3 Epiphany A

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Episcopal Church
January 26, 2014

3 Epiphany A

Every year right after Christmas I head to the grocery store in search of discounted Christmas candy, particularly red and green M and M's.  The first day, there is a large display of discounted Christmas merchandise right inside the door.  I need the red and green M and M's because when we celebrate Christmas in July, the rest of the country is celebrating Independence Day and all the M and M's are red, white, and blue.  By the second day after Christmas, the sale merchandise has been moved to a more remote location, because the Valentine's Day candy needs a prominent display.  Christmas is over.  Done.  By now, at the end of January, even those of us who keep the 12 days of Christmas have put away the decorations, finished the leftovers, and Christmas is a distant memory.  We would not think of singing "O Come all ye faithful" at the end of January.

And yet, the lectionary gives us a reading that sounds very familiar.  Did we not just hear this reading from Isaiah?  "The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness, on them light has shined."  If you think you just heard those words, you did.  This is the reading for Christmas Eve, although on Christmas Eve the reading continues with the even more familiar words "For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."

Our reading this morning is the passage of Isaiah that Matthew picks up as Jesus begins his public ministry.  Matthew quotes from the very passage we heard this morning and then Jesus proclaims "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near."  Next, Jesus calls his first disciples, Peter and Andrew, who leave their nets and follow Jesus.  Then Jesus calls James and John, who put down the nets they are mending to follow Jesus.  And we can easily hear this passage to tell us that we are to put down everything and follow Jesus, which actually seems pretty irresponsible to me.

In fact, this passage calls us to something far more radical than walking away from all of our responsibilities to follow Jesus.  When we think about the passage from Isaiah and the images of the Christ child that the passage invokes for us, our thoughts naturally turn to the baby in the manger, the star, the shepherds, and all the wonders of Christmas.  Matthew is telling us, however, that this baby Jesus demands something of us.  If we believe that Jesus is the Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, then we are called to live like we believe that. If we believe that Jesus is the light that shines in the darkness, we are called to walk in that light.

The idea that we are to walk in the light and live as people who believe Jesus is the promised child is well and good, but what does that life look like?  This morning, as we watch Jesus call his first disciples, we hear what Jesus demands of us.  First, Jesus says "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven has come near."  Jesus does call us a brood of vipers like John the Baptist did.  Jesus says "Repent" because the Kingdom of Heaven is in our midst. If we want to be able to see and experience that Kingdom, Jesus calls us to turn from those things that draw us away from God's kingdom.

Then Jesus says "Follow me."  Jesus call us to follow him as he goes around teaching in synagogues, proclaiming the good news, and curing every disease and sickness among the people.  Think of this as an internship of sorts for those who follow Jesus.  Before we can talk with others about the Scriptures, or proclaim the good news, or pray with people, we have to study and practice.  One of the ways we do that is by following Jesus through the gospels and in people who have gone before us.  We follow Jesus so we can learn to be more like Jesus.

Lastly, Jesus tells his newly minted disciples that he will make them fish for people.  This is where I get stuck, because images of nets and hooks to engage people with the good news is just not what I think we are called to do, even if we are talking about metaphorical nets and hooks.  But, Jesus tells the new disciples that he will make them fish for people because they are fishermen.  But fishing is not the only metaphor Jesus uses for his followers.  Jesus tells plenty of parables that involve bakers, merchants, people who clean house, gardeners, and so on to tell us how to follow Jesus.  We don't have specific stories about Jesus calling teachers or artists or electricians or moms or dads.  But if we did, I imagine Jesus would say something like "Follow me, and I will make you a teacher of the gospel," or "Follow me and I will make you a spiritual parent to many," or "Follow me and I will make you a creator of art through which the Spirit will speak."  The point is not that Jesus is going to send us all out with nets and hooks to fish for people. The point is that Jesus calls each of us to use the gifts we have been given as a way to proclaim the gospel.

Christmas may be over, and the manger may be a distant memory.  But the one we call Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace is just getting started.  The Kingdom of Heaven has drawn near.  Following Jesus does not mean dropping our gifts off at the manger and walking away.   Jesus invites us to bring all of our gifts with us and follow him where ever he goes.

Amen.

2 Epiphany A

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Episcopal Church
January 19, 2014

2 Epiphany A

Thursday night, a number of folks from Christ Church gathered at the Shawnee Apartments for a Chili Supper and sing-a-long.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Shawnee apartments, the building is at the corner of Main Street and Limestone. Episcopal Retirement Homes purchased the Shawnee about 15 months ago as part of their affordable housing program for senior citizens.  I'm a little concerned about the senior citizen designation since in just a few months, I'll be old enough to live there myself!  The meal was a huge hit with the residents-homemade chili with lots of toppings, hot dogs, and fresh baked desserts, all provided by Christ Church folk.  The residents had signed a card for us thanking us for the Christmas gift cards which was presented to us at the beginning of the evening.  The card is on the kiosk in the East Entrance and I invite you to spend a moment or two reading what the residents had to say.  Unfortunately, I had to say my good byes early, but I had time to chat with a number of different residents.  I love hearing about how they came to live at the Shawnee, where they are from, and the exciting things they have done and are dong.  And, in my experience,  the residents enjoy telling there stories.  When I left, conversation between the residents and Christ Church folk was lively and I heard later that the singing was grand.  I think I can safely say that while Christ Church provided the food, the people at the Shawnee were really the hosts as they welcomed us to their home and engaged us in conversation.

In today's gospel lesson, we hear John's pronouncement that Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.  John has just baptized Jesus, as we heard last week, and seen the skies open and the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove on Jesus.  John points his own disciples toward Jesus as the one about whom John said "After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me."  Clearly John the Baptist and Jesus are the two main characters in this story.  John is the one who points the way to Jesus, and Jesus is the Lamb of God, the Messiah.  And yet, buried in the last two sentences of the reading is a third, lesser known character, Andrew.  Andrew's claim to fame is simply that he tells his brother Simon Peter that Jesus is the Messiah.  Later in John's gospel, when the crowds have gathered around Jesus and it is getting late and the people are getting hungry, Andrew does point out the little boy who has 5 loaves and 2 fish, but he also says "What good is that among so many people."  Generally, whenever Andrew is mentioned, he is referred to as Andrew, Simon Peter's brother.  That's enough to give him a complex, right there.  And yet, this relatively unknown disciple of John the Baptist introduces Simon Peter to Jesus, a relatively small and simple act by one person that makes a huge difference in the history of Christianity as Peter becomes the "rock on which the church is built" in the words of Matthew's gospel.

This weekend we celebrate the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., another major character, known for his work to eradicate the sin of racism.   As I point out each year at this time, the Episcopal Church actually celebrates the lives of those who have gone before us on the day of their death, rather than the day of their birth, so we celebrate the life of Dr. King on April 4th, rather than in January.   Dr. King was committed to non-violent resistance as he worked to eradicate racism and poverty, and to uphold and protect the freedom, equality, and dignity of every human person.  Whether from jail or from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., Dr. King's message was the same: all people are created equal and are equally God's children regardless of skin color or economic status, and that whatever affects one person affects everyone, even if indirectly.  Dr. King's work made a difference, in part because he inspired countless people, individuals who perhaps wondered what one person could do, to join in sit-ins, marches, peaceful demonstrations, and boycotts to help deliver the message that ALL people are created equal.  If each person who heard Dr. King thought "I am just one person.  My actions won't make a difference," there would have been no one at the sit-ins or marchs and, indeed, those actions would have had no power.  But together, thousands and thousands of individuals made a powerful difference.

The Dalai Lama once said "If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito." Not everyone is going to be a John the Baptist or a Simon Peter or a Dr. King.  Some of us, most of us perhaps,  are going to be Andrew, one person doing one seemingly small thing, like making a pot of chili or simply showing up to visit with a lonely person, or joining our one voice with the voice of many others to sing.  If each of us thinks that our one small contribution does not really matter, and so we choose not to do anything, nothing will ever happen and nothing will ever change.  But when we all join together and each offer what we can, amazing things will happen.  God calls each of us to do exactly one full person's worth, whether we are a John the Baptist, a Dr. King, or an Andrew. When we each do our one person's worth, whatever that may be, the Body of Christ will have a more incredible impact than we could ever ask or imagine.  Archbishop Desmond Tutu says it this way "Do your little bit of good where you are; it's those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world."
Amen.

The Baptism of Jesus

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Episcopal Church
January 12, 2014

Baptism of Jesus

After all the rain this past December, the Ohio River flowed rapidly. The water was turbulent picking up all kinds of debris off the shore on the way toward Cincinnati. Uprooted trees could be seen floating down the river, along with huge mats of debris and trash, single limbs, and other unidentifiable objects. The river ran so rapidly that white caps formed and broke as the river moved. The river, which normally flows smoothly and peacefully, seemed angry-even tormented-cold, and dangerous.

When I think about the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan, I think of a much more tranquil scene. The water is clear and smooth, just the right temperature, with no signs of debris floating around. Each year, the Church celebrates the Feast of the Baptism of Jesus on the Sunday after Epiphany, and we often have baptisms on this Sunday as we do today. The water this morning for Wyatt and Sophia will be bright and clear, the right temperature, and I can assure you there will be no debris. On the Sunday that we celebrate the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan, our appropriate response is to renew our own baptismal vows as we bring others to the waters of baptism.

When Jesus went to the Jordan to be baptized by John however, John was baptizing to give people the opportunity to repent of their sins. We understand that we are baptized to be cleansed from sin and born again. Bu Jesus, we are taught, was sinless. So, why would Jesus need to be baptized?

John the Baptist has the same question. When Jesus presents himself to John for baptism, John says "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?" Jesus’ response is "Let it be so now, for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness." Jesus’ baptism is a matter of fulfilling all righteousness. On the one hand, in the Hebrew scriptures, righteousness is a characteristic of God and the word is used to describe God’s faithfulness to the covenant with God’s people. On the other hand, with regards to humans, in the Hebrew scriptures, to be righteous is to do as God commands, which is to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God. By offering himself for baptism, Jesus is committing himself to the life God calls him to lead, whatever that may entail. I imagine Jesus’ motive here is not a lot different that all the other folks in line, who are baptized because they want to live a more righteous life.

So, Jesus goes down into the waters of baptism and comes back up, just like the thousands of other people before him. But when he comes out of the water, the heavens are opened, the Spirit of God descends on him like a dove, and a voice from heaven says "This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased." Jesus may have gone into the water like everyone else, but only for Jesus do the heavens open and does the voice of God claim him as God’s own.

After a baptism so glorious, a grand celebration would be in order. Jesus has just been claimed as God’s own, God’s beloved. Surely food and drink, dancing and merriment should follow. But immediately after Jesus is baptized, Jesus is led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan. Any thought that being God’s beloved means the conferral of special protection and privilege comes to a grinding halt. Jesus will spend the next 40 days and 40 nights without food or shelter and alone with the devil. And only after those 40 days does Jesus begin his public ministry, announcing that the Kingdom of Heaven has come near, and going about teaching in the synagogues, and curing every disease and sickness among the people.

In the Church, we baptize with water, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Water both makes us clean and quenches our thirst. The waters of baptism do the same. In those waters, we are cleansed from sin, because we are human and we are not Jesus, and we are nourished and strengthened for the work that lies ahead, as Jesus was. We are also anointed with oil in the form of a cross, which seals us with the Holy Spirit and marks us as Christ’s own forever. In this anointing, we hear the voice of God say through the Church "You are my beloved child. With you I am well pleased." That anointing is God’s name being written on us as God claims us as his own forever.

Back to those choppy waters on the Ohio River. While the Holy Spirit does not drive most of us out into the wilderness to fast for 40 days and be tempted by Satan after our baptism, we are sent out into the world to do the work God gives us to do. Most of us will find that the clean smooth waters of baptism do not guarantee us that life will always be filled with clean, smooth waters. The guarantee of baptism is not health, or happiness, or popularity, or success. Baptism did not guarantee Jesus those things and baptism certainly does not guarantee us those things. What baptism does guarantee is that when life looks and feels less like the calm, clean water of baptism and more like the choppy, cold waters of the Ohio River, dangerous and full of debris, we have been claimed by God as God’s own and God will never abandon is to those waters. The guarantee of baptism for Jesus and the guarantee of baptism for us is that we have been claimed by God as God’s very own and God will never let go.

Amen.

Christmas Eve 2013

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Episcopal Church

December 24, 2013

Christmas Eve

One Sunday not too long ago, I paid a visit to our Middle School Sunday School class where the kids were engaged in an intense discussion.  When 4th-7th graders are engaged in energetic conversation, we might easily and understandably think the topic is sports, a recent movie or new video-game, or relationships.  But our kids were wrestling with the topic of eternal life and whether or not eternal life is something we can earn.  If we can earn eternal life, what do we have to do?  Someone suggested that perhaps there are spiritual coupons and when we earn enough coupons by doing good deeds, we have earned eternal life.  Others doubted that any of us could ever build up enough coupons to earn eternal life.  Then what?  What if we come up one coupon short?  Or is eternal life a gift?  If so, what's the point of being good?  One young person pointed to a person who had been very generous in her lifetime and done much good.  Has she done enough? And if she hadn't, who had?  And how would we know when we had earned enough coupons for eternal life?  The kids saw the advantages and disadvantages to the idea that we have to earn eternal life, as well as to the idea that eternal life is a gift.  I left the class at noon not having thought that hard about eternal life in a very long time.

Tonight, the issue is not eternal life, per se, but salvation.  The angel says to the shepherds "to you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord."  A savior is the agent of salvation, and the questions about salvation are the same as the young people's questions about eternal life.  What does salvation mean?  Where does salvation come from ?  Is salvation earned?  How can we be sure?  

Rather than give us a doctrinal explanation of salvation, Scripture tells us the story of the birth of our savior.  When we let the story speak, we hear everything we need to know about salvation, even if all of our questions are not answered.  First, we learn that salvation is an act of God and nothing we can earn no matter how many spiritual coupons we try to accumulate.  From the time the angel Gabriel tells Mary that God has chosen her to carry the Christ Child to the angel's announcement to the shepherds that the Messiah has been born, God is the primary actor in this drama.  Salvation is all God's action, not ours, and a gift, not anything we can earn.  

Secondly, salvation happens in the midst of our every day lives.  Mary and Joseph are traveling to Bethlehem to be counted for the census.  The shepherds were tending their sheep.  I wonder if the shepherds even knew they were waiting for a Savior when the angel bursts in upon them.  At least Mary and Joseph had some advance notice.  The Christ child was born in the midst of ordinary people going about their everyday business.  But that does not mean everything stayed the same.  In the Christmas story, the shepherds go back to tending their sheep, but they do so glorifying and praising God.  Mary now has to be about the everyday work of raising a child, but she treasures the words of the shepherds and ponders them in her heart.  Salvation, we learn from the story, is an extraordinary gift that we experience in the midst of our ordinary lives, but salvation also changes our lives in ways we cannot predict or control.

Lastly, salvation is not a private matter.  The story tells us that the sky lit up and the heavenly host sang of Jesus' birth.  The message of the angel was one of great joy for all the people, not just a few.  After visiting Jesus, the shepherds made known what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them.  The story of Jesus' birth is not ours to hold on to, as if we have some control over it.  The story of Jesus' birth is meant  to be lived to that all the world can know the wonders of God's love.

The story of Jesus birth tells us that salvation is all God's action, that God's saving work bursts into our everyday lives when we are least expecting God to act, and that the story of the birth of salvation is not ours to have and to hold, but ours to live, so that our lives can speak to the love of God in the world.  "For to you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord."

Amen.