January 21, 2007
The Third Sunday after Epiphany (Year C)
Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10; Psalm 19; I Corinthians 12:12-31a; Luke 4:14-21
I spent a good part of yesterday interviewing people who are in the ordination process. For those of you who are not familiar with that process, I will say it is long and arduous, and many people have a hand in the discernment of your call, from your parish priest, to a parish discernment committee, to the Diocesan Commission on Ministry, to the Standing Committee, to, of course, the Bishop! It was in my capacity as a member of the Standing Committee that I interviewed five people who are about half way through their "process." This means they will have at least another year, some eighteen months or two years before they are ordained to the diaconate, which comes before being ordained to the priesthood.
Truthfully the whole process is a bit intimidating as you go through it, and you never know if this will be the hoop you don't make it through. So there was tension on the part of the people being interviewed. The interviewers worked in teams, one from the SC and one from the COM. We began with prayer and then we had a conversation.
We acknowledged that it has been observed that all preachers have basically one sermon, and they just find an infinite number of ways to tell that sermon until they begin to believe it themselves. Then God provides a new sermon. So we asked the hopefuls what their sermon was, what their one sermon is.
And the answers were powerful and wonderful. They were as theologically diverse as the entire Episcopal Church. They were personal, hopeful, and transparent about how their "sermon" intersected with their own story and life challenges as well as life's gifts. I am hopeful for the church after listening to them.
And then I came home to begin a sermon for this morning. And, lo and behold! what is the gospel this morning? It is Jesus' first sermon, a sermon that lasted not just for that one day in the gathering in his hometown, but a sermon that continued and was made even more evident by the way he lived.
Jesus got up at the congregation's gathering, read the portion allotted to him by the keeper of the scrolls – he stood reading it, as one did in those days – and then he sat to reflect on it, as one did in those days.
He read, "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" (which was referring to the fifty year Jubilee when all debts were forgiven).
Then he sat down and simply said, – the entirety of his teaching that day, no long winded sermon as he said, "today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."
How do you suppose they responded?
His one sermon became the living out of those words, not just in words, but in action and deed. Truly, I had the sense yesterday that if the people preached their "one sermon" with their lives and not with words, then the church would not only prosper, but the entire world would change, perhaps not as profoundly as ours did when Jesus spoke those words and then lived and died and rose again as he did, but certainly in a way that would make us all partners with Christ in bringing about the kingdom of God a bit earlier than it seems to be coming about right now.
And surprisingly, regardless of theological, ecclesiastical views, conservative, liberal, revisionist, or recalcitrant, their words echoed what Jesus said in the gospel this morning. Their passion was for the poor and the oppressed, the imprisoned, and those who have lost sight. They wanted to be people, leaders, if you will, who empower and cajole and lead, and push and hold out hope for this work of the gospel.
And the idealism of it struck me as not idealism at all but deep seated faith and hope, trust that the gospel is right on, and that leaders in he church are called to such actions.
And then I reflected on what is actually happening in the church, the divisions between factions, all of whom say, as did these seminarians, all of whom say that serving the oppressed and feeding the poor and bringing about the Kingdom of God is what Christians are to be about – and yet we niggle and square off over sexuality issues.
When Jesus sat in the midst of that community that morning and proclaimed that the scripture had been fulfilled in him, he didn't qualify it by stating exactly who the poor were, or the unsighted, or the oppressed, or the imprisoned. He didn't qualify his statement with a discussion of the words of Isaiah, if Isaiah was using a metaphor for the unsighted (people who didn't see truth right in front of them) or if Isaiah meant actually blinded, physically blinded people. All that Jesus said was that the words were fulfilled in him. Had he been a bit clearer, perhaps, we would not now be arguing over the sexuality issues, and would, instead, be actually working to bring good news to those who see no good news in their lives.
Jesus said that day to look for God where people are hurting. And serve them. Heal them. Bring them hope. God is most evident when we, as God's people, show the Spirit working within us to be there for others, when we bring hope or healing or even just an act of kindness to the suffering.
It is in those kindnesses that people are transformed into a life of Christ. It is not by our words or our rightness about our theological stances or our ability to keep all the commandments or even to pray more profusely and profoundly than any one else that makes God evident to others. It is in the actions of kindness and hope. Look for God when captives are released, not executed. Look for God when the poor are offered a way to make a living wage, not warehoused in ghettos.
The people of Christ are converted, not by hearing the words of Christ, but by living them. People are transformed when their hearts are changed. Hearts are rarely changed by words. Experiencing something that changes their entire perspective in ways they could not understand by words alone is what changes them.
When I was the age of the young people I interviewed yesterday, I believed that the actions of my generation would have been profound enough to bring that change of perspective, and that our actions would have been monumental enough to usher in God's reign here on earth. So far we haven't been able to do it. I don't know if the world is in a bigger mess than it was, or if the church really is either; but I do know that when Jesus spoke the words of his first sermon, it was the beginning of a sermon that lasted not only through his life, death and resurrection, but through two millennia, and is as true this morning as it was then.
Good people, Jesus is standing here among us, speaking these words to us as he spoke them that day in his home town. How are we going to respond???? How are we going to respond???
Amen.
The Rev. Dr. Gale Davis Morris
Church of the Good Shepherd