Sermon for the
Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany
Jeremiah 1:4-10, Luke 4:21-30
Jeremiah 1:4-10, Luke 4:21-30
God
doesn’t call just the “big names” to proclaim the Gospel – it’s not all Rev. Al
Sharpton or Fr. Michael Pflaeger and Joel Osteen. You might ask, o.k., but what about those
biblical giants – Moses, David and the like?
Well, those biblical giants were worldly nobodies when God called
them. In fact, Moses was a fugitive – in
hiding for killing an Egyptian slave-master – is chosen by God to deliver the
Hebrew people from slavery. Rahab is a prostitute whom God uses to assist the
Israelites in capturing Jericho – her name appears in Matthew’s gospel as part
of the genealogy of Jesus. David is the
youngest and smallest of his family and yet God chooses him to become
king. The prophet Jeremiah – sure he has
a whole book named for him today – but at the time God called him, “he was only
a boy.” Mary, the mother of Jesus, was just a young unmarried girl from a town
of no importance, and Jesus? Jesus wasn’t
an important leader or rabbinic scholar – he was the son of a carpenter. Well, o.k., that one might be more
complicated because he was also God. But, my point is, God doesn’t call the big
shots to proclaim the Good News. God
calls ordinary people – people like you and me – to proclaim the Good News. We are God’s normal.
But
oh, do we like to put up a fight. Like
Jeremiah, we are filled with excuses – I’m too short or too tall, I’m too busy
or too tired, I’m too young or too old, I’m not a good speaker, I don’t know
how to do that work. I’m not popular, I
don’t have the right gadgets, no one ever listens to me. I’m too grouchy. I’m
too sentimental. My small action won’t
make a difference. Take a moment. What’s your alibi when God calls you to
proclaim the good news? Wait? You don’t
know that God has called you? Oh, my
friends, just look at the font – just look to the waters of baptism. That was
your calling. That was God naming you
Beloved. Calling you God’s Beloved Child.
Calling you to proclaim the good news with your life. That was God
saying, “Today I appoint you.”
Sometimes
we have to get out of our own way. Name
the obstacles – the fears, the excuses, and anxieties – and get out of the
way. A couple of years ago, I was at a
centering prayer retreat and admitted to the retreat leader that I was having
some difficulty because thoughts kept bursting in on my quiet time with
God. The retreat leader wisely said to
me, “Thank God for the thoughts and ask God what you should do with them for
they too are a gift from God.” So
perhaps when God calls us to proclaim the good news and our initial reaction is
not an enthusiastic yes, we should pause to take note of the obstacle, give
thanks to God and ask God how we are to use that gift in proclaiming the Good
News!”
But
of course, not all obstacles come from within.
There are times when we are proclaiming the Good News and there are
forces working against us. We want to
respect the dignity of every human being, but unjust laws allow our workplaces
to continue to discriminate against some people. We want to care for creation but public
transit simply doesn’t take us anywhere near where we need to go. We are at a rally supporting our Muslim
neighbors or a just minimum wage or sensible gun control laws and we find
ourselves face to face with counter protestors who are as sure as we are that
they are proclaiming good news. Sometimes
the obstacle is the feeling of being overwhelmed or defeated by the enormity of
the task: Will racism ever be
eradicated? Will transphobic violence ever stop? Will children ever be able to
walk the streets of their neighborhoods without fear of being shot? Will our
elected officials ever be able to get out of their gridlock? Jesus goes to the
synagogue in his hometown and proclaims the Good News. And the townspeople – his own neighbors – try
to throw him off a cliff! But, God with
him and God in him, he is able to pass through the midst of the angry naysayers
and to continue on his way – proclaiming the Good News. We never find out if those in his hometown
ever come to believe the Good News. But we do know that Jesus goes on to cast
out demons, heal the sick, feed the hungry, and touch the unclean. And many of
them heard the Good News and believed.
Jesus
and Jeremiah share this in common - God is with and within them. To the obstacle Jeremiah raises up – “I am
only a boy” - God says, “Do not be afraid…for I am with you to deliver
you.” To the obstacle of an angry
hometown crowd, God is able to pass through to continue ministering to a world
in need. And this promise of God with
and God within is not reserved for the biblical greats. It is not reserved for
Moses, Rahab, David, Jeremiah, Mary or Jesus.
It is a gift for each of us. A gift received in the waters of baptism –
at baptism we pray, “Fill them with your holy and life-giving Spirit” - and as
the sign of the cross is marked on their forehead we say “you are sealed by the
Holy Spirit . . . and marked as Christ’s own for ever.” God with us, God within us as we are called
to confess the faith of Christ crucified, proclaim Christ’s resurrection, and
share together in Christ’s eternal priesthood.
The
obstacles are real – we sometimes create them, we sometimes encounter them –
and the obstacles will hold us back if we do not take the care to name them for
what they are, give them to God, and get on with doing the work God has called
us to do. We have gifts to bring to a
world in need. Those gifts come to us
from God and we are called to use them to do God’s work in the world. Eugene Peterson in The Message offers a fabulous paraphrase of Jesus’ sending the
disciples out to proclaim the Good News:
Go to the lost, confused people
right here in the neighborhood. Tell them that the kingdom is here. Bring
health to the sick. Raise the dead. Touch the untouchables. Kick out the
demons. You have been treated generously so live generously. Don’t think you
have to put on a fund-raising campaign before you start. You don’t need a lot
of equipment. You are the equipment.[1]
My friends, we have received
everything we need from a loving and generous God. The obstacles set before us are not too great
for God to overcome. Give them back to God and get on with the business of
being the Good News, of bringing your gifts to a world in need.
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