Jesus, Thorn in Our Side

Luke 4:14-21

January 24, 2016

Epiphany 3

This is the beginning of Jesus ministry,

the first thing he does after his baptism,

is to go into his hometown and read

Christ Pantocrator, 6th Century
St. Catherine's Monastery, Mt. Sinai

 

 

 

 

 

this scripture. And Luke found it significant

enough to put this down for everyone to remember.

It’s kind an inaugural speech if you will,

a mission statement for Jesus ministry.

If you were going to choose

one thing from the Old Testament to read

to epitomize Jesus’ ministry what would it be?

Some might read the story of

Adam and Eve and the serpent,

maybe the 10 commandments,

the story of Moses and the Exodus,

Abraham and Sarah

a psalm,

Maybe we would want to hear

about forgiveness of our sins

or our union with God in the after-life.

But Luke, the writer of one of only four gospels

chooses to highlight this one

that we read today from Isaiah 61

 

Jesus reads that he “has been anointed to

bring good news to the poor.

release to the captives

recovery of sight to the blind,

to let the oppressed go free,

and to proclaim the Year of the Lord’s Favor.”

That was the scripture reading.

That was the mission statement for the gospel.

Maybe not what the people were expecting.

Maybe not what we would expect.

Good news to the poor.

Sight to the blind.
Release to the captives.

Help the oppressed go free.

That sounds like something real

is going to happen with Jesus.

That sounds maybe like social upheaval.

That sounds like some people’s comfort

might be challenged.

By the way, the last thing,

the Year of the Lord’s Favor,

isn’t as easy as it sounds.

The Year of the Lord’s Favor is not just a year

when God proclaims God's love and favor for us,
It was the year of Jubilee proscribed in Leviticus,

at the foot of Mount Sinai, and in Deuteronomy.

This Year of the Lord’s favor

was something that was to happen every 50 years,

On the 50^th year, all debts were to be forgiven,

Those people who had to work as slaves

for other people to pay off their debts,

were released and those debts forgiven.

Land was to be returned to its original owners.

So if some people had accumulated property

or land because someone else

had to sell it to pay off a debt,

the land was to be returned to the original owner --

either given back outright or sold 

at a greatly reduced price from its actual worth.

This was done to prevent a great accumulation

of wealth and land by one portion of the world

and a great accumulation of debt on the other.

Every 50 years, money and land from the more well off,

were in essence, given away to the poor.

So that each person started off the same, with a clean slate.

But the most striking thing about the Year of the Lord's Favor,

is that although it was told to personally to Moses

by God at the foot of Mount Sinai

there is no evidence that it was ever actually done.

People generally believe that it was pretty much ignored,

The religious people paid attention other Levitical codes

they took them very literally:

They did the sacrifices,

They washed their hands at the prescribed time,

they stoned women for committing adultery

but relieving debt and giving things back to the poor,

that was pretty much ignored .

We can understand that, right?

Christianity has often forgotten about Jesus inaugural

statement and the many commands in the bible to

care for the poor, release the prisoners

care for the disabled, and let the oppressed go free.

We would rather focus our time on

our personal salvation, our worship styles,

forgiveness of our sins (and judgment for others)

and Jesus guaranteeing our eternal life.

We don’t actually want God to get involved here,

in our finances, our wealth, or our comfort.

At Christmas time,

when we look at that little baby Jesus

in his manger, lying there all peaceful,

we think of things like the preciousness of life,

the wonder of children, Jesus is cute and cuddly,

he fills us with pleasant thoughts.

But the epiphany realization is that

God's incarnation into humanity is not all skittles and beer,

not all comfort and cozy.

Incarnation is God coming to this earth,

Jesus is God's word come to earth

those passages from Isaiah come to life.

As well as being a comfort in our trials and struggle,

God means to get involved in this world in some really specific ways.

We understand that God loves us,

We like to say that God so loved the world.

We like to say that God loves us just as we are.

And I believe that is all true.

But God doesn’t want to keep us and the world

just as we are,

God doesn’t want the world to stay the same.

That is why God gave us Jesus.

God needs us to change.

God needs the world to change

Sometimes, maybe, it might be nice if God

would just stay up in the sky

sitting on a heavenly throne somewhere far off,

quietly working out my salvation.
It would be decidedly easier for many of us if

God wasn't involved in my here and now

But that’s not the God we know in Jesus.

Jesus is God's word come to earth.

Jesus is God's word put into action here.

Jesus is the scripture put into the world and lived out

Absolutely incarnate, and absolutely a thorn in our side.

Today still the poor are in need of some good news,

the captives are still imprisoned, the blind still can't see.

The Year of the Lord's Favor still has not happened 2,000 years later.

Now how could Jesus preach that

the scripture had been fulfilled in our hearing?

He can, because Jesus is the living Word

when we hear Jesus read about the poor,

and the captives, and the oppressed,

these words come alive for every new generation.

We know that he’s talking about the poor today.

the captives today, the blind today.

And Jesus talking about it, makes us talk about it too.

- Jesus wants us to talk about the fact that 

one in five children in the US are living with food insecurity.

- He wants us to know that people with disabilities are

twice as likely to be living in poverty.

- He wants us to realize that we have only 5% 

of the world’s population and 25% of the world’s incarcerated people.

-He wants us to know that the richest 10% controls

2/3 of all of America’s wealth.

- He wants us to be aware that debt lines the pockets of

the wealthiest corporations, makes poor people even poorer

and cripples most of the small countries all over the world

- He wants us to talk about the fact that one of the poorest cities

in the nation, Flint Michigan, has had their water supply sacrificed

at the altar of budget cuts and savings.

Jesus means to be real and present with us today,

Jesus wants his words to live in us,

and bug us and take up our time.

Jesus wants to be a thorn in our side.

And more than that,

Jesus first words of his public ministry

challenge that and tell us that he hasn’t come

to save us individually, privately, apart from another.

But for Jesus, our salvation is wrapped up

in the lives of others,

the poor, the prisoner, the disabled, the oppressed.

By the power of our baptism,

we are one with those in most need all over the world.

Let us hear the word of God new every day,

Let the word of God be alive in our world.

Let us be good news to the poor.

Let us give release to the captives.

Today, let God's word be fulfilled in our hearing.

Jesus is the Life of the Party

John 2: 1-11

January 17, 2010

Epiphany 2

In my position, I’ve seen quite a few weddings.

from an assortment of families and situations.

Some wedding celebrations just click and everything is great

The Wedding at Cana
Nicholas Correa, 1670

My own wedding was very fun, people still talk about it.

Soupy Sales came to our wedding.

(if you don’t know who that is, ask your parents or maybe your grandparents.)

Some weddings have snags and the mood of the party

and can’t seem to recover.

Apparently running out of wine

is one of those snags in Jesus time.

Now we might not find that to be unrecoverable

but in Jesus time running out of wine would mean running

out of good spirits for the marriage.

A shame to the people throwing the wedding.
Bad luck for the couple.

It would have been a cause of gossip for the new family.

And at this time, the best man can’t just drive down

to the liquor store and buy another case.

A big social faux pax.

But still and all, preventing social faux paxs

might not seem like it’s at the top of important

miracles for Jesus to get done in this world.

But like the feeding of the five thousand,

when we deal with miracles of Jesus

we can’t just look at what’s being done,

we have to look at what it means,

what does Jesus show us with this miracle.

  

One of the more significant details

is that the miracle starts with six water jars.

It says they’re jars for the rite of purification,

something that the people listening

would have been familiar with.

The rite of purification before an event

was more than just washing hands for cleanliness,

this was long before there was an understanding

that germs cause illnesses.

Purification was about preparing yourself

spiritually for an interaction with God.

Metaphorically cleansing yourself of the profane

to prepare to ascend to the sacred.

It’s at the root of our own ritual of baptism

And, like our own rituals, sometimes

we can lose sight of the purpose of them.

The ritual can be followed without joy

without feeling it can become a thing you do, a check off the box.

Eventually it becomes empty.

And apparently it had. The jars were empty.

Metaphorically and literally.

Throughout the gospel of John,

John writes about hand cleaning and rituals a lot.

They are never ridiculed, but as he refers to them,

they seem to belong to the past

been replaced by a new order of grace

a new kind of purification.

And that’s what Jesus is doing here.

Jesus takes these jars of ritual 

these empty jars that divide

between clean and unclean,

that separate the sacred from the unsacred,

and makes a new thing.

Jesus doesn’t make a bad thing good.

He makes a good thing better.

He makes something that

doesn’t separate people,

but links all the guests together,

something that is full of spirits, and spirit,

Jesus takes the empty jars

and makes it a celebration.

We are now all purified by the wine

that Jesus shares with us, his own

body and blood and soul and life.

From this miracle, we see

Being a follower of Jesus is less

about counting and separating and rituals

and more about celebration and joy.

Jesus brings life to our party.

The grace of God is not just about providing

the minimal for us to survive,

it’s not just about forgiving our sins

so we don’t get punished.

Grace is about giving us more than that

more than we ever knew we deserved

it’s about abundance.

More than enough for everyone.

But  where has this joy gone,

where is the party atmosphere?

For some Christianity is anything but a celebration.

Somewhere along the line,

we’ve forgotten about this miracle and invitation

to be guests at the party,

And we started counting the sins again,

Dividing the clean from the unclean

counting the places in heaven

and deciding there’s not enough for everyone.

Grace and abundance are scary.

We like a little moderation in all thing

We’d even like to see God follow some sensible rules too.
So we tried to control and forgotten to celebrate.

But Jesus is always making the old new again,

every day, we can bring our empty

jars to him, and Jesus will fill them

with new Spirit, new hope, new life.

Jesus is always starting his ministry again,

Jesus is always turning the water into wine.

There is always more and

the best is at the end.

Every day with Jesus,

our eyes are open and we understand

more of what Jesus is trying to tell us and who Jesus is.

This is the first sign of Jesus ministry

the first glimpse of the reign of God come to earth.

And for first sign of his ministry, Jesus didn’t call a meeting,

he didn’t scold or reprimand, or sit solemnly.

Jesus ministry started at a party.

And from that we learn one simple thing:

Jesus brings life .

Water: Dangerous and Life Giving

Luke 3 15-22

2-10-16

Water is a necessity of all life on earth.

Some things like cactus need just a little,

some things have to live in the water

but every living thing on the earth needs some water to survive.

We all need it.

Baptism of the Christ #2Daniel Bonnell 2012

Causing some to say, Water is life.

But, as we see on the banks of

the Mississippi river this week

and in Indonesia in 2004

and New Orleans in 2005

and in New Jersey in 2012

and in the time of Noah and other countless

times around the world.

Water can be dangerous.

Water can be death too.

That is why water is a fitting

metaphor for our baptism.

It is both life and death.

In Jesus baptism he was called

the Son of God and the beloved.

It was the start of his ministry,

it showed us who he really was.

But Jesus baptism also called him

to live with the outcast, to suffer and to die.

And with our baptism,

we are forgiven, we are cleaned and washed,

we are given new life,

We are called Children of God,

We are called God’s beloved too.

We are given a new life.

But we are also asked

to follow the same path that Jesus did.

We’re asked to not only think about

our cares and needs,

but to put those things aside and follow Jesus’s way.

To defend the helpless, to care for the outcast,

to love, to help, to speak out,

We are asked to die to ourselves.

This life giving-water can be dangerous too.

But with this death,

comes a promise of new life in Christ.

We are given the same resurrection

that Jesus was given,

the same inheritance, the same life.

Like Paul writes in Romans:

if we have been united with Jesus in a death like his,

we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

Our baptism promises us this.

That means when we feel like we can’t go on.
When we face struggles and pain.

when we make ourselves

vulnerable to the pain of the world,

when we suffer for the gospel,

When we are sick, and

when we draw our last breaths,

then we can remember our baptism.

We can remember that we are God’s children,

the beloved and God is well pleased with us.

And we will rise with again, in this life or the next.

And the more we remember our baptism,

the more our eyes are open.

Our baptism is like one of those UV

lights that they use so they can

see things that we can’t see with the naked eye.

The more we remember our baptism,

and the more we answer it’s call,

the more we can see God’s work in the world,

the more we see Christ in others, the clearer things are.

Our baptism is like the star that lead the magi to Jesus,

it guides us and helps us

and shows us the world with the lens of God.

Our baptism opens our eyes

to God and to the world around us.

Still dangerous, but life giving.

So We thank God for the water

that saves us and washes us.

We thank God for the dangerous water that calls us into

danger and suffering for the sake of others.

And we thank God for the gift of water that unites us

that shows us Jesus and calls us out of ourselves

and into new life.

One Helpless Child

Luke 2
Christmas Eve
December 24, 2015
 Hard to believe it’s been two thousand years.
Isn’t that what you’re supposed to say on a birthday?
It doesn’t seem that long at all.
 But it’s true, two thousand plus years ago,
the savior of the world was born.
 Actually, for two thousand
The world doesn’t seem much different
then than it does now.
 People still need companions in life
they still get engaged and married,
We still form families
the birth of a child is still a wondrous thing.
People still laugh at funny things,
and they cry when people die.
 People still do kind things to one another,
and we still do horrible things too.
There is still violence and corruption,
there are still people who are poor
and can’t afford housing or food.
 Even the crazy census 
which we hear about every Christmas,
we can still relate to it.
Even if we’ve never had to travel to the place
of our birth in order to be counted for taxes,
We still know about burocracies and intuitions
systems and governments
who just see people as numbers and money.
 No, things haven’t changed much at all
in two thousand years.
People like you and me still ask for God’s intervention
We yearn for God’s ways, and God’s will,
and yet, our human sin and foibles get in the way.
 And just like now, things then seemed
to be hopeless, and un-repairable.
The darkness seemed like it would take over everything.
but like now God’s people still pray for peace
for compassion,  joy, freedom, happiness, relief.
Then, like now, people still prayed for God do to something.
 And that night,
more than two thousand years ago, God did.
The all mighty and all powerful
God of Abraham and Sara,
the creator of the universe and all things in it,
the artist who made the mountains and
forests and oceans and all the creatures in them,
the sculptor of the planets and the skies,
in response to all those prayers and hopes
did this one interesting thing:
 God became one of us.
 God’s response was not control or manipulation
it was not retaliation or violence
it was not to provide security or even
more instruction or rules.
 God became human,
God was born in the same old fashioned
way, just like you and me,
with all it’s risks and challenges
and God heaped on even more risks
and more challenges on than normal.
  God’s response to our hurt and pain and sin
and the stupid things that we humans do
was absolute vulnerability.
 God came in the most helpless way
The vulnerability of a woman,
the vulnerability of child birth
the vulnerability of poverty,
the vulnerability of Judaism,
the vulnerability of a strange town
the vulnerability of an open-air delivery room.
So many things could have gone wrong.
 But this is the way God brought salvation to the world.
Two thousand years ago, the light of the world was
pure openness and helplessness.
And it is still the same today.
 Then as now,
God shows us what will save the world
not military might or security,
not money or presents or financial markets,
but unconditional openness and love.
 God’s gift to all of us was to
offer God’s whole self to the world
in trust and receive
all that we had to give,
it’s joy and comfort and pain and sorrow.
 Christ in a stable,
Christ at a table,
Christ on a cross.
Open and revealed
This is how God wants to be seen.
 The greatest gift that God gives us
is God’s own life, open to us
there for the taking
This is the answer to our prayers.

May we open this gift over and over again
every year for the next two thousand years or more
and may the gift of Christ live in
all of our hearts right now.

Great Gifts

John 1:1-18

January 3, 2015

Christmas 2

What’s your favorite gift you’ve been given?

My favorite gift growing up,

or the ones I remember were

projects or games that I had to work on later,

I had a wood chopping machine

that would cut up popsicle sticks

that you could build with

and a knitting machine that would knit tubes

and a clay making

Christmas has become a time for gift giving and receiving.

For some people, it’s gotten out of hand

with black Friday, and excessive spending,

or that woman who got her three kids 300 presents

that covered her whole tree.

But at its heart, gift giving at Christmas

is a positive symbol.

A gift is something that is given freely

without expectation of payment ,

it is given as a sign of affection and love.

It’s hard to pin down the exact history

of gift giving at Christmas.

There are many points and traditions

for the origin of it, not just one.

  

A significant one comes from

St. Nicholas, the bishop of Myra

he lived in the third century

He was known for giving secret gifts to people,

His feast day was celebrated on December 6^th,

and people shared gifts on that day,

but with the Reformation

and the push not to venerate Saints,

the gift-giving of St. Nicholas day was

moved to Christmas.

In Austria, Switzerland, and Germany, Croatia

and other European countries,

the bringer of gifts was the Christ-kind,

or the baby Jesus himself.

La-Befana, the Christmas Witch

He would supposedly come secretly in the night

so that no one could see him and give gifts to children.

Some of the traditions mention

the Magi who followed the star,

found Jesus and offered him gifts.

Spain and Latin American countries celebrate

with gift-giving on January 6th

which is Three Kings Day.

In Italy, a witch named Befana

who supposedly told the Magi where Jesus was,

would bring gifts to children

on the eve of the Epiphany.

  

And some say that the tradition of gift giving in December

actually started before Christianity with the

ancient pagan holiday of Saturnalia

which was celebrated during the winter solstice

on December 19 people would exchange gifts.

It’s hard to point to one strain or line

of the tradition of giving gifts during this time,

Which tells me that it is an intractable part

of this time of year,

this time that we have come to celebrate

the birth of Jesus, God’s presence with us.

Christmas.

Because at its root, Christmas itself is a gift itself:

Something that is given freely

without expectation of payment ,

it is given as a sign of affection and love

Jesus is a gift to us from God.

and this gift was known before the foundation of the world

The Word became flesh and lived among us.

God gave God’s self to us in the form of Jesus.

Free and without obligation.

Now, like any gift we get,

we can put in the back of a drawer

and forget about.

Or we can open this gift

and understand and use it.

Even when we’ve opened it,

it takes a long time to figure out how to assemble it

and we’ve lose the instructions a few times,

and we get frustrated and put it aside,

and then when we’ve put it together,

we have to figure out how to use it.

But it is a wonderful gift that keeps us occupied our whole lives.

Jesus is our gift from God.

This gift has inspired us

and changed us and made us better humans.

Even though the people that follow Jesus

have sometimes done some strange and terrible things,

I believe the world has grown and become better for

because of Jesus.

The Word became flesh.

God’s love became human and came to live with us.

God’s vast, expansive, infinite, indestructible love

has been given to us unconditionally.

That is the real gift that we get and we give.

And that gift has been

ours since the beginning of time.

Jesus is the answer to our prayers and deepest wishes.

Whether we know it or not,

this is the gift we really want.

The love of God made real.