This may end up being primarily a forum for posting sermon manuscripts; it may become more. We'll see how the plot unfolds. I thank those who have encouraged me to share my words. I don't tend to presume that what I write needs to be broadcast beyond the Sunday assembly which is the primary forum for my creative work (well...not really mine...you know). But maybe this means of sharing and reflecting together will be valuable, too. If you think so, I welcome you into reflection with me. If you think not, I hope you will not think me too presumptuous as you go about your life and work without stopping to read.
Following is my sermon manuscript for today: February 6, 2011 - the 5th Sunday after Epiphany, Year A. The message is drawn from Isaiah 58:1-12 and Matthew 5:13-20.
Almost 5 years ago, in 2007, when I was living in Minneapolis,
I came home from work one day
to hear that the interstate highway bridge just north of downtown
had crumbled into the Mississippi River in a matter of 60 seconds.
For hours I couldn’t even envision exactly where the bridge had been,
not because I didn’t know the area –
I worked less than a mile away –
but because it was so fixed in my mind
as a permanent piece of the city’s landscape
that I couldn’t imagine the landscape without it.
It was a catastrophic moment that changed many lives
and my home city forever.
and my home city forever.
And, as much as I like to think of myself as a rational person,
I have had a fear of driving on bridges and overpasses ever since…
which, incidentally, I recently learned,
makes getting around Houston an exercise in sustained anxiety.
I just don’t trust that a bridge will stay under me and hold me up anymore…
and the world has felt slightly less safe to me ever since that day.
This year, in 2011, a junior high girl named Julie
living in the north suburbs of Chicago
went to school the day after getting her hair cut…
and she got shoved into the lockers in the hallway
by some classmates
by some classmates
who decided she deserved to be the object of their ridicule
because they thought her short haircut
was a sign that she was a lesbian.
was a sign that she was a lesbian.
And so, she doesn’t trust that her classmates will accept her anymore…
and the world has probably felt slightly less safe to her
ever since that day.
ever since that day.
I’ve had other days like these, days whose scars I still carry.
And I imagine you have, too:
days that have taught us to fear and to hide.
We don’t trust the world.
We don’t trust it to protect us,
and we don’t trust it to accept us…
because it hasn’t so many times in the past.
And, for those of us who are the church,
maybe it is important to confess and repent
maybe it is important to confess and repent
that we have sometimes been a place where,
instead of safety and acceptance,
God’s children have just found more rejection and pain…
and this is not God’s vision for our life together.
We hear what God’s vision for us is throughout our whole story of faith…
from Genesis to Revelation…
but particularly today from Isaiah and from Jesus.
We hear Isaiah declare that the pursuit of justice
and freeing the oppressed is the work God chooses for us…
It is the work that rightly flows out of our liturgy…
the work of feeding and freeing a starving, enslaved world.
After all, we are gathered here to be fed,
freed and transformed,
freed and transformed,
And so it makes perfect sense that we are sent out
as part of God’s work
of feeding and transforming the whole world.
of feeding and transforming the whole world.
As Pastor Mike said in his sermon last week:
Liturgy needs justice, and justice needs liturgy.
The two go hand in hand,
as we heard from Micah before and from Isaiah today.
And then in Matthew,
Jesus declares to us that he is to be the completion and fulfillment
of what God began so long ago in the story of Israel,
beginning with the first breath of creation.
Jesus is the continuation of God’s work of transforming the world,
not a departure from it,
as some of his contemporaries seemed to think.
as some of his contemporaries seemed to think.
The law – God’s Torah – which he comes to fulfill
is the very gift that God gave to Israel
so her people might live in safety and joy,
in a community of love and care.
It is hard for us to understand the word “law” this way sometimes.
The law that Jesus comes to fulfill is not the kind of law we know best.
It is not a punitive one that exists to demand adherence
and dole out punishments for the lawbreakers.
A teacher of mine (Dr. Ralph Klein) somewhat whimsically calls the law
God gave to ancient Israel a “playpen” for the children of God.
It is as if God has said to the people,
“Here…and here…and here…and here…
these are the boundaries in which you can live and thrive
and be safe and be loved…
I want you to flourish and have joy…
And this is where you will find it.
So do these things, and avoid these.”
And Jesus tells us that he is the completion of that gift and that promise.
He is the one in which we all finally find our belonging
and our acceptance and our peace.
Even when we are not safe and accepted in the world,
we have safety and acceptance in God.
And this vision of God for our life together comes with a call.
We are called to do justice, yes…
to be salt that seasons and enlivens the earth…
to be light that shines out from the hilltops
and signals safety for all.
and signals safety for all.
But, we are not called to do this as a requirement
for living within God’s love…
for living within God’s love…
like a citizenship test we must pass…
or a pledge of allegiance we must take.
or a pledge of allegiance we must take.
Listen again to what Jesus says to you, to each of us:
“You are the salt of the earth…You are the light of the world.”
He is not telling us what we must do to be a part of the kingdom of God.
He is telling us who we already are,
who he has made and declared us to be.
who he has made and declared us to be.
He is inviting us to be our truest selves.
This is hard to do, though,
because we have spent so much time being afraid to be ourselves…
because we are afraid of being rejected.
We have so much practice hiding our true selves behind a veneer
of what we think people want us to be.
We have been laughed at, yelled at, shoved into lockers, and ignored.
And so we are afraid to be ourselves –
because we think ourselves aren’t worth being.
Perhaps we can’t even believe Jesus
when he tells us that we already are exactly who we aught to be.
But that is the freedom offered in Christ’s Way:
This is the truth we all need so much:
freedom from the fear that we aren’t accepted,
aren’t good enough, aren’t who we need to be.
We are. You are.
And Jesus welcomes you to be who you are.
He welcomes us all to be who we already are –
light and salt for the world…
light and salt for the world…
bearers of the safety and love
for which those who live trapped in shame and fear
so desperately hunger.
And, Jesus welcomes us, also, I think,
to bear that message again even to one another when fear and shame –
whose roots are so deep – begin to take hold of us again.
God promises us that in this truth will be strong and nourished,
like a well-watered garden,
and ready for the work of the kingdom.
We will be repairers of the breach.
Where the world’s bridges fall
and people are separated and injured,
and people are separated and injured,
we will rebuild and reunite.
We will be the city on a hill.
Where God’s children have felt rejected and afraid,
we will tell them they are beautiful and beloved.
We will offer food to the hungry:
at the shelves of the food pantry
at the shelves of the food pantry
and in the shelter of church basements on freezing nights
and with our neighbors
when there are leftovers to share.
when there are leftovers to share.
We will begin more and more to be who we already are in Christ –
and through this we and the world are transformed.
This is what Jesus tells us:
You are exactly who you are meant to be.
You are safe within God’s love and light.
You can tell and show others that they are, too.
You are the salt of the earth and the light of the world.
Let us go out, then, into the world and be who we are.
Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment