Sermon: Impartial love (Jan. 12, 2020)

Baptism of our Lord A

January 12, 2019

Matthew 3:13-17

INTRODUCTION

         On this first Sunday after Epiphany, we celebrate the Baptism of our Lord. We jump from the babe in the manger being visited by kings from afar, to a 30-year-old Jesus at the river Jordan, with his eccentric cousin John, asking to be baptized by him. Christians have long had questions about this event – why would Jesus have to be baptized if he is without sin? One reason is that by being baptized himself, Jesus ties himself closer to us and our own experience. And so, as we observe Jesus’ baptism, we can learn something about our own. So as you listen to this story, consider what it has to say about what happens for us when we are baptized.

         The other appointed readings for this day set up this story nicely. In Isaiah, we will hear one of what are called the Servant Songs – poems about God’s “servant” who looks an awful lot like Jesus, but whom we could also interpret and understand as “servant people.” As you listen to Isaiah, I encourage you to think about it that way – as referring not to Jesus, or not only to Jesus, but to servant people, those who claim faith in God.

The Psalm will proclaim the power of the Lord’s voice – the same voice that we will hear in the baptism story when the heavens open and a dove descends.

And in Acts, we will hear another baptism story, though we don’t actually hear the part about the baptism. We will hear Peter’s speech before the baptism, in which he declares that “God shows no partiality” – he says this because Cornelius and his family are Gentiles (non-Jews), and in fact are the first Gentiles to believe in Christ and be baptized. In this story, we will see how the love of God is not limited only to those who are like us, but is for everyone. An important message in these divided times! 

         As you listen to these, just watch for as many baptismal connections as you can find. Water, voice, call, washing – any images at all that help you to reflect on the continuing meaning of your baptism in your life of faith. Let’s listen.

[READ]

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

            There was a first-grade teacher who was frustrated in her job, and seriously thinking about quitting. She changed her mind one night while attending a night class at the local university. This is her story in her own words:

A friendly woman who sat next to me leaned over and said, "Say, I met an admirer of yours the other day. I was at the bus station waiting for my son, and was noticing a Hispanic woman and her little daughter waiting for a bus. The mother didn't speak much English, but I began chatting with the little girl. She told me they were on their way to Colorado to join her father. She was now in the second grade, and she mentioned the name of her teacher. Then she opened her little purse and took a worn picture from it and said, 'But this is my very favorite teacher. I really love her!'"

My friend went on, "I looked at that picture and was astonished that I knew the person she showed me. It was you!" "Do you remember her name?" I asked. "Yes, it was Adelina." Suddenly Adelina's little brown face began to emerge in my mind. Adelina. Just another little first grader. But she said, "This is the teacher I really love." She had shown my picture to a stranger and said, "This is the teacher I really love." All the way home that night that phrase boomed and throbbed in my mind: This is the teacher I really love. With that kind of approval, I resolved to change, not my profession, but my attitude.

            How powerful such simple words can be: “This is the one whom I really love!” They are words that really can change our attitude – so much of our attitude, after all, is shaped by how people treat us, and that sort of affirmation is really powerful.

Unfortunately, critical words have the same power, maybe even more. How often our whole day might take a turn for the worse if just one person criticizes us or says something mean. Do you do this too? Like, you could all file out of church today and say, “Great sermon today, pastor, really dynamite!” but if just one person walks out saying, “Don’t worry, not all of your sermons can be good. Better luck next time!” Guess which comment will nag at me the rest of the day? The one negative voice! We can do our best to let problems and criticisms slide down our backs like rain off a duck, but somehow, they can still find a way to bother us.

            Why is that? Brené Brown is a researcher at the University of Houston, and the focus of her research is vulnerability and shame. Her TED Talk on vulnerability is one of the most watched TED talks of all time. She argues that we are a culture deeply affected by shame, at every age. She defines shame as something different from guilt. Guilt, she says, is, “I did something bad.” It’s about your action. Shame, however, is, “I am bad.” It is a belief that there is something about us that is unlovable, wrong, and worthless. So any time someone says something to us that affirms this deep-seated and destructive fear, we readily believe it. “You see?” we think. “I am bad. I was right. I’m worthless. I don’t deserve love.”

            So how do we combat these feelings of inadequacy, this sense that who and what we are is somehow lacking? How do we move from scarcity – the belief that we are not enough, not smart enough, skinny enough, organized enough, tough enough, you fill in the blank – to the knowledge that we are enough, that we are worthy of love?

Today’s Gospel lesson about Jesus’ baptism gives us a start. I have always been particularly drawn to that last part of Jesus’ baptism, the part where the voice comes from heaven and says, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” Here God, in heavenly fashion, announces to the world, “Hey everyone that’s my son! I love him! I am pleased with him!” Don’t we all long to hear words like that from those we care about? To know that we so loved?

Well of course God says that about Jesus, we think. But Jesus was worthy, and sinless, and perfect. But me? Well let’s just say I’m a far cry from Jesus!

Ah, but you see, in this case we are not. Because these are the same words we hear not only in Jesus’ baptism, but in our own baptism as well. “This is my beloved child,” God says with each Spirit-infused splash of water. “This one here. This one is mine, and I am well pleased with them.” These words speak to hearts that often ache with the pain of inadequacy, with the fear of not being enough. “This is my child, my beloved.”

Sometimes it is all too easy to forget we are God’s children, isn’t it? When we’re in despair, when we are having doubts, when we mess up big time and hurt ourselves or people we love, it is hard to feel like God’s children, much less like God’s beloved children! Yet even so, God says in baptism, to us and to everyone who can hear, “This is my beloved child, with whom I am well pleased.”

You see, in God’s eyes, we are enough. We are loved. Yes, we mess up; yes, we fall short. Yes, sometimes we are downright unlovable. But God’s love for us never falters.

That’s good news for us, even as it is also a challenge to us. Because it is very wonderful that God loves me, and you, so much. But that love also extends to other people – people we don’t know, people we don’t like, people who scare us. It extends to people of other colors and races, to people of different social or economic classes. God’s love extends to people who are Trump 2020 and people who would love to see a Warren/Sanders ticket in November. It extends to people waiting in detention centers on the border, and ICE agents, and people chomping at the bit for a war with Iran, and people proudly waving a rainbow flag. It extends to Mitch McConnell and to Nancy Pelosi, to the unborn child and to the Black Lives Matter activist. They are all God’s children, God’s beloved, too. As Peter proclaims before he baptizes Cornelius and his family (people who should not, by the way, have been considered a part of Christ’s community): God shows no partiality.

And so, this non-partial love that God shows to all God’s children is a challenge to us. Because as baptized people whom God dearly loves, we also are called to see one another as people who are beloved by God. In these divided times, when the gray area between right and wrong gets smaller by the day, when people seem to be just looking for a way to be combative, to prove they are right and the other side is wrong, when people seem to have lost the capacity to sit with someone who disagrees and really listen to that person’s pain without judgment… what if instead, we looked at one another and first remembered, “He is, first and foremost, a beloved child of God. She is beloved by God.” How would that change how we view one another? How far might that go toward healing our brokenness as a country? How might seeing each other as God sees us – beloved, and pleasing – change the way we talk to one another, and bring about peace in the world?

I think this is pretty important. And God must think it is pretty important, too, because God came to earth Himself to show us so – to be born of a human mother, to be baptized, to hang out with, heal, and bring hope to misfits and sinners and the lowest of society, to suffer and to die and to rise again so that we would no longer fear death…. All to show us just how much God loves us. Loves you! Just think if there was more of that love to go around!

I started this sermon with a story about a 1^st grade teacher who heard loving words from a 6-year-old, and it changed her life. In baptism, God offers us such loving and life-changing words every day of our lives. You are God’s beloved children. God is pleased with you. You are enough. And God shows no partiality. Let us go into the world, as God’s beloved, to love one another so indiscriminately as God loves us.

Let us pray… God of love, thank you for loving us, even when we are, frankly, pretty unlovable. Help us, as your beloved children, to show no partiality in the way we love one another. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

Image credit: Le Breton, Jacques ; Gaudin, Jean. Baptism of Christ, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=51568 [retrieved January 13, 2020]. Original source: Collection of Anne Richardson Womack.

Sermon: Epiphany Star Gifts (Jan 5, 2020)

Epiphany A

Matthew 2:1-12

January 5, 2020

INTRODUCTION

         I had planned what I was going to say on this Sunday, on which we are celebrating Epiphany, for two months. Stuff about God made manifest (that’s what “epiphany” means in this case), about the ways we see God in the world still, about how in God’s revelation to the magi we see how Jesus is for all people, Jews and Gentiles alike… lovely things like that.

         And then we read about a string of anti-Semitic hate crimes committed during Hanukkah, and the darkness these have brought right during Judaism’s own season of light. And then we learned about an airstrike, ordered by the US president, that killed a notoriously violent Iranian military leader – an event that may or may not bring about World War III, and we now wait to see what retaliation might look like. And did you know, by the way, that the wise men we hear about today were likely from what is modern day Iran? It all just seems like too much to ignore.

         So, I’m not going to ignore it. I am going to go ahead and preach what I had planned to preach, but I’m also going to ask for your help. By way of introduction to these texts, do this as you listen: today, Epiphany, is the day we celebrate that our “light has come.” What does that light look like in light of these dark events? Where is God’s light trying to shine through the cracks? What do these Epiphany texts show us about that? And then – tell me what you think. Send me an email, write me a note, pull me aside at coffee hour, and tell me where you see light in today’s scripture, and in today’s world. Let’s listen.

ORIGINAL INTRO:

         Tomorrow, January 6, is the day the church celebrates the festival of Epiphany, which is the day we remember what special visitors? The wise men. It is a day we think about stars, and light, and camels, and kings, and the strange gifts of …? Gold, frankincense and myrrh. We will see all of these things in our readings this morning. Isaiah will mention camels and kings and two of the three gifts brought by the magi. The Psalm mentions how “kings will bow down before him.” And Paul’s letter to the Ephesians will talk about how the mystery of God is made known to the Gentiles, the nations, the non-Jews – which of course, the magi were. That’s remarkable, because when these gentiles, the magi, come to see God-made-flesh in Jesus, in that encounter, we see that God’s promises are made known even to those outside of God’s chosen, the Jewish people. It shows us something important about who God is, who Jesus is: namely, that Jesus is for the whole world! That’s good stuff!

But really, the overall theme of Epiphany is exactly what it is named for: epiphany! It is a word that means, “manifestation,” and it is a day when we think about how God has been made manifest, first to Mary and Joseph and the shepherds, and then even to those outside of the Jewish community… and now still to us. So, as you listen to these texts, notice all the ways they describe God being made manifest, apparent, visible to those from long ago, and consider some of the ways God is still made visible and manifest to us today. Let’s listen.

[READ]

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.  

Well, we’ve made it through 12 days of Christmas. And although nobody gave the Rehbaums any maids a-milking, lords a-leaping, or drummers drumming (and for this I am grateful!), we did enjoy quite a bounty of gifts from our various relatives and loved ones. By now, of course, the gift-giving frenzy has died off, as I’m sure it has for you, too. You’ve now gotten a hang of your new device, or you’ve started and even finished your new book, and you’re finding places to put all the beautiful things you have received.

            Yet Epiphany brings up the concept of giving once again. That is in part because it is the day we celebrate the coming of the magi from the East, who traverse afar, probably from modern day Iran, bringing gold, frankincense and myrrh to the Christ-child. It is their gifts, of course, to Jesus that give us biblical basis for the gifts that we give to each other during this season.

            So I could talk about giving today. Giving and generosity are wonderful things, and essential elements of the Christian life. I have preached many sermons on giving, on serving God and neighbor. It’s good stuff, giving. But the truth is, you’re pretty good at that already. There is no one here I would call selfish or constantly self-serving, and in fact this place is full of people who are more likely to over­do than under-do. You are people who love to serve, love to give your time, talents and treasures, love to minister to the world.

            So instead, today I’d like to talk about receiving. The word “epiphany,” as I mentioned, means, “manifestation.” It is the day we celebrate God being made manifest, visible, to the Gentiles – meaning in this case the magi. The day God and God’s saving works became manifest or known to people outside the Jewish community. Or, you could say, it is the day we celebrate not the gifts we give, but rather, the gifts that God gives to the whole world, that we receive.

            Those gifts, of course, are too many to name – yet we do still find a way to overlook them. The concrete ones are easy: family, friends, shelter, etc. But when I say gifts, I mean something more abstract, gifts that God through Christ has given us, ways that God is made manifest among us in our personal lives and in our relationships with others. Things like forgiveness, grace, peace, generosity, truth, prayer, mercy, fellowship…. You get the idea.

            We know those things are out there, and we may, in our more aware and spiritually inspired moments, recognize them as gifts of God. But if you’re anything like me, you don’t spend nearly enough time noticing them and really dwelling on them.

            And so I wanted to try something with you today, and this year, something I hope will become an Epiphany tradition. It’s called “Star Gifts.” It is based on the idea that before they offered their own gifts, the magi first received from God the gift of the Christ-child. And indeed, this is always God’s pattern: first God gives to us, and then we respond by giving ourselves to God. And so now, we will first receive [invite ushers forward]. As I explain this, the ushers will pass around the offering plates, but instead of putting something into it, as we’re accustomed, you will receive something from it: a star with a gift written on it. Don’t look first – just reach in and grab! Take this star home with you and put it in a place where you see it regularly – perhaps on your dashboard, your fridge, your computer screen, or your bathroom mirror.

            [Pause to hear what some of the words are that people have drawn.]

            The next part of the activity takes all year long. Throughout the Christmas story, we are told that “Mary pondered these things in her heart,” and that is what I am asking you to do with your star gift. Ponder it in your heart this year, when you see it in the morning or on your drive to work. Look up the meaning in the dictionary. Find where it occurs in the Bible. See how that gift from God plays out in your daily life. Allow this word to speak to you in the particular place that you are in your life and in your faith.

            Maybe you’re looking at this word now and thinking, “I can’t imagine how I’m going to see this in my life,” or maybe you are thinking of ways you already do see it. I heard of one pastor who did this with her congregation, and she drew the word “time” just before she left for sabbatical, so she reflected that year on what a gift it was to have that time for spiritual renewal and development. Another year, that same pastor drew “faith.” Her congregation chuckled, saying that it seemed ironic that the pastor should need to draw the gift of faith! But then, that year turned out to be an incredibly trying one, where her own faith and that of her congregation really suffered after some tragic events. It was a year she needed to remember that faith is a gift to be held onto, especially in trying times. You never know how God’s gifts might need to be noticed.

            The last part of this activity is based on the idea that receiving leads to giving. Throughout the year, I may remind you to think about your star gift, and how God has been manifest through it in your life, maybe as something you are living into yourself or maybe as something you are seeing in someone else. On Epiphany next year, we will do this again, but I’m going to talk less – instead, I want to hear about your experience. This is a year where we as a synod are encouraged, as a part of our 5-year strategic plan, to focus on “Growing in our witness,” and so this will be an opportunity for you to do just that – to notice and then to witness how God is manifest in your life.

            Like any gift, I am aware that some of these star gifts may be discarded. They may end up crumbled at the bottom of your purse, or lost under a car seat, just like we sometimes crumble and discard the gift of grace that God offers us, or lose sight of the light that Christ brings. I’m as guilty of disregarding God’s gifts as the next person! One year I did this and drew the gift of perseverance. I promptly lost the star… and then found it a couple years later in the bottom of my purse, crumbled, but still legible. Perseverance, indeed! We have a funny God!

            I know that some of yours will get lost or discarded… but I still want to try it. As humans, we yearn for tangible, clear signs of God’s presence, most especially in times like these, when the world can seem so very dark and fearful. But too often we are so overwhelmed by life that we fail to see those signs even when they are right in front of us. This is meant to be a way to focus your awareness of God’s gifts in your life. Epiphany is a time to celebrate God’s presence breaking into the darkness and chaos of life and shining as a light in that darkness. My prayer for this congregation this year, and for each member thereof, is that we would be reminded at every turn of our generous, giving God, who continues to give to us whether we are ready to receive or not, the gifts of grace, love, forgiveness, and everlasting life.

            Let us pray… Gracious God, we give you thanks for your many gifts. Help us to notice and not to ignore, to embrace and not to disregard, and in this effort, to become ever closer to you. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

*** Note: for those of you reading at home, here is a list of star gifts. Choose one for yourself, and try it! If you are a St. Paul's member reading this, we have more stars in the back of the sanctuary - grab one for yourself whenever you are there.

kindness

caring

sharing

giving

compassion

love

openness

pardon

understanding

discipleship

servanthood

stability

hopefulness

innocence prayerfulness

praise

gentleness

knowledge

happiness

laughter

acceptance

self-control

restraint

mercy

truth

peace

faith

consideration

fellowship

unity

teaching

singing

celebration

perseverance

judgment

discipline

courage

confidence

clarity

honor

contentment

imagination

commitment

friendship

freedom

creativity

devotion

joy

strength

comfort

leadership

discernment

obedience

thoughtfulness

responsibility

patience

forgiveness

humility

faithfulness

hope

tenderness

enthusiasm

evangelism

healing

loyalty

rejoicing

respect

insight

selflessness

righteousness

assurance

justice

honesty

wisdom

awareness

tolerance

wholeness

guidance

hospitality

foresight

trust

learning

proclamation

encouragement

trustworthiness

inspiration

wonder

flexibility

grace

graciousness

integrity

helping

witnessing

generosity

perceptiveness

purity

prayer

service

steadfastness

determination

nurturing

renewal

purpose

peacefulness

power

excitement

harmony

reliability

goodness

reverence

serenity

humor

boldness

genuineness

illumination

vision

dependability endurance

listening

accountability

speaking

sincerity

writing

music

motivation

art

building

crafts

planning

organization

drama

cheerfulness

focus

balance

helpfulness

languages

cooking

sympathy

empathy

sensitivity

time

conviction

delight

responsiveness

education

intelligence

experience

visitation

sobriety

spirituality

travel

thankfulness

money

dignity

quietness

playfulness

dedication

empathy

solitude

zeal

appreciation

affirmation

charity