Grace Episcopal Church (Sheldon, VT)

Epiphany 4 Year A RCL January 30, 2011

Micah 6:1-8
Psalm 15
1 Corinthians 1:18-31
Matthew 5:1-12

God does not see things as we do. God is not concerned with the externals. God is not concerned with the outward appearance. That is one theme of today’s lessons. Another theme is that all these lessons help us to understand what qualities mark the lives of people and communities who are dedicated to the building of God’s reign on earth. Shalom people and shalom communities.

The prophet Micah lived and worked in the eighth century B.C.E. He was a contemporary of the great prophet Isaiah. As he looks at the religious and secular leaders of his time, Micah sees widespread corruption. The people have forgotten that God led them out of slavery in Egypt and has walked every step of the way with them ever since. They are focussed on externals. Their worship consists of sacrifices of things—animals. The people are even turning to thoughts of sacrificing their eldest sons, as the native Canaanites do.

God does not want any of this. God is concerned about the offering of our hearts, minds, and spirits. God wants us to focus on the spiritual journey as individuals and as communities. So Micah writes the words which have come down to us through the ages, words which call us to a truth which is as relevant today as it was almost three thousand years ago. “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” To do justice means to focus on equity in all human relationships. To love kindness, in Hebrew hesed, mercy, or compassion, mean to be faithful in covenant relationships, to maintain solidarity with others, including those in need or trouble. To walk humbly with your God. Humility comes from the root word humus—good earth ready for planting. Humility is openness to God, the will and desire to be open to God’s will rather than our own will. Walter Brueggemann says that “to do justice is to be actively engaged in the redistributi0n of power in the world, to correct the systematic inequalities that marginalize some for the excessive enhancement of others.” He says that “to walk humbly with God means to abandon all self-sufficiency, to acknowledge in daily attitude and act that life is indeed derived from the reality of God.”

The beatitudes flesh out this thinking. Happy are they. Fortunate are they who have these attitudes. Happy are the poor in spirit. Fortunate are those who realize that they need God. Blessed are those who mourn. Blessed are those who have a profound sense of the brokenness of this world and of how far the world is from where God wants it to be. Blessed are the meek. Meek. Now there is a word we don’t use that often. Meek does not mean weak or being like Mr. Milquetoast. Scholars tell us that the best one word translation is nonviolent. Blessed are those who renounce the methods of this world’s power. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness. Blessed are those who actively pursue their spiritual life, who engage in active seeking for God and for right relationship with God and with others. Blessed are the merciful, for they will obtain mercy. Again, compassion is the mark of a shalom person and a shalom community. Blessed are the pure in heart. Blessed are those who are devoted to God with all their hearts, who are not divided in their loyalty. Blessed are the peacemakers. Blessed are those who pursue the ministry of reconciliation.

The church in Corinth is marked by factions, as we saw last week. This week we find that there are some who lord it over others because they claim special wisdom. Paul is almost desperate to get these people to see the point that shalom community has one focus and one focus only. Here, the paradox of our faith is most clearly evident. The cross was the way the Roman Empire eradicated those who would dare to challenge the status quo. Kings did not die on the cross. Only the poor and outcast, only the powerless were crucified. Yet Paul is saying that the Cross reveals God’s power. Because, if we truly allow ourselves to absorb and to participate in the ministry of our Lord, if we allow the love and the compassion and the strength of his courage to infuse our hearts and minds and spirits and lives, then something happens.

Nothing else matters because, in the light of Christ as the mystic Julian of Norwich said, all manner of thing shall be well. We can let go and let God. We can focus on the only thing that is going to make us and the world whole, the love of God in Christ. We can ask for help instead of trying to prove how well we can manage things on our own. And, with that help, things go differently, very differently. Everything is transformed. We become channels of God’s peace and wholeness. Individuals and communities become living, vibrant icons of God’s shalom, and the whole creation moves ever closer to God’s vision of wholeness.

Amen.

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Epiphany 2 Year A RCL January 16, 2011

Isaiah 49:1-7
Psalm 40: 1-12
1 Corinthians 1: 1-9
John 1: 29-42

What does it mean to be called by God? Today’s lessons give us insight into this question. In our lesson from Isaiah, the Servant is discouraged. He knows he is called; he knows that God has called him from even before the time he was born, as indeed God has called you and me. The Servant is trying to call the people Israel back from their exile in Babylon, back to Zion, back to community with each other and with God. But the message is falling on deaf ears.

The Servant complains to God about this. “I have labored in vain. I have spent my strength for nothing.” This is an excellent example for us. When we are trying to do God’s work and things are going poorly, we need to talk to God about it. It may sound like complaining, but it is really praying.

God hears, but what does God do? In the case of the Servant, God expands the mission. The Servant’s mission is not just to the people Israel, but to everyone. “I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.” Watch out. Sometimes when things are not going that well, God expands the vision and the mission by a few quantum leaps!

In today’s gospel, John the Baptist has a two-fold calling. First, he has to know who he is not. He is not the Messiah. Secondly, he has to proclaim Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God, the Lamb of God. This phrase has so many meanings. If we were to try to sum them up, we might say that Jesus is the One, who, by offering himself, heals all the brokenness of the world. As John continues to proclaim Jesus as the Messiah, two of John’s disciples follow Jesus. Jesus asks them, “What are you looking for?” He knows they are seekers of spiritual truth. They ask him, “Where are you staying?” This is more than a request for his address. This is a question about what he is about, how they can hear more. He says, “Come and see.” Ultimately maybe he is saying, “It’s a hands-on thing. You have to live it.” They go with him and they remain with him that day. This is all it takes for Andrew, one of the men, to go home and tell his brother, Simon Peter, “We have found the Messiah.” How the word spreads after that!

Today we read the opening portion of Paul’s letter to the Church in Corinth, a bustling port city with all sorts of temples to various gods and goddesses, all kinds of philosophies being discussed. The congregation in Corinth is blessed with many gifts. Lack of gifts is not their problem. The people in Corinth tend to divide into factions. They have many controversies over which gifts are better and which teachers are superior. Is it Paul, or Apollos or someone else who is best?

Today, Paul begins to build the foundation for a letter full of teaching. He tells the people that they are not lacking in any spiritual gift. Later on, as you know, he will tell them that the greatest gift of all is agape—unconditional love, the kind of love that mirrors, as best we can, God’s love for us. He also emphasizes this matter of being called by God. He, Paul, is called to be an apostle, and he tells the people that they, too, are called into the fellowship of God’s Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Paul will spell out later in this letter the idea that gifts are given to build up the Body of Christ rather than to divide the Body.

What is all this saying to us, here in the twenty-first century in Sheldon, Vermont? One thing is that, in the Church in Corinth and in the Church in Sheldon, we are called into the fellowship of Jesus Christ, the community of Christ. The Greek word for this is koinonia. And in Corinth, and in Sheldon, in every Church, there are plenty of gifts to get the job done.

In Grace Church, Sheldon, Vermont, we have all the gifts we need to do the ministry to which we are called. We are not too small or too poor or too weak or too anything else to be the light of Christ. We have all the gifts we need. We have an overflowing of gifts of the Holy Spirit. We are the Body of Christ here in this place; we have everything we need to do God’s work, and God is going to give us the strength to do that work. God is at this very moment strengthening us.

We are called. God has called us since before we were born, when we were still in our mother’s womb. We are called into koinonia, fellowship, community. And we have all the gifts we need to do a beautiful job of carrying out our ministry together.

This past week, we have all been keeping the situation in Tucson in our thoughts and prayers. We remember those who were killed—Christina Taylor Green, a nine year old girl who had just been elected to her student council and wanted to meet her Congresswoman; Dorothy Morris, a retired homemaker and secretary, who died in the shooting while her hospital, George, a retired airline pilot, remains in the hospital recovering; John Roll, a highly respected federal judge who lived his faith; Phyllis Schneck, who, after raising her children, devoted her time to volunteering at her church; Dorwin Stoddard, who threw himself on top of his wife to save her life; and Gabe Zimmerman, Director of Community Outreach for Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Gabe had a degree in social work and cared deeply about helping others. He was engaged and planned to be married in 2012. Rest eternal grant them, O Lord, and may light perpetual shine upon them.

We give thanks for the vibrant spunk of Gabrielle Giffords, who opened her eyes and gave, not only a thumbs up, but a raised arm. Her doctors are saying that her whole journey of recovery is a miracle. We thank God and good physicians for miracles like that. And we pray for the others who are continuing to heal, and for their families and all who love them, and for all who are affected by this event. That probably includes our whole country, perhaps even our whole planet.

I would not attempt to try to explain this event. But what I would say is that, in the face of brokenness, we are called to continue to build God’s shalom of wholeness. You are all doing this in your lives. Every one of the people we lost was someone who lived to help others. Let us do the same. Let us be a community of love, compassion, healing, and transformation.

Amen.

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