World Mission Sunday: Send Us Out as Faith Witnesses

Matthew 9:35-38

CONTENT

Join with me in prayer:

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.

It has been nine months since I last visited and it is great to be back.  God has been working.

• I’ve been able to return as a witness twice to two Edenite towns and a Edenite cities.

• Friday the first 11 chapters of Revelation in the Edenite language were approved and we’re still on track to publishing the New Testament Translation this Fall.

• We’ve finished enough translated scriptures to craft and pray a simple version of Morning prayer.

Your generous gifts have enabled these developments and  demonstrate your commitment to the ends of the Earth. Thank you.

Acts 1:8 says:
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you,
and you will be my witnesses
in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

Jesus is speaking to the Apostles, just before ascending to Heaven.

He frames his worldwide agenda from Isaiah 49. In Epiphany, we say every week, “I will make you as a light for the nations” and we respond, “That my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” Christ’s agenda is salvation reaching  everywhere.

Jesus has prepared the Apostles for three years, they witnessed his death and resurrection, and Jesus spent 40 days convincing them and teaching about his kingdom.

But the last question they ask him is what, “Are you restoring the kingdom to Israel?” I sympathize. They longed for deliverance from the brutal Roman empire. They have promises from the prophets about Israels end-time restoration.  The Messiah’s come. But they haven’t taken onboard his agenda.

His goal is the salvation of the end of the earth, and he promises to empower  and claims them for a critical role and activity.

He says: Focus on me and my agenda! That is your identity. That is your ministry.

Let’s thank God for Jesus’ agenda.

We are about as far removed in space and time as could be imagined from the Apostles. And yet, through them, Christ has brought salvation even to us.

Peter went went west into Europe, Thomas went east all the way to India. They were witnesses amon diverse geographies, cultures, religions and languages. They passed on this promise to the churches they established, who in turn spread all over the world even to us.  Let us thank  God.

Yet there are places, peoples and languages with no witnessing church or Christians. It’s just six hundred miles from Jerusalem to Eden where I serve, Christ’s witnesses are rare and almost all live their entire lives without meeting a Christian or visiting a Church community.
For the fullfillment of Salvation reaching to them, we must still expectantly pray for this promise to be fullfilled.

Christ called me to Eden, but God has brought people from the ends of the earth here.
Fairfax county schools have students from over 200 languages and 200 countries.
Springfield has thousands of Muslims, Jews, Hindus, and Buddhists, atheists, and agnostics.  You work, go to school, live in the same neighborhood, maybe the same family.

The ends of the earth is here physically, yet it s still a challenge to enter the door of your neighbor or coworker and be a witness.

Let’s unpack this promise a little:

You will be my witnesses

YOU
The you in there can be taken individually or corporately. Your corporate witness in West Springfield is critical and important. As important as that is, most of us spend 90% of our time not gathered like now, but scattered in our neighborhoods, workplaces and schools. As we pray.  “Lord send us out to do the work you have called us to do, to love and serve you as faithful witnesses of Christ our Lord”.

BE

The promise is about BEING, our identity, our role, our ministry in the world.

MY

Central to the identity is that we are Christ’s. We belong to him. We follow His agenda. He has claimed us for a ministry and a task.

In Eden, people are suspicious of who I represent. Are you an agent of the US? Are you a company man? Are you a charlatan or a hypocrite? This verse helps settle that for me. I belong to Christ and am on the lookout for what He’s doing.

This last week I started training in the school district with people from around the world. Christ’s claim over my life as a witness has been a precious lodestone for me to remember whose I am, and has been a promise that kept me expectant. Each day has been a joy just in being Christ’s witness, his servant among people who have no witnesses.

WITNESS

What is that? Someone who testifies to what they have seen and heard Christ do.

[Note here: Assumption that Christ spends years working salvation into people’s lives and gives us mini-assignments as that, one step along the way]

Luke models that in verse 1, “I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, until he ascended” That is all we need to share, Jesus has done and said in our lives, and what we see him is doing and saying right now. Simple but not easy.

Bringing up these topics is risky. Who will they think I am? One of those Christians that stands on a street corner shouting the “end is near” or a salesperson.

Will others understand clearly what I say?.

For both these, the Lord says we need something? Do you need a seminary degree? Do you need discipleship? Those are good. The apostles had three years with the Master himself. Was that enough to fullfill this. No: They needed the power of the Holy Spirit, which the Lord promised.

We need that the power of the Holy Spirit just as much as the apostles.

Last week Bishop Chris came to Church of the Epiphany and I saw with new eyes the Anglican liturgical expression of receiving the power of the Holy Spirit to be witnessses.  In Baptism the Holy Spirit gives us the power of new life and to be united to Christ. In Confirmation, the Bishop as a representative of the Apostles, lays hands on believers so they’ll receive power to be witnesses and servants.

The Anglican communion has started a non-geographical diocese to welcome Muslim born believers into the into the Church universal. In September He gained my trust after seeing him up close for a couple days as his chaplain. My Edenite partners trusted him as well. They nodded their heads in agreement as he described the special needs of Muslim born believers. One of the Edenite places has connections to the Syriac Orthodox. Orthodox take very seriously the grace imparted by a Bishop. So I asked Bishop Yassir if there was a way to connect with his Diocese. He ended up asking me to pray about ordination. For him, ordained priests are an essential part of Anglican discipleship. So I’ve begun the ordinatoin process with his diocese. I’m excited for the day when one day hundreds, thousands are empowered for witness among the Edenites.

In your families, workplaces, schools and neighborhoods, are you relying the Holy Spirit to empower you to be Christ’s witnesses? Life is busy, hard  and distracting here in Northern Virginia and it is easy to forget about the Holy Spirit.

If you have any doubts about the Holy Spirit being given to you to empower you for ministry,

First recall your own confirmation. Let that be a source of confidence for you.

If you struggle with the reception part, consider receiving a fresh reaffirmation when the Bishop visits you in May.

If you’ve been baptized, consider preparing for confirmation and receiving this gift.

How does this power of the Holy Spirit

Whose Agenda?

I hadn’t been to a town called  Aldous in five years. I went to a conference in May expecting to lead a group there. At the last minute a local leader changed our itinerary. My heart sank because  I’d prayed for months with growing anticipation.

However, I started seeing buses to Aldous. I was sooo close. That day I read in First Thessalonians 3, where Paul said “when I could bear it no longer.” That is how I felt about missing Aldous. I gently broached the idea with Beerah, asking if I could be excused from the group the following day. Beerah wasn’t happy but acquiesced.

So I started off and soon all my contacts were dead ends. I wondered  Was I being led by the Holy Spirit or just following a fool’s errand?  Aldous was out of the way. Was it worth the risk of just showing up? But the town was neglected and I could not bear the thought of not trying. I caught the first bus of the morning  to Aldous and arrived  with just the name of a man I’d prayed for for years. He and his family had suffered greatly for decades as Orthodox Christians, but fifty years ago, most had denied Christ and converted en masse to Islam.  Another man hosted me. His family had abandoned Orthodoxy for Islam. But he thought well of Christians. Aydin took responsibility to show me around town and introduced me to a couple of the few remaining Armenian Orthodox Christians. They boldly encouraged Aydin to return to Christ! 

I think something is happening in that town.

We are inheritors of this apostolic calling to be witnesses as we scatter. Let us remember that we are his, we belong to him and his agenda. Let us expect the power of the Holy Spirit to speak as witnesses.

Let us pray:

“Holy Spirit after we have eaten at your table, send us out to do the work you have given us to do as what … faithful witnesses.. and Let us go forth into the world rejoicing in the power of the Holy Spirit.

4th Sunday of Epiphany: Distractions from Obedience to the Lord

Micah 6:1-8

CONTENT

Introduction

Good morning dear friends. It is great to be back in person with you. I know this has been a really weird week with different routines, kids at home all week, and other challenges. All that to say I’m really glad to be back worshiping with you this morning.

         Today’s reading from the book of Micah and I want to look at it this morning because I think there are some helpful things for us in it. Our passage today reminds us that sometimes we make following the Lord too complex, but the complexity is strategic; we create complexity to keep us from the simple, but difficult task, of doing what is truly right and good in the Lord’s sight. It is hard because we have to be honest about what we’ve done or left undone, or face those wounds we’ve walled off to keep safe, and we have to do what is right and good even when it is costly. Rather than do the hard work God calls Israel and us to do, we would rather fill our lives with distractions (even ministry distractions) that God has not asked us to do to keep us from addressing hard things. It is something we are all tempted to and this is why Micah 6 is a great reminder to us as well. As we look at this passage, let me pray for us: “In the name of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be always acceptable in your sight O Lord, our rock and redeemer. Amen.”

The case brought against the people (6:1-5)

         The prophet Micah is prophesying in the first half of the 8th century and the beginning of the book puts this over the time period of the reigns of the vice-regents, Jotham and Ahaz, and then King Hezekiah. Tiglath Pileser III started a fresh campaign and pressure that would culminate in the fall of Samaria in the north in 722 BC where the northern kingdom of Israel was pretty much destroyed. This happened while Ahaz and Jotham were reigning over Judah in the south. Hezekiah, who would reign after them, would form an anti-Assyrian coalition with with the Palestinian and Syrian subject states. It would keep them safe for a time, but even the south would come to be taken later by the Babylonians in the 7th century.

         This is a period of relative wealth and ease for Judah as they have successfully staved off the Assyrian threat. The surface-level peace and relative economic prosperity have become a double-edged sword spiritually. Micah is a covenant mediator and social and religious commentator on Jerusalem during this time where Sargon II takes the northern kingdom and as Judah forms alliances with foreign nations to ensure security.

         Micah starts with a legal proceeding where God calls Israel to bring their case against God, “Rise, plead your case.” God asks Judah a question “O my people, what have I done to you? In what have I wearied you? Answer me!” God lays out his saving acts. He rescued them from Egypt, he gave them leaders, he did not allow foreign enemies to conquer them, he brought them across the Jordan river. This passage is used for us every year in our Good Friday service. The reproaches begin with this question “O my people, what have I done to you? How have I wearied you? Testify against me.” They end with, “I opened the rock and gave you drink from the water of life, and you have opened my side with a spear. I raised you on high with great power, and you have hanged me high upon the Cross. O my church, what have I done to you? How have I wearied you? Testify against me.”

         God is inviting people back to covenant relationship. God is not sitting up somewhere stewing in anger or terrified by the anxiety about how bad a failing Judah will make him look. God confidently and mercifully invites them back while holding in tension the fact that he will not be mocked and he wants to make them into his covenant people. He has been seeking their good, but they have consistently walked away from the goodness God has for them and what he wants to make them into. We do this do. It is the very nature of sin and why it is both subtle and destructive. God has the same invitation to us to come and pay attention to all he has done for us. Look at his saving acts and ask what things, people, relationships, addictions, habits, patterns, and thoughts are drawing us away from knowing his love in Christ. Don’t paper over them with placebos and platitudes, spiritual bypassing, or even ministry opportunities. Do the simple work of being honest, no matter the cost.

The defense: Entering the Lord’s presence improperly (6:6-7)

         Verses 6-7 change genre and form the peoples’ response. It’s like they are saying “God, how much is enough!?” They could bring a calf a year old. In other words, they’ve made an investment of time and money to rear this calf for a year in order to offer something costly to the Lord. Or should they offer God ten thousand rivers of oil? Would God be more pleased if they could offer him something greater and more expensive? If they could do big and great things for God would he then be pleased with them? Would that be enough? Or the most extreme example. The people ask if they should give their own firstborn for their transgressions. God had condemned human sacrifice, but this didn’t stop Judah or Israel from trying it. King Ahaz himself, during Micah’s ministry would offer his own son to the god Molech. It was an extreme and despicable rite that in this context is very ironic. They’ve gone so far their own way that they’ve now viewed apostasy as a pleasing offering. After all that God has done Judah is eager to sacrifice a lot of stuff to make sure that God gets the honor due his name. It’s almost like they’re saying, “Geez God, how many sacrifices does it take to make you happy?” It almost feels like a critique on any notion of “do great things for God and he will be pleased and bless your life.” And Micah is saying, that that is entirely the wrong question. There is no amount of zeal or sacrifice that will cover up a life of injustice, rebellion, misguided autonomy, and spiritual neglect.

The simplicity of pleasing the Lord (6:8)

         There is no amount of work we can do for God or for the church or to try and make God look good that will atone for a life of injustice and moving away from God’s presence. It’s the age old lie of the garden where shame forced Adam and Eve to say “I am bad” and to move toward fixing their own problems themselves. Instead of turning away from them, God turns toward Adam and Even in invitation to ask where they have gone? The difference between guilt and shame is that guilt, within a securely attached relationship, invites someone into repair for the wrong they’ve done. It is useful. Shame, by contrast, tells someone that they are bad and it moves people into isolation. God does not shame his people, but here in Micah and elsewhere, he does account for the wrongs they’ve done so that they experience a sense of guilt that moves them to his kind invitation back into the goodness for which they were made.

         Here’s my translation of vers 8: “He has told you, humanity, what is good, and what Yahweh requires of you: only to do justice, and to love covenant faithfulness, and to walk circumspectly with your God.” First they are called to do “justice” which often is used in Scripture as a call to our responsibility to take care of the weaker members of society: the poor and vulnerable, the immigrant and foreigner, the widow, and the orphan. It insists on the God-given rights of others because this is God’s very character and disposition toward his people. God’s people are to love covenant faithfulness. A lot of translations will say mercy, but this word is really about faithfulness to the covenant that God has established with his people. He has done everything to deliver his people, to bring about their well-being, and to make them a chosen nation, royal priesthood, and kingdom of priests. They are to love the process by which they become what God has called them to be; however it is often easier for them to rely on their own ways or the ways of the nations towards an inadequate vision of prosperity. The beatitudes are like a preamble of a new covenant. We are called to grow in love with Jesus’ words to us and following him to become more like him.

         Finally, he says to walk circumspectly with your God. Humility is inferred but not explicit. The idea is that this person is taking great care in the small details of how they walk with God. There is humility in submitting yourself to the will of God and not doing things from your own reactions and proclivities. The call to walk circumspectly is an invitation to bring God’s will to bear on the entirety of our lives.

         When we choose to see the image of God in all people, when we are patient in prayer and learning facts rather than being driven by addiction to scrolling and rage-bait, when we seek to discover healing and name wounds accurately, when we allow guilt to move us toward relationship rather than heaping shame on ourselves in isolation and allowing false narratives to drive us away from the love of God, then we will find ourselves in the state of counting ourselves fortunate that Jesus promises in the beatitudes. It is simple, but it is also difficult and costly. Judah had offered God everything except for what God actually asked for. We are tempted to do the same. Chuck DeGroat has a great little paragraph that illustrates the point: ““I’ve learned a thousand ways to cope,” a retreat participant once told me, “and they’re all easier than healing.”...That’s the lie, I thought to myself when I heard them. That’s the root of the ancient fallacy, one we’ve acted on for time immemorial. We’ve fallen for the lie that a bit of drink here and an hour of scrolling there will quell the deep ache of our hearts, the lie that keeps us from attending to what’s happening within, where our wounds fester. But it’s here, in our spaces of self-soothing and our places of pain management, that God once again meets us.”[1] I’d add to this, along with Micah, that even ministry, community service, and other good things can distract us from dealing with the simple and costly obedience that God asks of us.

Conclusion

         The community of faith has preserved Micah’s prophetic works as a timeless treasure to call us to repentance and hope in the God who invites us to know him and his love for us. God has done everything to save us and he calls us to put down all the things we use to distract ourselves from healing our wounds and finding true peace in Christ. The work is simple, but it is hard, and it is costly. It begins in each of our hearts as we walk very carefully with Christ. God has turned his face towards us and invites us to be at home in his presence: to grow in our knowledge of his love for us and others, and in the hard work of addressing our wounds, to become the good image-bearers he has made us to be.

Let me close by praying again for us this collect for this Sunday: “O God, you know that we are set in the midst of many grave dangers, and because of the frailty of our nature we cannot always stand upright: Grant that your strength and protection may support us in all dangers and carry us through every temptation; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.”

[1]                Chuck DeGroat, Healing What’s Within, 155.

3rd Sunday After Epiphany: Unity in the Church — Remember Who You Are

1 Corinthians 1:10-17

CONTENT

Many of you may know the Disney story of the Lion King. It tells the story of a young lion cub, named Simba, destined to be King. Simba believes a lesser story about who he is and leaves behind his identity as future king to live a lesser life of ease leaving his call and kingdom in dire condition. Eventually, Rafiki, the prophet monkey, finds Simba, helping to get to the question that changes everything…: “Remember who you are”. Most of us don’t have a prophet monkey to hit us upside the head with a stick. But we do have the apostle Paul and that brings us to our lesson in 1Corinthians. We are in the first chapter of the first letter to the believers at a young church in Corinth, not unlike Corpus Christi, and in a city not unlike the northern Virginia area. Paul has been away from the church about three years… and right out of the gates, at the beginning of his letter, Paul is strongly exhorting the believers to remember who they are.

At first glance, the apostle Paul appears to be writing to the believers in Corinth to stop bickering and moving in cliques. Like a family squabble. But sitting in the passage, studying the context and listening intently reveals Paul emphatically appealing to the church on an issue far more dangerous than cliques and squabbles. In fact, the Corinthians have left their identity in Christ and as a result are living in disunity; having moved away from the Lordship of Jesus Christ and the message of the Gospel into various divisions that empty the power of the cross. And Paul is not only writing to the believers in Corinth, he is speaking to the church worldwide. He is pointing to disunity as a deadly cancer and arguing that Unity in our Christian relationships reveals the Lordship of Jesus Christ in our lives and the power of the cross.

As Paul argues for unity, he points to ways that the believers have left their identity. Their disunity reveals that they are not following the Lordship of Jesus Christ, they have moved away from the centrality of the Gospel and divided themselves into cultural ways of thinking rather than remaining rooted and grounded in Christ.

Paul begins by making an appeal to the believers at Corinth and to the church in the name of Jesus Christ. He invokes Christ’s name to call them back to the authority of Christ because they are not yielded to it. He speaks in vs 10 for “all” of them to be in agreement,” to have no divisions, and that they be united in the same mind and purpose.” This is strong, clear language. The very fact that he “appeals” to them in this way indicates they are not in agreement, they are not of one mind and purpose, they are divided. He argues later that his own call is to proclaim the Gospel, in humility, otherwise, the cross is emptied of its power.

Well, if the cross is emptied of its power, then Jesus is not Lord. The crucifixion is meaningless. And this is serious. Like cancer, it's deadly to our faith. Paul’s way of argument here, by claiming that Christ did not send him to baptize but rather to proclaim the Gospel indicates that the quarreling of the believers is over inferior matters interfering with the proclamation of the gospel and thereby robbing the cross of its power.

The Corinthians have moved away from the Gospel. The Gospel is the good news that God has reconciled the world-you and me- to himself through the death of Jesus Christ. Fundamentally it's about bridging the gap of separation and mending division, not only between god and people, but also BETWEEN people and people. To be God’s people is to be united with Christ. To be united with Christ is to be united with one another who are in Christ. In vs 13, Paul asks, “is Christ divided?” He’s asking rhetorically to explicitly point out their division and separation from the gospel. This is serious. In vs 17, he points out his own call, in order to remind them of theirs.

In moving away from the centrality of the Gospel, they have forgotten their identities in Christ, and their call to serve Jesus in their relationships and their love for one another. They’ve replaced that belief and love with cultural ideals represented by lesser authorities. Paul explains in vs11-12, “For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s household that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters, What I mean is that one of you says, “I belong to Paul,” or another, “ I belong to Apollos,” or another, “I belong to Cephas,” or still another “I belong to Christ.” Paul is stating that those divisions among the Corinthians had created a drift away from the centrality of following Jesus and they have lost their identity as bearers of the Gospel, the good news that every one of us is a child of God, beloved by God, forgiven by God. The Gospel compels us to love Jesus and to love one another above all else. In all three synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, in different scenarios, Jesus teaches us that the greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind and strength and to love your neighbor as yourself. These divisions Paul addresses exposes the drift away from living out the Gospel that has happened.

Instead of focusing on the power of the Gospel to save, forgive and to be united to and in Christ, the Corinthians have turned to lesser authorities Paul, Apollos, and Peter in ways that these guys never intended…but instead that align with the Corinthians own cultural comfort. In this turn away from Christ, they see themselves as superior to one another. They hone in on various philosophical emphases and those become preeminent over the lordship of Jesus Christ. They lost the humility that the cross itself and the life of Jesus embodies. They’ve lost their identity. Paul isn’t calling out each of these leaders he lists as problematic, he’s calling out the ways that believers have aligned themselves with selected characteristics of these leaders; and honestly, twisted them. Believers in the church are still doing this today. See if you recognize any of these:

The “I belong to Paul” gang: Paul planted the church in Corinth in 50-51AD over a period of 18 months, the longest he stayed anywhere except for Ephesus.

Then he departed. This letter was written about three years later, after he’s gotten a direct report of the troubles the church is experiencing. So, it's been a while since the believers have seen or heard from Paul. Scholars suggest that these are people who relive the “glory days” and hold to the past rather than living in the present and availing themselves to ongoing sanctifying work of the Spirit of God. People do this today in churches. They get stuck in a moment, a movement and they continually look behind them and miss what God is doing in the present, today. Chris and I just had a lovely visit with a dear saint who lives in the “I follow Chris clique” at a church where we ministered. As they reminisced about the way it was when we were there and how hard it is, three years later, to attend the church, we prayed and encouraged them that God’s Spirit is still moving there and to look for what he’s doing. Seven words of a dying church are: “We have never done it that way” or “that’s not our way of doing church.” Life is dynamic and changing constantly all around us. We have to learn from the past, ground ourselves in the present, watching for the work of the Spirit today, even as we hope for the future.

The “I belong to Apollos” is another ageless faction, still present among believers today.. Apollos was a gifted rhetorician; he spoke eloquently, he exposited the Old Testament with precision and clarity. He moved people with his speech. He had a charism. Saying “I belong to Apollos” would be a deference to an intellectual elitism. Though this charism of Apollos would help mature believers, the choice of believers to “belong” to Apollos indicates a slide back into a cultural issue common both in Corinth and today: a selectivity to an aspect of faith to the abandonment of the entirety of our faith. In other words, the expression of intellect becomes an idol over the actual content of that expression.

The “I belong to Cephas (or Peter)” folks could refer to those converts from Judaism to Christianity who had defaulted back to the cultural norm of legalism. Later in the letter to the Corinthians Paul will address “rules” the believers were defaulting to regarding food offered to idols and we know about how Paul and Peter clashed over food rules in Galatians 2. When life seems out of control, or initial fires of our faith begin to peter out (no pun intended) the temptation is so strong to build rules and laws to sustain us instead of turning and waiting on the Holy Spirit to renew us. We focus on outward patterns of our behavior rather than our relationship to our Lord, Jesus. It's from our relationship with Jesus that our behavior manifests, not the other way around.

Our last groupies, the “I belong to Christ” people, is not actually a reference to the Lordship of Jesus. Paul identifies a fourth faction here and it most likely indicates a spiritual elitism that is a bit of an offshoot of the old Gnostic heresy in elevating secret knowledge and mystery over the plain Lordship of Jesus Christ and a willingness to yield to his authority in our leaders in our church. We discipled several of these groupies in one of our congregations. Two of them actually went into the mission field long term…three different times…after six month stints they would call and come home having decided the leadership wasn’t following the Lord the way they were. We would rescue them financially and emotionally each time, but eventually left us as well. A common refrain is, “we follow the Lord, not the rector.” Even if the rector is following the Lord and preaching the Gospel. It's a deceptive disguise of uber holiness. But in reality it creates great disunity and it's confusing but it is quite prevalent today in the church. Some say, “I don’t need church because I have Jesus!” Well, Jesus established the church and called us to be the church and to proclaim the Gospel to build the church and he calls us to do it in unity. In John 17, before Jesus goes to the cross, he prays, asking God, “ protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one.”

We now see the problem of disunity that Paul is addressing. It’s the very first thing he addresses in this long important letter to the Corinthians that examines what it means to be the people of God. It's the first thing he addresses because it’s critical for the church to live in unity. Their disunity is caused by their not living into their identity as followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. They’ve moved away from the message of the Gospel into cultural norms overlaid in spiritual terms that have divided them into, essentially, dangerous cliques. Paul wants them to return to their identity as believers. Like Simba, they need to “remember who they are,” lest they walk away from their call and destiny to build God’s kingdom. They must return to the belief in the preeminence of Jesus Christ as Lord and the saving work of the Gospel as evidenced by believer’s unity. Unity in our Christian relationships reveals our identity as believers under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. What does it mean to be the people of God?

Let me ask some hard questions here. Have you believed the Gospel? Do you believe you have sinned? I ask this because our Culture has reshaped what sin is. Sin is moving apart from God, his authority, taking authority yourself, being your own lord, not loving God, not loving others being in disunity from other believers. Stepping away from scripture, or rationalizing that.

Do you believe that when you ask for forgiveness he has forgiven you? Have you asked for forgiveness? Have you received his forgiveness?

Have you received his love for you? Do you realize how much you matter to Him? It may be hard to see in seasons of grief, anxiety or disappointment, confusion. . If you’re having difficulty receiving Jesus’ love or forgiveness for you, it may be hard to follow him as Lord and to live in your identity as his child, united to him, and united to other believers. Reach out to Father Morgan, to a leader in your church, to a spiritual friend you can trust. If you’re in a season of grief, allow Corpus Christi to help you, but you must tell them you need help. Sometimes we hide behind pride because it hurts to make ourselves vulnerable again when we’ve been disappointed. When Jesus asked the Father, in the Garden of Gethsemane, “would you take this cup from me?” I wonder if he felt disappointed, as a human being, in the way God required for our salvation to be accomplished. Maybe Jesus’ acceptance of disappointment might encourage you, that he’s walked the road of grief and disappointment ahead of you and he wants to walk it with you. Life can be quite disappointing. Yet, Unity in our relationship with Jesus reveals the Lordship of Jesus Christ in our lives.

If you’ve believed the gospel, then return to Your identity as a believer in the Lordship of Jesus Christ and unity will be the fruit of that.

I became a Christian at a very early age. I was raised in a wonderful church but as for most of us, life got hard in my teen years. I really struggled. When I was 16 I spent some time with a youth pastor and he could see that I loved Jesus and I had accepted him as my savior. But, he asked me if I knew what it meant to follow him as my Lord. His question that day changed everything for me. It was a turning point that I return to again and again when I find myself out of sync with others or with the Lord. I have to be reminded that Jesus IS Lord, and my life revolves around him, not the other way around. Ephesians 1:23, in the Message version, says, “The church, you see, is not peripheral to the world; the world is peripheral to the church. The church is Christ's body, in which he speaks and acts, by which he fills everything with his presence.” We have to live in unity with one another, or we empty the Gospel and the cross of its power.

As the people of God, our relationships to others matter. Are you united to those believers around you in your family and church? Is there anyone with whom you’re in conflict, yet you both follow Jesus?

Our unity as believers is critical. If you have family members that have not accepted Christ, they need to see your unity with other believers. They need to see your identity and oneness with Christ. They need to see humility and love for others in us. With family members who are believers, it's normal that we have disagreements that separate us. Often these are born out of years of old systems and patterns and we get stuck believing that we are always right as a defense mechanism. What if we surrender the need to be right? In Jesus, Jesus is right. Jesus is right every time. What if your rightness comes solely from Jesus being right; not you. Could that be enough? Sit in the beatitudes in Matthew; or his teachings throughout the Gospel. You’ll notice he never teaches, “you must be right.” He tells us that he is our right(ness) or righteousness. Ask yourself, in your conflicts with other believers, especially family members, “maybe I could be wrong?” Maybe there is a nuance or perspective I haven’t seen or become aware of yet. Take every disagreement to the Lord and wait on him to reveal His heart for this person. He may show you something that changes everything. And I can assure you, when you walk in humble submission to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, it does change everything. Your priorities change. You don’t need to be right. You can allow the Holy Spirit to convict and persuade others, You don’t have to do the Holy Spirit’s work in convicting everyone.

Unity in our relationships in the church reveals the Lordship of Jesus Christ in our lives. Now I’m going to meddle a little…Frustrations with your pastor and church leaders happen. That’s normal. We bring different backgrounds and cultural perspectives to every relationship and expectations from our past. Your pastor absolutely loves Jesus Christ as Lord above all else. He has devoted himself to loving and serving the church, both Corpus Christi and the worldwide church. He studies, he prays, he listens, he loves, he serves. He loves Jesus, he loves his family, he loves you, the church. If you have frustration with him or anyone else in leadership at the church, remember that God anointed him for this work and sovereignly placed he and other leaders there for a season and God is at work in their lives as much as He is working in yours. And prayerfully, with humility, consider what God might be shaping in you as you walk through any disunity. Ask God to reconcile you and to bring about restoration.

Unity in our relationships in the church reveals the Lordship of Jesus Christ in our lives. It defines us as the people of God both to one another and to a world dying without Jesus. Paul wrote this letter to a congregation in a context very similar to our own, even 2000 years ago. Is Jesus divided? Was Paul crucified for you? No, and no. Jesus is one and we are one with Jesus so we are one with one another. Jesus was crucified for you. He is our only Lord and Savior. On this snowy day, would you consider if you may have left your identity to follow lesser ones and like Simba, left the Kingdom you are called to. And maybe consider me your Rafiki, the prophet monkey, thwacking you upside your head to “remember who you are.” A beloved child of the King, called to love and serve Jesus as Lord and to live in unity with the body of believers called the Church.

2nd Sunday After Epiphany: Follow Jesus and Discover the Kingdom of God

John 1:29-42

CONTENT

Introduction

Good morning friends. I’m Fr. Morgan Reed, the Vicar here at Corpus Christi Anglican Church. On this 2nd Sunday after the Epiphany we hear John the Baptist’s reflection on the baptism of Jesus, and his invitation to some of his disciples to follow Jesus. I love the question that Jesus poses to John’s disciples. He asks, “What are you looking for?” That question feels like a continual invitation from Jesus to be honest about what we are looking for in a Savior. In asking the question honestly, we start to identify our worries, doubts, insecurities, hurts, the things we want rescue from. It is an invitation to journey with Jesus so that the glory of his rule and reign grows our vision for who he is.

         Looking for the Son of God is about the journey and not the destination. As we look at our Gospel text this morning, let me pray for us: “In the name of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be always acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Amen.”

29-34 John’s commentary on Jesus’ baptism

         The Gospel of John assumes we know the details of Jesus’ baptism. Unlike the other gospels, it does not give us the narrative details. Instead the emphasis is on the signs that Jesus is Messiah. John mentions this intriguing phrase “I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.” John’s whole baptism ministry was to the end that someone who would be baptized would be revealed as the Messiah that Israel anticipated. This whole business about John not knowing Jesus probably has to do with the fact that John’s knowledge of Jesus as Messiah had not been fully filled out until Jesus is baptized. 

         John knew that the Messiah would be the one to come and bring God’s justice to God’s people. The suffering part was not quite as clear. In early Judaism there were passages about the Messiah suffering on behalf of God’s people to deliver them from sin, like Isaiah 53. There were also passages that spoke about the Messiah coming like a victorious king to deliver God’s people from foreign oppression, like Micah 5:2. How these two images of the Messiah came together was a mystery during the baptism ministry of John. In fact, some teachers of Israel thought that there would be two Messiahs — one to suffer and one to reign.

         John recounts that when he had baptized Jesus that he saw the vision of God revealed and the Spirit resting on Jesus in the form of a dove. He concludes and testifies that this is the Son of God. He calls him the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. John brings together the suffering Messiah imagery and the victorious Messiah ideas together in ways that would only make sense after Jesus is crucified and raised from the dead. This imagery is fully laid out in Revelation 5:11 where the elders and angels sing “Worthy is the Lamb who was slaughtered to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” John’s ministry is now coming to a close as Jesus’ begins to ramp up.

         Cyril of Alexandria says it this way: “No longer does John need to “prepare the way,” since the one for whom the preparation was being made is right there before his eyes...but now he who of old was dimly pictured, the very Lamb, the spotless Sacrifice, is led to the slaughter for all, that he might drive away the sin of the world, that he might overturn the destroyer of the earth, that dying for all he might annihilate death, that he might undo the curse that is upon us...For one Lamb died for all, saving the whole flock on earth to God the Father, one for all, that he might subject all to God.”[1]

         John’s ministry was beginning to come to an end. The one he hoped for had come. John would eventually be killed and he would not see the fulness of what he predicted on this side of eternity. Things did not unfold as he thought they would, but his life is a foundational testimony to the life and ministry of Jesus. His life pointed people to Jesus, not matter what this might mean. This was certainly true for his two disciples mentioned next.

35-39 “What are you looking for?”

         In verses 35-39, on the “next day” after John’s baptism of Jesus, two of John’s disciples see Jesus walk by. John says “Look, the Lamb of God!” and invites these disciples to follow Jesus. One of these two disciples is identified as Andrew, Simon’s brother. The other one is left unidentified. As they begin following Jesus, Jesus poses this question to them: “What are you looking for?” In the context of the story, I wonder if they look at each other a bit bewildered. “What do you mean what are we looking for? We are looking for the Messiah, the one who is going to destroy our enemies, make God’s people upright again, the one our teacher John spoke about...” and so on.

         Jesus’ question to them is included by John here as a question for us. What are you looking for? Andrew and this other disciple had to follow Jesus for some time before they really learned what they were looking for. They were looking for someone to deliver them from their disordered loves, their bondage to spiritual darkness, death, false narratives they’ve been told, and much more. It would take time for them to name these things to know what they were really looking for. Following Jesus is the beginning of asking the right questions and shaping our desires so we can ask rightly “What are we looking for?”

         They ask Jesus the Rabbi where he is staying. They want to continue this conversation over dinner. Jesus answers them, saying “Come and see”. It is a genuine invitation. He wants them to come and see and expand their vision of the ministry of the Messiah.

         This reminds me of following Jesus in the church. I remember beginning to attend an Anglican church and someone walked me through Holy Week. I intellectually understood what was going to happen and thought it was neat, but it wasn’t until I went through a Holy Week with the church that I really experienced the goodness of God in it. Experiencing something of the quick move from joy to rejection, the moments of darkness and silence, the joy of the fire and the resurrection. Easter made so much more sense because of both the liturgy and experiencing it in the lives of my church family. Life with Jesus is not just a mental assent to an image of the Messiah, it is an expansion of our vision of the Messiah’s work as we follow him and taste and see that the Lord is good. Jesus invites us to come and see His work. He invites us because like Andrew and this other disciple, he wants us to follow him.

40-42 Peter is invited to come and see

         One of these two disciples of John the Baptist is named. It is Andrew, who is the brother of Simon, whom Jesus will call Peter. Andrew is so excited about his discovery of the Messiah that he is compelled to go and invite his brother. Andrew brings Simon to Jesus to meet him. Jesus meets Simon and renames him Cephas, which is Aramaic for stone. This is instructive as we think of discipleship.

         Andrew followed Jesus. He spent time listening to him and learning from him. I’m sure he asked him a lot of questions. He took it all in. He allowed his time with Jesus to reorder his world and paradigms. He was now internally convinced that this was the anointed, the Messiah of God. He wants to bring others not to an intellectual understanding, but into the same deep inner knowledge and reorienting relationship with Jesus that he himself has experienced. To do this he needed to bring Simon into Jesus’ presence and Jesus begins to reframe Simon’s reality starting with a new name. 

         Discipleship is ongoing, not immediate. We follow Jesus and we begin to ask him questions along the journey: “Why am I in pain? Why are people inflicting pain on others? Have I messed up this relationship beyond your ability to bring healing? Am I still doing your will if I’m not doing the same job anymore? Why has my family member caused me so much harm? Where are you right now?!” And to these Jesus has this same beautiful invitation: “Come and see — because I want you to follow me and see what the kingdom is like.” And as we grow in a knowledge of God’s love and how he rightly orders the world, we are compelled to invite others to come and meet this Jesus with us. We are not superior to others. We are fellow pilgrims discovering Jesus on the road home.

         Some have speculated that the Gospel writer, who never mentions himself by name, is the other unnamed disciple of John the baptist. We can’t know for sure. But it would make sense of why there is so much Aramaic. John the Evangelist is possibly recounting these foundational first-hand moments and using the Aramaic he was accustomed to using with Jesus: “Rabbi” in Aramaic to “teacher” in Greek. “Messiah” in Aramaic to “Anointed” in Greek. “Cephas” in Aramaic to “Peter” in Greek. John is perhaps recounting these moments as he remembers them but inviting his Gentile readers into the story through translating the phrases to something more familiar for his audience. This day he is remembering was foundational for his journey with Jesus and it invites his readers, as Andrew does his brother, to come and follow Jesus, to refine their questions (and ours) in light of a relationship to this good Shepherd, to experience the kingdom of God, to discover what we are truly longing for and to expand our vision for Jesus’ ministry and the story he is telling of the kingdom of God in our lives.

Conclusion

         Today’s Gospel is all about an invitation to follow Jesus, what we call becoming a disciple. John the baptist had his view expanded of Jesus’ ministry. His disciples, Andrew and the other — possibly John the apostle— had their vision of Jesus’ ministry expanded. Peter is invited to learn the ministry of the Messiah. Through all of these lives you and I are also invited to come and see the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. We are invited to ask “What are you looking for” and then we are invited to be surprised as Jesus walks with us in life’s complications and expands our vision for his kingdom and proves himself to be our good shepherd along difficult paths. All of us are pilgrims together learning to ask better questions of Jesus as we walk with him, listen to him, and as he reorients us as we follow Him. And as we follow Him, we are invited into a deeper experience of the love of God, to taste and see that He is good, and to invite others to journey with us as we walk with Jesus.

Let us pray:

Grant, Almighty God, that the words we have heard this day with our ears may by your grace be grafted in our hearts, that they may bring forth in us the fruit of a righteous life, to the honor and praise of your Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

[1]                Cyril of Alexandria, Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture.

The Baptism of Jesus: Chaos No Longer Reigns

Matthew 3:13-17

CONTENT

Introduction

         Good morning friends. It is so good to worship with you all this morning. On this first Sunday after the Epiphany we celebrate the baptism of Jesus. The moment of Jesus’ baptism was reminding me this week of when I collected rocks as a kid. I have these opals that I got when I was little. If you let them dry out, they look completely unassuming, like a normal rock, but once you put them in water they shine with amazing colors, and if you were to turn the lights off and shine a black light on them, they will radiate with amazing neon hues. It reminds me of Jesus’ baptism because what we have is an unassuming picture of a man being baptized, but then what happens is the curtain is pulled back and the glorious vision of heaven in the ministry of Jesus is revealed. The kingdom is inaugurated and sheds light on the rest of his ministry.

         This will be the beginning of the ministry of the Messiah and what unfolds in Jesus’ ministry has the full energy and work of the Triune God behind it. In the baptism of Jesus the rule and reign of God is made known to the powers of darkness, creation anticipates its renewal, and the Trinity reveals its working in our salvation. As we look at Jesus’ baptism this morning, let me pray for us:

“In the name of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Lord, may the words of my mouth, and the meditation of our hearts be always acceptable in your sight, o Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.”

1) Jesus comes to be baptized — to bring justice and undo the powers of darkness. (3:13-15)

         Jesus is roughly 30 years old when we meet him at this point and he is going to begin his public ministry. He has come from the North in Galilee, and makes the trek to Judea to see John. This is no accident. It’s about a 70 mile walk, so Jesus is very purposeful in making this trip to begin his ministry. John had just finished preaching to the crowds about the Messianic figure to come. He is talking about final judgment, the winnowing fork and getting rid of the chaff, and this Messiah’s future baptism being one of the Holy Spirit and of fire. This crowd is primed to see something miraculous.

         There’s something recognizable about this Jesus, but initially this image is quite unimpressive. John greets him with the recognition that Jesus is the one he was talking about. He should be baptized by Jesus, not the other way around! How can Jesus come to John’s baptism which is for repentance and the forgiveness of sins when Jesus is one who has committed no sin? There has been a lot of ink spilled over this problem throughout church history. There are a couple of important things to think about here. First, he could have come with the full manifestation of his glory as the king who will judge, but instead, his kingship begins with the humble identification with penitential humanity. He will join them in their trials and sorrows, even being made fully like them in their death. John the Baptist would have been the big celebrity in this moment, and Jesus begins his ministry without any show or pomp at the waterside with the rest of troubled humanity.

         The second thing to name is the sacramental quality of this act. Hilary of Poitiers says this: “He had no need for baptism. Rather, through him the cleansing act was sanctified to become the waters of our immersion.” This is perhaps intertwined with what it means when Jesus tells John that he has to be baptized to fulfill all righteousness. John’s question is why would Jesus need to be baptized? Jesus says, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” He isn’t talking about some reformational idea of personal justification. That would be anachronistic and completely foreign to early Judaism. He is talking about the arrival of God’s kingship where all that has been turned upside down by sin, injustice, and death will be put right again. The baptism is the beginning of the display of God’s kingship. Jesus is baptized to begin to put an end to the powers of darkness and evil. This is how the judgment will come about that John had predicted before Jesus showed up!

2) Jesus is baptized — To make holy the waters and bring new life. (3:16)

         Second, Jesus is baptized to sanctify the waters and bring new life. If you look at a lot of Eastern icons of the baptism of Jesus, he is not fully submerged in the water. As far back as one goes into the Old Testament, the waters are always mythologically representative of chaos. This is why in Psalm 29 the LORD is said to sit enthroned over the flood. Whether we’re talking about the flood of Noah or the floodwaters destroying Assyria in Nahum, or even back to creation itself where the waters represent the formless and void chaos before creation is rightly ordered, the waters are representative of a destructive force of chaos. Jesus is not fully submerged by them because he created them and will not be overcome by them. Instead, by entering them he has sanctified the waters so that what was an instrument of death becomes the material means of new life thereafter.

         Jesus’s baptism is a cosmic renewal that points to the renewal that all creation longs for. All creation longs for its proper use once again and here Jesus restores the waters so the Spirit who hovers over the waters, utilizes them to restore God’s image in God’s image bearers.

         As Jesus comes up from the waters the text says that the Spirit of God descended like a dove and was alighting on him. There are several images coming together here and this is certainly not comprehensive, possibly both the Spirit who hovered over the waters of chaos and the dove that came back to Noah. This is the only place in the New Testament where the Spirit is compared to a dove and when we think back to Noah, the dove that had been sent out after the flood returned with a symbol of new life that signified the renewal of creation. Here again the Holy Spirit comes as the one who effects the new life and this begins the ministry of Jesus. The arc of the narrative of the Messiah’s glory as king will be marked by miracles, but also by deep betrayal, falsehoods, the powers of the kingdom of darkness, death, and descent into Sheol. And yet the Spirit is alighting the entire ministry so that what comes through His death is resurrection, the conquering of death, renewed creation, and new life for the followers of Jesus who will reign with him in his glorious kingdom which begins here at this baptism. We join him through baptism in a death like his so that we are raised with him in a resurrection like his. We are brought into His kingdom so that we might reign with him. What began as a familiar, but unimpressive image of the Messiah coming for baptism has turned into a full-blown theophany on the level of God coming at Mount Sinai.

3) The Trinity is involved in transferring us to this new kingdom — Sonship and reigning (3:17 // Isa 42 // Ps 2)

         Jesus was baptized to destroy the powers of chaos, death, and evil. He was baptized to sanctify the waters and bring us and all creation into new life and renewal. Finally, His baptism brings us into a new kingdom. In verse 17 the voice of the Father in Heaven ratifies the kingship of Jesus with a declaration “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased”. This brings together two important Old Testament images. First, we read Isaiah 42 today which has the Spirit of God falling on God’s chosen servant that will bring the deliverance about for God’s people. This verse does not use the language of sonship, but Psalm 2 famously does, which is where God says “You are my son, today I have begotten you”. And this psalm is a famous enthronement Psalm for the Davidic ruler as a son of the Divine Ruler, YHWH. The Servant of God and Son of God are manifested here in the person of Jesus, spoken by the Father, illumined and empowered by the Spirit. The life of the Triune God was showing forth from the waters. Everything that happens from here on out is to the end that Jesus rules and reigns as king over all.

         The image of Jesus ruling and reigning over all as judge is still true, but what is more important is how he gets there. He begins with this full identification with broken humanity and lives the rest of his ministry out in the light of the life of the Trinity. He will see triumphs and miracles, he will have people walk away, he will be misunderstood and betrayed, he will take moments to be off in fellowship with God in prayer, he will be surrounded by noisy crowds — All of this is framed by the God’s manifestation and ratification of his kingship here at his baptism.

Conclusion

         The same is true for us. Baptism, for us, is nothing less than a ratification of the victory of God for his people. In the baptism of Jesus the rule and reign of God is made known to the powers of darkness, creation anticipates its renewal, and the Trinity reveals its working in our salvation. What is true cosmically is true personally for each one of us and I want us to have this at the forefront of our remembrance today as we support Caedan in his baptism. As Caeden comes to be baptized you are seeing someone renounce sin, evil, and darkness, to turn from the kingdom of darkness and who is being brought into the Kingdom of the Son. He is going to be given the Holy Spirit and the rest of his days are framed in the light of the Spirit’s work and his story is connecting the dots of the manifestation of the reign of Jesus the Messiah in his life and in the lives of those he meets. Each one of us is called to pray for him and renew our own vows as we remember what God has done for each of us in this same baptism we share with him. As we remember the baptism of Jesus, remember your baptism. Remember that your story is part of this cosmic renewal where God is making his kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. Let me pray for us:

Give us, O Lord, a steadfast heart, which no unworthy thought can drag down; an unconquered heart, which no tribulation can wear out; an upright heart, which no unworthy purpose can tempt aside. Bestow upon us understanding to know you, diligence to seek you, wisdom to find you, and faithfulness that finally may embrace you.  Amen.

Epiphany: The Longing of the Magi and the Glory of Jesus

Matthew 2:1-12

CONTENT

Introduction

            Good evening friends. It is so great to be with you to celebrate the feast of the Epiphany of our Lord. This season is actually older in the church’s calendar than the feast of Christmas itself, but because it doesn’t always fall on a Sunday, it doesn’t get nearly as much attention. Epiphany is an important season that draws us into the revealing of the glory of God in bringing heaven and earth together in the rule and reign of Jesus. This day focuses on the Magi in the western tradition. Then we continue the theme as we look at the revealing of the glory of God in Jesus’ baptism, in the turning of water into wine, and the transfiguration. The second to the last Sunday of this season we call world mission Sunday and it highlights that God’s glory is still going out to all the nations through the Church, which is his body. As we look at our Gospel passage today, let me pray for us: “In the name of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen. Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be always acceptable in your sight O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer, Amen.”

King of the Jews (1-6)

            St. Matthew begins his infancy narrative quite differently than St. Luke. There is no mention of a manger or animals, shepherds, or angels. Instead, we arrive at the place where Mary and Joseph are with their baby, Jesus, in Bethlehem. The timing of this happens under king Herod, who was an Idumean, a group of people descended from Esau and the Edomites who were forcibly converted to Judaism a few hundred years before by the Maccabees. He was an exceptional builder and administrator, but also a cruel tyrant, of whom it has been said that it is better to be Herod’s dog than his son. He was someone who was quick to put an end to anyone he perceived as a political threat.

            Jesus was born into this culture of warring madness and it makes it all the more striking that some Magi come to Herod and ask “Where is the child who was born king of the Jews?” These are pagan astrologers who worked in the Royal court, often associated with Babylonia, but their location is ambiguous. The point is that they are Gentiles. These Gentile rulers have come to pay homage to the king of the Jews. Herod, though, claimed this title as his own, so you can imagine Herod’s surprise when astrologers from the East follow a divine light in the sky to find a king of the Jews — who was presumably not him.

            Herod’s reign was about himself and his own preservation. By contrast, the rule of Jesus as king of the Jews was to be for the good of the nations. Matthew highlights the nature of Jesus’ kingship as one of a tender shepherd by quoting Micah 5:2 about the rule of the Messiah and bringing it into conversation with 2 Sam 5:2 which contrasts David’s shepherding rule with the tyranny of Saul. Jesus would be king of the Jews to the benefit of the nations around them.

The Nations will come to him (tie into great commission) (7-12)

            Herod tells the Magi to go find the child and bring back word of where he is. He probably wouldn’t trust a Jew with this task seeing that the Jews would be eager to meet their Messiah, but these pagan rulers really had no skin in the game. The star appears again for the Magi who follow it to a house in Bethlehem where they find Jesus and Mary, his mother. The light of the world was born in dark times and yet we see the beginning of the nations streaming to the light in the little town of Bethlehem. One of the church Fathers, St. Chromatius, says it this way: “A boy he is, but it is God who is adored...The Son of God, who is God of the universe, is born a human being in the flesh....He is heard in the voice of a crying infant. This is the same one for whose voice the whole world would tremble in the hour of his passion. Thus he is the One, the God of glory and the Lord of majesty, whom as a tiny infant the magi recognize. It is he who while a child was truly God and King eternal....”

            The Magi pay homage to this child and offer him their gifts, a foretaste of great commission where Jesus, after the resurrection, will tell his disciples to go into all the nations and make disciples. These Magi are warned in a dream about the schemes of Herod and they go home another way. The story has an important lesson for us about the reign of God. Reconciliation with God and one another is only possible under the Lordship of Christ. It is true of pagans and Jews, it is true of warring nations, it is true of groups of people, it’s true of households, it is true of our own relationship with the God who made us. Herod is an imposter who ruled by fear. Its like he was whetting his sword while he was being nice to the Magi. He shows us that there is a cruel kind of niceness that is manipulative and self-serving and will not produce real reconciliation. Jesus offers us something more difficult, but more real. Humility is the beginning of the kingdom, not denial or the appearance of opulence, not defensive posturing or violence, but humility, honesty, and contrition. This is how the glory of Jesus spreads.

Conclusion

            On this Epiphany and in the season after Epiphany, we are invited to explore the goodness of the glory of Jesus who is our kind shepherd-king. We join the Magi in offering him the fruit of our lives to experience the reconciliation he brings. We join the disciples in being discipled so that we can make disciples. The work begins in our own hearts as we ask God to restore and reconcile what is broken. This is the process of Jesus taking us out of the darkness and bringing us into his glorious light. Let me pray for us as we close:

O God, by the leading of a star you manifested your only Son to the peoples of the earth: Lead us, who know you now by faith, to your presence, where we may see your glory face to face; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen.

Transfiguration: A Vision of the Glory of Jesus for the Valley of Demons to Come

Transcription

 Well, good morning again everybody. It is good to see you. I'm Father Morgan Reed. I'm the vicar here at Corpus Christi Anglican Church. If you haven't heard the term vicar before, it's because we Anglicans have great terms for things. And so I am like the equivalent of a senior pastor of a mission church that's still in formation. And as we are growing, those titles change, but that's what they call me in the Anglican world.

It is great to be with you this morning. And this, as I mentioned before, is the final Sunday of the season of Epiphany, where we focus, as a whole season, on the glory of Jesus Christ, this loving rule and dominion of God that is over all the nations, that comes through the person and work of Jesus Christ as our King. And today, this Sunday, focuses our attention specifically on the glory of Jesus in the transfiguration of our Lord on the mountain.

We don't know which mountain, perhaps Mount Tabor, but we don't exactly know which mountain it was. Up to this point, Jesus' disciples, they've been receiving bits and pieces of information and seeing glimpses of something of the kingdom of God. They've been hearing about it from Jesus, and now they're putting it together.

And this moment is putting it together in a way that's going to prepare them for the valley that Jesus is about to enter, and the valleys that they themselves are about to enter. It's interesting that in the Gospels where this story is recorded, each gospel writer always follows up this story with the boy who is possessed by a demon that only Jesus can heal. And so, you know, it's helpful for them.

The glory of the transfiguration is preparing them for a valley of demons that they're about to face. It's preparing them and preparing Jesus in some ways for the valley that he's about to enter into as he goes down to Jerusalem, the place where he'll be crucified. And so you can see as we end the Epiphany season why this focus is so helpful to bookend the glory of God in the season of Epiphany, but then to begin our time of Lent together this week. 

And like Jesus's disciples, you and I are putting the pieces together slowly. We are often vacillating somewhere in between incredible, meaningful encounters with the God who loves us, the joy of sitting in his presence, and moments of failure, panic, disappointment, and feeling like God is woefully distant. Somewhere in between there on any given day we are vacillating, right? And so we don't often understand those things that Jesus is preparing us for in those moments between the radiant glory of God and the valley of demons.

But the best posture to adopt as we vacillate between those things is a posture of listening to the Son. Listening to the Son of God. As we open ourselves up to what God is doing in his kingdom work, and as we focus on the glory of God here in the Transfiguration, there are three things that I want to think about this morning.

First, Jesus prepares us for what we will face. He does. Jesus will prepare us for what we will face. Second, Jesus is present on the mountain, but He's also present in the valley. Jesus is present on the mountain. He's also present in the valley. And third, God invites us to listen. Those are the three things I want to think about this morning.

 Jesus prepares us for what we will face

So let's look at how Jesus prepares us for what we're going to face. Jesus takes his disciples up to a mountain to pray. This is something they do a lot. And while Jesus is praying, something not common happens. Jesus's appearance, the appearance of his face changes into something other. His clothes become dazzling white, and then two men appear with Jesus, Moses and Elijah.

Why Moses and Elijah? We aren't 100% sure, but perhaps it's something to the effect that as prophets in the Old Testament, Moses shows us something of the prophetic office that Jesus is going to come to occupy. And Elijah is, as a prophet, a portrayal of Israel's hope in the future, in the Eschaton. And so Jesus is talking with those who he is going to fulfill their ministries, both looking backwards and looking forwards.

And so the disciples get to hear this dialogue. They're kind of like in and out. They're really tired. They're not totally asleep, but they come to be alert when this happens. They see Jesus with these two prophets, and in this dialogue that's happening, Moses and Elijah are speaking to Jesus about his departure that he's about to accomplish at Jerusalem. And that word departure is really important.

This doesn't come across in English, but if you're reading it in Greek, the term that they're using is ἐξοδόν. Does that sound like something? “Exodus”. Yes, exactly. It's a very loaded term. And so in this passage, those who are listening would have totally been conjuring up images of Israel's exodus in the past, and looking forward to the deliverance in the end, where the kingdom of God is fully established. And so the disciples, as they're listening, images of the exodus of God's people are being conjured up in their minds.

And I think New Testament scholars are right to point out, some will say that it's not just Jesus's death, but this is actually truncating the entirety of his salvific ministry. His death, his resurrection, his ascension on high where he reigns as king, and his coming again, which in Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, they like to throw around the term παρουσία quite a bit. That's his coming again to establish all things in the fullness of God's glory where Jesus reigns as king.

All of that together is the exodus that we're talking about. This is the departure that's about to begin at Jerusalem and be fulfilled in his coming again. And so up to this point, if you think of what the disciples have been going through, they've been hearing bits and pieces about the kingdom of God through all these enigmatic parables that Jesus has been teaching. He's mentioned his death in somewhat veiled terms, it seems to confuse them, and he's said these elusive commandments to take up your cross and follow me. Well, what does that mean? He hasn't yet been crucified. They're putting the pieces together without the full picture.

And so these are all pieces of the larger picture of God's kingdom story that they'll come to understand, but they definitely don't yet. Jesus here is giving them this sufficient glimpse of the plan of God's kingdom that will sustain them in those moments where things just don't go according to plan. Like, Jesus, I did not think this was how your kingdom was going to come.

Is your kingdom even coming? Whatever those moments are, this glimpse is supposed to sustain them when those things that don't fit in the plan will happen to them, which they will. And so Jesus, you know, when tragedy strikes and things don't turn out the ways that they thought they would, they need this vision. When they watch their Lord being crucified, this moment of glory on the mountain was meant to remind them that that tragedy of their crucified Messiah is actually part of a cosmic exodus from the kingdom of darkness, where we're all enslaved to the powers of sin and death, to the kingdom of darkness, that this cosmic exodus of God is being brought about through this crucified Messiah.

And God often gives us glimpses of the story that he's telling, if we would pay attention to them. But it does take work to recall those stories in your life. I remember a particularly challenging season in my own story, where I was wondering, as a clergy person, have I made the right decision? I'm sure other pastors have thought that at times. I'm sure maybe in your work you've thought, have I really made the right decision? And in my story, it was there was people, not at this church, none of you, there were people that were making my life really challenging, and it was really hard to the point where I thought, maybe I've just chosen the wrong thing. I should go back to Starbucks. And maybe, but you know, maybe you've had similar doubts in the course of your work, too.

These hardships. And in those moments, what I did was I looked back and I asked, God, where are the sort of mountaintop glory experiences that I can look at where I actually knew you were present? I hang on to those moments and recount them of where was God present that led me up to this point? Because I didn't do this on my own. I didn't just like will myself into this.

Quite frankly, the church wouldn't have okayed my ordination had I done that. But the thing is, I needed those moments to look back on and go, if God has been present before, I know he's still present right now, even if I'm not in the same state of joy that I was in those moments. That was a season of the Valley of Demons for me, and I know that several of you have gone through your own seasons of the Valley of Demons, and perhaps you're in one at the moment. 

And so in those times, it's really important to remember the glory of God, keep a short list of the experiences where you know God has been close. Because there are moments where God is present, but his closeness and his presence may not feel tangible.

Jesus is present on the mountain, but He's also present in the valley

And so we've looked at how these moments of glory, they're preparatory. They're preparing us for a season of the Valley of Demons, for what's coming. And then second, I want to look at that Jesus is present, whether it's in the dazzling white clothing on the top of the mountain, or it's in the Valley of shrieking Demons. Whether you're here or here, Jesus is present.

It's that long obedience to Jesus through the ups and the downs that the redemptive story of God is being shown. And so these high moments prepare us for the low moments, but it's in looking back on those highs and lows that we piece together the story of the kingdom of God that he's telling in our story. And so we might be tempted to think that when we have arrived up here, that we've hit all that there is.

Like, I've arrived. Whether we're in the high or the low, Jesus is present. And so we need to hold on to those moments as preparatory.

We think often, like, I remember hearing as people were doing their Bible studies, you know, I had a really great time with the Lord this morning, and that's awesome, but not every day is like that, right? Or I came to worship and I didn't get anything out of it today, right? But the reality is there are highs, there are lows, and it's in this long obedience between the highs and the lows that we piece together the story of God's redemption. And even when there are lows where we don't feel his presence, we know he is there, and these things, these rhythms, are feeding us despite the fact that we may not feel his presence so closely. So we get to the text, and just as Elijah and Moses were about to leave, Peter says, “Master, it is good for us to be here. Let's make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” And then it says, “…Not knowing what he had said.” Like, imagine, he didn't know what he was really saying in that moment.

And so Peter was asking them to celebrate a Jewish festival, the Feast of Booths. And the Feast of Booths celebrates God's redemption of Israel, bringing them out of Egypt in the Exodus, and it anticipates God's ultimate deliverance of his people. Peter recognized that that was a significant moment that they were in, and, you know, he didn't know the significance of the moment that he was in.

Maybe he wanted to prolong that moment to get more information about the kingdom of God. Maybe he thought, it's about to come now, right? You can imagine having a crucified Messiah is not in their plans. And so you can imagine, if you see Moses and Elijah talking with Jesus, and he looks very different, you think, this is the time, I'm ready, you know.

And so we should celebrate the Feast of Booths. I'm not sure what that would accomplish. I'm not sure he knew what that would accomplish. But he didn't know what else to say in that moment. He's just overtaken with the glory that he is seeing. But he doesn't know what he's asking for.

And so experiencing that moment of the radiance of the glory of God was preparation for all the things that Peter was about to go into, into the future encounters with the kingdom of darkness, in ways that he had no clue about. And again, I find comfort there, because we we can prop up moments of joy like that, moments where we know God is so present as somehow being the standard for how life should always be. It is so easy to go there, or to say, I'm not healthy spiritually unless I am there.

And you know, so again, you might wonder if as I'm reading the scripture, doing the daily office, you know, if I'm not feeling anything, am I doing this right? Is there something wrong with me? But again, of all the days that Jesus went to pray, we only have one transfiguration recorded. And so I find comfort in that, that our habits of prayer, our habits of being in community, being formed in community, when you don't feel it, being carried along by the community, and hoping somebody else is feeling something that day, whatever state you're in, these are all formative and feeding us, even when they're not memorable, right? There's an analogy that comes from a couple authors about food. I can't, I have a bad memory anyways, but I can't tell you more than ten meals I've had, probably, because they were memorable, but I needed all those meals to feed me.

And so worship functions like this. Even in the unmemorable times of worship, I am being fed, and I may only remember ten of those, right? Or something like that, but I need them all to feed my soul. And so we should thank God for those deep moments where God's presence and abiding in God's presence are filled with this consolation of Jesus's good presence being so real to us.

And don't worry when he's not. You can take comfort that sometimes you're in those moments where he is present, but his presence is sometimes more difficult to experience. And those moments where he has been really present are a preparation for those moments where he doesn't feel present.

And so name those moments, write them down, keep them close, that he feels so real. And then sometimes name those moments where he doesn't feel like he's really present. Because as you piece those things together, you're starting to piece together the story of redemption that God's telling in your life.

God invites us to listen to his son

So we looked at how he prepares us for the things we're gonna face. We've seen that Jesus is present, whether it's on the dazzling, in dazzling clothes on the mountain or in the valley of shrieking demons. And finally, as we live out life in the kingdom of God, God invites us to listen to his son. 

I'm not good at listening, so this was really helpful for me. After Peter utters his saying, there's a cloud that overshadows them. This is something like the theophany that we talked about where Moses's face is shining, the cloud of God, the Shekinah, the glory of God, overshadowing the people and bringing them out of the wilderness.

This cloud that reminds them of something of the Exodus, overshadows them and says this is my son, my chosen one, listen to him. If you remember back to January 8th, at the beginning of our Epiphany season, I preached on the baptism of the Lord that day. It's the day where we celebrate his baptism and that really kicks off our Epiphany season.

And now this language that was at his baptism of my son, my chosen, brings together two really important passages. Psalm 2, which is kingly coronation language, and Isaiah 42, which is the chosen servant, and the songs of Isaiah are being brought together in the person of Jesus. So the one who will redeem Israel, the one who will bring them out, the one who will be king over all, is brought together in Jesus at his baptism, and bookending our Epiphany season is brought together here at the Transfiguration.

And so Epiphany is bookended by those important statements. The heavenly voice tells us about Jesus's kingship over all things, that as the beginning of his ministry, again to remind the disciples of that same truth that Jesus is Lord, he's king, they're going to need to know this as he goes down into the valley. He's the one who's going to bring redemption to Israel.

He's the one that's going to carry out the fullness of God's kingdom and justice, and reign over all nations, and overthrow the kingdom of sin and death. And that the crucifixion is not a deterrent from that plan, but actually part of it. And so very importantly, this voice from heaven says, listen to him.

And as a result of that, it says they kept silent, and they didn't tell anybody what they'd seen until a lot later. And at some point, they will come to talk about it, since it's written in the Gospels, but they needed to know that they could listen to Jesus and trust him as king, because the thing that was going to happen next did not look like they expected it to happen. This was not supposed to be God's plan for the Messiah, that he would be crucified by, you know, pagan powers in the city of Jerusalem.

This was not part of our plan, and they needed to be able to trust him. And so Jesus continually disappoints his disciples with unmet expectations about what God's kingdom is going to look like, as they move from the Mount of Transfiguration on Mount Tabor to the crucifixion at the hill of Golgotha. Somewhere between those two mountains, they're going to experience a lot of disappointment.

And they need to know that Jesus says, and what he does will guide them for continuing the work of the kingdom of God. When Jesus rises from the dead, they'll begin to tease out and connect these dots of the revelation on the mountain with the rest of his ministry. But between these two mountains, between Mount Tabor and the hill of Golgotha, they really are at God's mercy in their unmet expectations, and having to listen to the voice of the Son.

And so it's a good reminder that you and I, we are all in these moments where we vacillate between being on the mountain, where Jesus feels so good, so present, so powerful, to moments where we wonder if we've messed things up beyond Jesus's ability to fix them. If we're being punished for something outside of the boundaries of God's love. Like, I have messed up so bad that not even God could love me.

Just feeling like we're stuck, like there's nothing that's going to budge in our lives, and we can't understand why God doesn't seem to answer our prayers, or why his presence feels so far from us. Somewhere in between those two things, we're often going back and forth. And so whatever he's bringing us through, this command is to us as well.

Listen to the Son. He's trustworthy. He knows what he's doing. He gives us the moments of glory as preparation for the moments where his glory is hidden. Begin to name those things that hurt to God. Tell him what hurts, so that our hearts are open to healing, rather than closed off in a defensive posture.

We need to look for the face of Christ in other people. Yes, when they bring us joy, but also when they drive us crazy, and even when they offend us. We need to discover the face of Jesus in them. We can go on a walk, and we can look at the kind gestures of God in the world around us. That's often my help. I love in the spring to just watch the plants grow on the mountainside and the creek to flow, and to know that I had nothing to do with it.

It's really helpful. The specifics of what you do to listen to the Son are sort of secondary. Keep the daily office.

Keep your prayer rhythms. We're going to talk about fasting, almsgiving, and prayer during Lent. These are all good rhythms. But the main thing is that we're moving towards the love of God. And we're moving towards loving what God loves in whatever we are doing. That's listening to the Son.

We don't pursue the kingdom through military might or worshiping power. We experience the lordship of Jesus and the kingdom of God by just stopping, breathing, and listening to the voice of Jesus. And so rather than doing what I would normally do and ending my sermon with more words, what I want to do today is have almost two minutes of silence, which is going to feel a little awkward.

And that's okay. And in those two minutes of silence, I want to invite you to pray about two questions. Jesus, where are you today? So sort of in that question, think back on the day, on the week.

Where is Jesus present? Even in those moments where you may not have felt present. And then, Jesus, what are you saying today? Jesus, where are you today? Jesus, what are you saying today? So I invite you, in the next two minutes, let's just be silent. Jesus, where are you today? Jesus, what are you saying today? And I'll conclude us with an amen.

 [Silence]

Amen.

 Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Edited by the author.

Missionaries of God’s Kingdom

Transcription

Today is World Mission Sunday, and we have just heard four wonderful texts; but I'm going to focus on just one verse from the Gospel for today:

         As the Father has sent me, so I send you.

But before I get into the sermon, I would like to conduct a very brief survey. On the first one, I would just like a show of hands.

So first question -  Would any of you who are missionaries, please raise your hand. Okay, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Some are not quite sure whether they're missionaries or not, but that's okay.

         Now the second two questions, just answer it in your own mind. This is not a quiz and there will be no grades on this. So second question -  Who was the first missionary in the Bible? Make a mental note. Who was the first missionary?

         And the second of these two questions was -  Who was the supreme missionary mentioned in the Bible? Okay, you've got those in your mental notebook. Here we go.
 

1. Well, of course, I'm sure you all, or almost all of you, noted that the first missionary was Father Abraham. He obeyed God's instructions and he didn't know where he was going, and I think that's a good point. It's important to know that. Just because you've been given orders by the Lord, it doesn't mean you know exactly what's going to happen next. In fact, that's part of the fun, although it's part of the danger as well. 

         Around 1900 BC -  the archaeologists are able to give us this rough date for the time of Abraham. He's not a figment of somebody's imagination, but he was a real person and he lived in the real world of his time. His ancestors were migrants, probably from the ancient urban culture of Sumer (and I'm resisting talking about this because I think Sumer is fascinating. Anyway, ask me about that privately if you wish.) So, his ancestors came from Sumer.

          The point is that they were not primitive nomads. They were sophisticated city people from what was at that time a high civilization. And his father   was called to leave the city of Ur in southern Mesopotamia and ended up at Haran; yes, in what is Syria today. And it was there that Abraham heard the call to "go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you, and I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who honors you I will honor, and him who dishonors you I will curse. And in you (and this is really the punchline here) in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." (Genesis 12:1-3)

         Wow, that's weird. So, equally weird, Abraham obeyed. He went as the Lord had told him. If you want the rest of the story, you're gonna have to open the Bible yourself and read Genesis chapter 12 and following.

         God had promised Abraham that he would have many descendants, but not until late in his life did he finally have a son by his wife Sarah. And then, this terrible story, completely opposite to Abraham's expectations -   God told him to sacrifice his son Isaac, who at that time was probably in his early teens. Abraham was on the verge of carrying out the sacrifice when at the very last minute God provided an animal in place of Isaac. 

         This to us is a very strange story. I have struggled with it for years, but I think I understand now what was going on. In the culture in which Abraham lived, people understood that the promise to Abraham was the making of a covenant-relationship between God and Abraham, a long-term promise of absolute trust.

         Some of my friends have criticized me in the past for always talking about covenant, but I don't think you can talk about it too much, because we really need to get a hold of it. A covenant is a promise between two parties which is absolute and it's for life -  it's long-term. And this is the bit that some slow-witted people like Steve Arpee didn't get:

         A covenant relationship in the ancient world was always sealed with a sacrifice. Why? What was the point of it? We know that in many ancient cultures sacrifices were rituals intended somehow to manipulate the supernatural powers; but that wasn't what was going on here. What was going on was the making of a covenant-relationship, and the sacrifice was a way of affirming one's promise.

         The sacrifice was a way of affirming one's promise, declaring in a visible way that everything the two parties owned was committed to keeping the promise. The sacrifice is a visible way of demonstrating that everything that was in the power of each party was owned by the two parties, was committed to keeping that promise. So the sacrifice was really important, it wasn't hocus-pocus. It wasn't an attempt to manipulate the spiritual powers, but it was a way of saying "I am in this totally."

         "Everything that I am and all that I have" is represented by the beast that's offered in the sacrifice and is committed to this relationship. So this is huge. By being willing to sacrifice his son, Abraham showed that he trusted God to keep his promise, even though that looked impossible if Isaac were dead.

         How's that for a terrible test? Abraham trusted God to keep his covenant promise, and God saw Abraham's obedience as Abraham's keeping his side of the covenant promise. That is what righteousness means. (Now this is a pet peeve of mine, I shouldn't go off on this, but people tend to think that righteousness is something that we attain by being good boys and girls and doing everything that the rules say. No way, that is not what righteousness means in the biblical context. It means covenant faithfulness.) So God saw Abraham's obedience as his righteousness, that is to say not that he was morally pure, but that he was keeping the terms of the covenant relationship.

         So that is the kind of righteousness that has been given to us. If you hadn't noticed, none of us is morally perfect and couldn't get there if we tried. But we are called to be faithful to our promises made in our baptism (which we were going through again last Sunday) to keep our covenant promises.

         Okay, so the first missionary was Father Abraham, because the Lord said, "Go and I will be with you and I will show you where to go." And this was a really tricky injunction, but Abraham obeyed and he went. He had been sent, and so we can see him as the first missionary in the biblical story.

2. All right, the second question was, who was the supreme missionary in the scriptures? Well, obviously, Jesus is the supreme missionary. The Father had sent him to do the Father's work in this world. So we can all nod to that. But the world needs to know what we mean by Jesus having been sent by the Father. And we need to know, we need to be able to say, who is Jesus? Now, I'm getting into deep water here. Some of this is pretty straightforward, but just hold onto your seats here.

Who is Jesus?

         1. The teachers of the church declare that he is "fully God and fully man." In terms of our way of thinking, at least this simple person, that is an impossible affirmation. We cannot, with our rational minds, see how any person can be fully God and fully man. What in the world, quite literally, are we talking about? We'll just put that aside for a minute. You can struggle. We can talk about this later or for the rest of your life. It's really, it's really important to get a hold of this affirmation.

         2. Okay, secondly, in biblical language, we acknowledge that Jesus is the Messiah. Now, in a sense, this is the easy one, because you all know that Messiah means "the Anointed One," which is the title of the King of Israel.

         And God had made promises to David and to the people of Israel that his realm would eventually encompass all of the nations. So, oh, some of us think it's really important to recover the political theology of the Bible. And so I really like this, because this is a political concept, and we need to take it seriously as such. So Jesus is the true King of the whole human race, the Lord of this whole planet. And if you follow this out to it's logical application, he is Lord of the whole universe.

         This is a subject I think that's been ignored in much of our histories, or at least the language of our readings of history. But I have been reading a little bit about the history of Israel in the Middle Ages, and there were many messiahs. There were wars and revolutions that were precipitated by these Jews who claimed to be the Messiah. But they all just brought destruction and disappointment on the people that followed them. So there have been false messiahs. And actually, if we stretch our vocabulary a little bit, we can see that not only were there false Jewish messiahs, there are all kinds of false messiahs -  false claimants to our obedience in the historical process, some maybe not so far away.  

         3.Another title, which for those of us who have lived in the Islamic world, really is very important. And I think it's important for all of us, and that is the term related to Jesus of "Son of God." 

         People get all tangled up in biology. This title has nothing to do with biology. In fact, it comes out of the history of the Roman Empire. You all know this amazing general by the name of Julius Caesar, who went on a rampage in Gaul, among other places, and was assassinated for his troubles. But sometime after that event, the Senate of Rome elevated Julius Caesar to the rank of God, or a god. So Julius Caesar was deified by the Roman Senate.

         And again, unless you paid a little attention to Roman history, you wouldn't know that. But it's very important because Julius Caesar had an adopted son. And when Julius Caesar's successor was sought by the Senate, they elected a man (Gaius Octavius) whose title was Augustus Caesar, who was in fact the Roman emperor presiding in the whole Mediterranean world at the time of Jesus' birth. So "Son of God" was the title of Augustus Caesar as the adopted son of Julius Caesar who had been deified by the Senate. Now in terms of vocabulary, I think this is of huge importance. Augustus Caesar actually brought peace, order, and prosperity to the Roman Empire. And he was not shy about saying, "I alone did this." And he put up great big stone billboards with the announcement of all the wonderful things that he had done to bring peace and prosperity to the whole ancient world -  his announcement of what he had done to bless all of humanity.

         You know what's coming? What was the title of that announcement? What was it called? It was called good news. Yes, the good news was about what Augustus Caesar, the son of God, had achieved. And yes, the Greek word, of course, was euangelion, which is translated "gospel." The word is a way of proclaiming the achievement, the role, the power, and the honor of the son of God. It's not talking about biology. If you're concerned about the biology, that's another subject. But that was not the issue for the church in these early centuries. Some people get tripped up in that title. But it's only if you take the title "son of God" as referring to biology.

         We need to be able to say who Jesus is in a way that can make sense to the world around us. Boy, is this a toughie. But there's no escape from it is we are to give witness to the covenant-relationship to which we have committed ourselves. We need to be able to explain to people, when they ask us, who Jesus is. The first thing I think that is necessary is to say that if Jesus is indeed fully God and fully man, we are -  what do we say, "we're beyond our pay grade." We're into a realm of knowledge and of vocabulary for which we are incompetent. So I think there's a need for very deep humility. We do the best we can to use the words we have, but we have to do it with fear and trembling, knowing that our words are so easily misunderstood. So anyway, that doesn't excuse us.

         We still have to do what we can to talk about Jesus, to affirm his divinity, and to affirm his humanity. There's a phrase by an English poet of the 18th century, "to err is human and to forgive is divine." Well, that's good poetry and it has a certain amount of pastoral application, but that is not the definition of what it means to be human. But you all know what it means to be human, of course. What it means to be truly human is defined very succinctly in the book of Genesis. It's to be made in the image of God.

         Our character is to reflect the character of the creator of the universe. That's what it means to be human. And we need to be clear on that, fellow-students, and there will be a test. In fact, the rest of your life is the test. What does it really mean to be human? But if we talk about Jesus the human, it's not all that easy. And I wish I could just step down here and let Morgan sort this out, but I'm on the spot here.

         Okay, first thing, Jesus is fully human, but he is not a rebel against God. And this is what the word sin means. It means, hey, I hear you claim to be God, sir, but I really want to be God. I understand that you really are the owner of everything, including me and everything that I have, but I want to be the owner. This desire on our part is the essence of sin. It's wanting to be owners and in charge of our world, at any cost.

         So, Jesus reflects the father's character and he is, in that sense, fully human, but he never evidenced any rebellion against the father. In fact, he was clearly, deeply united with the Lord of the universe, with the master of all things, whom he call "daddy", Abba. "Father" is too formal a term in English, but we don't have the right language that correlates with the Aramaic at this point. 

         Furthermore, Jesus clearly had the father's authority to carry out the father's plans for the whole creation. And this is something else that we need to be really clear about. I have to confess, in regard to our theological ancestors, many of whom were pagans, that we tend to have been sucked in by the pagan and Greek misunderstanding of reality -   seeing the material world as bad and the intellectual or spiritual world as good, and therefore that "salvation" or "success" was a matter of escaping from the suffering of this world and being liberated to go to "heaven," wherever that was, where everything would be peachy keen.

         That is really a pagan idea. It's Greek in formulation, but a lot of our theological heritage in Western Europe has gotten sucked in by that, and we don't understand that God's project is not an escape scheme from this world, but that he has created this world, this world is good, and that he wants us to be partners with him in dealing with this world. And this process, New Creation, (the word doesn't get a lot of emphasis in the New Testament, but it's there, and it's very deep) and that is that the project that God began when he brought this planet into existence and created the human race -  his project is ongoing, and it has not been curtailed by human rebellion.

         What God has done in the ministry of Jesus, and particularly in his death and resurrection, is to overcome the powers and principalities of this world, who want to mess everything up, who are not wanting to cooperate with God's plan for his creation. So Jesus, Emmanuel, "God with us," came in person to bring this project forward. One theologian calls Jesus' ministry, in fact, the divine revolution against the dark powers of this world. And this is what Jesus is doing to bring God the Father's creation project to completion.

         He was sent to complete the creation process that had been begun "in the beginning." It is not a mistake that the fourth gospel starts with the same words as Genesis, because the point is that in the ministry of Jesus, the creation is being brought to its completion. How is that working? I mean, you can look around and say, hey, this isn't going very well, Lord.

3. And this comes around to the missionary's job description, so I hope you're all taking notes, because this is you and me. This is us. Jesus said, as the Father has sent me, so I send you. We are all sent. We are all missionaries.  

         (a) So what is our role, each one of us, whatever our age? First of all, we are Jesus' friends.

We're not merely servants. The word in Greek, in the New Testament, is doulos, for slave. We are not slaves. We are friends. So we are Jesus' friends. He wants us as partners in carrying forward his mission, to complete the creation.

And of course, we are being created in the process ourselves.
         (Oh, I can't resist this. This is a, I don't know what to call it. It's not a metaphor, but it's a word puzzle, you might say, which you are free to ignore, but I just can't, I can't control myself here: We need to be very clear here, The church of God does not have a mission.  The God of mission has a church, okay? You got this? I expect you to get this right in writing when the quiz comes around. The Church of God does not have a mission. The God of mission has a church.)

         So first, we are friends of Jesus. He takes us into his confidence. He's told us what he is doing, and he invites us to be partners. We act as a partner.

What's kind of a partner?

         (b) So we are called to be stewards.

Now, a steward is a person who has the authority of the owner, but he is not the owner. He is a particular kind of partner. A steward is a person who has the authority of the owner, but he is not the owner. He is a particular kind of partner. We act in Jesus' name.

         That is, we act with the authority of Jesus. And this is kind of scary. I think it's more than kind of, but our role is to be the presence of Jesus in the world, day by day, wherever we are, in the workplace, in our homes, in our towns.

         We have his authority. So we need to know what that is and what it looks like and how we are called to exercise it.

         (c) And then thirdly, as I mentioned, we are revolutionaries.

         This is a big subject. And as members of the people of God, a shorthand for this is to say that our roles shift back and forth. Sometimes they are to submit to the powers and principalities, and sometimes they are to subvert.

         And how do you know what you're supposed to be doing? Well, that's where we have to remember that the Holy Spirit is the primary agent in all of our obedience and all of our relationships. And we need to learn how to listen to the Holy Spirit. And as Morgan would tell you, there are at least three if not four ways we have to listen.

         In the silence of our inner life, in our prayers, we have to listen. And that includes, by the way, dreams. Some of our dreams are just plain crazy. But sometimes God speaks to us through our dreams. We need to learn and get the help to understand how God may be speaking to us through our dreams.

         God speaks to us when we are struggling with problems. So problems precipitate creativity in our lives. So just because you're having a hard time, don't think that's bad necessarily. It may be difficult. But it is when we are faced by problems that we have to be open to finding something new. And very often, God speaks to us in this situation when we are looking and asking, then he speaks to us.

         And he speaks to us through the scriptures, of course. And that's one of the reasons why we're here and why we need people who are scholars to help us with our reading of the scriptures.

         And I almost said most of all, because this is closest to my heart, God speaks to us through each other in the body of Christ. And when we've got some brilliant idea or some wild strategy for moving forward, we'd better talk with our brothers and sisters in Christ. And they will say, "OK, right on. Go for it. We'll pray for you." Or they will say, "you're out of your skull and look at it this way." So we need the checks and balances of our own community. But God is speaking to us all the time, or wanting to, if only, we will pay attention

Now, I'm going to read this sentence twice, because this is part of the exam.

The purpose of a congregation is to equip and support each baptized person for our job in the everyday world as Jesus' partners in his New Creation project.  

In closing, I'm going to give you a closing survey, rather than a summary, as such:

• So first question, who was the first missionary in the Bible, everybody?
  Abraham. Yes.

• Who was the supreme missionary mentioned in the Bible? Jesus. Yes.

• And would any of you who are missionaries, please raise your hand. Okay, that's pretty good (strong majority). Some of us, it takes a while to get this sorted out.

And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send and who will go for us? Then I said, here I am, send me. Amen.

The Glory of Jesus in Learning to Love our Enemies

Transcription

Well, good morning, my friends. It is good to see you this morning. I'm Father Morgan Reed. I'm the vicar here at Corpus Christi Anglican Church.

And today it is a joy to be with you. I love Sundays where we celebrate baptisms together. One of the joys of celebrating baptisms is it reminds us of what God calls us into in our own baptism. And so this morning is we make vows and promises together and support Joshua and Grace in their vows and promises. Take a moment to remind yourself that this is God's call on your life as well this morning. We are in the season of Epiphany together, which is a season that focuses our attention on the glory of Jesus as it goes out to the nations.

And today's gospel passage is from what's commonly called the Sermon on the Mount. And today I actually did something that I've never done before and I've heard of other people doing it, which is I actually prepared a sermon on the verses after the ones we read today. So I'm gonna talk about how this Sermon on the Mount goes into where we didn't yet get to in the passage, which is verses 27 through 38, where Jesus is going to make this claim about, you know, love those who hate you and pray for those who persecute you or who mistreat you and to forgive those who mistreat you and who hate you.

And this radical love that we're gonna find in the Sermon on the Mount is part of the glory of Jesus going out into the nations. And in Jesus one of the things that the Sermon on the Mount calls us to is to reflect the mercy and the love and the grace of God. And the radical showing of that mercy, grace, and love are to be done because what we're actually doing in that and what the Holy Spirit has empowered us to do is to show the very nature and character of God himself.

And this is what we do, that what God empowers us to do when we're baptized and given the Holy Spirit. And this happens through loving our enemies, through blessing those who curse us, for praying for those who mistreat us. And so this call in the Sermon on the Mount is to continue the the ministry of Jesus by putting God's glory on display to the nations through a radical love, a love which shows the very nature of the mercy and character and grace of God himself.

Loving our Enemies

In a world that has been broken by sin, by disordered attachments and loves, this is our call to proclaim the glory of Jesus through this radical kind of love. The first thing Jesus calls us to, in verse 27, if you have your Bibles, this is Luke chapter 6, Jesus calls us to love our enemies. These commands are written in the context of religious persecution.

These are people who are being called into the way of Jesus, into living in the kingdom, and they're going to experience opposition as a result of living life following Jesus. And so they're called to carry on the good news of Jesus in their lives, and they're going to encounter people who are going to set themselves as enemies against them. This isn't referring to people who undergo natural consequences for doing what's unethical or wrong.

This is about people whose conduct is honorable, it's Christ-like, and then as a result of that, they suffer. And if we're to love our enemies, one of the challenging things is to pinpoint what an enemy actually is. I know sometimes we're like, well, we shouldn't have enemies, but the reality is, if you've lived any time on the earth, you know enemies present themselves, right? And so, I remember back when I was, before I was ordained, probably over 10 years ago at this point, we lived in Chicago, and I was working at a coffee shop, and I had a manager who was fantastic.

We really gelled, we clicked, he used to give me stuff to do that would help benefit the coffee shop, and just trusted me. And as a manager, it was great, because I, you know, it was, if there ever were room for improvement, and there was, of course, but he would couch it in gratitude. He says, I'm grateful for these things.

There's this area that we need to work on, but also, I'm so grateful for the ways that you pour yourself out into this. Well, he left, and then somebody else came in. There was a new manager who came in, and she had been, she had had managerial experience elsewhere, but not in this industry, and that made it challenging.

So I was often met by her with criticism, not gratitude, and if I'm honest, I didn't take it that well. I didn't look forward to seeing her. I tried to avoid her, and I really kept our conversations short.

I didn't want to give her anything, and one day when she was there working with me, her boyfriend had come in, and she took a break and sat at a table with her boyfriend, and I overheard their conversation as I was cleaning, and she was starting to tell her boyfriend all of her frustrations and her insecurities, some of which were related to work, some of which weren't, and it kind of broke my heart a little bit because I realized, oh, she's actually a human being, and so as I listened to those insecurities flowing out, I realized all the bravado, all the posturing that I was experiencing were all ways of her masking her deep sense of insecurity, and that gave me a lot of compassion, and so what I did as a result, as I worked with her, I started to actually name for her the things that she was doing well. You did this well, just reminding her, right, because if she's feeling insecure, it's helpful to remind her that there are things that she does well, and what's neat is it really improved the working relationship. By the time we left Chicago, we actually were friends, and she knew that I was a Christian, and so my prayer is that that relationship was something that marks her story in some way, that she understands the love of God more because of having known me.

Now, not everything goes that well. I shared sort of a nice story. I could have shared ones that don't go as well because there's some times where we just can't break through somebody's insecurities, and the animosity towards us and the contempt just won't go away.

Now, was she my enemy? Well, in one sense, yes, and in another sense, no. She made my life miserable. I didn't want to go to work, but this passage in the Sermon on the Mount would exhort me to stay sensitive to what causes somebody to become my enemy. 

It's more interesting to ask what makes her inimical to me, not is she an enemy or not, and the reason why is St. Paul says that our enemy is not flesh and blood. He talks about spiritual forces, principalities, and powers that are spiritual and real, but they're not flesh and blood, and so because of that, people, you know, when they're not fully themselves because of their sin and their brokenness, we will experience them as our enemies, but it's up to Christ's followers to love people and things for what they truly are and what they can truly become while simultaneously praying for the healing for the ways that people have become distorted by the enemy that is actually the enemy. St. Augustine says it this way. He says, “Therefore we're both prohibited from loving in this command what the world itself loves, and we're commanded to love it in what the world hates. Namely, the handiwork of God and the various comforts of his goodness. We are prohibited from loving the fault in it and are commanded to love its nature. The world loves the fault in itself and hates its nature. So we rightly love and hate it, although it perversely loves and hates itself.” Now, it's a little confusing. What he means by that is that people in their very nature are image bearers of God, and so we are called to love them for who they are and what God wants to make them into, what he is bringing them into in their salvation in Christ. Not for the ways that they are broken. We recognize that this is not their nature, to obscure the divine image in themselves.

And so this is the way that we love our enemies, to love what is truly them. And so when people lash out at you, when they make your life harder, which is going to happen when they activate something deep in you and you're feeling a response because of something in your past, we can recognize in our bodies the discomfort of experiencing something in that moment of the kingdom of darkness and not just of them. And so we can ascribe the harm then to spiritual forces of wickedness that are warring against us and they're warring against the person that we're perceiving as our enemy.

That's trying to cause us harm. And in doing that, in recognizing that, we set ourselves up to love the image of God in somebody while at the same time hating the very things that are not part of their God given nature and what God's making them into. And so it could be a friend.

It could be a relative, a family member, could be your spouse at times. It could be a child. It could be a co-worker.

All of these can present themselves at any point as your enemy. But ontologically, in all reality, they are just distorted image bearers of God in that moment. And so the command is to love your enemy because, and what's at stake? Because that's the very thing that God does. And so we're showing this radical love as we are sharing what the nature of God is like.

Do Good to those who Hate You

So second, Jesus calls us to do good to those who hate us. Doing good is the extension of love. It's this conscious choice not to take vengeance into our own hands, but to relinquish vengeance into God's hands while taking the initiative to actually do good for somebody when they are absolutely undeserving or unaware of what's actually good. Now, I do want to give a caveat, though, as I was thinking about this passage. Sometimes doing good to others will result in them being angry at you.

This is not people pleasing. For example, if you've escaped an abusive situation, doing good to somebody does not mean going back to an abusive situation or allowing somebody to overstep appropriate boundaries when they've been abusive or unhealthy. That is not good.

It's not doing good to them. It's not doing good to yourself. Sometimes doing good to somebody involves setting and holding firm boundaries that you've established even when they don't want them.

And that's OK. Remember that by doing good, we're extending love. What we're aiming for is the restoring of God's image in that person through the work of Jesus Christ.

So good boundaries can allow us to have space to love that person well without getting caught in systems that run healthy of sin and abuse. And it's good for that other person, whether or not they're realizing it in that moment. And so with that caveat, Jesus calls us to do good to those who hate us.

And part of doing good is to remain sensitive and vulnerable. It's really hard to do because sometimes we can feel like things are going so well. I don't want to feel vulnerable.

That's scary. And I get that. I remember early on in pastoral ministry, somebody giving me the advice to grow thick skin as a pastor. People are going to come at you with this, that, or the other thing. You just need to learn to grow a thick skin. But the reality is, the more I read scripture, I actually don't think that's the way of Jesus.

I don't think growing a thick skin is the answer. And because when you grow a thick skin, whether or not you're a pastor, this is for all of us. Growing a thick skin, it keeps us from being tender, keeps us from being vulnerable, keeps us from empathy and seeing the hurt and the need that others have. Many of us are going to be the objects of scorn. We're going to be the objects of other people's transference as they're working through their issues. We're going to be the objects of their projection.

 And they don't understand why they're so mad at us. And it's something that we can't fix. Perhaps like a spouse is feeling out of control. And then the other partner comes in and doesn't tune in well to what their spouse is doing. But they make a bunch of demands about how the house should look or whatever. And that spouse is going to be met likely with and become the receptacle of a litany of frustrations from the other spouse.

And if somebody is discontent with parts of their life and then you say the wrong thing, it doesn't matter if you're married, if you're co-workers, just roommates, whatever. If something is going wrong and you come in at the wrong time and you say the wrong thing, you may have just triggered something. They're getting activated.

They don't understand what's going on in their body. And they lash out and you become the object of their contempt and scorn in that moment. You know, it happens with sermons, too. I hate to say that, but it just happens. Right? There's going to be moments where you become the object of somebody else's contempt.

Now, the answer is not to ignore it. The answer is not to grow a thick skin and let it roll off and ignore it. But the answer is to stay grounded in the confidence of who you are in Jesus. 

What has God made you to be? And as you come with that confidence, then coming to that other person with sensitivity to their experience, you can then re-engage with curiosity and kindness for that other person because of the confidence of who you are in Christ. And that is to do good to others who hate you, to engage them with this curiosity and kindness, to actually seek for the image of God in that person. To seek for the face of God when they themselves have forgotten that they actually bear in themselves something, the image of their creator, and then to show up with kindness and the kindness of God in the face of their contempt. This is to do good to those who hate you.

Bless those who Curse You and Pray for those who Mistreat You

So loving our enemies, doing good to those who hate us. And finally, I want to look at blessing those who curse us and praying for those who mistreat us. Now, the ESV that we read today, I think, well, we didn't read it because I told you we read the passage before where I was thinking we were going. But the passage in the ESV, if you were to read it, it has the word “abuse”. I don't think that's really helpful as a translation.

And they got it from the old NRSV, the old RSV. The better translation here is “mistreat”. Bless those who mistreat you. And that's what the new NRSV has. And it's costly and it's courageous to bless people who curse you. And following Jesus as Lord means that no earthly authority, no political party, no governmental structure, no institution is going to 100 percent follow the kingdom of God into these systems that we're called, whether it's your family, government, work, church, any human institution in which you are called into.

We're called to be truth tellers as we follow Jesus in the kingdom way. With Jesus as Lord, we tell the truth. And now this is bound up, bound to make us the object of contempt with somebody, to be truth tellers amidst institutions.

You're going to become the object of contempt and cursing for other people because of breaking norms that are there, because of exposing evils within institutions, shining light on unhealthy systems. Whatever it is, some of you in your 20s and 30s are finally discovering the unhealthy systems of family as you shine a light on it. It's common for you to become the object of your family's scorn as you get healthy.

And it is so easy, then, to want to revile in return. But this passage calls us to bless and to pray. Ridding ourselves of contempt as we begin to pray for the salvation of others begins the process of our own internal healing salvation and our own internal rightly ordering of our internal life.

And that involves rightly naming the wrongs of other people. It involves accurately describing the impacts of other people's wrongdoing and then praying for God to deliver those people from the bonds of the kingdom of darkness. The things that have made them become contemptuous of you.

And this is where forgiveness begins. We're relinquishing the right to take vengeance into our own hands. We recognize that this person is made in the image of God and that God actually loves this person despite their sin and their brokenness.

And that begins our prayers for them. And it allows us to bless who God has made them to be and the good desires that God has put in their hearts while also recognizing and naming the brokenness that all of their distorted affections and desires have caused. And so don't dismiss somebody's wickedness.

On the one hand, that is not forgiveness. Do not dismiss their wickedness. But at the same time, don't let somebody else's contempt breed contempt in you.

Conclusion

Jesus has called us to share his glory to the nations. This is what the season of Epiphany is all about. And we do so here in a radical love, which he calls us to in the Sermon on the Mount, through loving our enemies, through doing good to those who hate us, through blessing those who curse us, and for praying for those who mistreat us.

 And so we are those as Christians who risk, who pray, who bless, who name the truth and who forgive other people while at the same time holding good boundaries. We love other people in the face of their brokenness because this this is the kind of love that God shows to each one of us. And for those of us who have died and risen with Christ, those of us who have been baptized into him and his death and his resurrection, this is the radical love that shows God's love to the world, the world that that longs to see the glory in the face of Jesus Christ.

Let me pray for us. Almighty God, you sent your son, Jesus Christ, to reconcile the world to yourself. We praise and bless you for those whom you have sent in the power of the spirit to preach the gospel to all nations.

We thank you that in all parts of the earth, a community of love has been gathered together by their prayers and labors and that in every place your servants call upon your name for the kingdom and the power and the glory are yours forever and ever. Amen.

 Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Edited by the author.

Jesus’ Best in Our Worst

Transcription

Good morning again everybody. It is good to see you this morning. I love seeing your smiles. It is good to be with you in worship and community this morning.

Regardless of the week you've had coming in, it is good and formative to be together. So thank you for making time to be here with your church this morning. If you're new here or visiting, we're glad you're here as well. I'm Father Morgan Reed. I'm the vicar at Corpus Christi Anglican Church. If you're new to Anglicanism, it's like a senior pastor of a mission church. And that's what I am here, and we are delighted to have you with us.

Today in our Gospels, we are looking at the calling of the disciples. And so we've been talking about the glory of God through Epiphany. Now that glory is going to go forth through these who Jesus will choose as his disciples to carry on the kingdom work. And whether or not they knew it, these disciples, their lives, their stories, their vocations, were setting them up in unique ways to bring their unique gifts to bear on the age to come, the kingdom of God. And they were doing so in the midst of an empire that was not eager to know the love of the Messiah.

There was this clash of good news messages, Gospels. One of those being, we have no king but Caesar. One of those being, we have no king but Christ. And in the midst of that tension, the disciples are being called, these fishermen, to proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God where Jesus is Lord. And so the followers of Jesus are called to hold out the glory of Jesus in the midst of really challenging circumstances. And this is what the apostles are called to.

And how can they do this? I love this passage today. It is such an encouragement. How are they able to carry the glory of Jesus out in the midst of really challenging circumstances in an empire that's not necessarily friendly to them? That's what we're going to look at this morning. And what they're going to learn is that Jesus brings people into an encounter with himself often when they're at their worst. And then they're going to learn that Jesus can do far more than they expect of him. And then when they're confronted with their own finitude as human beings, then they're going to come to know the power of Jesus working in them to do more in them and through them than they could have imagined.

And I think that you and I this morning are in need of such an encouragement as we follow Jesus in seasons of real instability. As we look at our passage this morning, let me pray for us. “In the name of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Almighty God, from whom all thoughts of truth and peace proceed, kindle, we pray, in the hearts of all people, the true love of peace. And guide with your pure and peaceable wisdom those who take counsel for the nations of the earth, that in tranquility your kingdom may go forward till the earth is filled with the knowledge of your love, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.”

Jesus meets us in our worst

Well first, I want to look at this first point that I brought up, that Jesus meets people often when they're at their worst.  Jesus meets them when they're at their worst. Chapter 5 of St. Luke's Gospel is what we read today. Jesus comes to the lake of Gennesaret, which is also called the Sea of Galilee. It's in the northern part of Israel. It's about 18 by 14 square mile, yeah, square miles. And it serves as a popular freshwater fishing location.

And when he shows up to the Sea of Galilee, there's a crowd that's gathered. They're gathered there to hear him teach. And the crowd is growing. And because it's growing, they need to be able to hear him. And that area provides a natural amphitheater, so he has to go out a little from the shore to utilize the natural resources around him to create an amphitheater so that everybody can hear. And so he sees these two boats that are by the lake that he needs, and he decides that he needs one of them to go out onto the lake.

Well, the fishermen are not in those boats. They're out of the boats, and they're cleaning all of their nets. They've just, it's morning time now. They've spent all night fishing, which is the best time for them to catch a hole. And so Jesus decides on one of these boats to be taken out to the sea a little ways to be able to preach. And this boat belongs to Simon, who's going to eventually be renamed as Peter. And Simon here is not at his best. You can believe it. He's really, really tired.

He spent all night fishing. Show of hands, how many of you have pulled an all-nighter in college? Right? This is, you, Peter spent an all-nighter, and he has not caught anything to show for it. You can imagine how useless he is at this point, and how frustrated and tired and probably deflated he's feeling. 

He is not at his best, probably just wants to go to sleep. But in his tiredness, when he's not at his best, he still welcomes Jesus in. And I wonder, with Peter and Simon, if a lot of us are not feeling at our best this morning, as you came in here today. This passage is for you. It's an encouragement. The instability of these past few weeks have been really exhausting.

I know because I'm fielding texts, emails, and prayer requests all the time. People are worried about their jobs. They're worried about the immigration statuses of family and friends. They're worried about the takeover of government systems and processes by the wrong people, that we might break democracy in irreversible ways, that people around the world are going to suffer and die because of freezing and cutting aid. People are afraid of economic impact, on what imposing tariffs on allies means, what the diplomatic fallout of this is going to be. And that's just to name a few things that might be causing fear for some people this morning.

And a lot of these things do impact people in our church because you work for government agencies, or you work for NGOs that serve other people around the world. And so I'm hearing an understandable fear about what is happening right now. Things that make us feel like we're just not in our best.

Right? And that's okay. And if all that wasn't enough, life still continues to march on. And you have your daily responsibilities, the things that you need to do, making repair in relationships that are broken, keeping it together with your spouse, if you have one, maintaining your own mental and physical health.

And in this scenario, in this, you know, current situation, for some of you have kids, caring for your kids, maintaining a sense of security for them, and dealing with the challenges that they present day in and day out. Being present to all the different people that you need to be present to, and your different spheres of life. How do we maintain all of those things? And the reality is, if we were to look back on human history, there is never been a time where heaven has been on earth that we can point to one nation state and go, that was the kingdom of God.

You know, we just want to be like that. We've never seen it yet. There has never been a nation state that has exemplified the ideals of the kingdom of God. And so, you know, I want to name what feels so hard for a lot of people today as they're walking in. What are the things that make us feel like, man, I am just not at my best right now. And the reminder to us this morning, that this is the setup to encounter Jesus.

That when you're not feeling at your best, let your heart and your body be reminded that this is the place where Jesus sees you, where he knows you, where he deeply loves you, even when you're feeling like you're at your worst. And so when we can learn to name the things that are broken before Jesus, then what we're also doing is naming the very thing where we are, we're place where we're longing for God's love and grace to be poured in and change, change our hearts. So when we're in our worst, that's when we're often most ready to encounter Jesus.

Jesus can do more than we expect

And then second, Jesus can do way more than we often expect him to be able to do. Jesus says to Simon, put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch. Can you imagine Peter cleaning his nets tired? And Jesus says, can you get back in the boat, push it out in the water? And also, can you put your nets down too for another catch? You know, it's like it's a very truncated dialogue in the gospel.

So I wrote my own. Jesus says, let down your nets.

And Peter says, “really? We've been at this all night. I am exhausted. I'm tired. I'm hungry. All I want to do is sleep.

Jesus: “I know I get it. And I'm so sorry that you are tired and hungry. Let down your nets.”

Peter: “ We know how to fish. We've been at this all night. We know the right time to go out. You're a carpenter. This is my thing. Do you think that you know how to do my job better than I do? “

Jesus: “Totally get it. You're an expert fisherman. I understand that. And yes, I actually do know more about your job than you do. I know more about you than you do. Put those nets down.”

 Peter: “OK, whatever. I'm going to do it. I will let down the nets.”

All right. Now, I know that that is apocryphal from the gospel of Morgan. This is not the actual dialogue that happened. But man, isn't that our internal dialogue? I mean, that is my internal dialogue. Whenever Jesus tells me to act in faith, we find ourselves really frustrated. We find ourselves in the place of being overwhelmed.

And then when Jesus reveals something to us that's broken, that's in need of his grace, we're quick to say, Jesus, don't touch that. You don't know what you're doing. I know how to fix this. Or at least I know people who do. And we strategize and we try to figure out who can help us fix this thing or a plan to get better or things to avoid it. People or activities that we can find or pleasures to keep us from addressing the very thing that Jesus says, I want to touch that and heal that thing in you.

And so Jesus invites us in all of our doubts, in those places of frustration and uncertainty, when we're definitely feeling like, you know, I'm just not at my best today, to set down the nets in faith so that we can see what he can actually do. And when they obeyed, those nets became so full that they were starting to break. And so Simon, when he sees that, he looks at Jesus and says, go away from me, Lord, I am a sinful man.

And that confession of Peter at this point, sorry, I keep saying Simon and Peter, you know who I mean. So Simon, as he confesses this, it highlights now how attuned he is to the fact that Jesus is the son of God, that he's bringing the kingdom and that he himself is unworthy. He's realized who he is and who Jesus is.

And it was at this moment where he's rightly esteeming his own unworthiness before Jesus, that he is now ready to receive exactly what Jesus wants to do in him, the grace of Jesus to be poured in him to continue the work of Jesus. He has to get to this point if he is going to be a vessel worthy of the gospel of the kingdom. And so when Peter is at his lowest, Jesus is ready to reveal himself to him.

And then that is a comfort to you and to us, to all of us this morning. If you feel like you've made a real mess of things this morning, if you feel like there's not any hope, like you are just feeling really undone, overwhelmed, if things outside your control are feeling completely overwhelming, then the posture that this text invites us into is to say, Jesus, I don't get it. And honestly, sometimes I wonder if you actually get it. But I really want to be surprised by you today. And so I will let down my net. Jesus, I don't get it. I don't know if you get it. But at your word, I'm going to take that next step and let down the net. This is the posture when we feel overwhelmed.

And this is the step of faith that leads to new beginnings for us. It opens up to us the God who brings abundance out of these places of emotional and physical scarcity. This is Jesus whose kingdom is transforming a people, individuals and corporately that if we ask, where is the kingdom of God? You're seeing it in a community that's being transformed by him, whether or not the empire is Christian, pagan, in peace or in crisis.

The kingdom of God goes forth in a community of people. And so these small moments of faith are where we learn how frail we are and how powerful God is. And we learn all the meager training that we've had up to this point. And our experience and our life circumstances are all the training to understand that our life has far more significance for the kingdom of God than we would have imagined before. And so when we're at our worst, Jesus comes to meet us. Second, we looked at how Jesus can do more than we would have imagined.

Jesus calls us to more than we expect of ourselves

And finally, Jesus calls us into more than we often expect of ourselves. Jesus calls Peter and James and John to come and to catch people. And they're going to go gather people into God's boat of salvation, where people are going to be delivered into the kingdom of God, where Jesus is Lord. And so they leave everything behind at this point to follow Jesus, which is a huge step of faith. And we read today two passages that were really important for this. Judges, where we heard about one of the judges confronting the Midianites, Gideon, and 1 Corinthians 15, where Paul calls himself the least of the apostles.

And those passages remind us that the kingdom of God doesn't go forward through our constructed worthiness or the image that we would like people, that we would curate on social media for people to experience our holiness or our worthiness. This is not how it goes forward. But through the honest, frail brokenness of our stories, people who are longing to see Jesus at work, who are willing to prioritize God's kingdom, first and foremost, above all things, in our brokenness. N.T. Wright says it this way. He says, “When Jesus calls, he really does demand everything of us. There are no bystanders in God's kingdom. And this is because he has plans in store for us and the world that we live in that surpass what we would have dreamt of.”

And so what God has brought you through up to this point, your circumstances, the things that have been really hard, what God has brought you through up to this point are the beginning of your story. Your places of brokenness are the unique places of redemption that are going to form the compelling stories that draw people into the love of God in the kingdom of God.

Your story, your life has a role to play in the kingdom of God. Your vocation, your skills, your proclivities, the relationships you have, the stories that form you. When these things are submitted to this disposition of, Lord, if you say so, I'll let down my nets.

Then we're ready to see how Jesus can take our frailty and our brokenness and do more in us and through us than we would have ever imagined or dreamt of.

Conclusion

And so as a recap, thinking about this passage, it teaches us three really important principles about life in the kingdom of God, a life of following Jesus. First, that we are ready to see Jesus when we are at our worst. I hope that's an encouragement for you this morning. Second, it teaches us that Jesus can do more than we can imagine. And third, that Jesus can do more in us and through us than we could have expected of ourselves.

And I know that these are fraught days. For a lot of people, these are really destabilizing days, whether or not it's the circumstances outside or not, or just the internal ones. There are a lot of things that destabilize us. Continue in these days to do your daily prayers, right? It's like that World War II poster, keep calm and carry on. Keep calm and pray the daily office. You know, keep praying your daily prayers.

Regulate yourselves when you feel emotionally out of control. Take care of your bodies, they're really important. Your bodies are the means by which you come into the kingdom, and so take care of those bodies. 

Take each day to admit to Jesus those things that feel broken. Where do I not feel at my best today? And then ask him for what the next step of faith is. What is the next right thing to do, Jesus, when I am not feeling myself today? Your days are going to be filled with moments and glimpses of the kingdom of God and Jesus's power, but we need to search for them prayerfully with intention, in the midst of things feeling pretty chaotic.

And so my prayer for us is that may God give us the grace to prioritize his kingdom first and above all when we're not feeling totally ourselves. Let me pray for us this morning. “O God, you made us in your own image, and you have redeemed us through your son, Jesus Christ. Look with compassion on the whole human family. Take away the arrogance and the hatred that infect our hearts. Break down the walls that separate us, unite us in bonds of love, and work through our struggle and confusion to accomplish your purposes on earth. That in your good time, all nations and races may serve you in harmony around your heavenly throne. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.”

 Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Edited by the author.