If and When

1 Lent; Yr. C, February 17, 2013

Deuteronomy 26:1-11; Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16; Romans 10:8b-13; Luke 4:1-13

Sermon preached at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church

            James Allison, a contemporary theologian, wrote a reflection in The Christian Century on today’s readings.  In it he points out that “Jesus learns to be the precarious one in the desert.  [But] where Moses reassured his listeners with the little word when, as in ‘when you come into the land,’ the devil comes to Jesus and thrice tempts him with the little word if.”[1]  When and if.  Two little words that reveal very different views of the future.

            When Moses uses the word “when”, he’s talking about a time in the future that he believes will come to pass.  It’s not up for grabs.  It’s not maybe.  It’s not perhaps.  It’s certain.  The Israelites WILL come into the land the Lord has promised them.  They WILL possess it and settle in it.  They WILL make a home there and the land WILL be fruitful.  And the people WILL recognize the gift of land for what it is … life.  The people WILL show their gratefulness with an offering to God.  Moses is assuring the people of a future … that’s what hope is all about.  Hope is made real to us in future stories.  We create those stories based on past experience affirmed in the present and extrapolated into the future. 

Who’s Being Transformed?

Last Sunday after the Epiphany; Yr. C, February 10, 2013

Annual Meeting Sunday

Exodus 34:29-35; Psalm 99; 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2; Luke 9:28-36, (37-43a)

Sermon preached at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church

And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.  Therefore, since it is by God’s mercy that we are engaged in this ministry, we do not lose heart. (2 Corinthians 3:18)

I know our gospel reading is about Jesus’ transformation, but this reading from 2 Corinthians talks about something even more amazing.  It talks about God’s work in each of us, the work of continually creating us in the image of God.  This passage is all about OUR transformation.  Through Christ, we are being changed, transformed, transfigured, matured in faith.  We are looking in a mirror and seeing God reflected in our face, and with each passing day our faces change … becoming more and more glorious. 

Did you hear what I said?  It doesn’t say that we start out looking dog-eared and disgusting.  It doesn’t say we start at the bottom and work toward becoming acceptable or loveable or worthy.  No!  Our collect says that we are “changed into God’s likeness from glory to glory”.  We are glorious from the beginning!  In God’s eyes the way forward is up and up and up, from glory into glory.  How amazing is that!

Love & Rage

4^th Sunday after the Epiphany; Yr. C, February 3, 2013

Jeremiah 1:41-10; Psalm 71:1-6; 1 Corinthians 13:1-13; Luke 4:21-30

Sermon preached at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church

            On Sunday, March 7, 1965 600 civil rights marches headed toward Montgomery from Selma, AL.  They were staging a peaceful march in support of black rights.  They had only walked six blocks out of Selma when they were stopped at the Edmund Pettus Bridge.  State and local police refused to let them pass over the bridge and ordered them to disperse.  The group stopped as one of their leaders made a request.  Hosea Williams, of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, asked if he might “have a word” with the officer in charge.   Major Cloud refused to speak to him and gave the group a two-minute warning to disperse.  Williams asked again, “Can I have a word?”  As Senator John Lewis explains it, after a minute or so, the major ordered the troops into position and they advanced on the marchers with tear gas, bull whips and billy clubs.  That was Bloody Sunday.[1]

Being Ordinary

3rd Sunday after the Epiphany; Yr. C, January 27, 2013

Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10; Psalm 19; 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a; Luke 4:14-21

Sermon preached at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church

Jesus has been baptized in the Jordan.  A dove descended on Jesus, a sign of his difference, a sign of his specialness.  He has arrived on the scene for a particular purpose, to lead the way of repentance that John has been telling everyone about.  Jesus is to be the embodiment of repentance, the embodiment of a life continually being reoriented toward God.  Here is the one who will show us how to live fully into our humanity.  Immediately following his baptism Jesus is driven into the wilderness.  What better place could there be to process that kind of revelation about yourself.  There, he is tempted by the devil repeatedly to forego his calling, but he resists everything the devil throws at him … hunger, security, honor. 

Still filled with the Spirit that helped him through those desert trials, Jesus travels to Galilee to fulfill his vocation.  Jesus leaves his family, and his hometown.  He begins teaching in synagogues, healing the sick and sending demons on the run.  In time he ends up back in Nazareth, his hometown.  Like any good Jewish boy he goes to the synagogue, and on this particular day he is the one who reads from the Torah scroll.  It's a passage from Isaiah, and it proclaims the upside down world we have come to recognize as God's trademark.  Captives set free.  The blind healed.  The poor given hope.  And most surprisingly of all, Jesus adds ... it will all be fulfilled in Him.  He announces what he has come to believe about himself and his calling … what the dove revealed, what the desert affirmed.  Jesus claims his vocation.