformed theologian Reinhold Niebuhr puts it:

Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime,
Therefore, we are saved by hope.
Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history;
Therefore, we are saved by faith.
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone.
Therefore, we are saved by love.
No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as from our own;
Therefore, we are saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness.

 

The writer Chris Hedges grew up as the son of a Presbyterian pastor, and himself went to divinity school to study for ordination.  While he did serve a church, he eventually gave up the pastorate and became a journalist, serving as a war correspondent for 20 years, providing news coverage of brutalities in El Salvador, Bosnia, and many other war zones.  His theological training and his having witnessed the worst of man’s inhumanity to man have led him to write movingly on, among other things, the importance of love and religious faith in our world.  Hedges offers these challenging words:

“The point of religion, authentic religion, is that it is not, in the end, about us. It is about the other, about the stranger lying beaten and robbed on the side of the road, about the poor, the outcasts, the marginalized, the sick, the destitute, about those who are being abused and beaten in cells in Guantanamo and a host of other secret locations, about what we do to gays and lesbians in this country, what we do to the 47 million Americans without health insurance, the illegal immigrants who live among us without rights or protection, their suffering as invisible as the suffering of the mentally ill we have relegated to heating grates or prison cells. It is about them.

We have forgotten who we were meant to be, who we were created to be, because we have forgotten that we find God not in ourselves, finally, but in our care for our neighbor, in the stranger, including those outside the nation and the faith. The religious life is not designed to make you happy, or safe or content; it is not designed to make you whole or complete, to free you from anxieties and fear; it is designed to save you from yourself, to make possible human community, to lead you to understand that the greatest force in life is not power or reason but love.”

Paul writes, “And now abide, faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.  May the self-giving love of Christ compel us, in turn, to let Christ’s love be seen in our lives through words of kindness and acts of love.  Amen.

 

On A Mission From God

Scripture:  Isaiah 61:1-7; I Corinthians 12:12-31; Luke 4:14-21

 

 

 

The 1980 movie “The Blues Brothers” starring Dan Akroyd and John Belushi, told the tale of Jake Blues, just released from prison, who learned that the Catholic orphanage where he and his brother Elwood were raised, would be closed and sold unless an overdue tax bill was paid in 11 days.  Perhaps we here at Emanuel can feel some connection to the movie’s plotline, given our church’s role in founding the orphanage that became Bethany Children’s Home.  But I digress…..   Anyway……Jake and Elwood put together their old band to raise money to save their orphanage, explaining in a deadpan voice to anyone who asked, “We’re on a mission from God.”   Braving pursuit by police and a flamethrower-wielding Carrie Fisher, among other obstacles, they manage to get the orphanage’s tax bill paid, just before being sent back to prison.

 

In our reading from Luke’s Gospel, we see Jesus beginning his mission from God, to save, not just an orphanage, but the world.  While Jake Blues just returned home from prison, Jesus has returned home after being baptized by John and after 40 days’ temptation in the wilderness.  And the baptism and temptation in the wilderness were formative, character-developing, life-changing experiences for Jesus – the folks in Jesus’ hometown who had watched Jesus go off to be baptized by John found that Jesus came back to them changed, speaking and acting with a conviction that hadn’t been there before.  He had departed his hometown as the carpenter’s son, and returned as one on a mission from God.  Luke tells us that “Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through the surrounding country. He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.”

 

We’re told that Jesus went to his hometown synagogue and stood up to read.  The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him, and he found the place where these words were written:

"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 we’re given the first sentence of Jesus’ sermon:  “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”  Yet what had changed during the moments in which Jesus read?  Apparently, nothing – except for Jesus’ proclamation.  And yet it is Jesus’ proclamation that changes everything – because Jesus is claiming his own ministry as the fulfillment of this text.  This proclamation sets the tone for what we are to expect from Jesus’ ministry from this point on.

 

Jesus’ choice of this text is intriguing.  Actually, it’s two texts, Isaiah 58:6 and Isaiah 61:1-2.  So this passage did not occur in Isaiah as a single connected text; Jesus himself brought these Scriptures together into one text for his reading in the synagogue.   In reading this passage, Jesus is proclaiming good news – but good news targeted in a particular way.  Let’s listen again:

            He has anointed me to bring good news – to the poor

            He has sent me to proclaim release – to the captives

            Recovery of sight – to the blind

            To let go free – the oppressed

            To proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

If you are poor, a captive, blind, or oppressed, Jesus’ words are indeed good news.  If, however, we’re wealthy, if in our privilege we can say that the world is your oyster, if we’re oppressors – the good news Jesus proclaims may pass us by, and Jesus’ words may leave us cold.

 

That last phrase – “to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” – had a particular meaning in Jesus’ context that we may miss in our own.  The year of the Lord’s favor is a description of the year of Jubilee, that time that was supposed to take place every fifty years, in which debts were to be forgiven and slaves freed, and lands that had been seized for debts were to go back to the original owners.  In our context it sounds impossible, and we don’t know how faithfully it was observed in Biblical times either.  But the idea is one to which I think we can all relate – that it’s not God’s will for some to become fantastically wealthy while others are forced into destitution.  The Jubilee was an every fifty years attempt to reset the clock, to wipe the slate clean and give people a chance to begin again on a playing field that was, if not level, at least not outrageously stacked against them.  And this is also part of the mission of Jesus – to wipe our slates clean and give us a chance to begin again. 

 

These are the parts of the Isaiah passage that Jesus included in his reading in the synagogue that day.  It’s also notable what he left out.   In the original passage, Isaiah not only writes about “the year of the Lord’s favor” but “the day of the Lord’s vengeance.”  But Jesus left the vengeance part out – vengeance wasn’t on his agenda.  The message Jesus came to proclaim was one of grace, of second chances – and of the importance of caring for our neighbors, especially the poorest and those furthest on society’s margin.

 

The message Jesus proclaimed in his hometown synagogue is the message the church is called on to proclaim today.    Jesus has called us to be on a mission for God.  We, as church, are called, in Jesus’ name, to proclaim good news to the poor, recovery of sight to the blind, release of the captive and liberation of the oppressed.     And while we probably will not, like Jake Blues, encounter Carrie Fisher and her flamethrower, we’ll surely encounter the flames of opposition in other forms. We are called upon to provide an alternative to the world’s way of doing things, an alternative to empire.

 

Because all of us, poor, rich, or anywhere in between, need release from bondage.   Many, especially here in Philadelphia, are literally dying to be released from bondage to poverty, to unemployment, to debt, to foreclosure, to addiction, to illness and lack of access to medical care.  But those on the other end of the economic spectrum are in bondage as well – to addiction to wealth and privilege and the fear that comes with trying to supply those addictions.   While poverty causes some to end up without a home, wealth leads others to barricade themselves, to imprison themselves,  in gated communities, where they only associate with their own kind – and what an empty existence that must be.  While physical illnesses such as diabetes brings blindness to many in the poor and middle-class, wealth and privilege can bring spiritual blindness, as the wealthy cannot see the realities that lie outside the bubble worlds of their own creation.

 

The messages of empire, of the world’s way of doing things – whether the Roman Empire of Jesus’ day or the corporate empires of our own day – some of which have more wealth and wield more power than individual nations - divide us into opposing factions – rich and poor, urban, suburban, and rural, immigrant and native-born, different races, different languages, and so forth.   It’s a game of divide and conquer, in which the very wealthy set struggling people of different races and languages and neighborhoods in competition and in animosity against one another, so that they cannot unite to challenge what Paul called the powers and principalities, and spiritual wickedness in high places.  But Paul’s message to the church at Corinth reminds us that, in Christ, we are all connected, each of us individual limbs of Christ’s one body.  And this body includes believers around the globe.  So when poverty, war, environmental devastation impact believers – whether our members here at Emanuel, or whether they affect our neighbors elsewhere in Philadelphia, or in the portions of New Jersey and New York City still recovering from Hurricane Sandy, or in another part of the country affected by drought or fire, or in a distant country, as Christians we cannot just turn our heads away – because they are part of the one body of Christ, as we are.   One part of the body of Christ cannot say to another, “I have no need of you.”  If one part suffers, the whole body suffers.  If one part is exalted, the whole body is lifted up.  It’s like that on the small scale of life here at Emanuel – as few as we are, we all need to pitch in, to give and receive help - and it’s like that on a global scale as well.

Recently, I got to see a little glimpse of what it looks like when the different parts of the body of Christ work together.  In late December, after Christmas,  I spent a day in Ocean Beach, NJ – and in January, I spent a day in Brooklyn’s Sheepshead Bay neighborhood.  These communities, with surrounding communities, were hit hard by Hurricane Sandy, and are struggling to rebound – in Ocean Beach, nearly all of the businesses were closed, entrance in and out of Ocean Beach was restricted, subject to police permission, and there was a strict curfew to limit looting.  In these 3 months since the hurricane, the news cameras, along with the American Red Cross have long since moved on – and most of the folks I talked to in Ocean Bay said that the Red Cross wasn’t all that helpful after the first three days.  FEMA has continued to do good work in Ocean Bay, but in many cases FEMA simply wants to bulldoze damaged homes, while the owners want to try to repair and preserve what they have.  But volunteers from many organizations – Americorps, church groups, various organizers who had been involved in Occupy Wall Street and various local Occupy movements – are working together, providing mutual aid on a day-by-day basis.   And since I told folks I was from Emanuel United Church of Christ in Philadelphia’s Bridesburg neighborhood, you were all with me in spirit.  In Ocean Beach, I was with a group who shoveled sand dunes off eight properties that were just a few blocks from shore.  And, oh boy, did I feel it the next day – I lunge into those situations thinking I’m still 30 and thin and running 10k races regularly, but then my body rapidly reminds me that in reality I’m 50 years old and 50 pounds overweight and short of breath.  But anyway – in helping my neighbors in New Jersey, I wound up meeting my neighbors in Pennsylvania – among them a Presbyterian church group from Lansdale and a number of young adults from an Amish or Mennonite community in central Pennsylvania.   Had it not been for a disaster in New Jersey, would I have met these Pennsylvania neighbors?  On a day in January, in the Sheepshead Bay neighborhood of Brooklyn, I met neighbors from far away – one of the volunteer coordinators had grown up in the Bronx and later moved to Florida – when she heard about the devastation, she returned to NYC to help.  The young man who served as head of the neighborhood volunteer office, run as part of the Occupy Sandy assistance network, had hitchhiked his way across country from California, and over the past three months has become a major presence in the neighborhood, going door-to-door, knocking on peoples’ doors every day and asking folks how they are – this California kid, probably around 20 years old, skinny as a rail, silver metal rings adorning not only his ears but his nose and his lips as well, is like a block captain for a neighborhood in Brooklyn.  In Sheepshead Bay, as in many hard-hit neighborhoods in New York City, mold is a big problem – as is the sometimes slipshod work from the contractors FEMA has hired to do the home cleanouts.  Sometimes, in addition to their own cleanout work, it’s the volunteers helping to keep the contractors honest and helping to advocate for the homeowners when repairs fall through the cracks – one part of the body helping another.

 

Jesus said, quoting Isaiah,

"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."

May we at Emanuel Church find the power of the Holy Spirit upon us, liberating us from our bondage to sin and to the powers of empire, and calling us, in Jesus’ name, to proclaim God’s liberation to others.    

"What's It To Me?!"

(Scripture:  Isaiah 62:1-5; I Corinthians 12:1-11;  John 2:1-11)

Today’s Gospel reading tells us, if nothing else, that Jesus was not afraid to have a good time.  It’s a very human story, reminding us that Jesus had family and friends, and got invited to parties.  And in this party, when the wine runs out, Jesus the guest turns out to be Jesus the unseen host.

 

Cana was a small village, far from the bustling city, and so what we have here is a snapshot of a country wedding.  Daily life was difficult,  and “rite of passage” moments such as a wedding would provide the village with a festive change of pace, a relief from the day-to-day routine.   Likely the whole extended families of the bride and groom, along with much of the village would have been invited.  The feasting would have gone on for days, to allow time for distant guests to make the journey out to Cana.   It goes without saying that one’s wedding day would be perhaps the most memorable time of one’s life.  Given that people would have traveled significant distances on foot to get there, I think we can intuitively get some sense of the embarrassment of the host family, that the wine had run out – they couldn’t just run out to the state store to pick up a few bottles.

 

Mary picks up on what’s happening and tells Jesus, “They have no wine.”  And, to our ears, Jesus basically comes across as an obnoxious jerk when he responds, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.”  First of all, Jesus addressing his mother as “woman”, to us, sounds just plain rude – apparently in that culture it wouldn’t have been quite as offputting as it is to us, though it’s notable that Jesus doesn’t address Mary as “mother”.   Then Jesus basically says, “Hey, not my problem!”   And then Jesus says those mysterious words “My hour has not yet come.” 

One of the recurring themes in John’s Gospel is Jesus’ hour of glorification – which is a reference to the crucifixion, when Jesus is lifted up, drawing all unto himself, and the resurrection.  Twice in John’s gospel, we’re told that the religious leaders wanted to arrest Jesus, but they didn’t do so, because his hour had not yet come – the same phrase we hear Jesus use today.   For John and his community, it was important to state that Jesus was in control at all times – he would come to the aid of the wedding party, but on his own terms, not because of his mother’s prompting.  And Mary seems to recognize this when she tells the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” 

 And what he tells the servants to do is to fill up six stone water jars with water.  We’re told that each jar held twenty or thirty gallons – so we’re talking about 120 to 180 gallons of water – a huge amount.  And then Jesus tells the servants to draw some out and take it to the chief steward.  When the chief steward tasted the water that had become wine, he told the bridegroom, “Usually people serve the good wine first and then save the cheaper wine for later, but you’ve saved the best for last.”  Not only the best wine, but the most wine – from a situation of shortage Jesus provides abundance, more wine than they would have known what to do with.  And he does it secretly – while Mary and the servants know what’s going on, the chief steward, the bridal party, and the guests do not – and so Jesus is perfectly fine with letting the bridegroom take the credit for the wonderful wine that had been saved for last.  Jesus, the wedding guest, becomes Jesus, the secret host of the wedding party.

In Roman Catholic theology, this passage is a basis for addressing prayers to Mary.   As she did at the wedding feast, many call upon Mary to intercede with Jesus, to plead with Jesus to help us in our struggles.  As Protestants, while we respect Mary, our prayers are to Jesus.  And yet Mary remains a model for us, not standing by indifferently when there’s trouble, but asking Jesus for help – which is something we are called to do as well.

In some of the prophetic books of the Old Testament, wine is a sign of the coming of the reign of God – near the end of his book, Amos speaks of a time when “the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and all the hills shall flow with it. I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel, and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine, and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit.”   So Jesus’ provision of wine not only speaks of God’s extravagant abundance, but of the reign of God where there will be enough for all.  And it speaks of a God concerned not only for big matters of life or death, but for something as small as the supply of wine at a wedding feast. 

 

While our lives are much easier than those of the country peasants who would have attended the wedding at Cana, for many of us, and for our neighbors, life is difficult.  For many of us, and many of our neighbors, not only has the wine run about, but along with the wine much else has run out - our groceries, our health insurance, our heat, our lights, our mortgages, our leases.   Many of us wish that running out of wine was the worst of our problems.
 

Jesus said that he came that we may have life, and life abundantly.  We look around at our situations and wonder if we have enough, let alone anything left over.  Prosperity preachers tell us that if we pray the right magic prayer – and especially if we mail in our love offerings – God will open the heavens and shower down blessings on us.  But I believe that the abundance of which Christ is available, not in isolation, but in community.  You may not have enough of one thing and I may not have enough of something else, but together there may be enough of both – enough and to spare for others.   In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus told his followers that there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for his sake and the sake of the kingdom, who will not receive a hundredfold in this age – houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields – and in the age to come eternal life.  Our individualistic culture calls us to self-absorption – faced with someone else’s suffering, we’re tempted to say, “what’s it to me?”  But like the servants at the wedding feast, we should listen to the words of Mary, “Do whatever he tells us.”   Do whatever Jesus tells us, even if it’s as seemingly irrational as filling water jars in order to get more wine – to do whatever Jesus tells us, not only with our money, but with our time and talents, to help one another and our neighbors.  Paul’s writing to the church at Corinth reminds us that it is together that we are the body of Christ, each with various talents for building up the whole body.  In the church, no single person is called on to do everything, but we are all called to offer our gifts and talents.  And likewise, we should also be humble enough and teachable enough to receive the benefit of one another’s gifts and talents, allowing others to exercise their God-given gifts.  And in this way, we have gifts in abundance.

 

And on this Martin Luther King day weekend, we are reminded that God’s abundance is for all, not just for some, that the blessings of justice and peace are for all, not just for some.  Dr. King was one who did what Jesus told him to do, even when it meant putting himself in harm’s way, being arrested, eventually being murdered.  We are all guests at the great wedding banquet of God’s son.  To the extent that we try to bar others from the table, we ourselves will be cast into outer darkness – for it is God’s banquet, not our own.

 

And at this banquet, God saves the best for the end.  The turning of water to wine at Cana was Jesus’ first sign, but as significant as it was, it was nothing compared to the signs at the end of Jesus’ life, the raising of Lazarus, and his own resurrection.  In the same way, though God provides for our lives here on earth, when we meet God in the world to come, we will find that the best earth has to offer will not compare to being in God’s presence.  Amen.

Beloved Son (Baptism of Jesus)

Scripture:  Isaiah 43:1-7; Acts 8:14-17;  Luke 3:15-22

I don’t know if any of you have ever spent time peering at one of those “Where’s Waldo” cartoons – it’s usually some enormous crowd scene – at a beach, or an amusement park, or some other large gathering – and you’re supposed to find Waldo, a guy with round glasses and a distinctive red and white striped shirt and a matching red and white striped hat, almost like a santa cap, usually cocked at an angle.  It definitely takes keen vision and a good eye for detail, as well as a bit of patience - and it usually helps if you've got some extra time on your hands.

 

I would imagine that, for John, the search for the “one more powerful than John”, of whom John spoke, was a bit like an exercise of “Where’s Waldo” – only more difficult, because in this case he didn’t know beforehand what Waldo looked like.  When we think of baptism, we think of one person – usually a baby – along with parents and godparents or sponsors – not that many people involved - but the Gospel writers describe crowds coming to John, day after day, with Jesus in their midst, one among many preparing to go under the water.  The spirit coming down like a dove and the voice from heaven are what help John, and help us - pick out Waldo – or rather Jesus – amid the mass of humanity converging on John.

 

What was Jesus doing in the midst of the crowd at the Jordan River that day, listening to John haranguing them about the need to repent of their sins, going down into the cold, muddy water of the Jordan?  It’s not hard to imagine why the crowds were there.  Those coming to John had a deep sense of dissatisfaction with the way things were – with the world, and with themselves – especially themselves.  The political order of the day was about as corrupt as one could imagine, and the people felt a deep need for God to touch them, to lay a renewing finger on them in a deep place that the rituals of the Temple couldn’t touch.  The crowds that came to the Jordan knew that there was a whole lot wrong with the world, and a whole lot wrong with themselves – and somehow knew that any healing and renewal of the world would have to begin with renewal within.  Harsh as John’s preaching was, it only put into words the sense of sinfulness and internal chaos within the people who came to be baptized. 

 

Normally, in Jewish practice, baptism, or ceremonial washing, was used for spiritual cleansing.  Baptism was also a ritual by which Gentiles signified their conversion to Judaism.  But of these crowds who came to John, most were already Jewish.  But they came – yes, to signify their desire for spiritual cleansing, but also to become part of the religious renewal that John was leading. 

 

So that explains the crowds….but what does it say about why Jesus was in the midst of the crowds?  Jesus, after all, was sinless; he had no need for spiritual cleansing.  Rather, Jesus was there to identify radically with John’s renewal movement, with the crowds, with sinful humankind.  In great humility, Jesus waded in the water with everyone else, felt John’s hand pushing him under the surface of the cold, muddy water of the Jordan. And, like the crowds who came to John for a new direction in their lives, baptism was a transformative moment for Jesus – it has been said that he went into the water a carpenter, and came out of the water a Messiah newly empowered for his earthly ministry as the beloved of God, as witnessed by the voice from heaven, with a new understanding of the calling to which God had called him. The Spirit coming in the form of a dove reminds us of the dove that was released from Noah’s ark at the end of the flood, reminding us of new life. 

 

By his baptism, Jesus identified radically with the human need for repentance, and the baptism of Jesus was a moment of transformation and empowerment for ministry.  And therefore the voice from heaven heard by Jesus continues to echo in our ears.  And it’s very personal – You – you individually – are my beloved Son or Daughter.

 

Just as, in Jewish practice, circumcision was a mark of inclusion in the covenant, and just as, through the waters of baptism, John’s followers were brought into John’s renewal movement, in the same way, through the water of baptism, we are brought into a much larger family, the church.  This may not initially seem to be of much importance.  The way baptism was often explained in the past put the emphasis on the individual salvation of the one being baptized – my baptism, my soul, my salvation, my, my, my.  And certainly, baptism is a very individual, very personal experience.  But it’s an individual experience by which we are drawn beyond ourselves as individuals, a personal experience by which we are connected to other persons.  We are welcomed into the larger family of faith, and in that welcome are commissioned to serve the Lord.  This is why, in UCC practice, at the end of the baptism, the newly-baptized is called “child of God, disciple of Christ, and member of Christ’s church.”

 

In our baptism, God claims each of us as beloved sons and daughters.  While that promise is for us, it’s not only for us.   What would the church be like – what would the world be like – if we could remember that those with whom we come in contact are likewise created in God’s image, likewise beloved sons and daughters of God?  Might that change our behavior toward one another, and toward our neighbors?   Might we speak or act differently if we remember that the person to whom we speak or act is, like us, a child of the king, a child of God?

 

For us, baptism is a moment of sweet sentimentality, a moment marked by baptismal certificates and photos and such.   But it’s more than that.  It’s the moment in which we, as a child or as an adult, are brought into the care of the church, and a moment of preparation to take part in the church’s ministry of bringing the good news of Jesus to the world.  Of course, we don’t expect an infant to toddle right out the front door of the church and start preaching the gospel.  That’s why those promises that parents and godparents or sponsors make to raise children in the Christian faith are so important – ultimately baptism is preparation and authorization for ministry, preparation and authorization to be messengers of the good news wherever our lives take us.

 

Which doesn’t mean that our lives will be easy.  Like Jesus, we may experience grief, anger, frustration, loneliness.  Like Jesus on the cross, there are those moments when we feel so overwhelmed that we say, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me.”  In those moments, our baptism reminds us that God will never abandon us.  In the words of the old Heidelberg Catechism that our older members grew up with, we’re told that “our only comfort, in life and in death, is that we belong, body and soul, in life and in death, not to ourselves, but to our faithful Savior, Jesus Christ” - who through the waters of baptism has claimed us for his very own.  Amen.

 

Who Invited Them?

Scriptures:  Isaiah 60:1-6, Ephesians 3:1-12  Matthew 2:1-12

There’s a story – probably more than a little embellished, if not outright confabulated - but it’s a memorable story nonetheless, just the kind that preachers like – about a middle-aged couple who turned up on the doorstep of the President of Harvard University.   Both the man’s threadbare suit and the woman’s faded dress had seen better days, as, apparently, had the couple themselves.  They told the President’s secretary that their son had recently died of typhoid fever – the year was 1884 – and the couple wanted to donate some money to Harvard in memory of their son.  Now, one might imagine that the President of Harvard University kept a busy calendar, and he didn’t have time among his many pressing meetings that day to chew the fat with these shabby out-of-towners who hadn’t bothered to make an appointment in advance.    So he told his secretary to send them away, and if they wanted to talk to him, to tell them to make an appointment next time.   As she was showing the couple out the door, the secretary casually asked how much money they had wanted to donate and the husband said, “Oh, about $5 million….but since your president doesn’t want to be bothered, we’ll see if we can set something up in our son’s memory on our own.”  As the story goes, the couple in question were Leland and Jane Stanford, and since Harvard didn’t have time to talk to them about their $5 million dollars, they went on to use the money to establish Stanford University.

 

Or so the story goes.  It’s hard to say how much of the story is fact and how much is fiction.   But, regardless how factual or fictional the story is, it’s a reminder that sometimes great opportunity comes in unlikely persons and situations, that an uninvited guest is not necessarily an unwelcome guest, that what may at first seem like an imposition can turn out to be a blessing.

 

Today we commemorate the Epiphany, the revelation of Jesus to the Gentiles.  Our reading from Matthew’s Gospel also tells a story about uninvited guests – that of the wise men coming to pay homage to the Christ child.   It’s helpful to keep in mind that a lot of what we think we know about the Wise Men isn’t from the Bible, but comes from various embellishments that have been added to the story over the course of many centuries and unknown thousands of Christmas pageants and productions of Amahl and the Night  Visitors.  We don’t know that there were three of them – there could have been six, nine, or twelve of them for all we know factually.  We don’t know their names – somebody decided to call them Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar, but again, that’s tradition, not Scripture – for all we know, their names were Manny, Moe and Jack.  They didn’t arrive to greet Jesus in the stable, but some time afterward – Matthew’s account speaks of a house, not a stable – and Jesus could have been as much as two years old, given the age of the babies that Herod martyred in attempt to eliminate Jesus – still very young, but hardly a babe in arms.  

 

Who were these folks, and what motivated their journey.  We’re told they came “from the East” – possibly from Assyria or Babylon or Persia, former enemy countries that had conquered Israel at various times in centuries past.    We know that the ten tribes of Israel had never returned from exile in Assyria – they just intermarried with the local population – and likely there were many Jews who had likewise decided to stay in Babylon rather than return to Jerusalem at the end of the exile.  These Jews likely intermarried with the local population, and so at least some of the local population would have had some exposure to Jewish scriptures and beliefs.  While these wise men were not themselves Jews, whatever little exposure they’d had to Judaism had inspired them with great hope regarding the birth of a child. 

Now, their GPS had sent them a bit off course…..they naturally enough thought that the Jewish savior would be born in Jerusalem, the capital city, but Herod’s advisors told the wise men, “No, not here, but in Bethlehem, the city of David.”  The name Bethlehem literally means “house of bread.”  As it happens, Bethlehem, with a current population of about 25,000 is in what is now the West Bank…..since 1995, territory controlled by the Palestinian Authority.  The majority of the population is Muslim, but it’s one of the largest centers of what’s left of Palestinian Christianity as well.  These days, Bethlehem, like the rest of the West Bank is heavily patrolled and monitored by Israel…..if Mary and Joseph were making the journey these days, they’d have had guns pointed at them and had to go through checkpoints and searches of their baggage and such.  But that’s another story, for another time. 

 

Of course, the fact that these wise men landed on Herod’s doorstep asking about a child who had been born King of the Jews would have raised Herod’s hackles – and, in truth, while the visitors may have been wise about stars, they weren’t very savvy about politics.  You see, as far as Herod was concerned, there was already a King of the Jews – and that king’s name was Herod.  As far as Herod was concerned, Herod was the only King of the Jews that was needed.  No others need apply.  From Josephus and other writers of the time, we know that even on his best day, Herod was suspicious to the point of paranoia.  And the day the wise men landed on his doorstep wasn’t his best day.  He made nice to the wise men, but in his troubled mind he resolved to eliminate this rival of whom the wise men had tipped him off. 

 

So the wise men found their way to the house where Mary and Joseph and the baby were staying. I’d love to have been a fly on the wall to watch that scene…..knock at the front door, Joseph opens up – “Who’s there” – and here’s a bunch of outlandishly-dressed foreigners on their doorstep, probably looking just as outlandish as I do in my robe today.  The visitors looked funny, they talked funny, and after their long journey they probably smelled a little funny too.  Imagine if a group of Arabs, with traditional headgear and robes wafting in the breeze, landed on our doorstep.  We’d likely stand there blinking for a bit, ask, “Can I help you?”, and probably wonder about their intentions.  Perhaps we’d be tempted to leave them stand outside.  Quite possibly someone might call 911.  But, faced with this scenario, and likely with some misgivings, Joseph says, “C’mon in.”  And, as Matthew tells us, the visitors paid homage to the child and left the gifts they’d been carrying so far for so long.

 

Matthew’s account of the Wise Men fulfills two functions.  First, it basically represents a fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy to the Jews, which we read this morning, that “Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn…A multitude of camels shall cover you; all those from Sheba will come. They shall bring gold and frankincense, and shall proclaim the praise of the Lord.”  In the visit of the wise men, we see this text literally come to life, on a small scale.

 

Beyond Isaiah’s image of the wealth of the nations flowing to Israel, Matthew’s account speaks of the broad reach of God’s grace. Through this story, Matthew told the predominantly Jewish early Christian communities in which his Gospel circulated – and continues to tell us – that God’s grace and God’s love cannot be contained by national borders or ethnic boundaries, that within the expanse of God’s grace and love there is room not only for Jews, but for Gentiles – even for such outlandish characters as the wise men. 

 

As I’d mentioned earlier, today is Epiphany, when we remember the revelation of Jesus to the  Gentiles – ultimately, the revelation of Jesus to us.  While the visit of the wise men was a one-time event, the revelation of Jesus to Jews and Gentiles alike is an ongoing event.  Every day, people are experiencing the grace of God through Jesus Christ for the first time.  I pray that each of us here has experienced that grace, and if not, that God will grant that grace today. 

 

We, as church, are one of the ways in which God has chosen to reveal God’s grace through Jesus Christ.   Inevitably, this means that the church has to be in contact with those outside the church.  Archbishop William Temple was quoted as saying that “The church is the only organization that exists only for non-members.”    And so God will send new visitors our way.  They may not be as exotic as Matthew’s wise men, and likely won’t be dressed as exotically as I am.  They may be dressed more like the Stanfords on their incognito visit to Harvard.   But every visitor to Emanuel church comes bearing a gift – the gift of opportunity.  Everyone who visits bears the image of God.  Everyone who visits is infinitely beloved of God, is one of those for whom Christ died.  Everyone who visits gives us an opportunity to live out the Gospel, to share good news.

 

And we aren’t called on just to wait for visitors to come to us, but to venture outside the sanctuary of this building, to hit the streets.  Last Sunday, the Adult Bible study group finished our seemingly endless study of the Gospel of St. Matthew.   The last chapter of Matthew’s Gospel contains Jesus’ great commission to his disciples – “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.”  Go and make disciples.  Go!  It’s an intimidating request.  But Jesus also equipped his disciples with this promise:   “And remember, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”  So when we go, we do not go alone.  God does not leave us out there hanging by ourselves. 

 

Matthew’s account of the visit of the wise men ends by telling us that, being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they returned to their own country by another way.  Likewise, when we, or when those with whom we share the Gospel - are transformed by the grace of Christ, they cannot return to their old lives; they do not return by the way they came.  We cannot continue in the way of Herod, serving the priorities of the world, the priorities of empire – money, power, personal glory.  Instead, we walk a new path, the way of the cross, following in our lives our crucified and risen Savior.  We don’t seek to save our lives – self-preservation, self-justification, self-glorification is no longer our primary concern – but rather we seek to lose our lives in humble service to the Gospel.  May this transforming grace of Christ be active among us here at Emanuel Church, and may this transforming grace touch all those with whom we come in contact.  Amen.