Sunday Sermon - 1/29/17 The Rev. Kathleen M. Sturges

1 Corinthians 1:18-31

Blessed are the wise, for they shall not be fooled.  Blessed are the strong, for their enemies will fear them.  Blessed are the rich because, well, they’re rich!  That makes sense to us doesn’t it?  And that’s what made sense for the people back in Jesus’ day, too.  They were used to hearing about blessings and the “Blessed are” formula – that  was nothing new.  These blessings would list virtues or conditions that anyone would like to have.  What made Jesus’ words so radical, so shocking was not the formula of “Blessed are”, but the content.  Blessed are...the poor in spirit?  Blessed are...those who mourn?  Blessed are...the meek?  And all the rest of those people who are vulnerable, weak, or afflicted?  Surely Jesus was kidding, right?

Because that’s just not the way the world works says human wisdom, as we heard from our 1 Corinthians reading.  But it goes on.  God’s foolishness is wiser than any human wisdom.  What Jesus is doing with his Beatitudes is flipping things on their head.  Calling out human wisdom as false – proclaiming that what you may think is up is actually down and what you think is down is really up. 

Spatial disorientation - it happens when you literally aren’t sure just which way is up.  See, the way our bodies know where we are in space or which way is up is by using three senses.  The first and most obvious sense is our vision.  Our eyes are telling us right now that the ceiling is up there, the floor is down there and we are here in this church.  The second way our body tells us which way is up is by sensing gravity's gentle pressure on our muscles and joints.  It pushes us down so we know which way is up.  Finally, our ears get into the act with semi-circular canals that, to the best of my understanding, is lined with tiny hairs and also filled with liquid.  When we move the fluid bends the hairs which signals our brains where we are in space – whether we are upright, or if we’re young, upside down, or if we’re older, sideways taking a nap.

However, there are times when our senses can fool us and be absolutely wrong.  I’m sure we’ve all heard about airplane pilots who have gotten into trouble when they can’t see anything in front of them.  When a pilot flies into dense fog he or she loses her visual cues of where she is in space.  If the pilot goes into a turn her inner ear will tell her that she’s turning.  But as soon as the fluid settles down and the hairs stop moving the pilot can still be in the turn, but her ears tell her that she is level.  And because there are no visual cues to tell the pilot otherwise the pressure of the turn on the body can be interpreted as the way you’d feel if the plane was climbing.  The pilot’s senses can be giving her wrong information.  What is she to do?  Look at the instruments!  All those gages right in front of her that will tell her no matter what she feels or thinks which way is truly up.

Blessed are the poor in spirit.  Blessed are those who mourn.  Blessed are the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, the persecuted.  Our human wisdom and our senses tell us, No!  Don’t they? That there is nothing blessed about most, if not all of those conditions.  But what if we are suffering from a type of spiritual spacial disorientation and Jesus’ Beatitudes is our instrument trying to tell us which way is really up?

Maybe our resistance to the beatitudes is due to some confusion over what a blessing or being blessed is.  We throw around the word blessing quite a bit.  We count our blessings.  We talk about our blessings.  And when we do we often list things like health, family, friends, maybe a getaway vacation, a roof over our heads, food on the table.  This way of thinking leads one to believe that blessings are basically things that make us happy, give us pleasure, or at the very least make life a little bit easier. 

Jesus’ beatitudes challenge this way of thinking.  Blessed are the poor in spirit, the mournful, the persecuted, to name a few.  These are clearly not good things.  They don’t produce pleasure or happiness.  But what if being blessed is more than good things or happy feelings?  What if being blessed by God is instead a state of being where one experiences a deep connection with God?  Encounters a presence of something that holds in the storm? An inner knowing of care, grace, love no matter what’s going on on the outside?

If so, and I believe that Jesus’ life and words say it is so, then one is truly blessed in such times of struggle or weakness or incompleteness not because these conditions are in any way fun or pleasurable, but because when a person is that tender, that vulnerable they are more open and exposed to the fullness of God’s being and the truth that there is no circumstance, no situation, no relationship in life which God cannot redeem.

                                        

Jesus’ Beatitudes is God’s foolishness on display.  When human wisdom and even our own senses want to tell us that we are lost or alone or that there is no hope, as foolish and as difficult as it may be just like pilots we are to look at our instruments and trust. As followers of Christ, listen, listen to Jesus’ words – God’s foolishness that is wiser than any human wisdom – and trust that we can always count on God to show us which way is truly up. 

Sunday Sermon 1/22/17 by The Rev. Jeffrey P. Fishwick

If I were to ask you how did you get to church today-what would you say? Most of you would
say that you came by car, or perhaps some of you walked. Maybe some are saying to themselves,
‘I was dragged here.’

However, if I were to change the question to ‘what brought you to COOS on this dreary January
morning would you still be inclined to respond in terms of transportation or would you begin to
think in different ways? Would you think, for instance, that you are here because you are
responding to a call?

Now I know what you are thinking, a call is something for clergy, holy people? So, before you
protest that my suggestion is far-fetched and doesn’t apply to you, let’s recall some of our
Biblical narrative.

Abraham and Sarah were long past retirement age, settling down, and God said, “Not so fast I’ve
got some plans for you; I’ve picked out some land over to the west of here; it’s going to be the
home of my people; you’re going to be the father and mother of my people; guess where you’re
going?”

Moses killed a man back in Egypt and found himself in the witness protection program out in the
boondocks helping his father- in-law with the farm. Suddenly a bush bursts into flame. A voice
says, “I am the Lord your God; I have heard the cry of my people. I have seen their suffering. I
have come down to deliver them. You are going to lead them. Now Moses, guess where you’re
going?”

David and Mary were teenagers; Ruth a widow; Zacchaeus and Matthew were tax collectors
Luke was a physician; Paul had an anger management problem. To all of them God said, “Guess
where you are going? I’ve got plans for you; follow me.” One of the compelling elements of our
Biblical narrative is that over and over again God’s chosen were ordinary folks, just like you and
me.

In terms of our Gospel reading for today, we know that Jesus took those four fishermen, Andrew,
Peter, James and John to places they would have never gone by themselves. Has that ever
happened to you? Have life’s events taken you places you would have never expected, but those
events shaped you, formed you, into the person you are today? Do you know anything about
that? I think most of you do.

I certainly do. When I run into some of my fraternity brothers, they are amazed that I wound up
in the ministry. You see, they knew me as a happy-go-lucky party boy, not particularly religious,
a history major and headed for law school which had always been my dream. But then there was
Vietnam. One night North Vietnamese troops broke through our perimeter. There was a terrible
fire fight; the next morning when it was over I was still alive but some in our camp weren’t. The
precariousness and fragility of life slapped me in the face that night and my carefree attitude of
existence was shattered forever. I never made it to law school. After two and half years of trying
this and that – many of my choices not healthy – on a cold snowy night in Massachusetts I
answered Christ’s call to follow him in a way that I never expected.

Sometimes in popular American Christianity, we get this wrong. We say, “I decided to follow
Jesus.” But that’s not how it works! You can’t “give your life to Christ.” He takes it! It’s not all
that important that you “decided to follow Jesus.” The Bible makes it clear that in Jesus Christ
God has decided for you! In John chapter 15, as Jesus is speaking to his disciples after the
Last Supper, he says to them, “You did not choose me, I chose you.”

Look, everyone is here because God put you here. For a reason. For a purpose. For some of you,
the call was dramatic and life-changing, for others it has been a lifetime of quiet leading and
coaxing. For some, you are still kicking and screaming against that voice; for most, there has
been lots of questioning and wondering. But wherever we are spectrum, know this: Jesus has
plans for us, for this wonderful parish. Right now, Jesus is roaming the highways and by-ways
right now – looking for disciples because (you know why?) Christianity is not a spectator sport.
Today we meet Jesus the recruiting officer: I want you.

Question for us today is: how in the midst of our lives right now in our various vocations and
occupations, our stages of life, we are going to respond to his invitation to follow Christ? Think
about it; pray about it. How can I serve, how can I be a beacon of light and hope for Christ at this
time and in this place? How can I be a fisher of people?

So we are called, not that we are willing travelers on this thing called discipleship. Thank God
we’re not called to be successful, or nice, or even friendly. Just faithful, and obedient. Willing to
grow and to be changed. The good news is that Jesus is going places and we are the ones who get
to go with him. Jesus is once again on the move. It will be interesting to see where he is going to
take us in the coming year Amen.

EPIPHANY SERMON JANUARY 8, 2017 ~ THE REV. KATHLEEN M. STURGES

What is it that you are seeking? Everyone is seeking something. People go to Google everyday searching for countless things - the latest news, celebrity gossip, perhaps a recipe for dinner, or something that I am quite interested in during this time of year, a search for the fastest way to de-ice your car windows especially when you are running late for church! But again I ask, what are you seeking? Maybe it’s not something that you can find on the internet. Perhaps you are seeking truth or peace or hope? Everyone is seeking something.

In our reading from the gospel this morning we have the well-known story of seekers. Wise Men have traveled far from the east and have arrived in Jerusalem searching for the child who has been born king of the Jews. Upon hearing the news King Herod also becomes a seeker. He, too, wants to find this child – but for sinister reasons, in order to extinguish any threat to his power. The chief priests and scribes are consulted. They say the Messiah is to be born in Bethlehem. However, they are not interested in going with the Wise Men to see, rather they seem to be seekers of the status quo. So the Wise Men set out on their own on their final leg of their journey towards Bethlehem and it is there that the star they are following stops and they are overwhelmed with joy. As they enter the home of Jesus they have found the one whom they have sought.

Everyone is seeking something in the story: Herod, the chief priests and scribes, clearly the Wise Men. But there is one more seeker that we have yet to mention - God, the ultimate Seeker of our Souls. It has been so since the very beginning when God created the heavens and the earth. God seeks Adam and Eve in the garden. And later in time God seeks out Abraham and makes the people of Israel his own. Then as the generations pass, God sends prophet after prophet calling the people to turn back to God. Finally, in the fullness of time there is the ultimate act of seeking - God becomes one of us, God with us in the person of Jesus.
Now as we move from the celebration of the Incarnation at Christmas to the new season of Epiphany, the season of manifestation, our attention turns towards how God goes about revealing that very good news that he is with us. In the Church, we always begin Epiphany with the story of the coming of the Wise Men. They are lauded and admired for all they do to seek the king of the Jews. But did they know that the Great Seeker was also at work? The Wise Men saw the star, but did they know that there was One who put it there? The Wise Men travel a treacherous journey, did they sense someone keeping them safe? When they inquired in Jerusalem, did they recognize that God had proclaimed through the prophet to look in Bethlehem? And when those men arrived in the home of the child born the king of the Jews, it was this same One, this same God in the flesh who greeted them.

In Epiphany we see more clearly the nature of God. God’s nature is to come to us, to search us out, to meet us on the journey, to make himself, to make herself, known to us. God desires to be known and that is why the Wise Men found Jesus. All the work and effort that the Wise Men did was in response to the Holy One who sought them first.

Everyone is seeking something. My guess is that among other things, we come here today genuinely seeking God. Do you know that God is seeking you, too? Granted, sometimes it’s hard to tell. I am mindful of the fact that there were countless people who looked up to the heavens and saw the very same star that the Wise Men did and yet did not understand the message it proclaimed.

It’s so easy to get confused. You may have heard the one about the three young boys who were playing the Wise Men in their Christmas pageant. As they came up to Mary and Joseph the first one handed over his gift with one simple line, “Gold.” The next one came forward with his gift and said, “Myrrh.” The third young wise man placed his present down, pointed and said, “Frank sent this.” Frank sent this…that makes total sense when you have never heard of the word Frankincense before nor have any idea what it is.

God is seeking you and me. There’s no doubt about it for that is God’s nature. The question then becomes how? What is going on in your life right now that God is using as a way to reveal himself, herself, to you? Could it be through an unexpected opportunity? A new relationship? A stirring in your spirit? Or even a crisis or a loss? You know what made those men truly wise is that they remained open to the Spirit. After that long journey they were very clear about what they were looking for. They expected to find a future king. But instead, because of their openness, they were able to not only see a king, but to encounter the living God.

Everyone is seeking something. As we seek for God let us rejoice and rest in knowing that God is seeking us, first and always. Sometimes we’ll see the signs and get it, sometimes we won’t. There may be times when the Spirit is whispering something like “Frankincense” and all we can make out is the equivalent to “Frank sent this.” Even so, God will never give up seeking us. Just as he did for the Wise Men, God will meet us on our journey. God will surely make herself, himself, known so that we, too, may be found by the One whom we seek.