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A Teachable Moment - The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel
Tune into the sermon from the Rev. Jarrett Kerbel for the Sixth Sunday After the Epiphany, February 13, 2022.
Support St. Martin's mission and ministry by giving online: stmartinec.org/give
Today's readings are:
Jeremiah 17:5-10 1 Corinthians 15:12-20 Luke 6:17-26 Psalm 1Readings may be found on LectionaryPage.net: https://lectionarypage.net/YearC_RCL/Epiphany/CEpi...A Teachable Moment
The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel
February 13, 2022
Please join me in the spirit of prayer.
Lord God, we give you thanks that you have planted us by streams of clean water, that our souls like a root within us reach out to your refreshing good news that feeds our souls and brings us back to life. Save us from withering and make our leaves green and our fruit full of goodness in this life. In Christ's Name we pray. Amen.
Jesus looked up at his disciples. Little detail in the gospel: Jesus looked up at his disciples. He'd just come down from a hilltop to a level place, yet he looks up. Why? Why does Luke include this little detail? Since his declaration in the synagogue in Nazareth Jesus has created one teachable moment after another for those who might follow him. Last week we had the miraculous catch of fish where Jesus the Lord of sea and sky, the one from the beginning of time whose creation this is, reveals himself as the messiah and gives the message that it was time to follow, for the end time had come. Revealing and teaching- theophany and instruction -go together in each teachable moment.
So, looking up at his disciples Jesus is once again engineering his next teachable moment for those who are beginning to follow him. When I was last the rector at Saint Mary's church in Park Ridge, Illinois, Jane sat in the front row. Jane was blind and developmentally disabled. My children Tim and Martha sat with her every Sunday along with the wife of my deacon. During sermons Jane had a favorite comment to make when I told a story about Jesus. She would exclaim so the whole church could hear, "it's a teachable moment." And I would reply, "Yes Jane, it is a teachable moment."
Jesus' position below his disciples, looking up at his disciples, sets up his teaching. It is the set up for the beatitudes and the woes, which he delivers to them from this position. In my imagination, I see Jesus down on the group with the sick, the unclean, the wretched, the troubled, looking up at the disciples and apostles, who are standing above the scrum. Maybe the disciples and apostles have not come all the way down from the hill. Maybe they're still hanging on to the special high of a private prayer session with Jesus on the hilltop. How wonderful that would be. Maybe the freshly minted apostles are still high on their new status as teachers of the way. Maybe they're standing aloof. Maybe they're spectators observing Jesus at his ministry in the trenches, not sure if they want to get their hands dirty yet.
Jesus looks up at his teammates and begins to teach them from below: Blessed are the poor, blessed are the hungry, blessed are those who mourn, blessed are the excluded, defamed and ridiculed. These powerful beatitudes are for these disciples in that moment. They're not random observations or generalizations about life. Jesus is teaching the disciples what they will experience if they continue to follow him. Part invitation, part fair warning. Jesus is saying that, "my way is a way of voluntary poverty and solidarity with the poor and the oppressed, the neglected, and the outcast." What can they expect if they continue to follow Jesus in his way of life with God? Blessed poverty, blessed hunger, blessed weakness, blessed exclusion, defamation and ridicule. Jesus is challenging us, Jesus is challenging all of us, to come down to his level, to hear his teaching from below, to meet him on a level place with the poor.
And on any given Sunday some of us are spectators. Some of us are skeptics waiting to be convinced, some of us are aloof and more than a little embarrassed by the wildness of Jesus and the gospel. Some of us are just on the edge of departing into a life of discipleship and wherever you are you are more than welcome to hear this good news. This good news is challenging to all of us, challenging to the church, and for centuries the church responded by sending out monastics and hermits and missionaries who took on the way of voluntary poverty that Jesus lived and taught. However, today, what does it mean if the church is not inspiring such lives of sacrifice, such lives of beatitude, relinquishment and departure, for the sake of living the way of Jesus?
Well Jesus addresses the obstacles. What's in our way from this departure? He addresses the aloof apostles as, of all things, the rich (We might say the relatively rich, which I prefer because most people like to claim we're not, when from a worldwide perspective we are.)
We know some of those disciples owned boats and nets and ran family businesses and enjoyed the respect of their neighbors. Some of them left behind everything they owned just last week in the lectionary, so to these relatively rich disciples again Jesus says, "woe to the rich, woe to the full, woe to the entertained, woe to the admired. In other words it is because of your attachments that you have obstacles between you and God."
What is the teachable moment for us? We who are among the relatively rich are being called from below to meet our Lord on a level place which is a place of blessing. It is a place of blessing because God is there in solidarity with the poor. Woe to us who are so attached to other endeavors and other things that we miss the opportunity of blessed life with our Lord. Woe to us who stand back as spectators, observers, critics, skeptics, so attached to our comfort and position that we do not enter the scrum with Jesus among all who need hope, healing sustenance and companionship. Jesus is telling us that by having less, we will have so much more, and that when we follow him, our lives will display these characteristics of a blessed life.
And this is how I understand the characteristics of a blessed life that Jesus spells out:
Poverty: it means following Jesus, means we'll have less wealth than we may have. We will be marked by generosity with our time, our talent and our treasure, and that generosity will flow towards those most in need. We could have been materially richer if it weren't for following Jesus. And that is my hope, that the Christian is someone with less because they are helping so many more.
Hunger: following Jesus will mean that we consume less, that we exploit less, that we will use fewer resources to live more gently and generously on this planet and with our neighbors. We will endure hunger to renounce consumerism.
Mourning: following Jesus will mean loving more people of all sorts and conditions, welcoming strangers and aliens and caring about the vulnerable, no matter where they may be. And so we will weep more, our hearts will break more often, our generous empathy will come with the cost and the gift of weeping.
Finally, Rejection: following Jesus will mean taking up uncomfortable and unpopular causes, making solidarity with the despised, becoming identified with the outcast, and so we who choose to follow will also know rejection and ridicule. It will be a characteristic of following him.
This is Jesus as his most challenging, my friends, but not so radical. The wonderful evangelist Tony Campolo, who no one would accuse of being a radical, once said based on this scripture, "God doesn't care if you make a million dollars. God only cares if you keep it."
We are challenged. We are challenged to enter this way of life and our inspiration and our hope only comes from Jesus our Lord who is the only one who fulfilled this way of life, who vindicated this way of life in the resurrection, who showed us that this is what life harmonized with God looks like.
The way of life harmonized with God is truly blessed, and so we only enter it on that faith and in that hope that we will be blessed, even if it's counterintuitive. We can do it because Jesus made that way for us and to that we say thanks be to God. Amen.
Permission to podcast/stream music in this service obtained from One License with license #A-701187 and CCLI with license #21234241 and #21234234. All rights reserved.
Video, photographs, and graphics by the Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields. Episcopal Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, 8000 St. Martin's Lane, Philadelphia, PA 19118. 215.247.7466. https://www.stmartinec.org
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By St. Martin-in-the-FieldsTune into the sermon from the Rev. Jarrett Kerbel for the Sixth Sunday After the Epiphany, February 13, 2022.
Support St. Martin's mission and ministry by giving online: stmartinec.org/give
Today's readings are:
Jeremiah 17:5-10 1 Corinthians 15:12-20 Luke 6:17-26 Psalm 1Readings may be found on LectionaryPage.net: https://lectionarypage.net/YearC_RCL/Epiphany/CEpi...A Teachable Moment
The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel
February 13, 2022
Please join me in the spirit of prayer.
Lord God, we give you thanks that you have planted us by streams of clean water, that our souls like a root within us reach out to your refreshing good news that feeds our souls and brings us back to life. Save us from withering and make our leaves green and our fruit full of goodness in this life. In Christ's Name we pray. Amen.
Jesus looked up at his disciples. Little detail in the gospel: Jesus looked up at his disciples. He'd just come down from a hilltop to a level place, yet he looks up. Why? Why does Luke include this little detail? Since his declaration in the synagogue in Nazareth Jesus has created one teachable moment after another for those who might follow him. Last week we had the miraculous catch of fish where Jesus the Lord of sea and sky, the one from the beginning of time whose creation this is, reveals himself as the messiah and gives the message that it was time to follow, for the end time had come. Revealing and teaching- theophany and instruction -go together in each teachable moment.
So, looking up at his disciples Jesus is once again engineering his next teachable moment for those who are beginning to follow him. When I was last the rector at Saint Mary's church in Park Ridge, Illinois, Jane sat in the front row. Jane was blind and developmentally disabled. My children Tim and Martha sat with her every Sunday along with the wife of my deacon. During sermons Jane had a favorite comment to make when I told a story about Jesus. She would exclaim so the whole church could hear, "it's a teachable moment." And I would reply, "Yes Jane, it is a teachable moment."
Jesus' position below his disciples, looking up at his disciples, sets up his teaching. It is the set up for the beatitudes and the woes, which he delivers to them from this position. In my imagination, I see Jesus down on the group with the sick, the unclean, the wretched, the troubled, looking up at the disciples and apostles, who are standing above the scrum. Maybe the disciples and apostles have not come all the way down from the hill. Maybe they're still hanging on to the special high of a private prayer session with Jesus on the hilltop. How wonderful that would be. Maybe the freshly minted apostles are still high on their new status as teachers of the way. Maybe they're standing aloof. Maybe they're spectators observing Jesus at his ministry in the trenches, not sure if they want to get their hands dirty yet.
Jesus looks up at his teammates and begins to teach them from below: Blessed are the poor, blessed are the hungry, blessed are those who mourn, blessed are the excluded, defamed and ridiculed. These powerful beatitudes are for these disciples in that moment. They're not random observations or generalizations about life. Jesus is teaching the disciples what they will experience if they continue to follow him. Part invitation, part fair warning. Jesus is saying that, "my way is a way of voluntary poverty and solidarity with the poor and the oppressed, the neglected, and the outcast." What can they expect if they continue to follow Jesus in his way of life with God? Blessed poverty, blessed hunger, blessed weakness, blessed exclusion, defamation and ridicule. Jesus is challenging us, Jesus is challenging all of us, to come down to his level, to hear his teaching from below, to meet him on a level place with the poor.
And on any given Sunday some of us are spectators. Some of us are skeptics waiting to be convinced, some of us are aloof and more than a little embarrassed by the wildness of Jesus and the gospel. Some of us are just on the edge of departing into a life of discipleship and wherever you are you are more than welcome to hear this good news. This good news is challenging to all of us, challenging to the church, and for centuries the church responded by sending out monastics and hermits and missionaries who took on the way of voluntary poverty that Jesus lived and taught. However, today, what does it mean if the church is not inspiring such lives of sacrifice, such lives of beatitude, relinquishment and departure, for the sake of living the way of Jesus?
Well Jesus addresses the obstacles. What's in our way from this departure? He addresses the aloof apostles as, of all things, the rich (We might say the relatively rich, which I prefer because most people like to claim we're not, when from a worldwide perspective we are.)
We know some of those disciples owned boats and nets and ran family businesses and enjoyed the respect of their neighbors. Some of them left behind everything they owned just last week in the lectionary, so to these relatively rich disciples again Jesus says, "woe to the rich, woe to the full, woe to the entertained, woe to the admired. In other words it is because of your attachments that you have obstacles between you and God."
What is the teachable moment for us? We who are among the relatively rich are being called from below to meet our Lord on a level place which is a place of blessing. It is a place of blessing because God is there in solidarity with the poor. Woe to us who are so attached to other endeavors and other things that we miss the opportunity of blessed life with our Lord. Woe to us who stand back as spectators, observers, critics, skeptics, so attached to our comfort and position that we do not enter the scrum with Jesus among all who need hope, healing sustenance and companionship. Jesus is telling us that by having less, we will have so much more, and that when we follow him, our lives will display these characteristics of a blessed life.
And this is how I understand the characteristics of a blessed life that Jesus spells out:
Poverty: it means following Jesus, means we'll have less wealth than we may have. We will be marked by generosity with our time, our talent and our treasure, and that generosity will flow towards those most in need. We could have been materially richer if it weren't for following Jesus. And that is my hope, that the Christian is someone with less because they are helping so many more.
Hunger: following Jesus will mean that we consume less, that we exploit less, that we will use fewer resources to live more gently and generously on this planet and with our neighbors. We will endure hunger to renounce consumerism.
Mourning: following Jesus will mean loving more people of all sorts and conditions, welcoming strangers and aliens and caring about the vulnerable, no matter where they may be. And so we will weep more, our hearts will break more often, our generous empathy will come with the cost and the gift of weeping.
Finally, Rejection: following Jesus will mean taking up uncomfortable and unpopular causes, making solidarity with the despised, becoming identified with the outcast, and so we who choose to follow will also know rejection and ridicule. It will be a characteristic of following him.
This is Jesus as his most challenging, my friends, but not so radical. The wonderful evangelist Tony Campolo, who no one would accuse of being a radical, once said based on this scripture, "God doesn't care if you make a million dollars. God only cares if you keep it."
We are challenged. We are challenged to enter this way of life and our inspiration and our hope only comes from Jesus our Lord who is the only one who fulfilled this way of life, who vindicated this way of life in the resurrection, who showed us that this is what life harmonized with God looks like.
The way of life harmonized with God is truly blessed, and so we only enter it on that faith and in that hope that we will be blessed, even if it's counterintuitive. We can do it because Jesus made that way for us and to that we say thanks be to God. Amen.
Permission to podcast/stream music in this service obtained from One License with license #A-701187 and CCLI with license #21234241 and #21234234. All rights reserved.
Video, photographs, and graphics by the Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields. Episcopal Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, 8000 St. Martin's Lane, Philadelphia, PA 19118. 215.247.7466. https://www.stmartinec.org