Christ Episcopal Church
February 3, 2013
4 Epiphany C
One of the first churches I served when I graduated from seminary was St. Mark’s in Sidney, Ohio. St. Mark’s was a very small congregation, maybe 25 people on a good Sunday, that worked hard to have a big impact in the neighborhood around the church. At one point, they did a demographic study of the neighborhood and discovered that a high percentage of the households were single parent households. So, the church applied for a grant from the diocese to put a playground in the church yard and began an after school program. The church was justifiably proud of their ability to take on ministries that were seemingly too large for such a small church. The words "Ah Lord, God, but we are just a small church" would never come from their mouths. Granted, to have the kind of ministry this church had, they had to be pretty united and of one mind about taking on these projects. But that was rarely a problem. They were a small, close knit group of Episcopalians.
Then a group of people approached the vestry about using the church for a bible study. The group had been using the meeting room at the public library but had been asked to leave. The reason they were asked to leave the library was not because they were studying the Bible, or because they were disruptive, messy, or poorly behaved. They were asked to leave simply because they were gay. And because there are no laws that protect people from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, the group had no choice but to find another place to meet. Might they be able to meet at the Episcopal Church?
At the vestry meeting which followed, the "Ah, Lord God’s" flew. The fear was palpable. "Ah Lord God, we are but a peaceful church. What if people picket?" "Ah Lord God, we are but a small church. What if this divides us?" "Ah Lord God, we can barely pay our bills now. What if people stop pledging?" Some people on the vestry thought hosting the Bible study was a fine idea and a new way to reach out into the community. Others were furious at the conflict and the challenge this request was causing. In the end, the vestry decided that hospitality was the best course of action, and that the vestry should not be afraid but believe that God would be present in both the Bible study and in any consequences of that hospitality. In the end, no one stopped coming to church, no one stopped pledging, and no one picketed the church. The fears were unrealized and the Bible study group was deeply grateful for the church’s hospitality.
This morning, both Jeremiah and Jesus will infuriate people. We only hear about Jeremiah’s call this morning. God is sending Jeremiah to pluck up and pull down, to destroy and overthrown, to build and to plant. That is 4 verbs about destroying and 2 verbs about building up. This is our first clue that Jeremiah’s ministry may not be a happy one. Jeremiah will tell the people that worshiping idols, neglecting the poor, and believing false prophets are not what God had in mind for God’s people, and that the consequences of their actions will be dire. The people are furious with Jeremiah, and for the prophet’s efforts, he will attacked by his own brothers, beaten and put in stocks, imprisoned by the king, thrown in a cistern and threatened with death. Clearly the people did not want to hear the words God put in Jeremiah’s mouth.
Jesus also infuriates the people in his hometown synagogue. Last week we heard Jesus read from the prophet Isaiah "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor." Today we hear Jesus say "Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." All the people in the synagogue are amazed at the words coming from Jesus’ mouth. They marvel that this is Joseph’s son. If Jesus had just stopped there, he could have gone to coffee hour and gone home in peace. But, good rabbi that Jesus was, he wanted the people to understand the words he had just spoken. The long awaited Messiah was not coming just for them. The chosen people were not the only people God chose. Jesus reminded the people in the synagogue of two Biblical stories in which the love of God touched Gentiles: the story in which Elijah, the foremost prophet of God, was sent to the widow of Zarephath during a severe famine to provide a miracle of food for the widow and her son, and the story of Naaman the Syrian, who was not just a Gentile, but an enemy of the Israelites, and who was the only leper cleansed. The people in the temple, who just a moment ago were speaking well of Jesus, are now furious and try to throw him off the cliff because Jesus is telling them they are not God’s only beloved people.
Why are the people so angry? Neither Jesus nor Jeremiah are telling the people that they are not loved by God, even though that is what the people hear. Both Jesus and Jeremiah are challenging a people who want to define the love of God on their own terms. Jeremiah speaks to a people who want the love of God to allow them to behave as they like with no consequences because they are God’s chosen people. Jesus speaks to a people who wants to believe that God loves them and no one else. Both speak to a people who are furious because they can not, or will not, hear God challenge them to understand the love of God in new ways. Both speak to a people who are afraid because their basic assumptions about their faith have been challenged.
By partnering the stories about Jesus and Jeremiah with the reading from I Corinthians, we are reminded that the most basic commandment of God is to love God and each other. When asked about the greatest commandment, Jesus will quote the book of Deuteronomy and say "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself." Paul writes "Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth." Both Jeremiah and Jesus are challenging the people to this kind of love- of both God and their neighbor, and to understand their neighbor as all people, not just people like them.
What the people at St. Mark’s in Sidney realized is that the love of God is not something we get to define, hoard, or control. When we try, we wind up furious and afraid for we are trying to conquer that which cannot be subdued. What the people of St. Mark’s learned is that the love of God is meant to be given away, and that when given away, even to those with whom they might not agree, their experience of God’s love multiplies. Only when we give up trying to control who gets God’s love and who does not are we free to love with the love that bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things and endures all things.
Amen.
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