|
|
Message from our Pastor
United Methodist Church of Eagle Valley
Serving our Congregation and Community
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A Message from Pastor Sid Spain
Deuteronomy 18:15-20; Psalm 111; 1 Corinthians 8:1-13; Mark 1:21-28
We are still in the first chapter of Mark and Jesus has already hit full stride in his work. From years of obscurity, after coming public at the river Jordan, Jesus immediately begins to identify and call his disciples, and he takes his ministry to the streets and to the synagogue.
By verse 21 Mark has Jesus in the synagogue teaching, and teaching in such a way that those present sit up and listen. There is nothing casual about his message, not like the scribes who teach every week. Jesus is intense and emphatic. He teaches like his words matter; he teaches with authority like he knows what he is talking about—personally, intimately and emphatically.
He teaches with his words, explaining the meaning of the Scripture; his words are understandable, clear, concise, earnest and urgent. Instinctively the people who hear him know he knows what he is talking about, and what he is talking about matters. Like many who attend synagogue and church in our time, many in his time attended religious services, listened to the lessons, and left to return to their lives in the marketplace.
Going to synagogue meant something to them; it was part of the fabric of their lives, and many times they took something away with them. Perhaps they heard something that strengthened their trust in God and gratitude for life; perhaps it was a moral lesson that affected the way they treated the people they worked with, helped them be more honest in their work, kinder more attentive to others in their neighborhood and at home. They heard stories and teachings that helped them understand who they were as God’s people and what God expected of them—what to eat and not eat, who to associate with and who to avoid, how to order their days from Sabbath to Sabbath.
Going to synagogue was a good thing; it gave shape, guidance and purpose to their lives. Synagogue was a good and important thing to do, but if truth be told, synagogue and the lessons they learned there were not at the hot center of their lives. And then Jesus shows up and things begin to ratchet up. He clearly believed what he was talking about was the most important thing in the world. He believed it and taught it with authority.
Then to cap off the morning, Jesus exorcises a poor, suffering, unclean man right there in the synagogue. It was unbecoming for such a man even to be in the room, and more unbecoming for Jesus to make such a spectacle—but the people who see it happen are too amazed to criticize. All the criticism about Jesus’ improprieties, such as healing on the Sabbath, will come later. This day it is simply stunning. He speaks with authority and he acts with authority. He backs up with he says with what he does. His are not lifeless words on a page. His words are filled with conviction, power and authority.
What are we to make of this story? At its heart, this story and all those like it are to show us who Jesus is. In this case he is the one who truly has the authority to speak about God and about the meaning and purpose of life. In the words of scripture, he is the Anointed One, the one sent with the message; he is the Messiah, the one come to set God’s people free; he is the son of God, the first born of creation. That is clearly the primary purpose of all the stories about Jesus. We begin with him.
But the stories are also about us. They are about how we are supposed to live, and even more essentially about who we are—who we are and who we are created to be. In one of his greatest moments of inspiration Paul talks about the transformation God means for us in Jesus. He talks about the way we change as we follow Jesus, about who we are becoming because of our relationship with him, and then he says, we do not yet know who we will be (who we are becoming), but we know this, that when we see him, we will be like him.
Take that thought, hold it, and believe it—that God is working in you and me, in each one of us, to make us like Jesus. The scriptures tell us first about him, and then about us.
Today’s passage is a story about authority. What kind of authority are we talking about? God could say, I am God and you must do as I say; I have all the authority. I had a few commanding officers like that in the Navy, and they were right. They had been given their authority by the government and I had signed up to be under their authority. Whether they were good men or not, they had a tremendous amount of authority over those under their command. The maintenance officer on one of the ships I served aboard put it this way, He may not always be right, but he is always the captain. Most of you have experience with that kind of authority.
But Jesus’ authority was more than that. His authority came from his authenticity and the power of the authentic word. This story tells us many things; about authenticity and consistency, about what we say and what we do. Jesus teaches with the authority of knowing what he is talking about and then demonstrates that authority with a word that changes a life. Jesus lived his message before and after he spoke it.
The story is about being real and about the power of the truth real people speak. Jesus was real and everyone knew it. He spoke the truth and they knew it. He was authentic and he spoke the truth and he was inescapable.
The same can and should be true for each of us. It is true and will be truer still as we follow Jesus and open ourselves to the transforming power of God’s Spirit in our lives. The Holy Spirit takes the lessons we learn in our heads, puts them in our hearts, and makes them come alive in our worlds.
I take this personally. There is no way I more betray your trust in me than by coming here and speaking to you without being honest—about what I believe and what I doubt. You expect me to be prepared and authentic in what I say. You expect me to be prepared not only with my mind and my words, not only bringing you the results of my study of scripture. You expect me to bring myself, my experience of life, and my heart. You expect me to speak with authority, not the authority of a ship’s captain, but the authority of a truth-seeking, God-seeking heart.
In his book, The God Who Comes, Carlo Carretto says,
I do not believe in theologians who do not pray, who are not humble in communication of love with God. Carretto goes on, when there is a crisis in the Church, it is always here: a crisis of contemplation.
When there is a crisis in the church it is always a crisis of contemplation. I believe that. I’ve been working on my new year’s resolution for a month now and it has made a difference. You might remember my one resolution for 2012. It is to spend twelve minutes a day in silence, seeking to be empty of words and thoughts, simply open and receptive to God’s presence. There is not “law” in my resolution, no penalty for missing a day—surely no penalty if my mind stubbornly refuses to be quiet. It is all good. It’s all good and it is not a burden. I look forward to the stillness and the quiet, and I relish the ostensible purposelessness of those few minutes every day. I feel healthier, calmer and more focused all day. My eyesight for the world around me is clearer, and my inner eye, my eye of faith and discernment is open. Those twelve minutes are not a cure-all, but they are a key piece of the puzzle of my whole and holier life.
It is a good thing to meditate on the words of the Bible. It is the next thing to allow that meditation to take us to the Presence within, behind, beneath and beyond those words. In another book, Letters from the Desert, Carretto writes these words concerning a widespread apathy and indifference among Christians today.
Teaching is ineffective because it is not life-centered; there is no life because there is no example; there is no example because empty words have taken the place of faith and charity.
That day in the synagogue Jesus’ words were not empty. He not only spoke familiar words to those listening, he spoke with his life. His presence, made real and powerful through prayer and communion with the Father, gave him authority—in word and action.
The story is about Jesus. It is about me. It is about you. It is about the words we hear and the way they come to life in us. The invitation to follow Christ is an invitation to find and live your true, authentic life. He makes all the difference.
That is why we are here, to come more alive—in the words of scripture, to seek the kingdom of God which is in each of us; to more fully realize that kingdom and have it show itself in us and through us wherever we go, whatever we do. Jesus had the authority to do such a thing, and he has given that same authority to us, the authority of faith and authenticity. It is the authority of Christ in me, and in you. It is the authority of Christ in us the hope of glory.
Sermon 22Jan2012
Jonah 3:1-5, 10; Psalm 62:5-12; 1 Corinthians 7:29-31; Mark 1:14-20
One sentence from this week’s readings took hold of me and would not let go. It is the last line in the passage from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. The present form of this world is passing away. That is what I want to talk about today, but before I do that I have to say something about Jonah. Richard Boyce wrote an article for one of my commentaries. I enjoyed his perspective and his thoughtful challenge to the ways we read this kind of story. His words sparked my imagination and made me read about Jonah’s adventure in a new way, with humor and with a fresh, engaging insight into what the story tells us about God. I enjoyed it so much I may give you a copy of it. If I do, please read it and tell me what you think; enjoy it or be aggravated by it and tell me what you think.
The readings this week follow and affirm some of what we talked about last week. Take Jonah for example and last week’s thoughts about an angry God. Jonah wants God to be angry with the people of Nineveh, angry enough to obliterate them, wipe them off the face of the earth. In chapter four, he complains about God’s attitude and tells us why he ran away from his calling.
That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning: for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing.
Let me return to the scripture for today. Paul is wrestling with the question about how believers are supposed to live in the time between the resurrection of Jesus and his return to rule the world. As he writes the letter the community is struggling with its disappointment at the delay, and wondering if they got it wrong. If Jesus hasn’t returned are the other things we believe true?
Paul’s response is, I think, more perceptive than he is aware of. That is often true in scripture; the words are true in deeper and wider ways than the original writer intended and different from what the first hearers thought they meant. I’m not sure Paul understood how profound his words are; the present form of this world is passing away. Those who first read Paul’s words, understandably, thought he was speaking only about their generation. He was speaking about their generation but not only about their generation.
We can look back over the last two thousand years and see times when there were dramatic shifts in history, times when an old order was disappearing or passing away, and something new was emerging. Such times are always stressful and the people are understandably anxious. Old certainties are being questioned or discarded, new views of the way the world works are emerging. Think of some of the epochal shifts we now accept as normal.
The rise of nationalism was such a shift. We think nations are normal, but an earlier generation thought the world was falling apart as nations began to replace kingdoms and empires, and the feudal system passed away. The industrial revolution was a time of great confusion and anxiety. People migrated from the farm to the city; the nation’s work patterns and the structure of society were irrevocably changed. The automobile replaced the horse, the world got noisier and began to move faster, and people wondered how those who made a living cleaning up behind horses on the city streets would be able to survive.
We live in a time of dramatic and irrevocable change. Can we see the present form of our world passing away? Technology, especially in communication, has reshaped the way we think about many things, and reshaped the way we act. Typewriters are gone, our mobile telephones are almost permanently attached to our bodies, and I’ve heard that compact disks are an endangered species. Globalization is out of the box and no matter how hard isolationists try, we will never be able to get back in the box of the way things used to be. The present form of this world is passing away.
Paul wrote his letter to a generation that was experiencing huge changes in their world. The present form of [their] world [was] passing away. They were tempted to doubt and be afraid. Paul’s advice seems skewed by his conviction that the end is near. Here is what he says:
the appointed time has grown short; from now on let those who have wives be as those they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no possessions, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it.
Understandably, this passage has been read as a call to detach from the world. Because Jesus is coming soon, there is no reason to spend time with worldly concerns, including our closest relationships. Some people, churches and sects have read the text that way and tried to “drop out” of the conventional world; for the most part they haven’t been very successful. How can these words have meaning for us almost 2,000 years after they were written? It’s been two millennia and Jesus still hasn’t returned as Paul expected.
Some would say Paul was simply mistaken, but I believe there is a better way to read and understand his words. Because of Jesus, we can be more detached from the way things are and more open and trusting about the changing world. We can be more detached and, at the same time, more caring and more meaningfully and creatively involved and committed to the things that endure. Time and again we can sort out and test our values and commitments. Are they part of something that is passing away, used up and increasingly irrelevant, or are they eternal? Without fear, refusing to live looking backward or clinging to things that are passing away, we can choose to follow Jesus, trust God’s Spirit and look forward with resilient, stubborn faith and hope.
We can be detached from the fear and frenzy around us, be calmer about the future, and more creatively responsive to the challenges of our generation. Christ Jesus became flesh and lived among us, full of grace and truth. His Spirit still moves with grace and purpose in our lives and in the world around us. We can make a difference in the world if we do our best to follow Jesus (who we claim is the way, the truth and the life), and if we learn to listen critically and refuse to be satisfied with convenient half truths. As Christians we must take the challenge to be thoughtful and educated citizens.
As you know, I am distressed with the fast and loose sound-bite politics we are being fed by so many. Sensational, negative ads and intentional half truths (or outright lies) distract us from serious discussions about our life together in America and the world. It takes an effort to sort out the truth and find clarity and balance for the choices we make and the values we live for—as we follow Jesus.
We live in a time when we should have more information than ever before to help us make better informed decisions. If all our media were committed to seeking the truth, we would have more and better information, but too many sources begin with predetermined conclusions, and deliberately leave out any facts or credible opinions that question or contradict their point of view.
You would reasonably expect that all the recent political debates (there have been 17 of them) would help us make sense of the issues we face as a nation in the community of nations, but mostly what we get are over-simplified sound bites and intentional audience-pleasing slogans. Maybe that is what we as a nation deserve with our diminishing attention spans and insatiable demand to be entertained, but I think we deserve better and we should both demand and give more to our national debate.
Let me give you an example of my concern. In a recent debate, one of the candidates said that when he is Commander-in-Chief he will build a military so strong that no one would even try to oppose it. It was clear he was talking about the number of men and women in uniform, and about a huge investment in developing weapons.
There may have been a time when his statement would have made sense, but that form of the world has passed away. The audience applauded loudly at the candidate’s words, but I only heard a naïve, simplistic sound bite—at best meaningless and at worst dangerous. I’m not a military strategist, but having spent most of my life in the military, this kind of discussion is in my wheelhouse of understanding.
When Rome was at the height of its power, bigger may have been better, but even then the most powerful military the world had ever seen was constantly being challenged by upstart tribes. I’m not sure there has ever been a time when a military was so powerful no one would oppose it; there has always been a David for Goliath—but guerrilla warfare and independent terrorist movements have exposed the nonsensical simplicity of thinking that we can build such a big and strong military that no one will oppose it.
Allow me a metaphor. One of my pet peeves is the existence of mosquitoes. I’ve had more than a few words with God about the mosquito. God refuses to comment. When I lived in the South, there was more than one night when I was drifting off to sleep only to hear the maddening buzz of a mosquito. Try to ignore that. He buzzes and he bites, and no matter how hard I try I can’t get to sleep. Finally, I get up and begin the search. I lie in wait and I listen. Most of the time I found him and destroyed him. With a sigh I’d settle down to sleep, only to have another one show up. Now I am a lot more powerful than a mosquito, but it doesn’t deter him from taking me on.
We already have the most powerful military in the world, but the mosquitoes are multiplying, and getting bigger and stronger is not the best way to deal with them. National defense is too important for nonsensical crowd-pleasing sound bites. National defense and its relationship to and impact on other issues in our economy, society, and the world are too important for superficial, crowd-pleasing slogans and sloppy thinking.
We Christians are called to be thoughtful, critical-thinking and prayerful citizens. We have signed on to an adventure that refuses to be tied to the past. We are looking for a new creation, and while we look, we share our faith with the world. We share our faith in God and we share the values of our faith, including values of justice and mercy, respect for others and the courage to face an uncertain future unafraid.
The Lord says, “Come let us reason together.” We are called to be a reasonable, thoughtful, substantive people. We are not caught in the seductive traps of our generation. Sound bites and slogans don’t work for us. Instead we listen and work to understand deeper, more enduring, even eternal truths. We are open to the future, always asking God to help us clarify our timeless values and faith while we live in an ever-changing world. The present form of this world is passing away. Great! Let’s get on with it!
Sermon 15Jan2012
1 Samuel 3:1-20; Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18; 1 Corinthians 6:12-20; John 1:43-51
One of the most famous sermons in our nation’s history was preached in the mid 1700’s by the Puritan Jonathan Edwards. You can find it in many anthologies of American literature; its title is Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. It is a powerful sermon more nuanced than its title and worth reading. One of the most vivid images Edwards conjures is a spider dangling over a fiery abyss, the slender, silken thread, held in the hand of an angry God, the only thing keeping it from annihilation. It is a shame the sermon is the only thing most people know about Jonathan Edwards; he was a splendid preacher and many of his sermons are less sensational but more representative of his love for God and faith in God’s grace. While the sermon is, as I said, more nuanced than its title, the title is fair to the message, and reflects what many people believe. You are a sinner and God is angry, and unless you repent and receive Jesus as your Lord and Savior you are doomed. Angry, God will let go of the thread and you, the spider, will be lost in the flames of an endless agony for all time.
Imbedded in the sermon is the conviction that God knows you, and what God knows most of all is that you are fallen and flawed, even corrupt. This is the core narrative that has driven most theology in the the Western Church, the narrative that nearly consumes all other narratives. It is the narrative in many conservative and fundamentalist churches in America. Sunday after the Sunday the message is essentially the same; you are a sinner, hopelessly lost without the grace of God. Unless you accept and receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior you have no hope and are irretrievably outside the circle of God’s love.
There is important truth in that understanding of our Christian message, but it is only one fragment in a greater mosaic of God Word to us and God’s Way with us. I became a Christian in response to such a sermon; confessed my sin, my failure, and my utter inability to save myself, prayed for God’s forgiveness, and asked Jesus to come into my heart and save me. It was an important step in my journey with God, a magnificently gracious and transforming step in my journey. I used to say it was only the beginning, but it wasn’t the beginning. God had been working in my life long before I recognized it. God’s grace and the love of Jesus were pulsating in and around me for a long time before I knelt at the altar that December evening in 1971. He knew me when I was being knit together in my mother’s womb.
Listen again to the Psalmist sing. O Lord, you have searched me and known me—you are acquainted with all my ways. When I was made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth, your eyes beheld my unformed substance. I love the humility that follows the Psalmist’s meditation on the greatness of God. He has been inspired and seen an incredible vision of God’s ever-presence, but he quickly comes to the end of what he can comprehend. God’s thoughts are not only weighty, not only profound beyond words—there are also so many of them, more than I can begin to understand, more than my brain can hold—like the sands of the sea or the near-endless desert. Your thoughts are so vast, so many—but this I know, the Psalmist sings, you are with me from the before the beginning to beyond the end, you are with me and you know me. When I come to the end of what I understand—you are with me, and I am still with you
God doesn’t seem angry in the Psalm and the Psalmist doesn’t reflect on his sin and unworthiness. God does seem angry in the lesson from Samuel. The sons of Eli are in the hands of an angry God. They and their father have been warned repeatedly about the way they treat holy things, how they misuse their positions in the temple; they blaspheme God by what they say and how they behave.
From Genesis to Revelation the Bible makes it clear that there are consequences for the choices we make and the way we live. Nothing is of greater consequence to God than the way God’s priests and God’s people treat one another and all others in the world. One of the greatest abuses is how we represent and misrepresent God and God’s message—and how we treat others because of what we believe. We cannot understand all the ways of God, our brains are too small, but we are responsible for what we believe, what we know, and how we share it.
Today’s lessons agree on a few simple things. Let me say it again. God knows us—it is inescapably clear that God knows you and me, inside and out, in the light and in the shadows of our personalities. God knows our strengths and our weaknesses, our honesty and our pretence. God knew Samuel before Samuel had much of a clue about God. Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him. Samuel did not know God, but God knew Samuel.
In the Gospel Jesus knows Nathanael long before Nathanael knows him. Nathanael asked him, “Where did you get to know me?” Jesus tells him, I saw you under the fig tree. Judging from Nathanael’s response, there is a lot more going on with the fig tree than we are privy to. Jesus’ simple words spark a torrent of faith from Nathanael.
Notice that Jesus doesn’t speak a word of negative judgment to the soon-to-be disciple. The fig tree is a rich symbol throughout the scriptures, typically a place of shade and rest, and a place to meditate on life and faith, on God and the meaning of life. Jesus isn’t angry and he doesn’t threaten. He affirms Nathanael, calls him a man in whom there is no deceit, and, in a few cryptic, intimately personal words, he reaches out to him. This is a meeting beyond rational explanation, a meeting between hearts, the searching heart of God and the seeking heart of one man. This is no sinner in the hands of an angry God.
God knows what we all know in our times of clarity. God knows that we are flawed and that we fail to live up to our own modest standards let alone the standards we might imagine God has for us. But contrary to some of the preaching we may have been subject to when we were young or heard more recently, God is rarely angry with us. God’s infinitely patient, first and final impulses are to help us come to him, to find Christ and find ourselves in him. God’s essential impulses are love and grace, a father and a mother’s heart for their lost and wandering child.
As I’ve said many times, God is not indifferent to wickedness and will judge sinners and their sin for the damage they do, but anger is the least and last of God’s passions. God yearns and seeks, reaches out and calls out, weeps for the wounded and for those who wound, pities the prideful and grieves for the arrogant, forgives and comes to rescue the lost and brokenhearted. God knows who we are, completely—there are no secrets—and God loves us altogether—shadow and light, beauty and flaws, when we succeed and when we fail.
Where do you begin with God? Where does your faith take you in your relationship with Christ? Is God angry with you, or is God yearning to be with you? The British theologian, Leslie Weatherhead, said something special about our faith in Christ. Wanting to sum up his understanding of Christianity, he wrote, I think the essence of the matter might be stated by saying that Christianity is the acceptance of the friendship of Jesus.
We have a choice about what we believe is at the center of our faith. That choice affects the way we feel about ourselves and how we see and treat others. Is it “sinners in the hands of an angry God,” or is it “friendship with Jesus?” Maybe it is a measure of both, but where do you begin and where do you end, where do you live in between? It has taken me many years to clear out some of the clutter of my theology, to answer that question. Where do I begin, where do I end and where do I live in between in my faith in Christ? There is so much I don’t know and more than I don’t understand. God’s thoughts are as vast as the sands of the sea and my understanding is like a small plastic pail for playing at the beach.
I do believe in a just God and that there are days of judgment, but judgment and anger are not at the center of what I believe or what I share with you and others. At the center, at the beginning, at the end, and in between I believe in grace over threat and friendship over fear. I hear Jesus say again and again, “Do not be afraid.” I listen carefully and I hear him say, I no longer call you servant. I call you friend.
Sermon 08Jan2012
Genesis 1:1-5; Psalm 29; Acts 19:1-7; Mark 1:4-11
With all their history and devotion to the Bible, with their rich library of sacred stories, the religions guided and nurtured by the Bible are not meant to be backward looking. We read our sacred texts for understanding and we pray as we read for wisdom and discernment, but God’s Word does not draw us back to the past; there is no golden age when God was able to take a break and settle down for a season to enjoy the world God had created. Nations, societies and cultures have never been ideal. It is a cruel fantasy that believes we can go back to a better time. We can have fragments of memory from our childhoods or snatches of over-simplified history lessons we learned in elementary school, but there is no place or time without its glaring imperfections, cruelties, hardships and injustices. We waste our lives indulging such fanciful yearnings.
Our Christian faith is not backward looking; it is dynamically forward looking. Organized or institutional religion routinely gets this wrong. As we become organized we become increasingly comfortable with the status quo and are at least suspicious of and sometimes hostile to the future-moving dynamic of the Holy Spirit.
When we read the Bible only as an historical, rigidly coded and set document, we misunderstand, misuse and dishonor its power. As I said last week, sacred scripture, the Bible, is less about information and more about transformation—our transformation in mind and heart. We read it, we ponder its meaning and we pray, “Create in me a clean heart and renew in me a right understanding.” Every week after the reading of the Gospel we sing, “Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.” Following the revealed Word of God, following Jesus, we are a forward-looking, forward-moving people.
Let’s look briefly at the readings for this week. From the beginning God is moving forward. The Lord God calls light out of chaos and separates the light from the darkness. This is our creation story and it begins with God. It is fine to choose to read the passage as the straight-forward delineation of day from night—a beautiful and necessary reading to contemplate. In the beginning—there was a beginning even to the cycle of day and night, a beginning crafted by the infinitely creative God in anticipation of a natural order, a fundamental gift of love from our Creator. But the meaning of God’s separating of the light from the darkness is more than the establishment of the rotation of our planet from night to day.
God is always moving forward into the future, working to separate the darkness of ignorance and self-centered living from the light of wisdom and self-giving love. Look at the way God wants us to move, from evening to morning—from darkness to light. It was true the first day of creation, and it is true today, and tomorrow; God moves over the face of the earth to bring a new day, what one biblical writer insists on calling a new creation. Time and again for God, the old has passed away; behold the new has come.
Today’s responsive Psalm has the same energy. God is always doing. God’s voice, God’s Word is always shaking up things; thundering, breaking the cedars, skipping, flashing in flames, shaking the wilderness. God’s word will shake the wilderness, in our land and around the world—the wilderness of fear and inhumanity, the wilderness of needless suffering and neglect, the wilderness of our own inner spiritual poverty. The Psalmist sings a prayer at the end, “May the Lord give strength to his people! May the Lord bless his people with peace!” It is a prayer we can believe in—forward-looking, forward-moving; looking to the future, not lost in the past.
In the New Testament reading Paul travels to Ephesus and finds some disciples, about twelve of them. They are faithful believers, but they are missing something. Following John the Baptizer they have repented, turned around and embraced Jesus as the Messiah. Paul tells them the news, that John’s baptism was only the beginning. There is something more; a force, a spiritual power, the presence and power of the living God to launch them into the future, the radical dynamism of the faith in the resurrected Jesus.
The Gospel takes us to that day, long ago, when Jesus came to John and was baptized. John knows his baptism is preliminary to something greater. Facing the past, we acknowledge the wrong we have done, confess whatever feelings we have of incompleteness, inadequacy, wrongness, loss or emptiness. John brings us to the doorway of the future; we come to terms with our past, however dark it is, we come to terms with the past in the lavish light and wholesale forgiveness of God. And in God’s grace we stand poised for the ever-dawning future. Jesus himself is baptized, like us turning a page from his quiet and incognito past into a future driven and guided by the Holy Spirit.
As Jesus enters the water the heavens are torn apart and the Spirit descends like a dove. The heavens are torn apart—that sounds like the Psalm we just read. And the Spirit descends like a dove. I’ve always imagined a gentle descent of the dove-like Spirit, but that may be wrong. I remember the doves from my wanderings in Texas fields. They fly like furies, darting this way and that, like feathered ordnance ready to explode into a new patch of air in the open sky.
It takes a powerful Spirit to get us moving forward and keep us moving forward. There are other spirits abroad in the world; spirits that hold us back from God’s future, spirits of fear and fearful caution. We see and hear it in our politics and we see and hear it in every religion in the world—including our treasured Christianity. Shamefully, in much of our history the Church has supported the powerful and neglected the powerless. Around the world and through the centuries we, the Church, have clung to the comfort and false security of the status quo. We have been hesitant to risk the possibilities of justice and peace; we have been hesitant to risk the consequences of Christian love.
As this new year dawns, let’s remember the radical call of our baptism into the new reality of Jesus the resurrected and living Lord. When we celebrate Holy Communion, we repeat his words after breaking the bread and pouring the cup. “Whenever you do this, remember me.” He isn’t telling us to remember him in history, but to remember him, to remember he is here and now. Today is the day of salvation, today is the day to turn resolutely to the future; in Paul’s words, forgetting what is behind, we press on to the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
Here is a promise to claim for this new year, for every new year, for every day and every moment. From Jeremiah we hear God speak, “I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.”
Do not listen to those who play on your fear and apprehension. What or who are you afraid of? God is with you. Do not follow those who try to lead you back into a day that never really existed. We are a people of hope, a people of now and a people with a future. We do not spend our lives looking back and yearning. This is the world we have, the world we have been given. Of course we learn from the past, but the lessons we learn and the values we claim from the past find their place and come to life in this new day. We look and we labor and we live through evening and the dark of every night for the dawning of a new day in the company of Jesus our Lord and friend. Amen.
Sermon 01Jan2012
Isaiah 61:10-62:3; Psalm 148; Galatians 4:4-7; Luke 2:22-40
We read scripture differently than we read other writings. There are times to read large portions of the Bible, to read an entire Gospel, one of the dramatic stories of the Old Testament, or a collection of Psalms. Occasionally we need to glimpse the grand sweep of our sacred story. Mostly we take time with scripture, time to explore the subtleties and suggestions of the Word, and time to plumb the depths of the sacred text. We read slowly and take time to digest what we read. We take time and listen as the Holy Spirit opens the treasures of revelation. The Bible is less about information and more about transformation; transformation of mind and heart. Many scriptures have layers of insight and meaning, layers only revealed to the patient and prayerful reader.
Today’s Gospel is such a richly layered story. There are at least four stories in these few verses. There is a telling episode in Mary and Joseph’s story. There is the story of Simeon, and the story of Anna. Finally there is a simple and portentous note about Jesus’ story. I encourage you to take time with each fragment this week, one at a time. Prayerfully read and rest with the words and allow your Spirit-inspired imagination to roam over fields of life-changing insight and lessons—lessons for the heart.
Mary and Joseph bring the infant Jesus to the temple at the appointed time for his ritual purification and presentation to God. They aren’t a wealthy couple; they don’t have enough to buy a lamb for the sacrifice—two doves or pigeons, the less expensive sacrifice allowed the poor. Once again we are reminded that Jesus wasn’t born to privilege, he wasn’t born to a house of wealth or influence or worldly power. He is common, born into the mass of common people, like most of us, like you and me.
Jesus is, however, born into a faithful home. That is his blessing and his privilege. Mary and Joseph are simple people and faithful. They have heard the angels speak, and still they listen to words of faith, promise and revelation from the written Word of God, the Torah. They come to the temple at the appointed time and make the appropriate sacrifice. Faithful and obedient, Mary and Joseph are young, first-time parents, and they do the right thing for Jesus. They bring him to the community of faith, and with him they continue their journey of faithfulness in the house of God.
Move to the end of the passage and see the consequence of their simple faith and obedience. “The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him.” Mary and Joseph didn’t do it alone. They were part of a community of faith. They lived their common, every-day lives in the holy embrace of worship, study, and prayer. Simple models of faithfulness, they watched as their child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom.
That should be message enough for some of you this New Year’s Day. You have come to the temple, obediently, to worship and pray, to share the communion bread of peace. And this morning we have baptized Lina; her family brought her to the community of faith and to God in faith and obedience, and we believe the favor of God is upon her, and that she will grow strong and be filled with wisdom.
Mary and Joseph are not alone in the temple. Simeon and Anna are there too. They are among the gifted treasures of the community. They are among the elders who have lived to see the times change in the world; they have known hardship and loss, they have celebrated the birth of many and mourned the death of many. They have seen much, but they know they haven’t seen it all. Each of them has a story, a very different story, but both of them have centered their lives and put their trust in God and in God’s promise. They are not disappointed.
Three times in three verses, Mark says the Holy Spirit is with Simeon. The Holy Spirit rested on him; it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit; guided by the Holy Spirit Simeon came to the temple—rested on, revealed, and guided. With the Spirit, Simeon is a model of patient faithfulness; he lived his life in faithful obedience, and he waited for the salvation of God, salvation not only for the house of Israel, but for the world—a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for the glory of your people Israel. Filled with wisdom, Simeon the elder tells Mary the young mother what is in store for her son and for her. He tells her the good news and he tells her of the pain that will pierce her soul. Days of joy and days of sorrow lie ahead for Mary and her son, but Simeon assures her that God has it all firmly in hand, and that the end of the story is glory.
Notice the movement of God’s grace in Jesus. This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many. Usually we speak of the rising and the falling—the rise and fall of the Third Reich, the rise and fall of a young actor or entrepreneur. God’s rhythm is different, falling precedes rising. In God’s grace we fall to rise; for all that falls, in God’s grace, history itself will rise in the end. In the aftermath of 2011, that is good news for all of us—this year or next, tomorrow or at the end of days, however far we have fallen or however far we fall, we will rise again. It is God’s promise in Jesus.
What Simeon tells Mary, Anna tells everyone. The message is not for a few, but good news to all who [are] looking for the redemption of Israel. There is more to Anna’s story. She, like Simeon, has kept the faith, maintained her hope, through times of loss and abandonment. I don’t know if Anna was literally and physically “in the temple” all the time. But I do believe she lived in the temple of the omnipresent God; she lived moment by moment in awareness of the Presence of God.
Simeon and Anna remind us of the elders in our community, and of their wisdom—gained through decades of experience, through falling and rising, in the grace of God. Their wisdom and understanding are here for all of us and for our children. They are gifts of God for the people of God.
We have only skimmed the surface of the stories in today’s Gospel—Mary and Joseph, Simeon and Anna, and Jesus. What we hear should give us hope for the coming year, and remind us of how important we are together. Jesus is “launched” into his future in and from the community of faith. In a place like this he grew and became strong, filled with wisdom. If the house of God, the community of faith, was important for Jesus to grow, the locus of his learning and life, how much more is it important for each of us.
Blessings in the New Year. May you grow in your faith and your life. May you become strong, and be filled with wisdom. May the favor of God be upon you.
"God is with us. We are not alone.
Thanks be to God."
|
|
