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The Last Sunday after the Epiphany
February 18 , 2007
Delivered by Reverend Sandra Stayner
Exodus 34:29-35
1 Corinthians 12:27-13:13
Luke 9:28-36
Are you enjoying the band? I think it's great. Thanks for being here guys!
Today is world mission Sunday in the church - a day for us to remember that in Christ we are united to people of all creeds, colors, race and nationality, all over the world. Indeed, Paul tells us that at the time of our baptism we become part of the mystical body of Christ, a body of people that reaches beyond any artificial man-made boundaries that are present in our societies, and stretches right around the globe. We are so intricately linked one with another that if one member of the body suffers we all suffer and if one member of the body is joyful we can all rejoice with that person.
As we enjoy the sound of Dixieland music in our worship today, music that is so closely linked in most people's minds with the city of New Orleans we can't help but remember the suffering of so many people whose homes were destroyed by Katrina. At the time of the disaster there was a tremendous outpouring of love from people all over the country, but what about our responsibility to our brothers and sisters there now, as they continue the struggle to get their lives back together? Perhaps today is a day to remember that the suffering in that place continues and to ask what more we can do to relieve the suffering of our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.
At the forum earlier today we heard about the work of Crystal Brian who teaches drama at Quinnipiac University. She has been working with a Vietnam veteran as he attempts to turn some memories from his time in Vietnam that still haunt him into a theatre piece to be performed by some of her students. Even now, many of the young men and women who left the shores of the United States for Iraq or Afghanistan with a deep sense of pride as they gave themselves to fight for this country, are now returning home with bodies that are maimed and broken. They have experienced enormous suffering as a result of the war in which they were engaged. Perhaps today is a day to ask ourselves what more we can do to alleviate the suffering of these brave young men and women and their families, some of whose lives have been devastated as a result of their experiences in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Last month in one of our gospel reading we saw Jesus return to his home-town of Nazareth to embark upon the mission entrusted to him by his Father. He stood up in the synagogue and read these words from the prophet Isaiah, his first public act after his baptism and period of testing in the wilderness, words that spoke of the coming of the promised reign of God. "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." (Luke ) The people who heard him speak that day loved hearing the words of God. They were amazed at Jesus. ability to read with such authority. All eyes were upon him as he allowed them to experience a glimpse of God.s glory. Yet hours later they were ready to throw him off the cliff as they vehemently resisted his call to mission, a call that would require a change in their lives if they were to accept his call to join him in his father.s mission to bring justice and righteousness to the poor and the outcast.
As the season of Epiphany draws to a close and the season of Lent looms on the horizon we are invited to join Christ in his mission to bring the kingdom of God's love to people here at home, in Louisiana as well as on the other side of the world. We all have gifts that can be used to support Christ's mission - some of us are healers or teachers, some administrators, or helpers. Some are able to encourage the despairing, or bring laughter to the hopeless ones. Some have the gift of praying for others, while some can preach or teach. There isn't a single person in this room, young or old, who hasn't been given a gift by God that can be used to bring about the kingdom of God's love. Only recently I heard about a young woman who had a birthday party just before Christmas. Instead of letting her guests bring her presents she asked everyone who came to the party to bring a toy for a child that could be wrapped and taken to a radio station who was collecting toys for children who weren't going to be receiving toys that year. In her own way, this young person was participating in Christ's mission on earth, to relieve the suffering of the lost ones.
All Christ asks those who would follow him, is that we enroll in the school of love. But we shouldn't expect to be perfect lovers immediately. It takes years and years to perfect the gift of love. The most important thing for every single one of us no matter how old or young we are, is to realize how important it is to God that we have started down the road of love and that we mean to stay on that road, however hard the going gets.
Our family loves to ski, and in the winter we try as a family to go skiing together whenever we can. Unfortunately I'm not as good as David and Matt, so it's hard for me to keep up with them. Sometimes I like to go on my own so that I can go at my own pace, but often they encourage me to go places I wouldn't go of my own accord. Yesterday they took me down a slope that I was certainly able to get down but it was a little scary in places, so they waited for me, encouraging me all the way, and consequently I got a little better, a little more able to do things I might not have been able to do without their encouragement.
We can encourage one another on our journey of love, to reach out to people we find hard to love, to search out the lonely and offer them friendship, to take one another.s hand and venture into places we would not go alone. For as we dare to draw near to God who is love, we will find we are being transformed little by little by the enormity of God's love. We will find the countenance of our face changed even as Christ.s face was on the mountain. In everything we do let us struggle not to be right, not to be perfect, not even to be good, but simply to love as God loves us, and this entire world we call our home.
"For, if I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love I gain nothing... And now faith, hope and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love." (1 Cor. 13:1-5,13)
It is love that will move us from our cosy little houses to the streets where the lonely live. It is love that will bring mountains of peanut butter and stew and cereal and macaroni to the soup kitchen in Waterbury. It is love that will call us away the game on Saturday afternoon to participate in the thresholds training to help prisoners down the road. It is love that will cause us to take a trip to Africa to find the children who are orphaned by the ravages of AIDS. It is love that will allow us to swallow our pride and say sorry to our brother or sister we have offended. It is love that will set us free to dance and sing and rejoice with those who have found freedom in God. And I'm grateful that the road to love is not one we will travel alone because God knows we are all in desperate need of all the help and encouragement we can get. Beloved, let's not just talk about loving God, let's show we love God by extending a hand of friendship and compassion to all people no matter what their creed or race, nationality or color. Let us love as Christ has loved us.
Amen
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