Watch the full service here. The sermon begins at 34 min.
Epiphany 2B
January 17, 2021
Psalm 139
John 1:43-51
INTRODUCTION
We are now through the festival season for a while, and find ourselves in the Epiphany season, one of the liturgical seasons known as “ordinary time” and marked by the use of green paraments. During ordinary time we hear stories about the life of discipleship, beginning, today, with some call stories. First, we’ll hear the story of the boy Samuel’s call, a story beloved by many of God calling to him in the night, and Samuel having the courage to hear that call. (Though the message God gives him after this reading ends is not so sweet!) The story encourages us to listen for that voice of God, calling us into new ways of being God’s people. The Psalm assures us of God’s deep knowledge of us, even before we were born. That will echo a part in our Gospel reading, where Jesus seems to know all about Nathanael before they have ever met (and Nathanael is duly impressed!).
Speaking of the Gospel: for the next year, we will be hearing a lot from Mark’s Gospel, but also a fair amount from John, and the two could hardly be more different. Where Mark is quick and rugged, with a sense of urgency, John is verbose and poetic, with long discourses that explain Jesus’ signs and actions. Where in Mark Jesus is portrayed as very human, with numerous emotions and even some failures, and his true identity is kept a secret, in John Jesus is all out there, trumpeted as God Himself dwelling among us. I’ll try to keep things straight for you week by week this year, but for today, know this: we’re hearing today from John, and for John, a main theme of great importance is that we have a relationship with Jesus. This is the definition of faith for John, that we abide in Jesus and he in us. All that Jesus does is to draw us closer in relationship to him. And we’ll see that play out today, as he calls some of his first disciples.
As you listen to these texts, notice how much imagery of seeing and hearing there is. All the texts invite us to be more fully aware of the many ways God comes to us in the world. So notice them here, and then notice them all week long! Let’s listen.
[READ]
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
This week, I asked Jonathan if he would be willing, during our weekly Wednesday Facebook Live reflection, to talk about today’s offertory, a piece Jonathan composed. He set today’s Psalm, which happens to be my favorite Psalm, to music a few years ago, and I knew we would be hearing it today, so I asked him to share a bit about his composition process, and what drew him to this text, and why he portrayed it the way he did through the music. In his talk, he mentioned that he discovered this Psalm right after the 2016 election, a time when tension and anxiety on his college campus were very high. In these words from the Psalm, he found assurance in the knowledge that God knows us so intimately. He said he found it very self-reflective in a time when there was so much anxiety in the world around him, as a way to enter back into that connection with God.
How interesting, I thought, that Jonathan first encountered this Psalm after that election, and now that same administration is coming to an end this week and we are entering a new era with a whole new set of anxieties and tensions (as well as some of the same ones!). And we still need that intimacy with God, that assurance that wherever we go, and whatever happens, God knows us completely, sees all the best and worst parts of us, and still loves us deeply.
All this set off a bit of a spiritual journey for me this week. The previous week in my own Facebook Live reflection, I had spoken about the Star Gift I drew, which this year is “renewal.” I talked about how easy it is for pastors to fall into a pattern, especially during anxious times, of spending so much time and energy tending to the spiritual needs of everyone else, that they neglect tending to their own spiritual needs. I certainly do this! That’s not to say I don’t personally get something out of weekly preaching and tending the flock, but it is also important, of course, to spend time cultivating my own spiritual connection, apart from anyone else. In light of “renewal,” I vowed in that post, I’m going to make time this year to tend to my own relationship with God, which I’m certain will then make me a better pastor for you.
One hour after I posted that reflection, the Capitol was attacked. Anxiety across the country shot through the roof, as well as anger and a fair amount of confusion. I couldn’t ignore the timing: “Oh, you want to be sure you’re tending to your relationship with God during anxious times, Johanna? Here, try it now.”
As I tried to find my footing in the new reality, and as we wait with anticipation to see what will happen as we inaugurate a new president, I read today’s Gospel story, John’s telling of Jesus calling the disciples. In the Gospel of John, as I mentioned, faith is understood as abiding in Jesus, being in relationship with Jesus. This is very important in John – that word, meno, translated as abide or remain, is used 34 times in its various forms. So, to be a disciple, according to John, is to abide with Jesus, to find your home with him, to be in relationship with him. Conversely, sin is to fall out of that relationship, to lose that connection.
Reading Jesus’ invitation into that relationship in today’s story really struck me. “Come and see,” Philip says to skeptical Nathanael, and in my personal attempts at cultivating my own connection with God, I heard that invitation issued also to me. Come and see what rest in Christ feels like. Come and see how Jesus can bear that burden with you. Come and see what it is like to find your home, your safety, your power and your sustenance in the Lord. Come and see.
The invitation isn’t just to me, of course. It is to all those whom God loves. And this is a good time to be aware of that continuing invitation in our lives, the invitation to come and see and be in relationship with God. We’re at almost a year now of being apart from each other, and growing plenty weary of it. We’re also on the precipice of big change in our country – a transfer of power to a new administration, as well as all the uncertainty of the possibility of more violence. And of course all the fear around new, more contagious strains of the virus.
Into all of this, I really want to get out there and do justice, or preach a fiery and exciting sermon to you that quotes Martin Luther King and moves us all to change the world for Christ!... But I also know that we’re all exhausted, and that none of that good work can happen unless we have first cultivated that connection to the one who gives us life, Jesus Christ our Lord. So this week let’s all just stop for a moment and hear Christ extend the invitation to us, drawing us into relationship. Now, in the midst of all our fear and exhaustion, now is the time for us to commit to finding new and deeper ways of connecting with the God of life.
Which brings me back where we started, to Psalm139. This has long been a favorite of mine, for some of the same reasons Jonathan mentioned in his talk. It’s so personal, speaking to my own, and your own, heart and needs. That God would search me out and know me so intimately, and after everything God sees, still love me and choose to come to earth to dwell with me, and die for me, and rise for me, to bring me new and abundant life! That no matter what whims I may follow that take me away from God’s presence, He is never away! That God in fact knew me and loved me even before I was born, and will love me long after I die! These sorts of promises, which are of course also for you, compel us to draw closer to God, to abide there, to find our way home to the very bosom of God.
One way that I have found, especially as a writer, to connect deeply with God, is to dwell in God’s promises found in scripture, and then to rewrite them for myself. I talked about this once in yet another Facebook Live reflection (see, you should really be watching these if you aren’t already!), in which I did this with Psalm 23, rewriting it to speak more to my personal needs at that moment. So, I tried it with this Psalm. Looking at these words, I imagined how I would write them myself, if I were talking to God, how those images speak to me, or need to, today, in my current struggles.
The words poured out, and when I looked back over them, they felt at once immensely intimate, and also universal. So as my closing prayer, I’d like to invite you into this prayer, in hopes that it may bring you closer to God, as it did me. Like the original, it is written in the 1st person, but I hope you can hear this today as not only my prayer, but also yours. Let us pray…
Holy One, as I try to find myself, my heart, my home,
I know that you have already found it.
You know me completely, through and through.
Even when it feels like you’re far away
(and I’ll be honest, it often feels that way)
You still know what I’m doing and thinking, feeling and hoping.
I talk and talk, just trying to figure out what I’m trying to say,
while all along, you knew! You gently lead me to my voice, to your voice.
You’re all around, holding me on all sides,
steadying me with your strong hand.
Whenever I try to understand this, I cannot.
I simply fall back in wonder.
Of course you know me so well –
you made me this way, lovingly and marvelously!
Like an artisan carefully considering her art,
You intentionally chose each color and texture
that would make up my being, my person, my heart.
Let me never forget that all your works are wonderful – even me!
From start to finish, I am your masterpiece.
You made me just the way you intended to.
O, my God, my Love, I wish I could know you as deeply and fully as you know me,
but You are more than I can comprehend.
Make me content to keep seeking you as you have sought me,
that I would always continue the search for you,
and know you all my life.
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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