Pulling closer to God. March 10, 2019 The Rev. Deacon Lawrence J. Elliott

Luke 4:1-13

Jesus was led by the Spirit in the wilderness. This is how Jesus prepared for his ministry. He’s just been baptized, the Holy Spirit descended in a form like a dove, and then, that Spirit led Jesus in the wilderness. No disciples, no crowds. No healings, no Peter’s mother-in-law, no raising the dead, no Lazarus. Instead, this time in the wilderness, eating nothing at all, being tested by the devil. Why this beginning? Why not ride the wave of, “You are my Son, the beloved,” go to Jerusalem and set things right? Why not select the disciples and begin to teach and heal? Luke doesn’t tell us much of why he is here. What he does tell us is that the devil was there, testing him, until, “the devil had finished every test.” This time of testing inspired Paul to write later, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin” (Heb 5.15). In these 40 wilderness days Jesus experienced isolation, solitude, and loneliness; sorrow and joy; heat and cold; hunger and thirst, and learned empathy and compassion; temptation and obedience. He learned more deeply what it is to be human. He prepared for his ministry and the cross by becoming more like us.

Working with today’s Gospel this last week, I updated some things I thought I knew about this text:

First, there were more than 3 temptations:

Luke writes, “…where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.”

Second, that Jesus was not alone:

In Mark’s Gospel we read that, “the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness,” drove him, as one might drive cattle.

But in Luke, Jesus is led by the Spirit in the wilderness. The Holy Spirit was with him, he was not alone.

And, the devil was there. I wonder how he showed up. As a red man with horns, barbed tail, and pitchfork? Probably not. Perhaps he showed up as temptation to break the fast. Jesus could have eaten locusts and wild honey, as John the Baptist did. Tempted to skip prayer time in order to sleep in, or give up after 5 days and go back into town.

And, third, I learned that the temptations were not over:

“When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time,” which might have come during the agony in the garden, or through Judas, or the Temple authorities, or with Peter at the time of his denial.

These 40 days in the wilderness for Jesus call to mind the 40 years in the wilderness for the Israelites where they were led by God to form them into a nation and into his people. Unlike Jesus, they did not fare well. Instead, they tested God. We read in Psalm 95

8 Harden not your hearts,

as your forebears did in the wilderness, *

at Meribah, and on that day at Massah,

when they tempted me.

9 They put me to the test, *

though they had seen my works.

And in Psalm 78:

19 They railed against God and said, *

“Can God set a table in the wilderness?

Is he able to give bread

or to provide meat for his people?”

27 God rained down flesh upon them like dust *

and wingèd birds like the sand of the sea.

29 So they ate and were well filled,   

30 But they did not stop their craving, *

though the food was still in their mouths.

For myself, I will admit that I have been tested many times and have not always come out on the side of “did not sin.” I spend too much to buy things that please me; I have that extra piece of chocolate—or any flavor—cake; I surf the Internet compulsively; I binge on Netflix; I surrender my life to my iPhone and play games on my iPad.

I’m good at saying “yes” when I should say “no” and “no” instead of “yes,” responding to the temptation to please someone else rather than do the right thing for me. All my self-centered responses consume my resources, my time, and my attention. When I’ll do anything to fill my quiet, how can I be with God? 

There are other temptations: to be impatient, angry, resentful, unloving, and uncaring. To be unsafe in the car, inconsiderate in being late. Giving in to them pulls me into a darker, meaner part of myself, with feelings I sometimes like. Honking my horn at a jerk can feel really good. Sitting in the familiar corner of depression—is like having a conversation with an old friend. Even though it hurts.

For all these, a simple question helps me know whether I’m doing the right thing: Does it pull me closer to God or away?

So, stories of disobedience from the Israelites—and me—and Luke’s telling of Jesus’s obedience, which he began by going into the wilderness.

Where do we go from here?

A few days ago—on Ash Wednesday—we turned to scripture and prayer.

From Isaiah we read:

“Why do we fast, but you do not see?

Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?”

And from the prophet Joel:

“For the day of the Lord is coming, it is near—

a day of darkness and gloom,
a day of clouds and thick darkness!”

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    These prophetic messages and the remembrance of our willful sinfulness create an urge to see Ash Wednesday as all disobedience and mortality, doom and gloom.

But with God, we are never left without hope.

On Ash Wednesday we also read in Psalm 103: 

 1 Bless the Lord, O my soul,

3 He forgives all your sins

4 He redeems your life from the grave and crowns you with mercy and loving-kindness.

And from Paul:

We entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

The liturgy of Ash Wednesday helps us away from darkness.

·         First, from the Ash Wednesday collect: “Everlasting God, you hate nothing you have made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent” (Book of Common Prayer, p. 264).

·         Second, that we worship the God of all mercy, and obtain from Him perfect remission and forgiveness.

·         And, third, we are invited, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word.

A wonderful invitation that comes every year and from which we can learn to move toward obedience, toward life, toward God. But how?

I turned to Google for a moment.

What Should I Give Up for Lent?: 50 Unique Ideas from EquippingGodlyWomen.com

ChristianityToday.com: What to Give Up for Lent? Consider Twitter’s Top 100

And popsugar.com a fitness site, tempts us with: The Calories You’ll Save Giving Up These 10

Foods For Lent

From the Twitter list and others of that sort—no surprises.

Facebook, Twitter & Social Media

Starbucks — with a suggestion to donate the money instead

A perennial favorite: Chocolate

Alcohol —a good idea for many

Fast Food and Junk Food

School & Homework

Lent

Religion

Also found some worthwhile suggestions:

Give up Worry

Gossip

Complaining

Swearing

And fear

BustedHalo.com lists:

1. Make a commitment to read the Sunday scriptures before Sunday.

2. Try a new spiritual practice.

3. Think about what you usually spend your money on.

4. Take something on — 40 days of letter writing, 40 acts of kindness, 40 phone calls to the important people in your life. 

In the 2015 “Pope Francis’ Guide to Lent,” the Pope’s bottom line was this: give up something for Lent only if it demonstrates compassion and enriches others. He preached the need for Lenten observances that don’t draw attention to the practitioner.^[1]

I also found, “Lent would be an ideal time to step outside of your comfort zone and spend a little time attempting to understand those you consider the enemy.”[2]

And “Lent doesn’t have to be only about giving up something, it can also be about giving to others.

 Try volunteering, giving to the homeless or just being more conscious of those less fortunate.”

There are Lenten resources from the national Church, our Diocese, our Acorn newsletter, a Lenten Booklet (in the gathering hall).

ForwardMovement.org, offers Lent Madness, a lighthearted Saintly Smackdown, a way to learn about Saints of God from all ages (information in the gathering hall).

Richard Rohr offers a daily meditation, which I highly commend to you.

Links to all these and more are available in the Blog on the church’s website. 

So many options, of which these are only a few. It can be overwhelmingly difficult to make a choice. What can I choose in the next day or two before I forget all about it? To what can I really commit? What is my prayer life? Where are my growing edges? 

I’ve probably overwhelmed you with details and options, so before I end, I want to return to scripture, to Jesus’s forty days in the wilderness, his time of temptation in which he gave us an “example of his life,” and “his steadfast obedience, by which he overcame temptation.”[3]

We cannot match his obedience, nor live fully to the example of his life, but we can take up our cross and follow him. We can invite him into our lives and pray to enter his. We are human – as he was – we do what we can, though we can always strive for more. We can remember his ministry and take up the call to go into the world to love and serve the Lord.

Being a Christian is neither simple nor easy. It’s much more than just going to church on Sunday. We are called—in Lent and always—to move more deeply into our faith, our worship, our lives in the world, and our lives in Christ.

The Gospel reading for Ash Wednesday concludes, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Where is your treasure?  Where is your heart? Stepping into the wilderness was an act of obedience for Jesus. Are you willing to step into your own wilderness, taking Jesus with you, as an act of obedience?

Let us pray…

God, we ask for your blessing during this Holy Season of Lent.

Give us the grace of your presence, your inspiration, and your call to a renewed life grounded in you. Amen[4]

---

[1] AJC.com, Atlanta Journal-Constitution

[2] From the Internet, source lost.

[3] The Book of Common Prayer, A General Thanksgiving, p. 836

[4] A Prayer for Observing a Holy Lent by Carl McColman https://www.patheos.com/blogs/carlmccolman/2017/03/prayer-observing-holy-lent/

Let go into love. March 3, 2019 The Rev. Kathleen M. Sturges

Luke 9:28-36,  2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2

The other day I was talking to an acquaintance of mine about Lent.  I found it to be a rather odd conversation because this acquaintance is not a Christian and yet he was telling me about what he was going to give up for Lent.  This baffled me.  As we continued to talk, though, I realized that he was thinking about Lent the way many people think about the beginning of the new year, that is an a opportunity to institute some self-improving change in one’s life.  So when this man was talking about giving up something for Lent what he really meant was that he was making a mini New Year’s resolution - and we all know how successful those tend.  The dismal failure of such efforts is due to the fact that change is just plain hard and we resist it for so many reasons.

Yet change is the name of the game in our readings today.   In the gospel of Luke we hear how Jesus, after taking Peter, James, and John with him up on a mountain to pray, changes in appearance.  His face is altered, his clothes become dazzling white.  Moses and the prophet Elijah appear out of nowhere.  And the disciples see the glory of the Lord all around them.  Now this story is commonly referred to as “The Transfiguration”, with the focus being on the change that Jesus undergoes.  But I’d like to push back on that a bit because I don’t believe that Jesus is the one who really changes up on that mountain.  He is always radiant with the glory of the Lord.  What changes is the disciples’ ability to see what truly and always is - that God’s glory, God’s radiance of life and love are always present in the world around them.  However, their vision of this truth quickly fades.  Everything goes back to normal.  The disciples keep quiet and nothing, at least in any obvious way, seems to be any different than it was before.  Nonetheless, change is afoot - this blaze of glory is just one part of the slow, gradual, persistent work of God to transform and transfigure the disciples - and us all - into the fullness of who we are created to be.  

And Peter is such a wonderful example of this slow, gradual, persistent work.  I mean, think about it, it takes three years of constant contact with Jesus, of seeing his miracles, of hearing his parables, of experiencing God’s love in the flesh - three years to transform Peter from a self-centered, impulsive, and sometimes cowardly disciple into a self-sacrificing, articulate, fearless apostle.  And even then when Peter is filled with the Holy Spirit and boldly preaching the good news there’s still more work to be done, more changes to be made, more growing to do.  Perhaps you recall in the Acts of the Apostles how God had to get in Peter’s face with a vision about the shocking news that the gospel is not just for Jews, but for Gentiles also.  And then later on how this radical good news meant that Peter not only had to change his mind, but also his behavior and welcome Gentiles to table fellowship. 

Transformation is a lifelong process.  And that’s how should it because that’s what living and growing in Christ is all about - change.  Not just for Peter, but for us too.  In our reading from 2 Corinthians, Paul puts it this way that “all of us...seeing the glory of the Lord...are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.”  And let me just say this is a mighty bold statement of faith by Paul given that the Corinthians are pretty much a hot mess.  There is little that they seem to get right.  Yet even so, Paul is confident that God’s great love will have its way and transform even them from glory to glory. 

And that goes for us as well.  No matter what our lives are like we, too, are in the process of being changed, of being transformed by love.  And because that is so it would serve us well to develop a practice of letting go into that love.  Which reminds me of what I’m learning in yoga.  It’s something I started doing in the past year.  For those of you not familiar with what a yoga class is, a very simple way to explain it would be a bunch of people gathered in a room being guided to breathe in a mindful way as everyone twists and bends and contorts their bodies into various poses.  None of it comes easily to me.  But the best part is at the end with the very last position you put your body into which is called Savasana, also known as Corpse Pose.  Basically you lay down on your back with your legs and arms slightly turned out, you close your eyes and relax, giving the appearance of a corpse.  But lying in that position is a far cry from being dead.  In fact, it’s one way of feeling fully alive and open to the world around you.  And when you’re lying in this pose the yoga instructor often cues the class on various ways to let go.  “Relax your feet,” she might say.  “Relax your legs.  Relax your back, your arms, your shoulders, your neck, your face, and so on.”  As I hear these cues I often realize how much I resist letting go.  How tense my legs or shoulders may be at that moment.  And even when my attention is drawn to it I still find it a challenge to let go.  But it’s ok because as I lie there I practice the art of letting go trusting that over time, with God’s help, I will get better at it. 

Lent invites us into a similar practice of letting go.  Far from being a season that calls for resolutions of self-improvement, Lent offers a time for us to let go more fully into love.  To relax anything that we might be fiercely holding - things like control, fear, worry, grief, hurt, anger, and pride oven top the list.  But what is it for you?  What, at this particular time in your life with whatever particular circumstances you face, what might God be calling you to relax and release in order to let go more fully into love?   The answer may provide a way for you to observe a holy Lent. 

Change is hard and we resist it, but even when our own practice is imperfect it’s ok, for we do not do this on our own.  God’s love will have its way with us.  And as we let go over and over again into that love we will, in time, be changed, be transformed, even be transfigured from one degree of glory to another. 

Where the story is going. February 24, 2019 The Rev. David M. Stoddart

Genesis 45:3-11, 15

There is an old Chinese story about a poor farmer. He lived a very simple life, working a small plot of land and earning just enough money to feed his family. One day a herd of wild horses ran through his field and got stuck in the mud of his rice paddies. They couldn’t get away, and so these horses, worth a lot of money, were suddenly his. His neighbor came to see him and said, “This is such good news! Now you’re rich! Congratulations!” But the farmer replied, “Good news, bad news, who knows?”

A few weeks later, his oldest child, a twelve-year-old boy, mounted one of the horses and tried to ride it, but the wild horse quickly threw him off and the boy broke his leg. His neighbor came by and said, “Oh, no, this is such bad news! Now your son can’t help out on the farm!” And the farmer replied, “Good news, bad news, who knows?”

The very next week, a general came to the village and forced all healthy boys over the age of ten to join his army. He took them all away to war, except for the farmer’s son, because he had a broken leg. His neighbor yet again came by and said, “That is such good news that your son didn’t have to join the army. How lucky you are!” And the farmer said, “Good news, bad news . . . who knows?”

We think we know, but life often surprises us. Look at the story of Joseph, the spoiled brat hated by his older brothers. They sell him into slavery, and tell their father Jacob that he’s dead, which crushes him. Bad news. But Joseph ends up in the house of Potiphar, captain of the Egyptian guard, and he becomes Potiphar’s fabulously successful right-hand man. Good news. But Potiphar’s wife tries to seduce Joseph, and when he refuses her advances, she claims that Joseph assaulted her and he is thrown into prison. Bad news. But in prison he correctly interprets the dream of Pharaoh’s butler, who then commends him to Pharaoh, who eventually makes Joseph his premier servant, who basically rules Egypt on Pharaoh’s behalf. Good news. Meanwhile, famine devastates the land of Israel. Bad news. But when Jacob’s sons come to Egypt desperately looking for food, Joseph is in a position to help them, and he invites his whole family to live in Egypt. Good news. With all its ups and downs, with its moments of heartbreak and stunning grace, the story of Joseph is a story of divine providence. And the end of it is breathtaking. Jacob gets to see his beloved son Joseph again, and they weep long and hard. Jacob dies shortly after that. And then Joseph, the Master of Egypt, can wreak a terrible revenge on his brothers for what they did to him. But he doesn’t. For all his flaws, Joseph is spiritually alive and he sees the truth. Right at the end of the book of Genesis he says one of the most important things anyone ever says in Scripture. Chapter 50, verse 20: Joseph, speaking to his frightened brothers, says Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good. You meant it for evil, God used it for good. The Bible in a nutshell. Joseph forgives his brothers. How can he do any less? Even they are instruments of God’s mercy.

Time and time and time again God takes what is evil and transforms it into something good. We humans seem to have a limitless ability to screw things up and cause horrendous damage, but we just can’t outplay God here: God’s ability to redeem anything and everything is infinite. As the prophet Jeremiah said at a particularly bleak moment in Israel’s history: The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning (Lam. 3:22-23). This is what we mean by saying that God is almighty. And that almighty power at work in Genesis finds its ultimate expression centuries later when an innocent young man, the human face of God, is tortured to death on a cross, only to be raised to a new life which he freely shares with everyone: the worst possible news being transformed into the best news ever.

And, yes that means there is no sickness, no loss, no disappointment, no disaster in our own lives that God cannot and will not redeem. But, beyond even that comfort, I think all this sheds light on the Gospel we heard today, the hard Gospel where Jesus says, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.

Joseph does not forgive his brothers begrudgingly: he doesn’t grit his teeth and do it because he has to. He forgives them easily and freely because he sees the big picture: God has been moving through every moment of the story; the whole arc of the story bends towards love and mercy. Joseph literally goes with the flow of that love and mercy, and forgives naturally. In the same way, to live in Christ, to have the Holy Spirit flow through us, is to enter into the Great Story of God’s love affair with the world. Despite all the horrors that people have committed, God moves ceaselessly to bring forth good. The arc of human history and the arcs of our individual lives all bend towards love and mercy. To love those who hate us and forgive those who wrong us is actually the most natural thing for us to do, because that is how God moves in this world. When Paul is converted on the road to Damascus, the Risen Christ says to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It hurts you to kick against the goads (Acts 26:14). It hurts you to fight against love. Stop it! During the civil rights movement, some people espoused hatred and violence as the only way to make progress, but Martin Luther King, Jr. rejected that. He saw that God always moves towards greater love and mercy, and he was going to go with that and not fight against it. So he said, “I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.”

We can and should defend those who are weak and oppressed; we should care for the sick; we should stand for racial reconciliation and justice; we should work towards a world where everyone is equally valued and the whole of creation is honored and protected; we should show kindness to the people around us. And we can and should do all of these things without hatred or anger, even towards those we most disagree with, even towards those who have hurt us, because we know that’s where the story is going. We know we are heading towards greater love and greater life. That’s what God is doing in the world. Why fight against it by clinging to hatred? Why try to swim upstream by refusing to forgive? Our job and our joy is to go with the flow of God’s love and mercy, trusting that in the end the good news of love and mercy will triumph over everything.

One of the people who saw this most clearly was Francis of Assisi. Let me close by inviting you to join in his great prayer:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy;

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Past our comfort zone. February 3, 2019 The Rev. Kathleen M. Sturges

1 Corinthians 12:31b-13:13, Luke 4:21-30

Love is patient, love is kind...beautiful words written by the apostle Paul to the church in Corinth.  And because these words about love are, indeed, so lovely in this 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians, it’s probably the most popular scripture read at Christian weddings.  Given that context, it’s easy to think that what Paul is doing here is praising the value of romantic love, but actually that’s far from the truth.  Rather than romanticizing love with abstract language, Paul speaks about love in concrete terms of what love does and does not do.  Love shows patience.  Love acts with kindness.  Love doesn’t let the ego get caught up in envy or boasting.  Love does not act out of selfishness.  Bottom line: love pursues the good of others. 

And if we have any questions about what this actually looks like, well, Jesus is always a good person to turn to.  Our gospel reading today picks up mid-story where last week’s reading left off.  Jesus is back home in Nazareth attending a service in the synagogue where he reads from the prophet Isaiah.  “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.”  The love that we hear about in 1 Corinthians is the message that Jesus proclaims in both word and deed - good news, release, sight, freedom, and God’s favor for all. 

And initially Jesus’ neighbors, the folks from Nazareth, like what they hear.  The gospel of Luke tells us that, “All spoke well of [Jesus] and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.”   The hometown crowd was happy and everyone was feeling the love.  But Jesus, it seems, just can’t leave well enough alone.  He pushes his listeners by highlighting for them that God’s love and good news doesn’t just apply to their group, their people, the ones they deem as deserving, but to everyone - which specifically includes outsiders, foreigners, the unclean, and even out right enemies of Israel.  And when the people let these words sink in and really hear them their awe turns into rage.  How dare he!  Incensed, the crowd gets up, drives Jesus out of town, pushes him toward a cliff with the intent of throwing him over.  Their efforts fail though as Jesus is able to pass through the angry mob and continue on his way. 

Now it may be hard for us to really get why this crowd got so riled up.  I mean, the message of God’s love for all doesn’t sound so offensive to us - that is until, God’s love goes too far.  Too far by bestowing the good news of release, sight, freedom, and favor on those who we don’t think deserve it or have in no way have earned it.  For first century Palestinian Jews, that group included a starving foreign widow and a leprous Syrian commander.  For twenty-first century white American Christians, what people do you think might Jesus challenge us with?  Who might push the boundaries of God’s love?  Muslims?  Immigrants?  African Americans?   Sadly, these the beloved people who make up these groups have been transformed into issues - hot button political issues that are used to divide us one from another.  And in order to keep the peace, in at least one sphere of our lives, the temptation is to ignore such topics when we come to church.  But as much as I’d like to just keep the message of God’s love as generic and inoffensive as possible, doing so would not be a faithful hearing or preaching of the text today.  For Jesus is just not willing to leave well enough alone.  He intentionally confronts and challenges his listeners to hear that God’s good news is radical good news.  If we want to follow him that means we are to love in ways that genuinely and actively seek the good of all.   And those ways of love will push us past our comfort zones.  So if you, like I, are feeling a bit uneasy right now that probably means that we are beginning to get a better sense of what Jesus is trying to tell us.

  

Now don’t get me wrong.  I don’t think anyone here would argue that God’s love is for everyone.  Nonetheless, I am quite sure that there are honest, sincere, and faithful differences of opinions about how we, as individuals, and we, as a Christian community, are called to live out our mission of sharing Christ’s love with the world. 

So what do we do when we don’t all agree?  Well, depending on your point of view this may be heartening or horrifying to know that almost since the very beginning followers of Jesus have struggled with how to live together as one.  It’s actually what prompted Paul to write about love in the first place because the Corinthian church was fraught with disagreements.  If they weren’t arguing over what type of food to eat then they were bickering over who had the superior spiritual gift.  With this in mind Paul calls them to love.  To love in such a way that enables individuals to come together where unity and difference coexist.  And not just coexist politely because differences are ignored, but where unity and difference are acknowledged, respected, and even celebrated. 

Living out this kind of love is no easy task.  In fact, it’s so remarkable that in the gospel of John Jesus says that one of the primary ways others will know God’s truth is by seeing the love we have for one another even when we differ.  Thank God, though, that we are not left to our own devices and capacity for love.  We are only able to love this way because, as Paul tells us, we are already fully known and loved by God.  And that love has no limits.  It never, ever ends.  It is this eternal, divine love that we here at Church of Our Saviour are drawn into.  It is this love that fills us and forms us, sometimes pushing us and challenging us, so that we all might become better lovers - lovers for God’s sake, for the sake of one another, and ultimately for the sake of the world.  

Bound to each other. January 27, 2019 The Rev. David M. Stoddart

1 Corinthians 12:12-31a

You have probably all heard of the “Trolley Dilemma,” which is a thought experiment first proposed by a philosopher named Philippa Foot back in the sixties. The dilemma is this: You are standing on a city street and you see a trolley hurtling out of control down the tram tracks. And you also see five workers on those tracks, who will soon be run over. But you have sharp vision and quick reflexes, and you notice a lever by the tracks and you realize that you can divert the trolley onto another track, where there is only one person working. So, do you let the trolley run over the five workers, or do you divert it, killing the one worker on the other track? Then a variation was added. It’s the same scenario — a trolley racing out of control — but this time you are on a footbridge above the tracks. You see that five workers are about to be run over, but you also see a very large man standing next to you on the bridge. If he were to fall onto the tracks, he would be killed, but his body would certainly stop the trolley and save the five workers. Do you push him off the bridge or not?

A number of studies have been done with this dilemma. Most people, it turns out, would pull the lever and divert the train, but most people would not push the man off the bridge. This raises all sorts of interesting questions, but let me propose a similar but different thought experiment. I heard it years ago and it has haunted me since. Say you are given divine power to establish the Kingdom of God. Billions of people would live in justice and peace, devoted to works of goodness and beauty. The only catch is that one person would have to be excluded. Everyone would enjoy bliss forever except for that one person, who would spend eternity alone, weeping in the outer darkness. Would you do it? Would God do it?

Can we ever think of any person as expendable? Can we ever say to another human being, “I have no need of you.” Well, Paul insists that members of the Body of Christ cannot say that. He drives the point home to those fractious and divided Corinthians: The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” This is an inconvenient teaching, of course, because we can all think of people we would rather not deal with, in church or anywhere else. I have been blessed over the course of my ministry to find 99% of my parishioners easy to love, but there has always been that one percent. I think of one man in a previous parish, named Bill, who gave me heartburn on a regular basis. We disagreed on, um, everything. For him, church was primarily about the building and changing nothing. He hated many of my sermons and told me so. He had a caustic tongue, and often lashed out at other parishioners. He kept grudges and carried on feuds for years. And there were many moments, I confess, when I wished he wasn’t there. But as luck and karma would have it, he had lots of health problems, and was in the hospital frequently. Which meant he and I could enjoy lots of quality time with each other. One day, when he was brought into the ER with a heart attack, I went to see him, praying as I walked in, “God help me!” He looked awful, and told me what was going on. So I anointed him and prayed for him, and then he looked at me from his bed and said, “Thank you.” And I had an epiphany. The Spirit opened my eyes and my heart and I knew that Bill and I were in this together. I would not be saved apart from that man.

Now, of course, we all need each other for practical reasons. We learn from each other and we depend on each other in the sharing of talents and resources: I need Steve to be treasurer, I need Daniel to play the organ, I need Chris to be an acolyte, I need all our lay leaders to do the great work they do because I can’t: I don’t have the gifts or the ability to do what they do. And that’s true for all of us. But I need to be very clear: the message today goes way beyond practical assistance. Paul acknowledges all the different gifts and roles we have, but at the very end of the passage we heard today, he says, But strive for the greater gifts. And the greatest gift of all, as he will tell us in the very next chapter of First Corinthians, is the gift of love. Ultimately we are bound to each other not for utilitarian reasons, but purely for the sake of love. God loves because God is love. Love needs no practical justification: love is its own purpose, its own end, and its own reward.

That shines out in the Gospel, when Jesus reads from the prophet Isaiah words of all-encompassing love: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me to bring good news to the poor . . . release to the captives . . . recovery of sight to the blind . . . freedom to the oppressed. Everyone matters. No one is expendable. We cannot say to people of different races and different religions, “I have no need of you.” We cannot say to immigrants desperately searching for a better life, “I have no need of you.” We cannot say to the young man in prison, “I have no need of you.” We cannot say to the old woman in the nursing home, “I have no need of you.” This goes beyond issues of mere justice: including and caring for everyone is not just the right thing to do. In the Kingdom of God, it is the only thing to do. That is what love does and, as Jesus makes clear over and over and over again, love is what it is all about.

And if you’re thinking right now, “That’s way too hard,” well, I hear you. Following Christ will challenge us to the very core of our being, but he told us as much. After all, the central image of our faith is a man whose body and heart are broken on the cross — and who lives in joy and reigns in love, even still. Living in the Spirit of Christ will stretch our minds, expand our souls, and at times, break our hearts. But it is the only way to experience eternal life, because there is no life apart from God, and God is love.

So look around you today and throughout the week. Liberals, you will not be saved apart from conservatives. Conservatives, you will not be saved apart from liberals. White people will not be saved apart from black people. Rich people will not be saved apart from poor people. Americans will not be saved apart from non-Americans. The Spirit of Christ will gradually, painfully teach us what it really means to love, but it begins with this basic truth: we are all in this together — or we are not in it at all.

Encountering God in the unexpected. January 6, 2019 The Rev. Kathleen M. Sturges

Matthew 2:1-12

It’s January 6th—a very special day in the Church – the Feast of the Epiphany of our Lord Jesus Christ.  As we heard in our reading from the gospel of Matthew today we celebrate the wise men’s visit to the child Jesus.  And those wise men have captured our collective imagination.  You, like I, may have a few of them around your house rubbing elbow with shepherds in a nativity scene.  Almost universally we imagine them with long flowing robes, beards, and turbans.  Sometimes we think of them as kings, like in the hymn we sang this morning.  Now it’s not my intention to burst anyone’s bubble here, but odds are these men were not kings at all – that notion likely came from Psalm 72 because it speaks of foreign kings paying homage to God’s Messiah.  Even referring to them as “wise men” puts us on shaky ground.  Despite the reading in our translation, the original Greek calls these men magi - which was a class of priest-astrologers of the Zoroastrian religion.  Given that, the east from which they traveled, was likely the Persian Empire which means that they surely did not arrive on the night of Jesus’ birth nor twelve days later, but more likely a year or so after the big event.  And the names Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar are ones that tradition has given them.  It’s really anyone’s guess along with how many magi there were - two, three, ten, thirty?  The number three just comes from the number of gifts given.  We actually know very little about the Magi apart from the fact that they were foreigners and definitely not Jewish.   And add to that one more thing - probably the most important thing to know about them.  That is, they had an openness of spirit that enabled them to first notice and then follow a star that did not provide them with all the answers. They were willing to set out on a journey with an end that was not clear at the beginning. 

But they had some ideas.  Since they were looking for the child who had been born King of the Jews it was natural to expect that they would find him in Jerusalem, the seat of Jewish power. So upon their arrival they began to ask around.  Now here would be a perfect place to insert some joke about how uncharacteristic it is of men to ask for directions.  But really that’s an old joke for a different time.  In today’s world no one, man or woman, asks for directions anymore.  Want to find out how to get from point “A” to point “B”?  Just plug it into your GPS and voilà within a matter of seconds a custom made map appears with the route highlighted and your destination flagged along with the miles it will take to travel, how long it will take to get there, and notifications about any potential slow-downs.  There’s no guesswork, no ambiguity.  The journey is clearly laid out and plans can be made accordingly.

Obviously, the Magi had no technology at their fingertips which, perhaps, was part of what helped them to remain flexible and open to readjusting their expectations.  Now when they arrived in Jerusalem they must have thought that their long journey was over.  But instead it was there where things took an unexpected turn.  First of all, when they inquired about the newborn king no one knew what they were talking.  It took a while until King Herod, after consulting with the Jewish leaders, informed the Magi that the Messiah was to be born not in Jerusalem, but Bethlehem.  Who would have thought?  We take it for granted that the Magi took this news in stride, but it really is quite remarkable.  They do something that is, indeed, very wise and yet often very difficult to do – they let go of their own expectations trusting that the one whom they seek may actually be found in a way and a place that they never expected.   So they continue their journey to the backwater town of Bethlehem.  And when they find what to all appearances looks to be a regular child born to a peasant mother in a humble home they aren’t disappointed by this unlikely scene.  Rather they are overwhelmed with joy – joy that comes with encountering God even, or maybe especially, in the unexpected. 

We call that encounter the Epiphany – when God in Christ is revealed to the Magi, who really serve as a stand-in for all of us.  For Jesus came into the world not for a certain, select group people, but for everyone.  And just as it was then, so it is now that God’s desire for us to know the light of Christ’s presence in our lives.  Now often we think of such manifestations or epiphanies as big “aha” moments.  Perhaps you can think of such a time where you experienced a deep peace in the midst of crisis, an inner knowing when nothing at the time was knowable, or a release that came forgiving someone who had terribly hurt you.  Those are spiritual experiences are special and should be treasured.  However, if epiphanies are that remarkable and rare, something that happens just a handful of times in one’s life, if you’re lucky, then, honestly, there’s not much to celebrate today.

But thank God that is not the case.  The Epiphany of our Lord Jesus Christ didn’t just happen when the journey was finished and the Magi arrived at Jesus’ house.  Rather their entire experience was epiphanal.  Seeing the star at its rising, traveling to Jerusalem, continuing on to Bethlehem, seeing the child in his humble surroundings, offering him gifts, then traveling back home by another way – all along that journey the light of Christ shone and God was being revealed.

As we begin a new calendar year most, if not all of us, have plans about how we’d like this year to go.  And, if we’re lucky, some of those plans will go off without a hitch.  But eventually, as we journey into this new year we will encounter the unexpected.  But as people of faith our lives are not to be about clinging to neatly laid out plans, counting on some kind of spiritual GPS to provide us with all of the details of our route.  Rather, following Jesus means that we journey on a path where few things are certain and flexibility and openness are necessary – necessary so that we are able to readjust or sometimes even let go of our expectations trusting that the one we seek and, more importantly, the one who seeks us is found in ways and places that we never expected.  Epiphanies don’t just happen when we arrive at our planned destinations.  They happen throughout the journey – in all sorts of places and under all sorts of conditions: in homes and in hospitals, in arguments and in reconciliations, in bible studies and in business meetings,  in grocery stores and in bars, in mangers and even on crosses.  The light of Christ shines and epiphanies are happening all the time, often in the most unexpected of places - sometimes even sometimes in church - and that is something to celebrate!