Psalm 147 | Grace Episcopal Church (Sheldon, VT)

Epiphany 5B February 7, 2021

Posted on February 7, 2021 by Beth Crane

Isaiah 40:21-31
Psalm 147:1-12, 21c
1 Corinthians 9:16-23
Mark 1:29-39

Scholars tell us that our first reading today dates back to 540 years before the birth of Christ. King Cyrus of Persia has just conquered Babylon, where God’s people have been in exile for several decades. It hasn’t been easy for them. They miss their homeland. They are devastated at the loss of their temple, the center of their worship. But they have persevered. They have continued to pray and study the Scriptures. They have kept their community together.

Thus sounds a bit like us, doesn’t it? We miss our beloved church building. We yearn to be back together. We are tired of fasting from the Holy Eucharist. Yet we are staying together, as much as we can on Zoom. We study the Scriptures together and reflect on how they apply to our lives even though they were written so long ago.

In this particular passage, God’s people are feeling as though God has abandoned them. Why would God let an enemy like the Babylonians conquer them, drag them to a foreign land with alien gods and leave them to fend for themselves?

This passage is God’s answer to these people who are suffering. First, God puts things in perspective. God portrays Godself as the Holy One who sits enthroned on high, looks down at the earth, and sees us humans as the size of grasshoppers. But even though we look like insects from God’s holy vantage point, God cares deeply about us. God asks the people, “Have you not seen? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not grow faint or weary….He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless. Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted; but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”

Have we perhaps wondered whether God is abandoning us? Have we thought that God is just leaving us alone to cope with this pandemic?

Even though it deals with events that occurred twenty-five hundred years ago, this passage is saying to us, “No, God does not abandon God’s people.” As Christians, we know that Jesus is right in the midst of us, leading and guiding us as we cope with this situation.

In our epistle, Paul is giving us a wonderful example. He is saying that, when he ministers to people, he becomes one of them, just as Jesus became one of us. Paul is reminding us that when we minister to folks, we need to walk in their shoes; we need to understand where they are coming from, how they think, what problems they are facing, and how we can help them. That is exactly what our Lord did when he was here with us during his earthly life.

In our gospel, Jesus leaves the synagogue in Capernaum, where he has just healed a man, and goes to the home of Peter and Andrew. Peter’s mother-in-law is in bed with a fever. and of course, they tell Jesus about this. Immediately Jesus goes to help her.

He takes her by the hand. Imagine how it would feel to have Jesus take you by the hand. His healing power is flowing into you. You are filled with love and hope. You feel all of his healing energy focused on you. All that is broken within you is being made whole.

The fever leaves her. And she immediately gets back to her ministry among them. She serves the meal.

And then the word gets out, People from all over bring sick folks to be healed. The text says, “The whole city was gathered around the door.” We can imagine that Jesus continued healing people into the night and then finally lay down to get some rest.

But while it is still dark, he gets up and goes to a deserted place to pray. This is something Jesus always did. He took time away to pray. This is how he stayed close to God, just as we need to do. If we are going to be able to light our lamps, we have to put in the oil. Prayer is the source of our closeness with our Lord. Prayer is how we allow God to nurture our gifts, renew us, and give us guidance.

When they finally find him out in the deserted place, he tells them that they have to go to the neighboring towns so that he can share the good news and heal people. He has spent time with God, and his energy is renewed. He will journey with them throughout Galilee.

What are these readings saying to us today? Many centuries ago, when God’s people were in exile and feeling abandoned, God spoke to God’s people through the prophet Isaiah. God let them know that God was with them. God had not abandoned them. God was helping them to keep the faith, stay together as a community, and prepare for their life together after the exile. Indeed, they did return to Jerusalem.

As Christians, we have an even stronger message from God about how much God loves us and how close God is to us right now. In Jesus, God came among us to show us how to live. We see Jesus in our gospel today, pouring out his energy to heal people and to show us how to live the Way of Love.

The risen Christ is with us now. He is in our midst, helping us to cope with Zoom and perhaps even be grateful for it; giving us the resilience to hang in there and take care of ourselves and others; giving us the patience to wait for our chance to be immunized; keeping us together; leading and guiding us as our Good Shepherd. May we always remember that. He is with us. Always. He will never abandon us.

Loving God, thank you for being with us. Thank you for leading and guiding us. Give us your grace that we may follow where you lead. In your Holy Name. Amen.

Filed under: Reverend Janet Brown, Sermons | Tagged: 1 Corinthians 9, Babylon, Isaiah 40, King Cyrus of Persia, Mark 1, Peter and Andrew, Psalm 147 | Leave a comment »

First Sunday after Christmas December 27, 2020

Posted on December 27, 2020 by Beth Crane

Isaiah 61:10-62:3
Psalm 147
Galatians 3:23-25, 4:4-7
John 1:1-18

“Almighty God, you have poured upon us the new light of your incarnate Word: Grant that this light, enkindled in our hearts, may shine forth in our lives; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.” This is our powerful collect for today, the First Sunday after Christmas.

And then, our reading from John’s gospel: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” We can picture in our minds the creation of the world. Christ ,the eternal Word, was there with God, and as God brought forth God’s vision of the creation, Christ, the Word, called the creation into being. Christ, the Word, the Logos, the plan for creation, the model for human life.

And then, in the next phrases of this amazing and inspiring gospel, the light is coming into the world. John the Baptist is testifying to the light. And then the true light, which enlightens everyone, is coming into the world. Jesus, the light of the world, brings light and hope to everyone in the world. We can envision a world of darkness lighting up with the light and love of Christ, We can understand that the light of Christ, the love and hope of Christ, can turn our lives from darkness and despair to light and hope. We can almost picture the whole dark world illuminated by the light of Christ, the dawn of a new day a new year, a new life for everyone.

But then, our gospel says, “He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him,” That led ultimately to the Cross. And yet, even out of that, he brought new life. But to all who were open to him and welcomed him into their lives, “he gave power to become children of God.” When we open our lives to his love, he brings us as close to God as children are to their own loving parents.

“And the Word became flesh and lived among us…full of grace and truth.” God loves us so much that God came among us as one of us, born as a little baby, just as we were born.

He did not come as a conquering warrior, though he could have. He did not come among us as an earthly king, though he could have done that too. He came into human life just as we do, He was born in a little place called Bethlehem, in a cave used as a stable. He was born before Mary and Joseph were married, so some tongues wagged, and some folks considered him to be an illegitimate child. And then, King Herod, who had heard from the wise men about the new king, killed all the baby boys to stamp out that threat. Joseph, a very protective and courageous foster father, and Mary, as protective and courageous as her husband, had to take Jesus into Egypt. This meant that they were refugees, migrants. seeking asylum. Jesus knows what it is to be human and he also knows what it is to be persecuted, marginalized, and demeaned.

When things became safer, the holy family moved back to Nazareth, where Joseph was a carpenter. Jesus grew up learning the carpenter’s trade and studied the scriptures and eventually began his earthly ministry by being baptized by his cousin John in the Jordan River.

After that, he spent somewhere between one and three years, depending on whose account we read, going from place to place telling people how much God loves us and how much God wants us to love each other. In a patriarchal culture, he had high respect for women; in a culture that saw children and women as chattel, possessions, he instructed his disciples to let the children come to him so that he could hold them in his arms. He made it crystal clear that God’s love knows no barriers. This was a threat to people who wanted to preserve their power, and he ended up dying on that horrible instrument of torture called the cross.

And then, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and found that it was empty. He was not there. She saw a man and thought he was the gardener, but he called her name, and she knew that it was Jesus. He had risen. She ran to tell the others. And then people began seeing him. He appeared to two of them on the road to Emmaus, but they didn’t even recognize him until they invited him in for supper and he interpreted the scriptures in a way that set their hearts on fire. Peter and the disciples were out fishing and, when they came ashore there he was, cooking fish and bread over a fire. He appeared to the disciples in the locked upper room and said, “Peace be with you.” And he called us to build his peace, his shalom, over the whole earth. And that’s what we are trying to do, with his grace.

He is alive, He is in our midst, and he is calling us to walk the Way of Love. Let us follow him, our Emmanuel, God with us. Amen.

Filed under: Reverend Janet Brown, Sermons | Tagged: Emmaus, Galatians 3, Herod, Isaiah 61, John 1, Jordan River, Joseph, logos, Mary, Mary Magdalene, Nazareth, Peter, Psalm 147, Shalom | Leave a comment »

Christmas 1 December 30, 2018

Posted on December 30, 2018 by Beth Crane

Isaiah 61:10-62:3
Psalm 147 or 147:13-21
Galatians 3:23-25; 4:4-7
John 1:1-18

Our First reading, from Isaiah, dates to one of the most joyful times in the history of God’s people. After almost fifty years of exile, the people are returning home to rebuild the temple and rebuild their homes and their lives.

This passage is full of images of growth and life. Isaiah writes, “As the earth brings forth its shoots, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations. The word “righteousness” means right relationship with God. This is a beautiful and powerful statement that, just as the earth brings forth good fruit, God is going to give the people grace to have right relationships with God and with each other. This is God’s will for us as well.

Our reading from Galatians traces our spiritual history. For a long time, humans beings were imprisoned under the law. We had the ten commandments to guide us, but we were not able to follow them, and we felt separated from God. Because we could not follow the law, we felt we were drifting farther and farther from God.

Now God has sent his beloved Son, Jesus. Jesus has let us know how much God loves us, and we can now relate to God in the most intimate way. We can call God “Abba,” which is a very familiar and endearing term. This means that we can now call God Dad or Daddy or Mom or Mama. We have been adopted as God’s own beloved children.

Our reading from John’s gospel brings all of this together. John’s gospel begins with the powerful statement, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The Word is Jesus, the logos, the plan, the pattern for life, the blueprint for human existence. The Word brought forth the whole creation.

And then, the powerful Word who has created the universe comes among us, is born just the same way we were born. Some of his own people do not recognize who he is, but those who do realize who he is, those who open their hearts and lives to him, receive grace upon grace. We are among those blessed and fortunate people.

Later on in John’s Gospel Jesus tells us, “The Father and I are one.” (John 10:30.) This means that God loves us so much that God Godself has come among us as a baby. God loves us so much that God adopts us as God’s own children in the closest possible relationship.

John writes, “The Word became flesh and lived among us….From his fullness we have received grace upon grace.” God has come to be with us. God is enfleshed; God is incarnate. What an extraordinary gift!

One other theme that runs through our readings today is light. John writes, “What has come into being in [Jesus] was life, and the life was the light of all people The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” At the darkest time of year, God has come among us. God’s light and love and hope have come to be with us. This is another profound and wonderful gift.

The First Letter of John tells us, “God is love.” God has come to be with us to share God’s love, grace, and truth. In his Christmas message, Bishop Tom says that we can also be a gift to others. We are the gift because we can share God’s love with others. Amen.

Filed under: Reverend Janet Brown, Sermons | Tagged: Galatians 3, Isaiah 61, John 1, Psalm 147 | Leave a comment »

The First Sunday after Christmas December 31, 2017

Posted on December 31, 2017 by Beth Crane

Isaiah 61:10–62:3
Psalm 147:13-21
Galatians 3:23-35; 4:4-7
John 1:1-18

Our readings today are filled with joy. In our opening reading from the prophet known as the Third Isaiah, we are with the people of God as they are returning home from their exile in Babylon. The mood is that of a wedding feast, and the images are of growth and faithfulness. Isaiah says, “For as the earth brings forth its shoots, and as a garden causes what is sown to spring up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations.”

Righteousness means right relationship with God. The people are going to have a new and deeper and truer relationship with God and with each other. The radiance of this renewed relationship will cause God’s people to shine as a light to the world.

In our reading from Paul’s Letter to the Galatians, an impressive amount of theology is condensed into just a few words. Paul, a Pharisee, tells us that before faith came, God’s people were imprisoned in the law. The law was the disciplinarian—we could say the law was the warden of the prison. We were all stuck in this prison because, as Paul says elsewhere, the things we didn’t want to do, we did; and the things we wanted to do we did not do—and we felt miserable and asked God to free us from this bondage.

Then, faith came, or, more accurately, Christ came. Jesus was born just as Paul was born, just as all of us are born. He came among us as a baby. He was one of us. And because of him, we are all now God’s children in a new and deeper and more loving way than ever before. And the Spirit of Christ is in our hearts. God has come among us and has lived a human life. The wonder of this is absolutely amazing. Only a loving and caring God would do such a thing. And what a gift! We are not alone. Our Shepherd and Brother, Jesus, has come into the world just as we did and is now living among us. He is with us to lead us and guide us.

The law is no longer a prison. It is a helpful guide. And now we have the gift of grace to follow the law.

John the Evangelist tells the story in yet another way. “In the beginning was the Word.” The Word- the logos in Greek—the Plan, the Pattern for life. The Word, Wisdom, Christ, was with God at the very beginning. The Word was the one who called the creation into being. God imagined the creation, Christ and Wisdom called it into being.

We can imagine total darkness and the vastness of the universe but nothing else—a void. And then we can imagine stars and galaxies coming into being, and then this one solar system, this one star surrounded by these planets orbiting, and then this one beautiful gem of a planet, all blue and green and tan.

Then comes John the Baptist telling us that the ultimate light was coming into the world. And then Jesus, our light, came into the world. The people in his own hometown did not accept him, but to those who did see him as he really was, he gave new life and a deep, loving relationship with God.

As Isaiah has said, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.” Jesus is our Light. Here in Vermont during this very cold week, the light is increasing. The days are growing longer, and our Light is among us. As John says, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”

John says so much in so few words: “From his fullness,” John writes, “we have all received, grace upon grace.” It is like a waterfall of grace. Each of us has received so much from our Lord. Grace upon grace, overflowing love, forgiveness, and healing.

There is a beautiful hymn, number 84, that sums up the meaning of our readings.

Love came down at Christmas, love all lovely, love divine;
love was born at Christmas; star and angels gave the sign.
Worship we the godhead, love incarnate, love divine;
worship we our Jesus, but wherewith for sacred sign?
Love shall be our token; love be yours and love be mine, love to God and neighbor, love for plea and gift and sign.

Christina Rossetti

God has come among us as one of us. God has given us the gift of God’s very self, God’s loving presence. May we be ever thankful for this wondrous and amazing gift. Amen.

Filed under: Reverend Janet Brown, Sermons | Tagged: Babylon, Christina Rosetti, Christmas, Galatians 3, Isaiah 51, John 1, John the Evangelist, logos, Psalm 147, Third Isaiah | Leave a comment »

Epiphany 5B RCL February 8, 2015

Posted on February 8, 2015 by Beth Crane

Isaiah 40:21-31
Psalm 147:1-12, 41c
1 Corinthians 9:16-23
Mark 1:29-39

Our first reading today dates back to the time of the Exile in Babylon. The powerful Babylonian Empire swept in, attacked, and eventually leveled the temple in Jerusalem. Then they deported the people to a foreign land where they somehow had to survive for several decades.

During the Exile, the people studied the scriptures and prayed and tried to keep their faith and their community together. But, after a while, they began to feel that God has abandoned them. God no longer cared about them. God had forgotten them.

Today’s reading is God’s response. The captives are going to return home. God reminds them and us of God’s majesty and power. God does not grow faint or weary. but God gives strength to those whose energy is flagging. How many times have we gone through a tough time in our lives and wondered where is God in all of this? Then, after we have journeyed through the difficult time, we realize that God was there leading and helping us all the time. As the poem Footprints says, God never leaves us, but sometimes there is only one set of footprints because God is carrying us.

God gives us the power to fly on eagles’ wings.

In our epistle, Paul is under attack. He feels free to eat food that has been sacrificed to idols if, by doing so, he can bring someone into the community of the faithful. He says, “I have become all things to all people that I night by all means save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel….”

Paul is a Jew, a Pharisee, yet he has become the apostle to the gentiles. He is able to walk in the shoes of the people he meets. He shares meals with them, and, if they are eating meat sacrificed to idols, he is not going to make a big fuss over that. For him, God is the only God and every gift comes from God. So he eats and talks with folks and shares about Jesus, and the next thing you know, they want to join the community of faith. He has a right to receive financial support from the community, but he continues to work as a tentmaker because this helps him to meet people and spread the good news. Everything he does is to build up the Body of Christ. Paul gives us a powerful example to follow.

In our gospel, Jesus has just been in the synagogue, where he taught and then freed a man from a demon. Now he goes to the home of Peter and Andrew. He goes from a public space into a private space among friends where , we think, he might get a few moments of rest.But that is not going to happen. Peter’s mother-in-law is in bed with a fever. There is a need for healing.

He takes her by the hand and lifts her up. Let us just imagine this for a moment. We are in bed feeling feverish and unwell and unable to do our normal work, and Jesus comes in and stretches out his hand and lifts us up, What an image. Think of the touch of his hand, the love, the healing power that flows into us.

How difficult it is for us when we are feeling weak or ill or discouraged or maybe even abandoned by God to realize that God is right here with us. Jesus is stretching out his hand to heal us, to give us strength, to lift us up.

Yet we feel we have to do it ourselves, or we feel that we are on our own, that God has more important things to do, or that God has wound up the universe like a clock and has walked off and left it to operate on its own. But no, there is Jesus, reaching out to us. There is his hand, ready to heal us and lift us up.

She gets up. The fever leaves her and she begins to serve them. She gets back to her ministry, The Greek work used here is diakonia, service. We do not know her name, but Peter’s mother-in-law is a disciple and a deacon.

Then the scene changes. At sundown, they bring many people to him who need healing and wholeness. And he touches them all and heals them. The whole city is gathered at the door. He must be very tired after all this. But in the morning when it is still dark, he goes to a deserted place to pray. Jesus is constantly doing this—going apart where he can be quiet and pray. He needs to be renewed and re-energized. He needs to be in the presence of God.

And then Peter wants him to go back because even more people have come to be healed. And healing is a good thing to do, but it is not the core of his mission. William Barclay says that the people are in away using Jesus. They want that quick fix—the healing—but they are not making a commitment to follow Jesus and help him build his kingdom. Barclay writes, “God is not someone to be used in the day of misfortune; he is someone to be loved and remembered every day of our lives.” (William Barclay, The Gospel of Mark, p. 40.)

Jesus does not stay and continue to heal, as important as that is. He is called to go to new places and spread the good news of the kingdom, the shalom of God. He tells the people that the kingdom of

God is in their midst. And he invites them and us to offer ourselves to be transformed and to bring his vision of shalom to reality.

May we follow him, May we build his shalom. Amen.

Filed under: Reverend Janet Brown, Sermons | Tagged: 1 Corinthians 9, diakonia, Epiphany 5, Isaiah 40, Mark 1, Psalm 147, Wiliam Barclay | Leave a comment »

Christmas 1 2013

Posted on December 29, 2013 by Beth Crane

Isaiah 61:10-62:3
Psalm 147 or 147:13-31
Galatians 3: 23-25, 4:4-7
John 1:1-18

“Almighty God, you have poured upon us the new light of your incarnate Word….” That is how our collect for this First Sunday After Christmas begins.

St. Paul tells us that, because Jesus has come among us, we are now on intimate terms with our God, We can call God Abba, meaning “Daddy” or “Mom.” God is no longer far away from us. God is no longer light years away. God is with us. Emmanuel, God with us.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” God has come among us. God has gone through the process of gestation, the adventure of being born into this world which God has made. God has undergone every human experience.

God was not born into a palace or a castle. God was not born into a place of power. As Pope Francis has said, God came into the world as a homeless person. There was no room for them at the inn. God was not born in Jerusalem, the seat of religious and secular power in the Holy Land. God was not born in Rome, the seat of the major empire of the time. God was born in a stable, to a young woman named Mary and a carpenter named Joseph, not to an earthly king and queen or emperor and empress.

John says, “What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.” At the darkest time of the year, the time when we are yearning for the days to become longer, the light comes into the world. That light, that love, will never be overcome by darkness.

John says that the Word made the world. He was and is the eternal Word who called the creation into being, yet when he came to his own people, they did not know him and they did not accept him. But some did, and those people he made children of God. Actually, he has made all of us children of God. He has brought all of us into close relationship with God. We can be grateful because we realize that he has done this. And we can share his love with others.

“And the Word became flesh and lived among us….” Incarnation means “enfleshment.” God becomes human, “Full of grace and truth.” God becomes one of us so that we can look at the life of God in Jesus and see how to live our lives as our Lord would want us to. And there, we see “grace upon grace.”

We can imagine Jesus in Joseph’s shop, playing with the curls of wood from the carpenter’s plane, later learning Joseph’s trade. The hymn “Lord of all hopefulness, Lord of all joy,” has one verse that says, “Lord of all eagerness, Lord of all faith, whose strong hands were skilled at the plane and the lathe, be there at our labors and give us, we pray, your strength in our hearts, Lord, at the noon of the day.”

God came to be with us in all our humanness. God knows what it is like to face every challenge, every joy. God walks with us through every moment.

Love has come to be with us, to fill us with grace upon grace.

Thanks be to God for this unspeakable gift.

Amen.

Filed under: Reverend Janet Brown, Sermons | Tagged: Christmas 1, Galatians 3, Isaiah 61, John 1, Psalm 147 | Leave a comment »

Epiphany 5B RCL February 5, 2012

Posted on April 20, 2012 by Beth Crane

Isaiah 40: 21=31
Psalm 147: 1-12, 21c
1 Corinthians 9:16-23
Mark 1: 29039

Our first reading, from the prophet known as the Second Isaiah, takes us back to the time of the Exile in Babylon. The people are feeling that God has forgotten them. Here they are, far from home, trying to hold on to their faith, but beginning to lose heart. They think that God does not understand their situation. Sometimes we feel that way. We ask, where is God in all of this? Does God care that we are going through this awful situation?

Through the prophet Isaiah, God answers the people. God is the One who created all things. As the text says, “The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.” And God assures us that God does not grow weary, that God “gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless …Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles.”

There is a deep truth in these passages from Isaiah: that God is with us, that God understands us, that God will never grow weary in helping us, that, as Paul says, “God’s power is made perfect in weakness.” When we feel powerless and admit our powerlessness, God enables us to fly like eagles.

This theme of weakness carries into our epistle today. The congregation in Corinth has some members who feel they have superior knowledge. They are coming from a position of power, and they are attacking Paul. Paul is not saying that he has superior power or knowledge. He is saying that he tries to understand people, to walk in their shoes and have empathy for them so that he can share the good news with them in ways that they can understand. He writes, “I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some….” He is coming from a place of humility and meets people where they are. He is following the example of our Lord, who said, “I am among you as one who serves.”

In our gospel, Jesus and his disciples leave the synagogue in Capernaum and go to the home of Simon Peter and Andrew. Simon’s mother-in-law is in bed with a fever. They tell Jesus that she is ill. Jesus goes and takes her by the hand, and lifts her up. Scholars tell us that the Greek word used by Mark for “lifted up” is the same word Mark uses for Jesus’ resurrection. So this word means more than just lifted to a standing position. It means a rising to new life. The fever leaves her and she begins to serve them. The word for “to serve” is diakonia, the root word for deacon. Jesus heals her and calls her into new life and restores her to her ministry. Like the ministries of most of us, it is an ordinary everyday ministry of service—diakonia.

Word spreads fast. A healing has happened. By evening the whole city is at the door bringing people who need healing. Jesus ministers to them, but then, in the early morning, he goes off to pray. We all need to do that. We have times when we go to be with God and be recharged and renewed.

The disciples go to find Jesus and he tells them to go to the neighboring towns to share the good news and to make people whole.

What are these readings saying to us? First, at times when we feel that God is far away, times when we think there is no hope, times when we feel weak and unable to put one foot in front of another, God speaks to us and says, “I am the Creator of the vast galaxies, and I am also your loving God who will never leave you. I am always with you, to help you and guide you.”

Secondly, Jesus came as one of us, and Paul models that awareness in his ministry. He becomes the people he is called to serve, as Jesus became one of us. When we do our ministry we are called to become one with the people we are called to serve, to come from a place of empathy and servanthood, rather that a place of superiority and power. As Paul said, “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.”

Third, Jesus heals Peter’s mother-in-law, and she goes right back to serving them. He lifts her up, he makes her whole. He welcomes her to new life, and then she serves a meal. Not very exciting, we could say.

Most of our ministries are ordinary, everyday ministries of service. Nothing very dramatic. But because our Lord has called us and walks with us every step of the way, we do these ordinary things in a different way. Because he is with us, we listen to a troubled person in a different way, with his concern, with his love. Because he is with us, we may be writing a grant or working on a budget, or cleaning someone’s teeth, or doing laundry for a traumatized kid, or baking, or doing carpentry, or making a building more accessible, but we are doing it in a different way. We are carrying the presence and grace of our Lord to those we meet.

The fourth century theologian and bishop Cyril of Jerusalem wrote, “Everywhere the Savior becomes ‘all things to all men.’ To the hungry, bread; to the thirsty, water; to the dead, resurrection; to the sick, a physician; to sinners, redemption.” (New Proclamation Year B 2012, p. 91.)

Loving and gracious God, thank you for coming among us and leading us into newness of life. Thank you for calling us to minister to others in your Name. Give us grace, we pray, that we may be aware of your presence and help in the smallest and most ordinary of tasks and that we may share your love and healing as we serve our brothers and sisters, who, like us, are your beloved children. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

Filed under: Sermons | Tagged: Corinthians, Cyril of Jerusalem, Isaiah, Mark, Paul, Psalm 147 | Leave a comment »

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