Sermon: Fifth Sunday After the Epiphany - Youth & Children's Sunday

Mary Margaret Winn, guest preacher
> Scripture for the day

Today’s gospel seems like a fairly straightforward lesson about the healing power of Jesus. He comes to Galilee, heals the fever of a friend, performs some miracles, casts out some demons… pretty normal “Jesus” things to do. But I don’t think this is really about Jesus’ high profile, memorable actions. Rather, I think it is about the people’s response to these actions.

Life is all about choices. What to wear each day, what to have for lunch, how we are going to treat others, and so on. But before we can make these decisions, a choice has to be presented to us. In my English class, we are reading Flannery O’Connor, the quintessential Southern religious writer. In all of her stories, there is a character we call a “candidate for grace” or someone who has not yet seen or understood the love of God. This character has some sort of sudden, often violent, revelation about his or her spirituality or personal characteristics. After the initial shock, they begin to process what they have learned about themselves, God, and others. And then the story ends. O’Connor leaves it up to the reader to determine what the character is going to do with their new-found Grace.

In one story, Mrs. Turpin, a Southern, middle-class woman, enters the waiting room at a doctors’ office and strikes up a conversation with the other patients. She continuously insults people based on their “class” while at the same time praising herself for being such a good Christian woman. Finally, one girl becomes so angry that she hurls a book at Mrs. Turpin’s head and attempts to choke her. After the action dissipates, Mrs. Turpin makes her way home to finish up her chores for the afternoon. In the “pig parlor” where she raises hogs, she begins to really process what has happened to her. She hoses down the pigs, ends her inner monologue, and walks back to the house. We had to decide whether or not she was going to act on her epiphany.

This scenario is a lot like our relationship with God. At some point in our lives, we start to notice the wonder of His grace. This realization may come gradually through everyday experience and observation, it may come in a fun Sunday school assignment from Father Deneke, or it could hit you like a book between the eyes as it does for Mrs. Turpin. Regardless of what prompts this moment, we have to process and react to how this “revelation of love” affects us emotionally, spiritually, and socially. Then we act.

One way that people can act is by spreading the Word. For me, this is like the first time I visited Yoforia. Yoforia is a place in Virginia Highlands that sells frozen yogurt. But not just any frozen yogurt-- this stuff is unbelievably delicious. Three different flavors with an endless supply of toppings. I fell in love, and the next day at school, all I could talk about was Yoforia and the “best dessert ever.” I wanted everyone to know about so they could go try it and fall in love just like I did.

Now replace the frozen yogurt with God’s love. Some people spread the Word by bringing people to church, the same way I brought people to Yoforia. Others volunteer their time or money by doing missionary work, helping at a soup kitchen, or giving money to charity. Still others simply chat with the check-out lady at the supermarket, or (a rare occurrence in Atlanta) actually let someone into the lane while driving. The best way to spread God’s love is to show others that our actions are a direct result of our faith.

But there is also another reaction, or lack thereof. Some people forget about their revelation. As much as I love Yoforia, I have not been there in months; Mrs. Turpin may have continued her life as if her eyes were never opened. Our lives are so hectic—with school, work, the economy, family, and a multitude of other commitments—that we can often let everyday life get in the way of responding to God’s Grace, even though it is always there. If we are in a hurry, we can forget to thank the cashier at the gas-station, or even cut someone off on the highway. These actions—good or bad—are evidence to others about our faith.

But God has done his part…showed His love to us…and all He wants us to do is act. To take what we have seen and do something with it. Again, the purest, most effective way to spread God’s love is to act on our faith. In our Gospel reading, Simon’s mother-in-law responds to Jesus’ care by serving Him in her home. The people of Galilee respond by going to the synagogue to see Jesus at work. Simon acts by searching for Jesus in the early morning. Jesus is our model as he moves from town to town to “proclaim the message.” So we need to take what we see as evidence of God’s grace- a sister, a friend, nature, or even frozen yogurt- and act.

Sermon: The Feast of the Presentation

Angela Wiggins, seminarian
> Scripture for the day

The town I grew up in was small - big enough to have a movie theatre, but the theatre had only one screen. Since it had to appeal to all audiences, the wait between G-rated movies was months long. So I never really got into the genre of children’s movies. Besides, I was skeptical of talking animals – if animals talked, wouldn’t they speak their own language instead of English?

Then there were musicals; I didn’t get that genre either. It seemed like every time something happened, somebody would burst into song and interrupt the whole movie. I just didn’t get it.

What finally won me over was the release of the movie musical “Grease.” Or maybe what won me over was the long summer of waiting for Grease to make it to our theatre. We could endure the wait only because one of our friends bought the soundtrack.

That was also the summer our youth minister scheduled an out-of-town trip each week for the middle-school kids. As our mothers drove us on these excursions, we played the “Grease” soundtrack over and over, hour after hour, week after week. By the 4th of July we had memorized all the songs, complete with hand motions, and we kept on singing all summer. It was a long summer of expectation.

When I hear those songs now, I can still see us riding upside-down in the backseat with our beach-soaked hair dangling onto the floorboard, our torsos on the seat, and our legs folded over the back of the seat. Who knows why we did that, but when I hear those songs, “You’re the One that I Want” or “We Go Together,” I sing along and remember the joy, laughter, and expectation of that summer.

When Grease finally made it to town, we sang along with the movie. We knew the plot from all those hours with the soundtrack. That freed us up to gaze dreamily at John Travolta. But as soon as another song came on, we’d jump right back in. We knew it was time to pay attention. That’s the advantage of a musical – you always get a clue when something big is about to happen. You don’t have to guess if the next scene is significant; if it has a song, it’s important. Expect something.

I wouldn’t go so far as to speculate that St. Luke was an early writer of musicals, but he does use song in much the same way, especially when he tells the story of Jesus’ infancy. Something really big is happening, so Luke doesn’t just narrate. He doesn’t write a speech or a dialogue. He puts it in song and we pay attention. We expect something. These beautiful songs convey more than narrative can contain. When we hear these songs, we know something beyond words is happening. We remember these beautiful songs and continue to sing them, even tonight. These songs shape our understanding and remembrance of the incarnation.

Our Gospel lesson is from the second chapter of Luke, but let’s back up and think about chapter one also. In these two chapters Luke tells the story of the infancy of Jesus and he fills this story with song and angels. What is happening – God coming to live among us as one of us - is beyond human imagination. There is no way to explain this; the only way to tell it is with song and with angels. Like Zechariah, like Mary, like the shepherds, when we see angels, we pay attention. No matter what we have been expecting, God is about to exceed our expectations.

One thing Luke makes clear about his characters is their piety and devotion. They are people who love and serve God, people who understand that God is at work. People like Simeon who wait in expectation to see salvation. Like Mary and Joseph who bundle up Jesus and take him to the temple, just as they were expected to do. People like Elizabeth and Anna who go about their daily work – at home and in the temple – while they wait for the fulfillment of God’s promises. They are expecting redemption; they are expecting God.

And God is up to something that day. Mary and Joseph bring Jesus to the temple, and the Holy Spirit brings Simeon. Anna the prophet is already there, at prayer, just as usual. They’re doing ordinary things, the tasks expected of them, but God is doing something beyond their expectations. Their redemption is at hand in the most unexpected way. The distance between heaven and earth, between God and creation is gone. God is right there, right where they are. God is right here, right where we are.

Luke announces this in-breaking with angels. Nothing less would do. Gabriel appears to Zechariah and to Mary. A company of angels announces the birth of Jesus to the shepherds. The Holy Spirit prompts Elizabeth and then Simeon to recognize the fulfillment of God’s promises, to recognize the presence of the Lord. Zechariah, Mary, and Simeon respond with songs of praise. Like any good writer of a musical, Luke alerts us with these songs that something significant is happening. We know to look for God in the story.

Luke is a great storyteller; he doesn’t try to explain how all this could happen. Instead, he records the amazement of Zechariah and Mary and Simeon in song. These are songs of amazement, but not disbelief. Although this is not how they expected their hopes to be fulfilled, they recognize that God is doing something beyond expectation.

So they sing. They sing praise to God and proclaim God’s goodness that is beyond expectation. They had trusted God’s faithfulness, but God has surprised them. Simeon sings, “These eyes of mine have seen the Savior, whom you have prepared for all the world to see.” Tonight, as we celebrate the Feast of the Presentation, we join Simeon in this canticle of praise. In this song we celebrate the fulfillment of God’s promise and we remember. Just as favorite songs from our youth transport us back in time, in this ancient song we relive our redemption in Christ. We join in singing praise that the light of the world has been revealed to us.

We try to find precise words to explain what has happened. In my former work, tax accounting, we had tricky words that made no sense to anyone but us - and the IRS. One set of tricky adjectives was “realized” and “recognized.” For most people, these words have similar meanings, but not for tax accountants. A realized gain meant a profit has been made, yes, it’s happened, but you don’t have to do anything about it. Just sit tight. Everybody liked that kind of gain. A recognized gain, though, meant a profit has been made and you’ve got to do something about it; you’ve got to claim the income and pay the price. And, well, you know what that means.

While these words seemed like secret code to our clients, they understood the distinction between the words determined whether they had to share their profit with the IRS. It’s nice to know an investment has paid off, but most would rather not recognize the gain.

All too often, that’s our response to Christ. It’s nice to know Christ has happened, but we’d rather not do anything about it. We’d rather live as if the Light of the World wasn’t shining in the darkness.

Singing about light and salvation with Simeon is lovely, and remembering the joy of our salvation is important, but it’s not enough. For Simeon and for Anna, the recognition of Christ, our light and our salvation, was life changing. They were no longer expecting redemption; they were proclaiming redemption. Verse 38 says Anna “kept speaking about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.” The encounter with Christ has given Anna new work and a new way of living.

Luke must have written the next verse, verse 39, with a sly grin. He says, “When they [Mary and Joseph] had finished everything required by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth.” If we didn’t know what happened next, we might think they went back to life as usual. But we know the next chapter of the story – Jesus at the temple at age 12 – and we know how the story ends. We know they can’t go back to what life was before. Once we recognize the light of the world, life is no longer the same.

Let’s sing with Simeon and join in Anna’s praise. But let us also be open to being transformed by encounter with Christ. Let us live in the light of Christ.

Amen.

Sermon: Fourth Sunday After the Epiphany

The Rev. Dr. Deborah Silver, assisting priest
> Scripture for the day

Been to any good exorcisms lately? That’s a question that’s sure to stop conversation at most proper dinner parties. But as you listened to the Gospel reading this morning, what may have caught your attention more than anything, and hopefully you were listening, was the man with the unclean spirit crying out to Jesus, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?”

Now the safest, and perhaps we might think the sanest, way to deal with this story of the unclean, or some translations say demonic spirit, is to remind ourselves that we are sophisticated, 21st century people who no longer believe in this primitive way of seeing the world. However, well known preacher Fred Craddock puts it this way, “No service is rendered simply by announcing that we no longer believe in demons. Although that is true, for most, not believing in demons has hardly eradicated evil in our world.” Good point. If you are in any doubt that evil still flourishes in our world I wonder on what remote desert island you have been living lately. In fact, I would even venture to say that what the world is in desperate need of right now is a Jesus untamed by our image of the gentle Shepherd holding the lost lamb. No, we need a demon-tossing, Spirit-possessed Son of God, who acts with divine authority and proclaims that the boundary between heaven and earth has been pierced and the reign of God is at hand.

This is the Jesus we encounter in Mark’s Gospel. It is the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. He takes his newly appointed disciples with him to the synagogue at Capernaum. The people in the synagogue are amazed at what they see and hear. The people do not focus on demons or on what they have to say, or how Jesus effectively exorcizes them. The people are amazed by this new teacher whose words carry with them authority and power to make the unclean, clean.

The sudden and unexpected arrival of this tortured man offers a profound teaching moment for Jesus. The exorcism story drips with irony as Jesus, a man possessed by the Spirit of God, faces off with a man possessed by the demonic. This battle proves to be no contest for the demonic contingent that resides in this man. They recognize who Jesus is, “I know who you are, the Holy One of God,” while everyone else in the synagogue stays strangely silent.

A child of God is delivered from his bondage, and there are no shouts for joy or spontaneous prayers of thanksgiving. The words of the Prophet Isaiah echo in the background – “Is not this the fast that I choose to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?” – and yet no one notices that what the Gospel of Mark signaled in Jesus’ baptism when the heavens are “torn apart” is happening now before their eyes. [1]

As the people in the synagogue maintain a safe distance from Jesus, speculating among themselves about this new powerful teacher, we hearers of Mark are invited to follow Jesus into a whole new world. New Testament scholar Brian Blount says that we are invited into “Mark’s world of Jesus walking around possessed by the power of the Spirit of God. In such a world you either go with the man and help him create the holy chaos he’s creating or you find a way to stop him so you can get your people back in line.” [2]

The Gospel of Mark puts us on notice from the first chapter that the boundary-breaking, demon-dashing, law transcending Son of God has arrived in the person of Jesus, and he expects of his followers far more than “amazement”.

What does Jesus expect of his followers? What does this Jesus of Nazareth have to do with us?

There is a story attributed to Cherokee wisdom:

One evening a grandfather was teaching his young grandson about the internal battle that each person faces.

“There are two wolves struggling inside each of us,” the old man said. “One wolf is vengefulness, anger, resentment, self-pity, fear…

“The other wolf is compassion, faithfulness, hope, truth, love …”

The grandson sat, thinking, then asked: “Which wolf wins, Grandfather?”

His grandfather replied, “The one you feed.”

Which one do you feed? It’s a question well worth asking ourselves, as individuals, as the church, as a community, as a nation.

In times of personal or national crisis, it may be more tempting to hunker down and feed the wolf of fear and resentment than to feed the wolf of compassion and hope.

There is plenty out there to feed our cynicism, fear and self-absorption. There are lots of voices claiming authority, seeking our attention and vying for our allegiance. Which wolf do we choose to feed? How can we even tell the difference?

And that, my friend, is why you and I are here this morning. We cannot identify and feed the wolf of love and compassion on our own. We need each other. We need the Body of Christ. We need the food of hope and grace whose singular nutritional authority comes from God. We need to be fed with the Spiritual food that nourishes our souls when we gather at God’s table.

We cannot do it on our own and we know that. It is why we say the Confession of Sin before the Eucharist. We know all too well our own capacity for choosing evil and our own need for forgiveness. And that’s why we come here.

It’s here that we pray for God to deliver us from evil, to vanquish the demons, that is, whatever binds us and prevents us from loving God and our neighbor as ourselves.

It is why in the Prayers of the People we pray for all those in power and ask God to
“Guide the people of this land, and of all the nations, in the ways of justice and peace; that we may honor one another and serve the common good.”

It is here that we are fed on the Scriptures and nourished by the sacraments that make us one and transform us at the same time.

It is here that we find encouragement to commit ourselves to the grand work of loving God and the hard work of loving our neighbor.

It is here that we meet the Holy One of God who has the authority to call evil out of us, to forgive us, to transform us and to empower us by the Holy Spirit to proclaim in our own words and deeds the coming of God’s Kingdom.

And it’s as we leave this place
and follow the light of Christ into the world that we,
we of all people, have been given the authority to speak,
and live, and heal in ways that feed a hungry world.

And that is truly amazing.


[1] Gary W. Charles in Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol. 1, p. 313, Westminster John Knox Press, 2008.
[2] Ibid.

Sermon: Third Sunday After the Epiphany

The Very Rev. William Thomas Deneke, rector
> Scripture for the day

Call to me and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things you have not seen. (Jeremiah 33:3)

If you watch the Holy Trinity video on the parish web site, you will hear sung this remarkable scripture from the prophet Jeremiah. I want to use Jeremiah’s words to direct our thoughts to the gospel for today and to the ministry of Holy Trinity. Call to me and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things you have not seen.

What an invitation! One way to approach this invitation is through the eyes of stewardship. When we call to God, we are opening ourselves to a wider reality than just ourselves. We are coming out of the womb of self-service into the realm of God. It is in that larger reality that we are shown great and mighty things. It is here that we are enabled to see a larger vision than could ever be seen in the smaller world of self-service. The irony of the invitation is that as we move from self-focused stewardship to the values of God’s realm, we find our lives enriched. In the words of Jeremiah, we are shown great and mighty things we have not seen.
Great and mighty things in God’s realm are not always the things commonly counted as spectacular. Yesterday, I heard an interesting story on National Public Radio. A rabbi was being interviewed about how extravagant many bar and ba mitzvah celebrations had become over recent years. He described one bar mitzvah that was especially over the top. At an appointed time in the celebration the young man who was celebrating his bar mitzvah came out standing astride a replica of the Titantic with his arms outstretched like Leonardo de Caprio, saying something like, "I'm the king of the world". A replica of a killer whale also appeared to be jumping through a Star of David.

Especially interesting was the rabbi's take on this. He said that our present economic downturn could be an important time in our spiritual growth. Times like these force us to look at what is truly essential in life -- our stock portfolio or our soul. What is great and mighty in the eyes of God may have a better chance of being revealed when we are less distracted by the glitter of more worldly pursuits.

We also need to be careful that in seeking the promise of great and mighty things that we do not leave God behind in our exuberance. The pursuit of great and mighty things of God requires humility. At times the church has hitched its wagon to models of greatness that resembled more the values of the corporate world than that of servant-leadership. However attractive it may seem, we cannot depend upon success to be our savior. Our hope is in one who revealed that great and mighty things may be found where we do not expect to see them.

I was reminded of that at two recent funerals. Jimmie Ward and Josephine Ward, both deaf, died within a short time of one another. They had come to Holy Trinity with their daughter Conne because we made available an interpreter for principal services of worship. This ministry enriched their last years. Perhaps we would not have considered it a great and mighty thing, but for these two people cut off from the world of sound, it was a gift of grace from God’s realm.

In today’s gospel, Jesus invites Peter, Andrew, James and John to follow him into a holy realm where they will become fishers of people. Unfortunately, the NRSV rendering, I will make you fish for people, is a poor translation of the Greek text. Jesus is not simply giving them an additional job, but is transforming how they approach life. In the realm to which he is inviting them, their priorities will change. No longer will they be focused on maintaining themselves or even their families. They will still have basic human needs, but their energy will be mostly directed toward serving the realm of God. Life will be seen differently. Jesus makes it clear that they will be focused on enabling people to see God’s great and mighty things.

Jesus’ invitation captures the fishermen’s imaginations, and they follow him into the process of being born anew. We might say they were drawn into the possibility of becoming stewards of the realm of God. The disciples would come to see that the invitation to follow Christ would have to be visited over and over again. They would always be discovering what it meant to be stewards of God’s realm. They would come to see more and more that to follow Christ meant learning to trust the Spirit, to be open to reform, and to be adaptable. Their accomplishments would be measured more by faithfulness than success.

On this day of our Annual Parish Meeting, we might ponder these things. Are we faithfully calling to God? What are the great and mighty things God is showing us? Are we being faithful stewards of what God is enabling us to see? And what great and mighty things are we revealing to others about God’s realm?

As we read the annual reports of our various parish ministries (either on line or in printed booklets), we may be surprised by what we see. Hidden in words and statistics are stories of holy encounters. Behind ministries and programs are times of prayer and discernment. The reports present a portrait of a parish that is seeking to be faithful to its mission in Christ. Sometimes more faithfulness is needed. Sometimes great and mighty things emerge. The reports reveal something of the life and faith of this community as we continue to learn what it means to follow Christ.

The call to follow Christ is always at work in the world. It is an invitation to a journey of faith, a pilgrimage of discovery, a walk in hope. We are never too old or too young, too bad or too good to see great and mighty things of God. We are never too holy or too unholy to grow as stewards of God’s realm. We can make a difference for others and ourselves by calling to God, by following Christ, and by being transformed into fishers of people.

This morning please join with me in giving thanks to God for the journey of faith to which God calls Holy Trinity. Please join me in praying that we will call to God in hope, and that we will have the wisdom, courage, and strength of character to follow the wondrous path revealed in Jesus, affirmed by Peter, Andrew, James and John, and heralded by the prophet Jeremiah when he said of God, Call to me and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things you have not seen.

Let us pray.

Lord of grace and hope, Spirit of peace and encouragement, our life is a great and mighty thing. Even more glorious are your love for people and your caring for this planet. In this community of faith, you have revealed great and mighty things. You have called us to your mission of redemption and equipped us to be servant leaders. You have led us to feed the hungry through DEAM, give water to the thirsty through Food for the Poor, partner with poor villages in Honduras, work for human relief and development with our sister Episcopal churches. You bring us into communion with friends and strangers and invite us to your table. You send us into the world with a song in our heart and a story on our lips. We are more grateful than words can express.

Lead us, O Holy One, into the future. Open our eyes to your great and mighty things. Give us a vision of community and ministry that will deliver us from self-service and draw us more and more into your realm.

We pray in the name of Jesus who said long ago to four fishermen and continues to say to us, Follow me. Amen.

Sermon: Second Sunday After the Epiphany

The Rev. Allan Sandlin, associate rector
> click here for the Scripture for the day

Out of breath, Philip runs up to his friend, Nathanael, and can’t hold back a minute longer: We've found the One Moses wrote of in the Law, the One preached by the prophets. It's Jesus, Joseph's son, the one from Nazareth!

Raising an eyebrow, Nathanael seems skeptical: Nazareth? You’ve got to be kidding. Can anything good come out of Nazareth?

I like Nathanael. I like that he wants more than enthusiasm, more than an emotional, gushy introduction to this supposed Messiah. I like him, but he also makes me a little uncomfortable because his question isn’t just a doubting question. It’s a bigoted question. His question judges someone on the basis of where he comes from, who his people are.

Philip might have argued with Nathanael, but he doesn’t. Instead, Philip simply invites him to come and see. Come and find the answer for yourself. Come and see, discover who this person is for yourself.

That’s where I started with this sermon. I found myself drawn to those three words, wanting to invite you once again to come and see Jesus. Come and see Jesus in the unexpected person sitting next to you in the pew, see Jesus in the stranger you meet on the street or in a colleague at work. Come and see Jesus in the wondering questions of children, in the wisdom of our elders. Come and see Jesus in the bread and wine of the Eucharist.

That’s a sermon I’ve preached before. That’s where I thought we’d be headed this morning.

But keep reading. It’s not just Nathanael’s response that catches our attention this morning. The story doesn’t end with the invitation for him to come and see.

In fact, it’s Jesus, not Nathanael, who sees first. Jesus spots Nathanael coming toward him and says, out of the blue, without prompting “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” Here's a real Israelite, not a false bone in his body, Jesus is saying.

Say you were out for a walk in the park with a friend and your friend introduced you to someone, someone you’d never seen before and instead of saying “Nice to meet you” that person said “I know more about you than you know about yourself”…you might be just a bit suspicious. Jesus’ greeting prompts Nathanael to ask “Where did you get to know me?” Who have you been talking to about me?

And Jesus’ answer is as perplexing to us as it was, no doubt, to Nathanael. “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.”

Something about those words takes root in Nathanael and he changes his mind about Jesus. The one who had been skeptical, even bigoted in his initial response to the idea of Jesus, now meeting him face to face, recognizes him and proclaims him to be Son of God, King of Israel.

The recognition is mutual. Jesus sees Nathanael and recognizes in him a faithful, honest man, someone who could be trusted. And Nathanael sees in Jesus someone he can only begin to name, something divine, someone who invites him into a future he can scarcely imagine.

All in all, it was a strange first meeting.

We read about another surprising first encounter in the lesson from the Hebrew Scriptures this morning. It’s the middle of the night and the child Samuel is lying down in the temple keeping watch. His teacher, Eli, is in the next room, trying to get some sleep. Samuel keeps hearing someone call his name and three times he gets up, goes to Eli and presents himself, ready for service. “Here I am, for you called me.”

Eli must have assumed the boy was dreaming until finally, Samuel came to him for third time. Eli’s eyesight was failing him but he was also losing his spiritual vision and thus he didn’t see what was going on right away. It was only after Samuel’s 3rd visit that he realized it was God calling the boy.

Samuel needed Eli to interpret, to help him understand the call from God. And God is about to give this young boy who is both truthful and confused some very adult responsibilities.

Author and social ethicist, Christine Pohl, directs our attention to the similarity of experience between Samuel and Nathaniel.

On their own, neither (Samuel) nor Nathanael is able to interpret these strange encounters. Samuel doesn’t recognize God’s voice and Nathanael is puzzled by Jesus’ inauspicious origins and then by his extraordinary capacity to know and see.

But both of them are portrayed as truthful...the childlike innocence in Samuel is reflected in the description of Nathanael as an Israelite in whom there is “no deceit.” No cunning, no spin…just a purity of heart that helps open their eyes to see God. (1)

Those words describe our leading characters in this morning’s lessons. But they also remind me of Martin Luther King…a man who told the truth, with no cunning, no deceit, no spin…he had a purity of heart that opened his eyes and all of our eyes to see God.

This past Thursday, January 15, was Martin Luther King’s birthday. He would have been 80 years old. That’s hard to imagine. We remember him as that young man of 39: passionate, courageous and strong. In churches across the nation and indeed around the world today, we honor Dr. King in our prayers, in our hearts and in our songs.

We are told that Martin was a reluctant civil rights activist and even a reluctant preacher. He was embarrassed by the enthusiastic singing and shouting at the church he grew up in, Ebenezer Baptist Church, of course, and didn’t imagine that he’d grow up to be a preacher. His encounter with God must have been a surprise to him. But that encounter or rather, those encounters, I suspect, propelled him into the activist ministry that led to changes in the law and began to change American attitudes toward race.

And helped prepare the way for January 20th, 2009…

No matter how you voted, this is a remarkable thing that’s about to happen. 40 years after Martin Luther King was assassinated, an African-American, a man whose mother was a white Caucasian woman from Kansas and whose father was a black man from Kenya is about to become the President of the United States.

And whatever your hopes for him, whether or not you think you will agree with the decisions he will make and the actions he will take, we join together today in praying for him and for our country.

Our soon-to-be President has challenged all of us in a particular way that relates to the gospel this morning. He has called for a renewal of the Martin Luther King National Day to be a day of service. In 1994 Congress passed the King Holiday and Service Act, designating the King Holiday as a national day of volunteer service. Instead of a day off from work or school, Congress asked Americans of all backgrounds and ages to celebrate Dr. King's legacy by turning community concerns into citizen action.

So, tomorrow President-elect Obama and Vice President-elect Biden and their families will lead the way, volunteering to work in the Washington DC community. They will set an example for the nation: it will be a day for Americans of every race, every religion, from every corner of our country to give an hour or a morning or a day in the service of others. Not just a day off from work, but a day on, a day on in service of those in our beloved community who are in dire need of help and not just tomorrow.

Closer to home, I look around and see my friend at Holy Trinity who volunteers time working to prevent teenage suicide. And I think of those among us who work to provide clean water for Haiti and who teach children in Honduras to make rosaries to sell and those who will travel to New Orleans in a few weeks to help with the re-building effort there.

I remember the woman who regularly checks in on her lonely neighbors in the retirement community where she lives, offering a little company, a smile and always, a prayer. And the Holy Trinity family who brought in a trunk load of groceries to help restock the shelves at DEAM after Christmas.

If you’re looking for a place to volunteer some time tomorrow, here’s a website for you to visit: just go to mlkday.gov and you’ll find good options right in your neighborhood. I read on that website this morning that there are more than 11,000 projects happening tomorrow across America, more than double last year’s number. Americans will make it “a day on, not a day off” by delivering meals, refurbishing schools, reading to children, cleaning up neighborhood parks and much more.

Some of you have been to one of our Welcome Table services and you’ve experienced how we’re trying to connect our worship—come and see—with the work God calls all of us to do—go and serve. As we feast on bread and wine, as we taste God and are drawn into the mystery of this feast, we also have the opportunity to do something, to offer something for others within the context of worship.

For example, at one service recently, after receiving Communion, the congregation moved to tables set up along the edges and made sandwiches to be distributed to the homeless.

In Communion, we receive the gifts of God for the people of God and we ponder what our gifts will be back to the world, back to our city, to our communities.

Here’s the thing: our life in Christ only begins when we come and see. Don’t get me wrong.

Wherever you are on your spiritual journey, if you’ve been at Holy Trinity all your life or if you are new to Holy Trinity or especially if you’re new to the Christian faith, we invite you to come and see. Come and see because God is waiting for you at this table.

But once you’ve experienced God’s love here in Communion, offered freely with no strings attached, how can you keep from wanting to pass it on to someone else?

Today we can all aspire today to follow in the footsteps of Samuel and Nathaniel, open and receptive to God’s surprising call, to come and see.

And we can be inspired by Martin Luther King and Barack Obama to go and serve.

Some of you have heard this invitation to Communion often used in the Iona Community in Scotland:

This is the table,
not of the Church, but of the Lord.
It is to be made ready
for those who love God
and those who want to love God more.

So, come,
you who have much faith
and you who have little,
you who have been here often
and you who have not been for a long time,
you who have tried to follow and you who have failed.
Come,
because it is God who invites you.

It is God’s will that those who seek him
should meet him here.

That’s the come and see invitation.
Today we would add:

And having met the Holy One in this place,
go with strength and courage to seek and serve others
in the name of Christ.

Amen.



(1) from The Christian Century, ”Living by the Word” January 18, 2009

Sermon: The Baptism of Our Lord Jesus Christ

The Very Rev. William Thomas Deneke, rector
> Scripture for the day

James was in his 70’s and had been seriously ill. After he recovered, he began to see things differently. Each day was special; relationships were to be prized, life was to be celebrated.

We talked about his faith and James said he wanted to be baptized, something that had not appealed to him over the years. Now he had a new take on life and what truly mattered. He was grateful to God.

On the day of his baptism, James stood before the font smiling and eager to proceed. He had a glow about him. It was a sacred moment.

I thought of James’ baptism when I read today’s gospel. His baptism took place in a church rather than outdoors, at a font rather than a river, but in some ways the heavens also opened for him. Whenever someone is baptized in the name of Christ, the Spirit is hovering near by. Somehow a voice from heaven speaks.

Today’s account of the baptism of Jesus moves us beyond the Christmas story we heard a few days ago. The Christ child is now a man and ready to begin a mission of redemption that will turn the world upside down. The account is a transition story of how Jesus became empowered for the ministry that lay ahead.

There are two dynamics in the baptism story. The first is represented by John the Baptist and might be called the wilderness factor. John came from the wilderness and baptized people into the wilderness experience.

It was in the wilds of Sinai deserts that God had led the people of Israel from bondage to freedom through a covenant of righteousness. Just as the Israelites in the Exodus had crossed through the waters of the Red Sea so the prophet reenacted this passage through a water baptism in the desert. His baptism immersed those who were penitent into the wilderness of the Exodus.

This message would have been clear to John’s followers. They would have known just what he meant when he called Jews to remember the wilderness covenant, to repent, and to live in righteousness. This is what the wilderness baptism was about.

The story of Jesus’ baptism, however, is not just about wilderness baptism. It is also about spirit baptism. John told his followers that someone was coming after him who would baptize with the Holy Spirit. He spoke to a great hope of Israel. People longed for a fulfillment of the words of the prophet Joel, who said a time would come when the outpouring of God’s spirit would extend to all people, when God would:

Pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy; your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even on the male and female slaves, in those days, I will pour out my spirit.

The spirit factor completes wilderness baptism. In today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles, Paul tells those who had received John’s wilderness baptism that they need to be baptized in the name of Jesus. And by this he brings into play all that was portrayed in the baptism of Jesus when the heavens were torn apart and the spirit descended like a dove on Jesus. This imagery demonstrated that in Jesus not only is the righteousness envisioned by John evident but so is the very presence of God. This is what was proclaimed by a voice from heaven. Jesus is fully equipped for ministry. That full spiritual immersion is what Paul is talking about. Wilderness plus spirit.

Sometimes when the scriptures speak of spirit, there can be found a cosmological dimension. We hear of a voice from heaven, and of a spirit that descends like a dove. From the beginning, the spirit, which can also be translated as wind, can be understood as the life force of the divine. We hear a reference to this life force in the Hebrew scriptures today in the words, …the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. The life force is about to begin to create earth.

It is into this mystery and force that we are baptized in spirit baptism. And entry into this spiritual realm is made possible through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Not as a ticket of admission but as a sign of the love of God. Not as a gate to freedom but as a life-long passage of trust. Baptism calls us into the deepest communion with Christ through faith and action. It calls us into communion with the very life force behind creation.

At the baptism of James, the man I mentioned earlier, he had received a glimpse of the spirit. I think for him his experience was something like that of the three disciples who witnessed the transfiguration of Christ on the mountain. He had seen the light and he wanted to be baptized into the One who embodies this divine life force. And so he was, and his life became one of more meaning and joy than he earlier would have thought possible.

This was wonderful for James but he had only a few years left in this life. In that remaining time he was a strong witness for Christ, but sometimes he wished that his baptism could have come earlier. Yet he was so thankful for what he had received. His life had been turned around.

It is important for us to remember how empowering our baptism is. It enables us to see life more as Christ envisions it. To relate to others in a more loving way than we think possible. To grow into empathy and not just sympathy, to develop the ability to embrace sacrificial stewardship as an opportunity, to see wonder in the world about us, to open our hearts wider to God than we imagine we can, and to be connected to the cosmological ground of our being. Those are gifts of wilderness baptism coupled with spirit baptism. We are called to journey through the wilderness of life in covenant with God through Christ and empowered by the Spirit.

Today we are invited to renew our baptismal vows. Notice how these vows proceed. First, we are asked to affirm our faith in God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This is the way our faith tradition maintains that God has been revealed to us. It is the starting point, the ground of our faith. The Holy Trinity opens doors into the mystery of God, into the redemptive work of divinity on earth. From this place of faith, we commit our selves to the ministry of the realm revealed in the Holy Trinity. In particular, we are empowered to continue in the way of the apostles, to resist evil and repent when we sin, to be witnesses to the gospel, to learn to see Christ in all persons, and to strive for justice among all people.

We are enabled to keep this baptismal covenant, to journey faithfully through the wilderness, because we are empowered by God’s spirit, the life force of all creation, embodied in Jesus Christ. It is a joy to renew our baptismal vows. It is empowering to know that we are joined forever in the life, death and resurrection of the One of whom a voice from heaven said, You are my Son, the Beloved: with you I am well pleased. Amen.

Sermon: Second Sunday After Christmas

The Rev. Allan Sandlin, associate rector
> click here for the Scripture for the day

If ever there was a Bible story that a 6th grader would love, this morning’s gospel lesson from Luke is it. And it’s a gem of a story. Our children know this story by heart. Sunday School teachers love to tell it and children everywhere love to hear it because it’s the only story in the whole Bible about Jesus’ childhood. What child wouldn’t be fascinated with a 12-year-old who manages to get himself left behind in the city? And for the grown-ups: it’s an exquisitely told story—Luke really was the master of all storytellers and this one is unforgettable.

Although…I have to wonder if this is really the way it happened. I can imagine a precocious 12-year-old pulling off a stunt like this. And I understand that biblical scholars tell us that since Mary and Joseph were traveling with a large group of people, it is entirely possible they wouldn’t have missed Jesus straight away. But can you believe that once they figured out he was missing--practically flew back to Jerusalem and spent 3 days looking for him, they would be simply “astonished”? I think it’s a bit of a stretch to imagine they wouldn’t have had stronger words than that for young Jesus. I don’t know about you, but I think Luke’s presented us with a cleaned-up version of the story. Surely his parents had more to say to him than “We were worried about you, son.”

Yet even in this cleaned-up version, Luke is helping us work out something about the identity of Jesus, the mystery of who Jesus is. Luke tells us this story about Jesus as a young boy, a very human boy who loves his parents and who, at the same time, is finding his life tethered to God.

The other gospel authors come at the mystery of Jesus in their own way. For example, in the first chapter of John’s gospel, the author shrouds the incarnation in mystery and leaves us struck by the poetry and the depth of meaning: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.

Luke shares with John the need to wrestle with the whole question of Jesus’ fully human—fully divine identity. But he doesn’t shy away from the earthiness, the poor and humble beginnings of the One who will be Messiah. Luke doesn’t spiritualize the teachings of Jesus or the meaning of his life. He tells stories that are rooted in the earth, that connect us to the humanity of Jesus.

Only a few days ago, we listened to the story of his birth. Jesus wasn’t born in a comfortable and clean room with handmaidens bringing Mary everything she needed, caring for the newborn child. Jesus was born in a messy, smelly barn with animals and shepherds attending.

In this morning’s lesson, it’s the nitty-gritty of family life Luke invites us to witness—and if the author of John’s Gospel wants us to understand that Jesus is co-eternal with God, Luke identifies the rest of his family for us. He writes: When his parents saw him they were astonished; and his mother said to him, “Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.”

Jesus had a real human family, flesh and blood parents and relatives. And Jesus was just beginning to search for his identity, wondering who he was and in this story, the discovery begins to unfold. Jesus is devoted to Mary and Joseph yet he finds that he has another allegiance, an even stronger allegiance.

And here is what captures my imagination most: how focused this 12-year-old boy is. The young Jesus seems lost in wonder, absorbed with listening to the teachers, sitting right in the middle of them, asking searching questions. When I picture him there in the Jerusalem temple, I am reminded of a poem by James Evans McReynolds about a child’s incredible capacity to explore,
to be caught up in things we grown ups either take for granted or have completely lost sight of…

The poem is called A Sense of Wonder:

Linda lies on the garage floor
totally absorbed
experimenting
trying to burn a leaf with the sun’s
rays shining through glass.

She is exploring reality
testing how it works
caught up in its mystery.

Her total absorption suggests something of
a child’s capacity
to be captivated by reality
to wonder at its mysterious workings
to want to get involved with its
creative processes.

Growing older, we lose that childlike
openness and wonder.
Why do we live only on the
surface of things
hurried, preoccupied,
dulled to the marvels of the world,
no longer entranced by the power of
sunrays and glass to spark a dead leaf?

Adults tend to live on the surface of things, always in a hurry, anxious about the economy, wondering, perhaps, about our place in the scheme of things. But unlike us, Jesus, a young just-beginning-to-awaken young man, is very unhurried, very non-anxious, self-aware and full of purpose.

Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house? he says. I must be in my Father’s house, Jesus says, because it wasn’t a childish whim or politics, family alliances or religious requirements that compelled him to stay in Jerusalem—Jesus stayed in Jerusalem because he is inextricably bound to God’s design for his life.

Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house? Or as other translations have it, “I must be about my Father’s business.”

Joseph and Mary, like many other faithful people in Luke’s gospel, failed to understand what Jesus was saying. They didn’t understand why he had stayed in the temple, they couldn’t imagine what he would do with his life.

And yet, Luke tells us that Mary “treasured all these things in her heart.” She kept them there, holding on to them, pondering them, knowing perhaps that this 12-year-old boy did not really belong to her. She knew that his identity, finally, was to be found not in the long branches of King David’s family tree, but in the One Jesus would come to call Abba, Father.

And our children? We can understand why Mary would have treasured these moments in her heart. We can understand because we want to hold onto our children, to mold them and shape them after our will. How we long for them to see God the way we see God and instead they are likely to go off exploring on their own, away from our sure and steady hands. But then, we can’t package God into neat, easy-to-digest nuggets of wisdom to pass on to the next generation. God cannot be contained on earth or in heaven and each of us comes to God or more likely God comes to each of us, in ways that we can’t fully understand. And mostly catches us off-guard and unprepared. Somehow, that’s the joy and surprise and wonder of it all.

I wonder if anyone else was listening to the radio early this morning? When I come in for the 8:00 service, I usually listen to Krista Tippett’s show called “Speaking of Faith”. This morning she was interviewing author Robert Coles who has written a great deal about the spirituality of children. They were discussing these very things. How children have the capacity to marvel, to explore, to be spontaneous, and inquisitive. And more, how they understand things about God that echo the prophets, the philosophers and theologians. They get it in ways that we often don’t and if we pay attention they may become our teachers.

Don’t you who are parents or teachers or grandparents, don’t you sometimes catch glimpses of holiness in children, something that reminds you that they don’t belong to us? Do you see indications once in awhile that the Divine has touched them, graced them with love and that all we are asked to do is give them all the love we can muster and then stand back and let go?

That’s what Mary and Joseph did. Were they worried beyond belief when they realized they’d lost track of their son? Most certainly. Sterner words than Luke wrote down may well have been spoken between parent and child in the temple that day. But Joseph and Mary would give Jesus room to grow, to increase in wisdom and to blossom into a man whose other names include
wonderful counselor, prince of peace, God incarnate, man divine.

As we begin another year, I invite you to take some time to be captivated by the reality of Jesus, to wonder at his mysterious workings, to get involved with his creative processes…To regain a childlike openness and wonder, to search and ask questions and listen. It may be that as we explore and ponder who Jesus is we will also come to understand, however fleetingly, however wrapped in mystery it may be, that we, too, are closely bound to the Father, by grace, pure and simple.

Then, we may consider our own identity, something about where our primary allegiances are tethered. Should we discover God searching for us, we may be reminded that allegiance to God is born out of our experience of God’s love for us. And our response to such generous, grace-filled love can only be expressed by finding ways to join in that redemptive love, to participate in loving others as God first loved us.

We may find there are things we just have to do because of who we are. Then perhaps we can begin to grasp why Jesus said I must be about my Father’s business. (1) Amen.

(1) from Alan Culpepper’s reflections in The New Interpreter’s Bible.