Here to grow in love. January 30, 2022. The Rev. David M. Stoddart

 

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

What do you want to be when you grow up? I’m 61 years old, and I still think about it. I could preach a hundred sermons on this profound passage from First Corinthians and not begin to plumb its riches, but where the Spirit is leading me to this week is verse 11: When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.

I remember the first thing I ever really wanted for Christmas. It was this bright candy apple red bicycle, a gaudy monstrosity: curled handlebars with streamers, a big banana seat with glitter on it, tall sissy bar in the back. Man, to the degree that an 8-year-old can lust for anything, I lusted for that bike. And I got it. And it was so great — for a few months. By the following Christmas, it was just taking up space in the garage, only used occasionally. I had moved on to other things, other objects to entice me. Children love their toys and are always looking for new ones to excite them and satisfy them. But I think it’s fair to say that that trait doesn’t just disappear at the age of 18. Adults also love their toys: their clothes, their cars, their houses, their money. In fact, in our culture, part of growing up is amassing more stuff: more toys, fancier gadgets, better homes, you name it. And of course these are not bad things: some of them can be very good. But they are not ultimate things; in and of themselves, they can never give us the happiness and fulfillment we so deeply desire.

And so it is that in the New Testament and in our Christian spiritual tradition, maturing as human beings does not mean accumulating more things, but rather letting go of more things. Now, when it comes to actual possessions and property, that often happens naturally. I have listened to many people talk about decluttering as they get older, downsizing their houses and simplifying their lives, which no doubt reflects the truth that we really don’t need lots of stuff.

But this passage today goes beyond just unloading possessions. It speaks to a deeper letting go: When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. It’s not just toys that we like, and not just physical things that we accrue. We develop habits of thinking. We amass success, achievements, social status, reputation, all the intangible things that shore up our egos and help us feel like we have value. And these things are also not bad: they have their place. But they, too, are not ultimate, and if we’re not careful, we may remain childish in our thinking and actually believe that acquiring all this stuff, physical and non-physical, is what life is all about, the source of our happiness and fulfillment. And, of course, it’s not.

Paul, having put an end to childish ways, knows this and reminds us that the only reason we are here is to grow in our capacity for love. Without love, all the toys that we value so much, all the signs of status and success we crave and work so hard to achieve, are meaningless. Even so-called “religious accomplishments” are pointless without love. If I speak in the tongues of mortals and angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. I could preach the greatest sermon in the world, but if I don’t do it with love, I’m just making noise. If I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. We could be amazingly talented, incredibly smart, super religious, but if we don’t have love, we are nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. We could give away millions of dollars to the church and to charity, we could fight for all the right causes, even to the point of sacrificing ourselves, but if we don’t have love, you gain nothing.

If we are truly going to grow up spiritually and be mature in Christ, we must let go of the childish thinking and embrace Christ thinking, which can seem so counterintuitive to us. Jesus tells us that the first will be last and the last will be first — and he means it. If, for example, someone makes billions of dollars, receives adulation and acclaim, and donates enough money to get their name put on some medical research building, but does so without any genuine love, that could well be less significant in God’s eyes than a poor woman going grocery shopping for a friend who has COVID as an act of true compassion. The only thing that brings us close to the heart of God, the only thing that matters for our ultimate happiness is love: our willingness to love, the quality of our love, our growth in love.

What do we want to be when we grow up? I think we want to be lovers. And to do that, I find that I need to continually let go of things that get in the way of that. I have to let go of the need to be successful, the need to be seen as a good priest. I have to let go of status symbols and signs of achievement. I have to let go of the need to control events and establish some kind of security for myself. And all of us have to go through a similar process of letting go. Our goal everyday should be to love. The great questions are no longer things like, “Am I being successful?” or “Will this make me look good?”, but rather questions like “How can I love the people around me?” or “Am I showing love in what I am doing right now?” Those are the kinds of questions we should all be asking. And of course we won’t be perfect: we’re still growing up. But as long as we desire to love, as long as we intend to love, we will indeed be growing up. And I know for myself — and I imagine this is true for everyone — when I focus on loving, even when I fail miserably at it, I am so much happier and so much more at peace, because I am connecting with the very essence of God and the only thing that will make us happy forever.

 

 

The mission we share with Christ. January 23, 2022. The Rev. Kathleen M. Sturges

Luke 4:14-21, 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a

Growing a Community in Christ...Sharing Christ's Love with the World. Sound familiar? I hope it does. It’s Church of Our Saviour’s mission statement. We certainly talk about it and you’ll find it on almost anything we put in print. For example, glance down at your bulletin and you’ll see it towards the top of the page. Now I wasn’t serving here when it was developed, but kudos to those who were a part of its creation because it really does an excellent job at communicating why COOS exists. We are here to grow a community in Christ and to share Christ’s love with the world. Everything else we do, gather for worship, give food from our food pantry, listen to beautiful music, meet and enjoy friends - all of that flows out from our mission statement.

But, as you know, we aren’t the only church to have one. Mission statements came into vogue back in the mid 1980’s and since that time businesses, churches, non-profits, even some families have adopted one. But that’s not to say that they didn’t exist before then. In our reading from the gospel of Luke, Jesus lays out his own mission statement in his first act of public ministry. Following his river baptism and wilderness fast and temptation, Jesus returns to his home country, Galilee. Reports about him have been spreading throughout the land. So when he comes back to Nazareth, you can imagine that it’s quite a big day in the synagogue. Everyone is excited to hear the local boy who’s making such a name for himself. Naturally, he’s given the honor of doing the reading as he’s handed the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. Now remember, there’s no lectionary to consult. There’s nothing to say which part of Isaiah should be read. The choice is entirely up to him. So Jesus unrolls the scroll, scans for just the right text, and finds it near the end. 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. Now those words were not new. They weren’t even unfamiliar. Likely everyone gathered had heard them before on multiple occasions. But it’s what happens next that transforms them.

Following the reading, Jesus sits down and then does the unexpected, the unimaginable, really. He takes the ancient words from the prophet Isaiah and claims them as his own in real time. Today, he says, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. This is Jesus’ mission statement. The whole purpose for his being, the reason he came to this earth is to bring good news to the poor, release to the captives, sight to the blind, freedom to the oppressed, and announce the Jubilee Year when God’s justice will reshape society. From here on out everything that Jesus says and does flows from this prophecy, this mission statement…this good news. 

Good News, that is to those who identify as poor or captive or blind or oppressed. But to those who don’t see themselves as fitting into one of those categories, to those who are doing pretty much ok as is, the ones who may even benefit from the status quo, Jesus’ mission statement doesn't sound like good news at all. It sounds more like a threat. In fact, just a few moments later in the story, beyond our reading today, many of those in the synagogue end up getting so offended by Jesus’ words, particularly when he highlights that this good news is not just for a special few, but for everyone, that they run him out of town and seek to throw him off a cliff.  

They react this way because these folks really get it. Jesus isn’t meek and mild. He’s on a mission - a radical mission to shake things up. To turn things upside down. To change the world as we know it. Which can initially sound like pretty bad news to those of us who are doing relatively well in the world as it currently exists until Jesus addresses our blindness and helps us to see that we can’t really live and thrive until all of God’s beloved are able to live and thrive too. Although the attempt on his life failed on that particular day in Nazareth, the way that Jesus relentlessly challenges the status quo by healing the “undeserving” sick, forgiving the “really bad” sinners, and valuing those whom society deems as worthless, eventually this type of behavior becomes so intolerable that he is put to death in hopes that this mission will die with him.

But, of course, that was not to be so. Jesus rises, alive from the dead and continues today to do what he talked about in that synagogue long ago. But the way that he works is through his mystical body, the Church, as we heard about in our reading from 1 Corinthians. When reflecting upon how we, the Church, literally embodies Jesus in our world, St. Theresa of Avila puts it best:

 Christ has no body but yours,

No hands, no feet on earth but yours,

Yours are the eyes with which He looks compassion on this world,

Yours are the feet with which He walks to do good,

Yours are the hands, with which He blesses all the world.

Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,

Yours are the eyes, you are His body.

Being Christ’s body in the world is quite a weighty responsibility, but we don’t do it on our own. We can’t do it on our own. And neither could Jesus. Even he needed to be empowered by God’s Holy Spirit. His whole mission begins there with, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. With those words Jesus recognizes that his mission depends on the working of God’s Spirit through him. Today, as Christ’s body the Spirit of the Lord is upon us and we depend on the Holy Spirit to guide us and grace us and gift us so that we might do the work that we are given to do.

So as you make plans for this coming week keep in mind this mission that you share with Christ. Be open to the empowering work of the Holy Spirit in your daily life. For yours are the eyes that Jesus will use to look with compassion on someone this week. Yours are the feet that he will walk in to do good in the world. Yours are the hands that he will use to touch and bless others with God’s love. Together we are Jesus’ body - so let us continue his mission as we grow a community in Christ and share Christ’s love with the world.

Ordinary people. January 16, 2022. The Rev. David M. Stoddart

 

John 2:1-11

The week after Christmas we had a full house. Both of my children were home, my son’s girlfriend joined us for part of the time, and some very dear friends, whom we have known for decades, stayed with us as well. We played a lot of games — in my case, I lost a lot of games; we joked; we ate Indian food; we hung out. It was all very normal — nothing exciting or spectacular happened — but as we gathered around the table to bless the food one night, I had a small epiphany, one of those “God moments” that I imagine all of us have occasionally, and I realized how holy it all was. That ordinary gathering of ordinary people was permeated with the presence of God and thus extraordinary at the same time. 

And that thought comes to mind as I reflect on this Gospel today. Jesus does many miraculous things in John’s Gospel, but John does not refer to them as miracles: he calls them signs, events which point us to the truth. Some of those signs are quite dramatic, like giving sight to a man born blind and raising Lazarus from the dead. But the very first sign, the one that sets the tone for the whole Gospel, takes place at this wedding in Cana. There is no debilitating illness here, no blindness, no tragedy. Running out of wine at a wedding feast would no doubt be a bummer and socially embarrassing, but it’s not a matter of life and death. This story, though, does establish something that is absolutely crucial for everything that follows. Jesus takes water and turns it into wine, and not just any wine, but the finest wine. He takes something that is ordinary — and there is nothing more ordinary than water — and transforms it into something extraordinary. Or maybe transformation isn’t the right term. Maybe this sign points us to the truth that nothing is ever just ordinary when seen in the light of Christ.

That certainly accords with our understanding of Incarnation. God Almighty enters into our world as a baby, a helpless infant born to a poor family in an obscure town. Outwardly, Jesus’s circumstances are nothing if not mundane, and yet at the same time he is Emmanu-el, “God with us.” And while we sing gorgeous music and don beautiful vestments to celebrate that fact, at the heart of our sacramental worship lie the most basic and ordinary materials: water and oil, bread and wine. But more important and more wondrous than that are the human materials God employs. Jesus forms a community with the most ordinary people. Paul insists in our second lesson today that within every ordinary believer lives the Holy Spirit, who gives to all of us — no exceptions — extraordinary gifts for ministry, manifestations of God for the common good. To believe in Jesus Christ is to realize that the whole of creation is infused with the presence of God, and that we ourselves are filled with that presence, with the very same Spirit that lives in Christ.

That’s awesome, but I think it is safe to say that we are well-defended against this truth. We resist it in multiple ways. We see that we are sinners, that as individuals we often fall short and miss the mark: we hurt others and we hurt ourselves by what we do and by what we fail to do. And then, looking beyond ourselves, we see all the injustice and suffering in our world, a staggering amount of pain that would seem to belie any notion of God’s abiding presence. But during his earthly ministry, Jesus lived in a world that was also rife with sin, suffering, and injustice, arguably worse than what we experience. And yet all his teaching, all his healing, all his signs point to the truth that God is love and God is with us, always. And just as he commissioned his first followers, a bunch of ordinary sinners, to share that astounding good news, so, too, he gives to us that same mission. It’s our calling to show the world that God is love and God is with us. We do that in many ways, including being kind and merciful people, forming loving communities of faith, caring for the sick, offering relief to the poor, standing up for racial justice, working for peace and reconciliation. But it all begins with our acceptance of this great truth: we have to see and believe that God can and does use ordinary people like you and me to reveal her presence and her power. 

We are sinners and we are channels of God’s Spirit; we are ordinary humans and we are Christ. And if that shocks us, then perhaps we need to be shocked. Symeon the New Theologian lived around the year 1,000 and is venerated as a mystic and saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church. He wrote a beautiful hymn that speaks to what I am trying to say. It reads like this:

We awaken in Christ’s body,

As Christ awakens our bodies

There I look down and my poor hand is Christ,

He enters my foot and is infinitely me.

I move my hand and wonderfully

My hand becomes Christ,

Becomes all of Him.

I move my foot and at once

He appears in a flash of lightning.

Do my words seem blasphemous to you?

—Then open your heart to him.

And let yourself receive the one

Who is opening to you so deeply.

For if we genuinely love Him,

We wake up inside Christ’s body

Where all our body all over,

Every most hidden part of it,

Is realized in joy as Him,

And He makes us utterly real.

And everything that is hurt, everything

That seemed to us dark, harsh, shameful,

Maimed, ugly, irreparably damaged

Is in Him transformed.

And in Him, recognized as whole, as lovely,

And radiant in His light,

We awaken as the beloved

In every last part of our body. 

We are living signs of Christ, his body in the world. In the most ordinary ways and in the most ordinary circumstances, we point to the extraordinary truth that God’s light fills our world  and God’s love permeates everything.