I AM WITH YOU TO DELIVER YOU

A SERMON FOR THE 4TH SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY, YEAR C

by Pastor Laura Gentry

Jeremiah 1:4-10

I don’t have enough experience.

I’m just not that talented.

I think I’m too young.

I’m scared to death of public speaking.

I really don’t have the confidence for this.

I would hate to be rejected.

Can’t you get somebody else for the job? Please!

This is just a glimpse of the litany of excuses the prophets of God have issued. Moses thought he was unable to speak and altogether unexperienced at leading Exoduses. Isaiah was overwhelmed with his own sense of sin. Even Jesus was rejected by his hometown folks. In today’s gospel we hear how he was nearly hurled off the cliff by them.

The prophet’s job has never been easy. No one ever applies for this position. Nevertheless, God has continued to pluck ordinary people out of their everyday lives and equip them for the tremendous task of being a prophet. They all fuss and complain and protest and try to winkle out of it. But God will have none of it. God is perfectly confident in the ability of these regular folks because God infuses them with divine power and wisdom.

That’s certainly the case for the prophet Jeremiah. We hear about his call to ministry in our first lesson for today. God says to him: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” A prophet to the nations. Yes, his prophesy will have not just local but global impact.

It seems his work is all cut out for him, but like others who have been called, Jeremiah asserts that he’s not qualified. His primary excuse is that he can’t speak because he’s too young. “I’m just a boy!” he whines.

Nope. That alibi isn’t going to fly with God. There is no need to fret about this or any other shortcomings Jeremiah may have. “For I am with you,” God assures him, “to deliver you.” His job will not be easy but each and every step of the way, God will be accompanying him—giving him the very words to speak. Then, God actually touches his lips to assure him that the words he will need to speak in his prophetical career will be provided for him. This is not just a pep talk encouraging Jeremiah that he can do it. It is, instead, a promise that God’s true presence will be with him at all times. And because of this, there is truly no need for Jeremiah to fear even though he will be running headlong into difficult circumstances.

He does have a bit of a hard time, by the way. Jeremiah has to speak out against Jerusalem for their worship of idols and false prophets and other violations of God’s covenant with the chosen people. He acurately predicts the fall of Jerusalem—which is not music to anybody’s ears. Inevitably, doing God’s work puts him at odds with just about everybody, including his own family and prevents him from marrying or starting a family of his own. Like Jesus, he finds out that it is hard to be accepted as a prophet in your own hometown. Jeremiah becomes known as the “weeping prophet” and gets mad at God frequently. He suffers so much that he wishes he’d never been born.

Despite it all, however, Jeremiah stands firm. He continues to boldly proclaim the words God gives to him (yes, God gives him the words as promised). And, indeed, he is not destroyed by those who oppose him. God’s promise to deliver him also remains good.

This is good news since God has promised each of us the same thing. We are pretty good at grumbling like our ancestors in the faith. We are all too quick to admit our inadequacies and claim that we’re not up for the job. Yet God won’t let us off the hook. I formed you, God says to you and me. I knew you. I set you apart. I appointed you.

What does that mean to you? As people of faith, we believe that God has called us and that there is a specific use for the gifts we possess. We are incredibly special. God does not want us to shrink from our responsibility. We are called to go forth in faith despite our doubts and anger. We each have the potential to make a huge difference and God has plans for us.

And just what is plan—that mission—God wants us to accomplish? I think contemporary author Parker Palmer, explains it quite well in this statement:

“The mission of the church is not to enlarge its membership, not to bring outsiders to accept its terms, but simply to love the world in every possible way—to love the world as God did and does.…If we are able to love the world, that will be the best demonstration of the truth which the church has been given.”

Yes, we are called to love and not just a little. We are to love with all that is within us. And why not? As we read in I Corinthians, without love we are just a clanging gong with no purpose at all. In the end, love is the most important thing we can do with our lives. My family is still in the process of deciding what to do with my mom’s things. As I sort through her possessions, I am more and more aware of how insignificant they are. They are just things. What is important is the love she gave us. That’s what counts. Life is short. How we live it matters a lot.

And so we are given a choice. Will we answer God’s call? Will we allow ourselves to be mouthpieces of the divine? Will we believe in God’s power so fiercely that it overcomes our fear of failure? Will we trust that God is always with us to deliver us? Will we be the hands of Jesus reaching out to love the world?

I invite you to answer these questions by singing the hymn of the day: “Here I am, Lord.”

© 2010 Laura E. Gentry

EAT OF THE FAT, DRINK OF THE WINE

A Sermon for the Third Sunday in Epiphany

Pastor Laura Gentry

Nehemiah 8:1-10

When we take a look at our church’s prayer list, we can see that in our own community people are facing some extremely difficult things. Their pain, their suffering, their heartache is all too real.

Unfortunately, this is nothing new for the people of God. In our first lesson from Nehemiah today, we hear Ezra addressing a heartbroken congregation. Their land—the holy land promised to their ancestors by God himself—has been vehemently sacked by pagan invaders. How awful, how unbelievable, how humiliating is that? It becomes one of the most traumatic events in Jewish history. Many are forced off their land to go live in exile. When they eventually do get to return nearly 50 years later, they are still under foreign occupation. This time, it is the Persians, who unlike the Babylonians, allow the Jews limited freedom of religion. They can rebuild their temple but there is so much rebuilding to do that it seems impossible. Even the prophet Nehemiah gets depressed. He weeps, mourns, fasts and prays for days. But then he takes action and rallies the faithful to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.

In today’s passage, the people gather after this rebuilding effort to hear Ezra read from the law of Moses. This is not a short reading like a the hour-long-church-service-format we’re accustomed to today. No, he reads to them from early morning until midday. The exile-survivors who hear it have a new understanding of the Mosaic law and how they had transgressed it as a nation. They are overwhelmed with grief. They weep and fall onto their faces to worship God.

Then Nehemiah says: “This day is holy to the Lord; do not mourn or weep,” because that’s exactly what they are doing as he says this. “Go, eat of the fat, drink of the wine, and send portions to him who has nothing prepared; for this day is holy to our Lord. Do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”

And POOF! They do it. Off they go to have a great big festival where they will indeed, eat, drink and send portions to those in need.

But wait a minute, that’s crazy! They are just a remnant of what they used to be as a nation. Even now with their return and the city walls rebuilt, they are hurting, grieving, facing insurmountable odds. Now they are supposed to just prance off and have a party because “the joy of the Lord” is their strength? You have to understand that there is nothing sensible or logical about this bit of advise at all. It is ridiculous. How can God expect them to be happy at a time like this?

We can certainly wonder about this today. All the bad news keeps coming at us through the news sources 24 hours a day: one disaster after another, political disagreements, economic woes. It never stops. And all this on top of our own problems! Depression runs rampant. In fact, the World Health Organization rates depression as the fourth greatest cause of human suffering and disability in the world. How can God expect us to be happy at a time like this? And yet God does. We are commanded to eat of the fat and drink of the wine, and share it generously for the joy of the Lord is our strength. That’s the message of this scripture. The joy is OURS. It is for our time and place as much as it was for the ancient people of God.

"The greatest honor we can give Almighty God," wrote the English mystic Juliana of Norwich, "is to live gladly because of the knowledge of his love." No matter how bleak our personal circumstances or the state of the world, God’s love is more powerful. That’s why God commands us to be joyful. It is not that God is being insensitive to our plight or somehow doesn’t understand how bad things are for us. No, we are expected to be happy because our faith informs us that the joy of the Lord will blossom even in the desert of our lives. To be happy, therefore, is a sign of faith. It is, after all, a fruit of the Spirit.

The French Nobel laureate André Gide (1869–1951) wrote: "Joy is rarer, more difficult, and more beautiful than sadness. Once you make this all-important discovery, you must embrace joy as a moral obligation." A moral obligation? Have you ever thought of joy as being that important? Well, scripture tells us that it is.

So does science. In 2008, the findings of a 20 year study were released. They reported that happiness is contagious. Nicholas Christakis, a professor of medical sociology at Harvard Medical School in Boston and James Fowler, a political scientist at the University of California, San Diego teamed up to do this study. The results were amazing. They showed that your happiness affects others. If you are happy, in fact, your friends are 15% more likely to be happy! That means that you make a difference even if you don’t realize it.

And not only are your friends affected by your happiness—your friends’ friends are too. If you are happy, your friends’ friends are 10% more likely to be happy. And even the next degree is affected. If you are happy, your friends’ friends’ friends are 6% more likely to be happy. That means your happiness goes out at least as far as third-degree-removed friends. Incredible!

This is important because happiness has measurable benefits. It has been shown to have an important effect on reduced mortality, pain reduction, and improved cardiac function. Health and happiness are inextricably linked.

Interestingly, there was a study done in 1984 that found having an additional income of $5,000 increased a person’s change of becoming happier by about 2%. Now if a happy friend increases our chance of being happy by 15%, then you could estimate that a happy friend is worth over $37,000. Wouldn’t it be great if you were so rich that you could just run around and give each of your friends $37,000 without even denting your pocketbook? Well, you can give them the equivalent boost by being happy.

No wonder André Gide said it is a moral imperative to be joyful! We need to be joyful not just for our own sake, but for the sake of others. We can bless the world through our own faith-filled joy.

Yes, God speaks to us today through the words of Nehemiah: “Go, eat of the fat, drink of the wine, and send portions to him who has nothing prepared; for this day is holy to our Lord. Do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”

Let us pray:
God of Love, we believe that you give to us the fruit of Joy and that it is our strength, especially in difficult times. Even so, it is not easy to live in this joy and to spread it to those in our lives. Transform our sorrow into gladness, we pray, that we may live as you want us to live—being radiant over your goodness all our lives. Help us to celebrate and share your love always. Amen.

© 2010 Laura Gentry

THE JOYFUL WINE

A Sermon for the Second Sunday of Epiphany

Pastor Laura Gentry

John 2: 1-11

Here we are in the beginning of the church year, in the season of epiphany. The liturgical calendar takes us through the story of God’s creation of all things, of God’s calling and forming of God’s people, of Jesus life, death, and resurrection, and of the growth of the early church.

This morning, our Gospel focuses us on the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry, on the performance of his first sign, as John calls it. In this Gospel, seven or eight signs are described, depending upon how they are counted. These signs are more than just miracles, they are miracles with lessons and deeper, symbolic meaning that help us understand who Jesus was and what he was all about. So let’s dive into the sign of the wine and see what mysteries are being revealed in it.

Jesus, his mother and his friends are attending a wedding in the village of Cana. Ancient weddings, you must understand, were quite a party. Music played a big role in these celebrations. The Song of Solomon preserves some of the singing that occurred at the festive weddings. One song, for example, that the groom would sing goes like this:

Arise, my love, my fairest!

Arise, and come away!

Lo, the winter is past,

the rain is over and gone.

Flowers appear in the land.

The time for singing has come,

the voice of the turtledove calls,

the fig puts forth figs

and the vines are in bloom.

Arise, my love, my fairest!

Arise, and come away!

There was great joy and revelry at these events in Jesus’ day. But in the midst of the celebration in Cana, there is suddenly a problem. The wine has run out! There’s no hiding the fact and news of it has begun spreading among the guests. They are, perhaps, saying things like, “Oh my, how can the groom provide for his new wife when his family can’t even provide for this wedding feast?”

This is a great embarrassment for this otherwise respectable feast. This could ruin the whole event! So Jesus’ mother, in an effort to save the day, looks at her son and says, “they have no more wine.” Clearly, she knows that it is within his power to change the situation.

Jesus responds by saying, "Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come."

But Mary knows better. She knows that it has. She doesn’t even try to talk him into it. Instead, she just goes over to the servants and gives them orders. "Do whatever he tells you," gesturing toward her son.

Mary is not their master and neither is Jesus, but they are guests of the master and so they take orders from him. “Fill these jars with water,” he tells them.

Now here is the shocking part that we are likely to miss. Those vessels of water that Jesus is referring to should already have been filled with water in order to fulfill the law of Moses. The water in them was used for ritual washings. But now we find out that they are empty! They are a pretense. They are hypocrites who pretend to keep the tradition, but do not.

The servants must be embarrassed now that the truth is out. It probably took some prodding to get them to fill the jars. But the jar-filling is an extremely important part of this sign. They must be filled for the miracle to take place. It symbolizes the fact that unless the tradition of the prior age is fulfilled, the new age cannot come.

The other Gospel writers explain this message in a different way. Matthew documents Jesus saying, “I came to fulfill the torah and the prophets.” Luke tells us of a Son who came to redeem the people of the Jewish tradition, to validate all that they had lived for over the centuries. That’s what John is saying with this story of the empty jars. They remind us Jesus has come to fulfill the covenant that God made long ago with their ancestors, a covenant that they broke again and again. Only after Jesus had fulfilled the covenant could they taste the wine of new life, the wine of the resurrection.

Having filled these vessels with water, the servants begin serving it to the guests. They are probably shaking in their boots that they will get in trouble for serving water when wine is called for, but they are obeying Jesus’ orders. Their obedience, however, makes the miracle possible, thus demonstrating the importance of obedience to Jesus.

And now comes the huge surprise—the climax of the drama! As the water is poured out, it becomes fine wine. In the giving, in the offering, the miracle occurs.

The guests are overjoyed that they not only have wine, but they have the very best of wine. The steward goes to the bridegroom and says: "Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now."

This is metaphorical language. What’s going on here is that there are two bridegrooms here and a true Father. The first bridegroom has fallen short. He couldn’t supply enough wine. All he could boast were empty vessels that made it look like they were religious people. But along comes the truer Son and the party is saved. This Son realizes that the empty jars have to be filled and then emptied in order to produce joy for everyone. As the water is poured out for the guests, so this Son pours himself out for the sake of the world. He offers his very self as the good wine for the world.

The story ends here, but it is not an end—it is the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. In this sign, Jesus has revealed his glory and now his disciples believe. He has revived the party, he has brought joy and gladness. He has shown us, as he did throughout his ministry, that this is the dawn of a new age.

In this new age, my friends, we are not judged as we deserve. That’s the good news we celebrate throughout our church year. Jesus, the bridegroom offers his life for the salvation of the world. He reveals himself to be the joyful wine that will never, never run out. As the bridegroom, he calls to his beloved church: “Arise, and come away! Lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. Flowers appear in the land. The time for singing has come!”

And that is an epiphany of glory that should make our hearts rejoice! Amen.

© Laura Gentry 2010

COMING HOME

A Sermon the 2nd Sunday after Christmas

Pastor Laura Gentry

Jeremiah 37: 7-14

I’ll be home for Christmas!” so crooned Bing Crosby and so well did he croon it, that he made the song one of American’s best loved Christmas songs.

The idea of going home from Christmas is as popular as the song. Did you go home for Christmas? This season always evokes thoughts of family and close friends—of home. Many people have a deep yearning in their heart to go home for the holidays. And those who can’t be with loved ones on Christmas can become depressed and lonely. The longing for “home” is ingrained in us—whatever and wherever that beloved place of comfort and rest is.

And yet for some, home is a place to which we cannot return because it no longer exists. Perhaps our families have moved away from that special childhood home town, or split up, or aged considerably or passed on, and so going home doesn’t have the power that it used to. Perhaps our sense of home is that we long for a time gone by, you know, the “good old days” when life seemed safer, simpler and changes happened slowly enough that we could keep up. Going “home” in 2010 is a complex issue—it entails more than just taking a road trip to where our family members live. Perhaps it is that truly peaceful state of mind we grasp for, we yearn for, that somehow seems perpetually just out of reach.

In our Old Testament lesson for today, the prophet Jeremiah speaks to those who will soon be returning from exile—longing, as we do, for home. These people had originally been dwelling in Judah, the promised land. The Lord their God had made a covenant with their ancestors. God had delivered them out of Egypt, led them through the desert and brought them to this land. This was the land where they believed God himself lived. Their homes were there, their jobs were there, and most importantly: the temple was there on Mount Zion in Jerusalem—the only proper place, they believed, where they could worship God in peace and joy.

But eventually, their sin brought destruction upon this land. Judah had become a nation of people that no longer loved God with all their heart and soul and might. They became self-centered and heartless. They followed after other gods and this caused them to lose their passion for justice. No one cared about their neighbors anymore—they wouldn’t listen to God. And so God allowed the Babylonians to come and conquered them. Thousands and thousands of Judah’s most prominent inhabitants were taken away to Babylonia to live in exile. Scattered, weary, restless and vulnerable, they longed for home. And now 49 years later, the prophet promises them something astonishing.

Jeremiah’s prophesy for them is very powerful—especially as we consider the context of their sorrow at being so broken and so far from home. And what does God say to these weary people? What message does Jeremiah deliver? “For thus says the Lord,” our first reading says, “Sing aloud with gladness for Jacob and raise shouts for the chief of nations; proclaim, give praise, and say, ‘Save, O Lord, your people, the remnant of Israel.’” (31:1)

What? How in the world would these depressed exiles go about singing aloud, with gladness no less? It seems impossible that God could turn them around so dramatically. They were probably quite upset with God for letting this happen to them, now they are supposed to sing praises? But remember it was their sin that has brought them this ruin, not God’s vengeance. And what does God do for these sinful people in the darkness of their exile? God says, “with consolations I will lead them back, I will let them walk by brooks of water, in a straight path in which they shall not stumble...for the Lord has ransomed Jacob, and has redeemed him from hands too strong for him.” (31:9, 11) God’s response to their sin is grace. God comes to them in their darkness with forgiveness! That’s the kind of God God is.

And not only does God restore them to their homeland as Jeremiah’s prophesy foretold, but they are blessed with great abundance. Their lives “become like a watered garden.” (31:12) What a wonderful image of new life: “a watered garden.” This time of year, gardening seems like a distant memory but think of it for a moment—the beautiful sights and smells of a freshly watered garden. You can almost hear the plants growing. IThe rich new life of a watered garden is a wonder to behold. And so is the life of the Judeans. In due time, they are allowed to return home and their mourning is turned into joyful dancing—their sorrow into gladness. And they are satisfied with the bounty of their forgiving Lord.

But you see, my fear is that we will sit here this morning and not realize that Jeremiah’s prophesy also applies to us. The loneliness of exile did not end forever when the Judeans were returned to their home in 538 BC. The darkness of this world continues to pull God’s people away from the light. We know what it is to live in a changing, violent, unbelieving world with the good old days irretrievably lost—to feel alone and misunderstood and far away from home.

God’s restorative actions didn’t end with the return of the Judeans from Babylonia either. God reached out to us with forgiveness and restoration in the most ultimate way with the birth of that little child, who’s birth we have just celebrated. What came into being in the Christ child was life and that life was the light of all people—the light that came to destroy the veil of darkness that keeps us lonely and separate from God. John’s gospel reminds us that Christ’s light that shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it. And what do all these fancy phrases from the gospel really mean? They mean that Jesus has come to lead us home—and I am not talking about the kind of home where relatives argue and Christmas presents don’t fit and the turkey gets burned. I am talking about that deep sense of peace we yearn for in our heart of hearts. I am talking about our lives being a watered garden of new life and growth. Christ has come into the world to make that image a reality.

Out of God’s fullness, we are given grace upon grace, and so we must believe it. It is really easy to look around at all the problems of our modern culture and feel hopeless. Even Christians can lose their idealism when we are confronted with the heartaches and injustices of our world. In our own way, we know what it is to feel like exiles! How can we find our way home amidst all this? We must step out in faith. We must take the risk to believe that God’s Word is true. We must follow the prophet’s instructions to: “Sing aloud with gladness for Jacob and raise shouts for the chief of nations; proclaim, give praise, and say, ‘Save, O Lord, your people.’” For God can deliver us from hands too strong for us.

All throughout history, God was faithful to the covenant of love God made with Moses and the Israelites. And Jeremiah tells us how God made that same covenant even more intimate by writing it upon the people’s hearts so that they would all know God deep within their hearts and they would be able to love the Lord their God with all their heart and all their soul and all their might—no matter how far away they had strayed. And in Christ, God’s covenant of love came to blossom as God personally became human to bear our sins for us.

That grace-filled act still calls out to us today as we celebrate the Christmas season. God’s love reaches out to us in our modern context and it calls us out of the distraction and despair. It calls us to believe in a better world—a world of peace and justice where people show their love for God by caring for one another. That kind of world is the home we long for. And that kind of home is not in the past, but in the future. We must believe it it so firmly that we act as if it is already true. This is what’s known as believing the future into being. This is the season of light. The light is shining in the darkness. God’s light has dawned upon our exiled world. Let us dare to believe it and embrace the peace that will lead us home.

© 2009 Laura Gentry