Fourth Sunday after Epiphany, Year A

In Matthew, Jesus is the new Moses, teaching and interpreting God’s law and proclaiming the good news of God’s kingdom. Just as the Old Testament stories tell how Moses led the twelve tribes of Israel, Matthew emphasizes the twelve disciples, naming the people who were closest to Jesus, and reminding us that faith is formed through relationships.

Today’s Gospel is the first of the five major discourses Jesus leads in Matthew’s gospel. His preaching and teaching helps his followers can make sense of the gospel in the context of their background and beliefs. They are first-century Jews living in a society that was imperial and patriarchal where leaders were respected for their power and authority, and households were modeled similarly. Like us, they probably had relationships with the people immediately around them, people with whom they probably shared similar social or economic status.

Now, think about your relationships and the people who shape your faith, your beliefs and practices. Who are they and how do you know them?

One of the obvious places where we find people who influence our faith is in church because it remains one of the rare places where we can find a half-dozen or more different generations all in the same room. This is one of the reasons we have intergenerational Sunday School: our faith is enriched by listening to people from different generations, whether they are older or younger than us.

But church isn’t the only place where we find these relationships that crisscross generations. We can find them in face to face or digital community outside of church – places like work and school, the gym or the American Legion.

All of these different relationships form a “faith web” around me, connecting me to someone who is my parents’ generation, and maybe a generation older than them, and, also to a college student or a 20-something, teenager and even a younger child.

But, in this sermon, Jesus challenges his followers to rethink who their community includes.

We call this sermon the Beatitudes, and often what we hear in that description is the word “attitude” as though Jesus is an advice columnist, giving us pointers. But Jesus isn’t interested in only changing our attitudes; the cross is about transforming our lives.

Faith begins with our relationship to God as sons and daughters, but it is never just about Jesus and me.

Incarnational faith, love with skin on it, depends on relationships with each other as brothers and sisters, and with our neighbors.

Jesus doesn’t want us to see others differently so that we will express pity, charity, or even compassion. He is inviting, no, commanding, us to rethink how we measure a person’s worth and respond — act and live — differently with each other.

He invites us to recognize blessedness in people and circumstances where it may be obscured or hidden,
covered by scars or bruises,
soaked by tears or the elements,
or silenced by fear.

He invites us to see each person we meet as a gift, from the God who created us and loves us, looking past the ways they annoy us, disappoint, or even anger us. 

I know what Jesus is asking us to do is hard. But I want us to try it here this morning. 

Take the bulletin insert for today. It has eight circles on it.

Start in the center and write your name there. Then, add the names who are the same people that Jesus names in the beatitudes.

Maybe you don’t know them by name, but as a group.

That’s ok. For example, we can all probably name someone who is mourning, but who are the poor?

Who are the peacemakers? Who are the merciful?

Your answers are your own; when you have put a person’s name or the name of a group in each circle, you’ll have another kind of faith web, built around the beatitudes.

So take a few minutes now to fill out your faith web.

When we pray together later in worship, lift up the names of the people you have included, naming them blessed by God and praying for them.

This is what it means to be Kingdom people, united in faith and following Jesus. It’s not about living for some distant or far away future. It’s about recognizing God’s presence all around us, in the beautiful and in the broken, and remembering that God sees us all as blessed, both saint and sinner, loved and forgiven and given new life to follow Jesus as we live in response to God’s forgiveness, mercy and grace.

Let us pray:
Lord Jesus, giver of every blessing, help us come to you and welcome your word just as your followers did before us.
Send us out into the world to proclaim your Good News, with eyes wide open to see You in the world.
Amen.

Third Sunday after the Epiphany, Year A

When we hear about fishermen in the Bible, I think many of us hear this playing in our heads:

As for Andy and Opie, for many of us, going fishing means sitting on a riverbank or a dock with a line dangling in the water, waiting for the fish to bite. There’s no urgency; in fact, it’s one of those things that you do to escape from everyday work and routine.

But, fishing in biblical times, as it is now for commercial fishermen, was backbreaking, smelly and risky work. And, as any boat owner knows, the best days of your life are the day you buy a boat and the day you sell it.

Ancient fisherman fought with broken nets and decaying wood. They were at the mercy of the wind and tide. And in first-century Capernaum on the northwest shore of the sea of Galilee, under the control of Herod Antipas, the fishermen were subject to quotas and taxes and tolls.

It is out of this kind of experience and livelihood that Jesus calls Simon Peter and Andrew, and then John and James, to follow him and be fishers of men.

He invited the disciples to do something new, but it didn’t mean it wouldn’t be hard work.

But even if you anticipate the hardship of the task, today’s gospel text sounds a lot like a big fish story. You know how big fish stories go; they are the stories of “the one that got away” like the one Mark Twain tells in the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Huck is telling the story and says:

“the first thing we done was to bait one of the big hooks with a skinned rabbit and set it and catch a cat-fish that was as big as a man, being six foot two inches long, and weighed over two hundred pounds.

We couldn't handle him, of course; he would a flung us into Illinois.”

Big fish stories are unlikely — hard to believe — especially because we don’t see what happened with our own eyes, and today’s Gospel gives us a whopper! Matthew says that Jesus invited the disciples to follow him and become fishers of men, and immediately they did!

Just like that. They didn’t talk back or ask for details. They didn’t even ask to say goodbye to their families. They just dropped their nets and followed him. Immediately.

“Discipleship is hearing God’s call and obeying it, even if it means radical changes of direction in life.” [i] It is our response to what God has already done, and is doing, in our midst.

Sometimes we get mixed up and think it’s up to us to declare a vision and mission, and it’s up to us to build the church, so we try big audacious programs –flashy big fish stories – to hook people.

But today’s Gospel reminds us that what God invites us to do is follow Jesus,
to listen to God’s Word and build relationships with other followers, for the sake of the world.

God doesn’t care about big fish stories. God cares about people.

A couple of years ago, at synod assembly, which is the annual meeting of our congregations, everyone was sent out into the community for service projects. There were about five hundred of us wearing t-shirts like this one that said, “Out To Serve -The Church Has Left The Building.” Maybe we should have hung a sign on the darkened auditorium doors that said, “Gone Fishing!” We were doing the hard work of living out the gospel in the world.

The call that Jesus makes to each of us doesn’t require a theology degree or a stole. It requires obedience:

eyes to see how the skills or knowledge and gifts you already possess can be used to show others the love and mercy of God; and, a heart to know that, while “routine rarely feels holy…the routine, everyday ways in which we follow Jesus are crucially important.”[ii]

When we get distracted by big fish stories – stories of saints like Mother Teresa or Francis of Assissi, or even Martin Luther –
it’s easy to discount our faithfulness.

Maybe you’ve heard the story about an old man who walking on the beach at low tide one day. 

The sand was littered with thousands of stranded starfish that the water had carried in and then left behind. 

The man began walking very carefully so as not to step on any of the beautiful creatures. Since the animals still seemed to be alive, he considered picking some of them up and putting them back in the water, where they could resume their lives. 

The man knew the starfish would die if left on the beach's dry sand but he reasoned that he could not possibly help them all, so he chose to do nothing and continued walking.
Soon afterward, the man came upon a small child on the beach who was frantically throwing one starfish after another back into the sea. 

The old man stopped and asked the child, "What are you doing?" 

"I'm saving the starfish," the child replied. 

"Why waste your time?... There are so many you can't save them all so what does is matter?" argued the man.

Without hesitation, the child picked up another starfish and tossed the starfish back into the water... "It matters to this one," the child explained.

Our ordinary faithfulness matters. Throughout this season of Epiphany, we discover that “every moment matters, because life is holy. God speaks to us in the ordinary and the routine.”[iii]

Let us pray…
Holy God,
Guided by your Spirit, help us respond faithfully when you call us;
Send us out united in purpose and unafraid to follow Jesus,
even when it means doing a new thing,
that the world would know your mercy and love.
Amen.

[i] Feasting on the Gospels.
[ii] ibid
[iii] Pastor and preaching professor Brett Younger

Second Sunday after the Epiphany, Year A

“What are you looking for?” is the question Jesus asks John’s disciples when they follow him.

Sometimes we can name what we’re searching for: a word, a phrase, a sign, an object.

Other times, we are searching for something less defined or known, but nonetheless, very specific. Ethan Canin’s novel A Doubter’s Almanac tells the life story of Milo Andret, a fictional mid-20th century mathematician whose work was proving complex conjectures that hadn’t been solved. Similarly, but based on historical events, the movie Hidden Figures tells the story of several brilliant, black women who worked with NASA’s Mercury 7 program during the era that put Alan Shepard and John Glenn into space; they were engineers, programmers and mathematicians seeking solutions that didn’t yet exist.

But there is a third kind of quest that is even more ambiguous:
when we are searching for trust or meaning or purpose.

Another way to translate Jesus’ question is “What do you hope to find?” or even, “What do you long for?”

Most of us don’t long for our car keys, or even for the name of that forgotten acquaintance.

I think we may long for answers to unanswerable questions or cures to life-limiting illnesses, but,

like world peace and an end to violent conflicts in our divisive world, those things may remain beyond our individual reach.

So, while we lift those genuine longings to God in our prayers,
what do we really need, or hope or long for, that might be found in meeting Jesus
and experiencing God’s presence in our lives, here and now?

Is it silence in a noisy world that strives to persuade you that it knows what you really need? The number of advertisements we are exposed to through televised and digital media has increased exponentially in our lifetimes. Marketers promise we will be healthier, smarter, better-looking and safer if we just make the “right” choice.

“What are you seeking?”

Is it a place of belonging in a world that, more than fifty years after Dr. King preached in Washington, D.C., still labels people first by something other than the content of their character? Whether it’s for race, gender, sexual orientation, level of education, gender identity, or even the bumper sticker on your car or the yard sign on your lawn; we are masters of putting people in boxes or categories, and discarding or discrediting them.

“What are you seeking?”

Is it a community centered on relationships, in a world where, tacitly at least, we have been taught that asking for help, or expressing concern for someone else’s welfare, risks “bothering someone” or “imposing” on them? Are we seeking relationships where we can have difficult, caring conversations in a world where we find it easier to walk away isolated and alone rather than tell someone, “You hurt me” or “I’m mad.”

“What are you seeking?”

Maybe, as my seminary preaching professor David Lose writes, it is “a chance to serve and be connected to others in a world that encourages putting yourself first.”[i] The very best antidote I can take for a bad day is to go visit someone, listening to their story, and focusing on them. It gets me out of my own head, and my own worries or anxieties.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus invites the disciples, and us, to “come and see” how a life of discipleship might provide us with what we are seeking.

Belonging, relationship and service are three dimensions of this life of discipleship that we begin in our own baptisms.

Discipleship defines our lives as
who we are as God’s children, where we are given all that Christ has as he takes on all that is ours;
as brothers and sisters in Christ, where, created for relationship, we learn how to live life together;
and in the world where we are called to imitate his Son,
the incarnation of God in the flesh,
divine love with skin on it.

As we each discern what it is we come here seeking,
and what our deepest longing or hope is in this world,
may we “come and see” how living as disciples of Jesus might reveal a deeper understanding of the God who loves us.

Let us pray…
Holy God,
Send your Holy Spirit upon us to open our eyes and hearts to you and your love and grace that we would discover what we are seeking in a life of discipleship. Assure us that because You created us, we have a place in your family; give us courage to risk building relationships with others; and inspire us to service, for the sake of the world that you love.
Amen.

[i] “A Question, Invitation and Promise”, In the Meantime. Dr. David Lose. http://www.davidlose.net/

Epiphany of the Lord, Year A

On Epiphany in 2017, snow canceled services at the church, but worship carried on in our homes with Snow Worship:

The Name of Jesus, Year A

On Friday morning, I caught part of the final broadcast of the Diane Rehm show on National Public Radio. Before she signed off for the last time, Rehm shared a rebroadcast of an interview with Maya Angelou, the late award-winning poet and author of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and poems like “On the Pulse of Morning” and “Still I Rise.” Telling a story from her childhood with her grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas, Angelou remembered how her grandmother wouldn’t let Maya or her brother say “By the Way” because “The Way” was another name for Jesus, and Grandmother didn’t want those children cussing in her house.

On this first day of 2017, the Church celebrates the Holy Name given to Jesus at his circumcision. Following the glittering ball drop in New York’s Time Square or the epic fireworks that filled the sky at midnight at Sydney’s Opera House, and certainly in comparison to the greater festival of the Nativity of our Lord, today’s festival may seem esoteric or obscure. After all, apart from following the second commandment instructing us not to take the Lord’s name in vain, what significance does the name have for us today?

It’s fair to say that I don’t think William Shakespeare’s adage that “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet” applies here.

The names we give God, and the name Jesus is given, matter because they reveal who God is.

When we sang the psalm earlier, praising God for all creation, we used two different names for God — Adonai or Lord and Master and Sovereign [One]. Descriptive names like these appear throughout Scripture, revealing different dimensions of God’s character to us.

In the Small Catechism, Martin Luther teaches that the Holy Name matters, writing,

“We should fear and love God that we may not curse, swear, use witchcraft, lie, or deceive by His name, but call upon it in every trouble, pray, praise, and give thanks.”

The story of Jesus being named recalls the angel’s instructions to Joseph, as well as the obedience Joseph and Mary demonstrated and their faithfulness to Jewish tradition that would have had their son circumcised on the eighth day after his birth.

Through Jesus we are connected to our ancestors in faith going back generations to David and Ruth and Rahab, to Tamar and Jacob and Abraham.

In baptism, we are adopted as God’s sons and daughters, co-heirs to God’s Kingdom with Jesus. Today’s Gospel and epistle remind us that no identity matters more than the one we are given as God’s children and Jesus’ own brothers and sisters.

But, identifying ourselves as a “family” in church can be problematic. From “The Waltons” to “The Simpsons,” or “The Sound of Music” to “Shrek”, television and movies offer a lot of different ideas about what it means to be family.

“Family gatherings” can be awkward for “distant cousins” who we only see once or twice a year, or the “brothers from another mother” whose traditions might be different from our own.

But, bearing the name Christian, or “little Christ,” we are called to imitate and follow Jesus, who worked at dismantling barriers and reaching across boundaries that tried to shut people out and keep them at a “safe distance.” So in this Holy family, we have to make the effort to invite people, as brothers and sisters in Christ, to join us, and to welcome strangers into our lives.

Families have other challenges, too. I heard several people describing how, this year, their holiday gatherings included “ground rules” that banned any discussion of politics. It’s hard to disagree with the people we love, and it’s harder still to address the conflicts without hurting each other. I’m sure those temporary truces preserved the peace and let families proceed with their celebrations and feasts, and that is valuable.

But, bearing the name Christian, or “little Christ,” we are called to imitate and follow Jesus, who wasn’t afraid to address divisions as he championed the least and the lost. So in this Holy family, we have to make the effort to speak truthfully in the Light of the Gospel.

And, following Martin Luther’s counsel on the eighth commandment,
we are to defend each other, speak well of each other and make the effort to take each other’s words and actions in the kindest possible way.

Although today’s festival recognizing Jesus’ Holy Name may not make any list of the ten most popular New Year’s Day celebrations, it has endured for centuries longer than fireworks and the ball drop in Times Square reminding us that, while human families can exclude others or be broken by divisions, when we are adopted into this Holy family, we receive God’s promise of everlasting presence and His reconciling and healing love.

And when we gather as a family of faith, we celebrate that in the sacraments, God’s promises are joined with the water of Baptism and the bread and wine that we receive in Holy Communion, and remember that, nothing can separate us from God.

Let us pray…
Holy God,
Help us remember you have adopted us as sons and daughters, co-heirs with Your Son Jesus.
Send your Spirit to lead us that our lives would imitate His,
and we would extend Your Love, mercy and grace to all whom we meet.
Amen.