Sermons from the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer

"Why do I feel so restless in the world? Why do I feel like I

need to know everything? Who's that soup for anyways? Why do I feel called to

preach the gospel of love to God's gathered people week after week? Some Sunday

mornings I think I'd like to just sit and do a jigsaw puzzle and drink coffee,

not worry about things, not worry about kids who don't have a place to call

home, or the woman I met outside in the cold yesterday whose belly was empty.

Sometimes I really want not to care so much. I want not to

hunger and thirst for righteousness, but that's not who God made me to be.

That's not who I am. God made me to be the kind of person who asks for a cup of

soup, not one who's content with its contents being left to spoil. For better

or for worse, the holy spirit gives us each a spiritual gift, a manifestation

of the Holy Spirit, living expressions of God's grace and goodness toward

humanity. God gives us each these gifts so that we may in turn, share them with

others."

Friends, we have yearnings ourselves, not entirely unlike

those in Jesus' own heart. And I'm here to tell you that we do well to pay

attention to them and to honor them. What Jesus does with those yearnings however

unclear they might have been, can become our way also. Because you see, we are

children of God, also. We are the beloved. Jesus has been these things from

before time and forever. We are God's children by adoption. But no less God's

children, because of that fact. We enter into the household of God explicitly

from the time of our baptism.

Was 30 odd years on into Jesus' life that he went into the

murky waters of the Jordan river and there discovered a truth about himself

that had been there all along. There was never a moment when he was not God's

beloved. But that truth becomes clear in that moment and it shapes his life

from that day forward and all the wondrous things that he said and did flowed out

of this knowing, this being, this realization. I am God's child, The beloved. You

know, it really does help to know who you are.

Baptism makes clear who we are in our own lives. We've

always been beloved by God. Baptism simply puts it out publicly. Lays it bare

out in the open for us to realize, and for everyone else to see. We are beloved

by God. And oh yes, we are also lawyers and doctors and teachers and baseball

players. But, first of all, we are beloved by God.

I'm not saying I want it to always be dark. I'm just saying we have this thing where we think dark is bad and light is good, but dark is an essential part of our lives. It cannot be sunshine all the time. And while we know this in our hearts, we still rebel against the very simple reality of the darkness. We rebel against dark thoughts. We shy away from the things that are anything other than joyful and kind and easy for us to grasp.

Today is the feast of the Epiphany. And as I said at the announcements, Epiphany is another Greek word for revelation. And what we say is being revealed to us. All of us, all of humanity is God's abiding presence with us in Jesus Christ. That God is with us. And whereas on Christmas day we recognize God's presence and a little baby, on Epiphany the symbol of God's abiding presence is a star. And while stars are light. And that ancient cosmology, the stars are not the main things that give light. They point to things. They indicate things they're beautiful to study and to admire, but we would not be able to see the stars unless we were allowed to be in darkness.

The wise folks who find Jesus and who recognize the sovereignty, the royalty, that is found in this child, the presence of the divine; they would not be able to find Jesus had it not been for the darkness. What were they going to follow in the daytime? The darkness was essential for their ability to see God's presence. And while we are able to see God's presence very readily in the warmth and the joy, I think if we're honest, every single one of us has found God and been found by God in the darkness of our lives.

"There's this idea of inevitability in the train that comes right?

Because it's on tracks. We know where it's coming from, and the destination is

already set by the tracks. There's this Gospel language of God's power and God's

deliverance as something that is inevitable. It's on a track it's moving

forward. God is in the world doing the work. And what can you do when the train

comes by? Well, you can get on or not. But you're not the conductor and you're

not the train. You're a passenger in this life. How does it threaten us, God's

presence? And the inevitability of God's work when it takes us out of the

driver's seat? How are we threatened by God's presence when it decenters us? Makes

us not the center of everything. How does it give us hope? How does it give us

relief in peace, even as we're threatened and discomforted? How wonderful is it

to know that the salvation of the world is not on your shoulders? It's

something that's happening, and you're being invited to participate."

A lot of times, you know, we assume that God is

somewhere up there, that we need to figure out how to get up there to find God.

Like, you know, we're going to be able to do that, right? Is it too good to be

true that God made a giant leap reaching out for humanity by coming down here

to be with us? That Jesus is real star stuff, just like us, a body of flesh and

blood embodied alive incarnated? Or would we rather fantasize about something

other worldly, you know, like something out there, like the force? Which by the

way, is only accessible to Jedi's. But not so with Jesus, because the eminent

person, Jesus, is how God relates to all of us one-on-one and in community...

John tells us that everything came into being through

the word Jesus, who is full of grace and truth. Now in the early church, the

word was understood to be the creative power of God, in action. Wisdom and

compassion in action. All flesh (Incarnate) is an opportunity to be in a

conversation with the Word. Like, you know, to speak, speak to love, speak

truth to power, acting creatively. We're so much into that, you know? Our

baptism signifies our intent to love and to do love in community. But acting

out of fear instead causes scandal in our little corner of the universe, in our

neighborhood. Really unnecessary, unjustified, self-imposed suffering. And

Christmas is a time that I get so joyful that God so cares about this little

speck of us. It's also a time to celebrate rebirth and new beginnings, like to

prepare ourselves for incarnation, incarnation standing in front of us. To be

the incarnation. To see Jesus in ourselves and to see Jesus in others and the

other, to be present and to give our presence.

These times we are in continue to challenge us in many ways.

We don't have the ease or false certainty that had been our place of comfort.

What we once might have anticipated as a few weeks of inconvenience, then

perhaps a few months, will soon be approaching two years. We have had so many

very real losses, whatever our circumstances. And it's hard to see where this

experience may go next. And we know, in our hearts, we know we will not come

through this unchanged. And it's not only the pandemic that weighs on us, we

also may have our own individual concerns and challenges. Concerns of health,

concerns for loved ones, concerns for our livelihood, for our education...

And we are living in the broader context of so many

seemingly dysfunctional and divisive aspects of our world today. But the beauty

many of us have shared and continue to share in these difficult times is the

experience of God in our midst. The deep awareness of our love for each other.

The recognition of the preciousness of time with loved ones and being together

in community. We might have previously taken these things a little bit for

granted, not in any negative sense, but in a sense that it was expected, it was

part of our daily lives. It's not that we didn't appreciate each other, it was

just that time seemed so available and at our discretion. We had our multitude

of choices of timing and circumstances. The pandemic has disabused many of us,

of that sense of control.

I'm confronted tonight by the story that we've heard, by this story that is just built into our DNA now of Jesus born into this world of God, joining us. We use the words, Emmanuel, that word Emmanuel means God is with us. And in that moment of Christ's birth, God is present in our lives, in a way we could not ever have imagined. And my heart is opened by the confrontation of that reality to a different question. Instead of why does God let this happen again, there's nothing wrong with that question, but that question gets superseded by another one instead of Why it is Where, and specifically, where am I seeing God with us today?

Where do we see God with us? Because the story tells us God is with us, not watching from afar, not sitting up in the heavens, just passively observing our lives and taking notes, grading, and judging our decisions, God is here with us. In our deliverance, in our reconciliation, in our healing. In our joy and our sorrow and anxiety and our uncertainty and fear, God is with us. In our happiness and our grief, God is with us. And I don't know why things are the way they are, but I know that when I ask the question, where do I see God, I always end up having an answer. I always end up seeing God somewhere. Now If you're a rookie at this, and you're not sure on a practical level, how to see some invisible God in your daily life, here's a place to start. Look for the love in your life. That's where God is. God is love living and active in this world. And when you begin to see the love, you're seeing God. And when you begin to have eyes for God, you start to see God's presence in all sorts of places you couldn't imagine.

God gives to Mary and Elizabeth, something that they were

each lacking. God gives to Mary and Elizabeth community and connection. God

removes their isolation and helps them understand themselves more fully as part

of something larger than their individual lives. Elizabeth pronounces blessings

on Mary and the child in her womb, giving voice to the joy of knowing that the

world will never be the same now that they're together. The world will never be

the same. These women's actions turn the world upside down. Two marginalized,

pregnant women carry the future of what God is doing in the world. The prophetic reality of God with us here on this earth to

make the world look like what God intended it to look like.

I can do this. You

can do this. We can do this. The unimaginable joy in that space brings forth

singing. They sing of the greatness of God. The one who changes I into We. The

one who flips the script on the ways of the world of this false assertion that

our individualistic efforts are all that counts? No, in her song, she smashes

social hierarchy. The lowly are raised to places of honor and this bold and

dangerous proclamation is made first by her and carried on forever in the life

of the church.

The bold and dangerous proclamation that she makes in the Magnificat

is her song then and it is our song now. This story is not the sweet, buttoned-up version of birth that we are often presented in

"To the tax collectors who asked the same question, he says, collect no more than the amount prescribed for you. And to the soldiers who ask He says, do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusations; be satisfied with your wages. In other words, John is responding share what you have, share what you have with those in need. Be fair in your business dealings. Be honest. Do not misuse your power. And John's guidance is not about some abstract concept or some religious discipline or some complex construct of laws. John's guidance is not about big gestures, the bold dramatic actions. It's guidance for folks in the crowd from different walks of life, for people like you and me. It's guidance to care for each other to act with fairness, justice, and honesty in all that we do. Sounds a lot like our baptismal covenant in many ways. John is giving the simplest examples of the actions, reflective of our commandments to love God and our neighbors as ourselves.

John the Baptist urges us to shift our focus from it all being about us to, it's not all about us. It's not so important that we have stuff, it's what we do with it, it's how we share it. It's not so important that we have power, it's how we handle it. It's how we restrain ourselves. How we act ethically with it. It's important that our stories in our lives are not strictly about our lives, but about all the lives around us..."

I want to be clear, I don't actually have a problem with New

Year's resolutions. I think they're great if they work for you and if they

don't, that's also fine. Some of us, we're going to actually try to do things

to make ourselves better and some of us are just going to be like, yeah, that's

just not going to happen. I just want to say that this text is for you, because

the presence of God that John the Baptist is proclaiming, is not actually about

you, it's about God. It's not about you making it happen. At first, it sounds

like that because he says prepare the way of the Lord, make his path straight.

And you're like, ah, good, I needed some duties. Thank you for giving me some

clear concrete steps that I'll avoid. But then we start to think if I don't

make the world exactly what it's supposed to be, God's not going to show up.

We begin to think that it's on us to improve ourselves and improve this world

or else this won't be the kind of world that Jesus wants any part of.

Like, somehow, we have to make ourselves our hearts, our

souls, our lives, our communities, perfect or else God will not love us. But we

know the story of Jesus, right? Like when he shows up, does he show up and go,

oh man, you guys have been preparing such a great way for me, thank you so

much. And everyone's like, see the road we made it straight for you. Is

that what happens or does Jesus show up into an absolute bloody mess? Jesus

shows up into deeply complicated lives and impossible situations, into the

uncertainty of occupied Israel in a place where everything is falling apart.

That's where Jesus shows up. And the prophets tell us this, both John the

Baptist, and Isaiah, whom he quotes. Every valley shall be filled in every

mountain and hill shall be made low; we heard it in our reading from Baruch

as well today. And guess who does the leveling out? Guess who makes things just

in this world. You? No, God. Guess who is at work to make love apparent, manifest,

obvious, clear in this world, God.